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A few changes since the last time I did this...

1) Bach
2) Ravel
3) Bartok
4) Mozart
5) Beethoven
6) Debussy
7) Mahler
8) Schubert
9) Monteverdi
10) Mendelssohn

There are a lot of composers who could go in that tenth spot depending on my mood...
 
Schnittke, Berio, Ligeti, Maderna, Boulez, Takemitsu, Lutoslawski, Szymanowski, Penderecki, Gubaidulina.
Maderna also wrote some fine film scores.
 
Listing composers like this is not native to my experience of music, and I can't make a list that is true, but in a spirit of defiance I will do so anyway because within the limits of the terms of service and contrary to recent threads I can do whatever I want, so here's a big middle finger to the haters:

1. J. Strauss I
2. J. Strauss II
3. Chopin
4. Tchaikovsky
5. John Williams
6. Xenakis
7. Stockhausen
8. Boulez
9. Schoenberg
10. Berg
 
Listing composers like this is not native to my experience of music, and I can't make a list that is true, but in a spirit of defiance I will do so anyway because within the limits of the terms of service and contrary to recent threads I can do whatever I want, so here's a big middle finger to the haters:

1. J. Strauss I
2. J. Strauss II
3. Chopin
4. Tchaikovsky
5. John Williams
6. Xenakis
7. Stockhausen
8. Boulez
9. Schoenberg
10. Berg
Haters? Oh, and you probably should have put Cage there for added effect.
 
Very good suggestions. I wish I'd thought of them!

I'll do a new anti-hater top 10:

1. J. Strauss I
2. J. Strauss II
3. Chopin
4. Glass
5. John Williams
6. Cage
7. Stockhausen
8. Boulez
9. Schoenberg
10. Berg
 
I've had my Eureka moment.

I've been hoping for a discussion of classical music free from condescension, and being disappointed not to find it. But condescension is of course an ineradicable part of human nature, and classical music is a field created precisely for condescension to flourish. It's always been this way, it always will be; perhaps the long-sought definition of "classical music" is "music whose listeners are condescending."
 
Rather than going by what most think are going by as the best composers, pick the ones you enjoy the most based on your knowledge of classical music. Maybe this thread was done before as well but I'm lazy looking up for it. As you see I'm biased towards Baroque music on my list.
These are a bit like my core group of composers, I often listen to their music, often feel a need to return to it -

These are like old friends, long time acquaintances -
Beethoven,
Brahms,
Janacek,
Berg,
Messiaen,
Walton

These are more recent discoveries -
Schoenberg,
Tippett,
Peter Sculthorpe,
Hovhaness, Carter - probably my most listened to two Americans, but there are others too...
 
My guess your top ten is:

1. Beethoven
2. Tchaikovsky
3. Bach
4. Stravinsky
5. Schubert
6. Wagner
7. Strauss, Richard
8. Haydn
9. Dvořák
10. Prokofiev

(Please, everybody take part)
Are you trying to offend me? Anyone who actually read my top 6 from another thread and can remember them gets a big piggy kiss. Then we'll see how much attention people pay to these things.
 
I'll be outrageous and do exactly what the OP asked!

Top 10 for today

1. Bruckner
2. Wagner
3. Mahler
4. Sibelius
5. Beethoven
6. Brahms
7. Schubert
8. Rachmaninov
9. Mozart
10. R. Strauss
 
Are you trying to offend me? Anyone who actually read my top 6 from another thread and can remember them gets a big piggy kiss. Then we'll see how much attention people pay to these things.
I cant remember them in order...but

Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Schubert and Mendelssohn. :D
 
Today's top 10 is:

1. Tchaikovsky
2. Beethoven
3. Rachmaninoff
4. Mozart
5. Schubert
6. Chopin
7. Dvorak
8. Brahms
9. Débussy
10. Franck

If Gershwin was reckoned to be a classical composer, he would be somewhere in my top three, but since he is too jazzy and there are a lot of discussions about him being a classical composer or not, I did not count him in.
 
Recently I've started rating all the pieces I listen to into a 'listening log', and with those results it seems this is my list:

1. Schubert
2. Berlioz
3. Sibelius
4. Beethoven
5. Mahler
6. Tchaikovsky
7. Bach
8. Brahms
9. Mozart
10. Shostakovich
 
Today it is:

1. Mozart
2. Beethoven
3. Haydn
4. JS Bach
5. Schubert
6. Brahms
7. Dvorak
8. Rossini
9. Handel
10. Tchaikovsky

Mozart and Beethoven are always my 1,2..........the rest move around a little.
 
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