[fran09]

Imagine you were forced to choose. You can only ever listen to ten composers. And you have to choose now.

So not the ten greatest, most important (or whatever) composers. But your ten composers.

(Yes, this is idiocy. Of course. But I have very important things to do. And I do not want to do them. I will do this instead.)

My 10 (chronologically):

JS Bach
Haydn
Beethoven
Schubert
Schumann
Brahms
Mahler
Debussy
Bartók
Ligeti

Yes, no Mozart.

But I figured I don’t really need Mozart. I’ve soaked him up anyway. Been listening to Mozart since I was seventeen or something (my brain tells me that makes forty years, something that I categorically refuse to believe). And when I’m in neeeeed of something, I very rarely turn to Mozart these days, haven’t for a long time. Haydn and Beethoven are my buddies, I can have a real conversation with them. But not with Mozart. He’s not about him and me. I can just look at him, admire him, marvel at him, yes. Except maybe in K516. And K491. Incredible psychodramas and both very ”real” (if you catch my drift). But however much I love them, they don’t really involve, include, invite, me. Pick any Beethoven piano sonata and Beethoven’s there in the room with you. That is, with me. And we’re talking. Right off the mark. And yes, there’s the first mvt of K504 (there’s tons of stuff, of course, the operas…). Figaro! Miracle of miracles! But what do you actually do with a miracle? What do you do with perfect? After forty years.

And I also had to exclude Monteverdi, Rameau (that was painful!), Handel (he’s always best when I’m drunk and I’m hardly ever drunk anymore, so…), Berlioz and Stravinsky. And Xenakis (but that’s OK. I think). And there are a few others, many, actually, that I will miss very much too. Yes.

And apologies, again, as always, for my not always good English.

My top will be:
Ludwig van Beethoven
Johann Sebastian Bach
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Hildegard von Bingen
Claudio Monteverdi
Antonio Vivaldi
Claude Debussy
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Robert Schumann
Edward Elgar

 

[larold]

So much for contemporary and/or living composers eh?

I have no idea who are my top 10. These are the 10 I listened to most recently: Haydn, Elgar, Wagner, Boieldieu, Emile Bernard, Beethoven, Vaughan Williams, Webern, Berg, Liszt.

 

[Schilkeman]

I'll rank mine, just for fun. Also, I'll add which piece, if I could only choose one, and which recording, if I could only choose one. The ten I brought with me when the plane crashed.

1. Mahler (Symphony no. 10) (Rattle BPO)
2. Beethoven (Symphony no. 3) (Gardiner ORR)
3. Adams (Doctor Atomic) (Adams, BBCSO - The only one available, I believe)
4. Bach (St. John's Passion) (Gardiner EBS - the latest one, but the first one he did is excellent)
5. Monteverdi (L'Orfeo) (Gardiner EBS)
6. J Williams (The Empire Strikes Back) (A complete recording in acceptable audio quality does not exist, unfortunately)
7. Debussy (La Mer) (Rattle BPO)
8. RV Williams (A London Symphony) (Previn LSO)
9. Takemitsu (Tree Line) (Williams LSO)
10. Brahms (Symphony no. 3) (Gardiner ORR)

 

[Josquin13]

Of course, the more composers a person knows & reveres, the more difficult a top ten list becomes ...

If I were to limit myself to just three composers per musical era, I can almost, but not quite contribute a top 10 list; because even if I were to drastically condense the history of music down, by snubbing Italian opera, post WW2 composers, & the 21st century altogether, and by combining closely linked eras--like the Middle Ages & Renaissance, Romanticism & Post Romanticism, and 'Impressionism' (broadly defined) with the early to mid 20th century--I can still only reduce the history of music down to 5 musical eras: which would yield a top 15 list. & it wouldn't be a list that I'd be very content with, since I'd have to leave out a good number of composers whose music I greatly value & identify with. However, I think I could be reasonably happy on my desert island with access to only 19 or 20 composers...

Here's my top 15 list broken down by musical era,

1. Middle Ages & Renaissance

Guillaume Dufay
Johannes Ockeghem
Josquin Desprez

Though I'd miss Ciconia, De Vitry, Machaut, both the Chantilly & Ivrea codices, Dunstable, Binchois, Busnois, the Old Hall Manuscript & works by "anonymous", Lassus--especially his Penitential Psalms, Tallis--especially his Miserere & Spem in Alium (both of which belong on my desert island), Byrd, Monteverdi, Caurroy, etc..

2. Baroque

Vivaldi
Handel
J.S. Bach

Though I'd miss Corelli, Domenico Scarlatti, Rameau, Zelenka, & Biber

3. Classical

F.J. Haydn
Mozart
Beethoven

Though I'd miss Schubert.

4. Romantic & Post Romantic

Wagner
Mahler
Sibelius

Though I'd miss Schumann--especially his lieder & solo piano music, Chopin--especially his Nocturnes, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Brahms--especially his chamber music, Rimsky-Korsakov, Bruckner & R. Strauss--especially his Four Last Songs.

5. French, Belgian & Spanish 'Impressionism' & the 20th Century

Debussy
Ravel
Prokofiev

Though I'd miss Faure, Koechlin, Satie, Roussel, Jongen, Ropartz, Stravinsky, N. Tcherepnin, Shostakovich, Vaughan Williams, Janacek, Bartok, Mompou, Martinu, Kokkonen, etc..

Finally, to comply with the exercise proposed by this thread, if I were forced to further reduce my top 15 down to mere 10 composers, this would be my top 10 list,

Desprez
Dufay
J.S. Bach
Handel
Mozart
F. J. Haydn
Beethoven
Sibelius
Debussy
Ravel

 

[PeterKC]

Well, for Today:


Blacher
Wolf-Ferrari
Schumann
Cowell
Teleman
Mendelsohn
St. Saens
Couperin
Badings

....and of course, Alma Deutscher