You just made my year.

 

Three B's? Bruckner, Berg, and Britten, right?

 

I thought it was Boulez, Berlioz, and Bartok...

 

Mein musikalisches Glaubensbekenntniss steht in H-dur, mit seiben B-en in der Vorzeichnung: Bartók und Bruckner und Babbitt und Berg und Boulez und Britten und Berlioz!

 

An enharmonic relationship, eh?

 

All these years I though it was Bernstein, Baguer, and the Bee Gees.

 

Ha, Baguer, the little Spanish Haydn.

 

Three under-appreciated master composers: Buxtehude, Byrd and Busoni.

 

That's OK.

Haydn's wife was always referred to as "Luigi."

 

Bach
Beethoven
Boulez

 

correcting everybody, the Three B's are:
Berg, Bartok, Berio.

Yes, I am just as earnest as everyone else who is being ridiculous to think to give much of any weight to the value of any list of a triumvirate of any "3B's"

To even take with as much as a grain of salt a German critic-journlist's list of the three greatest composers, written with an ardor of nationalism and intent on making no more than a clever pun on enharmonic spellings of notes in the German language while leaving out the other hundred or more "world's greatest composers," is to far overvalue any squib which has similar goals.

 

a German critic-journlist's list

Which he stole from the German composer Peter Cornelius, whose three B's were Bach, Beethoven, and Berlioz, which at least makes a little more sense, musically. And was simply an expression of Cornelius' personal trinity. (Yeah, it had to be three because of the Christian Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.)

Funny the things that get to seem as if etched in stone. I learned "the three B's" in a music class, no history, no explanation of origins (no sense even that it had an origin), nothing. Just "the three B's"--Bach, Beethoven, Brahms. Straight from von Buelow's mouth but with no whisper of its having come from there, so of course no sense of the original three coined by Cornelius.

Anyway, this is all just sheer silly childishness compared with the three X's: Xenakis, um... Xenakis.

Uh.

Xenakis and the other two X's.

Yeah. That's the good stuff.

 

We've had a lot of fun here today, but let's just clarify for any newbies who are confused at this point, the three Bs are:
Bach, Beethoven and Mel B.

 

Big Bill Broonzy has it all to himself!

Others could include Hildergard of Bingen, Bacharach and the name's Bond, Capel Bond!

You could jazz it up with Basie, Beiderbecke and Brubeck.

 

As John Cage would say, had he been TC user, OH, NO, NOT THE B'S! NOT THE B'S!

 

This discussion reminds me of a classic Red Dwarf line: don't you listen to something really classical, like Mozart, Mendelssohn or Motorhead?

 

B major, B minor and B-flat is the right answer.

 

For me it's Beethoven, Beethoven, and Beethoven!

 

This reminds me a game when I was a kid, that is to name as much as possible composers with a given letter as initial...

The B was always winning.

 

Bach, Bartok and the Beatles?

 

There was a time in my life when I would have put the Beatles over anyone and everyone!

 

Boulez, Babbitt, Barraqué.

 

Beethoven, Boenberg, and Bakemitsu.

 

Bakemitsu

Ah, yes, he of the "transfigured light" (化け光)

 

I'm sorry, but you got it all wrong.

Antonio Francisco Braga, Giovanni de Bardi and John Bedyngham.

 

Fun's over guys. Stop pretending. The three B's are B good, B careful, and B quiet.

 

And the one B a lot of folks seem to forget in their excessive, endless bloviating, B Humble!!!

 

Never heard of him. I suspect you're just making stuff up now.

 

I want more of this here bloviatin' stuff. That sounds like fun!!

Bashing, Bitching, and Bloviating. The three B's of internettery. (So I hear. I mean. I've never done any of those myself.)

 

Biber, Bieber and Bach

 

Binchois, Busnois and Brumel

It was all downhill after that

 

Damn! You beat me to my 3 favorites!

 

Bach, Beethoven, and Bartok.