# Music Through Time



## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

When it comes to listening to composers of Art Music, I'm pretty much an "all or almost nothing" person (I won't say "nothing" because I'll always give a piece of music a try).

I've noticed though that there MIGHT be a correlation between the music one listens to and the personality/world view/beliefs of the listener. For example, take the following composers that I enjoy listening to regularly or have attempted to enjoy listening. Based on how much of their work I listen to regularly I put either NONE, LITTLE, SOME, LOTS, ALL. These are not judgements on the quality of music, just what I end up choosing to listen.

Vivaldi - little
Gluck - none
Handel - little
Bach - some
Haydn - all
Mozart - all
Beethoven - all
Schubert - some
Schumann - little
Mendelssohn - lots
Berlioz - little
Liszt - little
Brahms - lots
Wagner - none
Verdi - none
Dvorak - all
Grieg - little
Tchaikovsky - little
Mahler - none
Bruckner - none
Strauss - none
Debussy - little
Holst - lots
Stravinsky - little
Prokofiev - little
Shostakovich - some
Copland - all
Schonberg - little
Berg - none
Glass - little
Reich - little

So I tend to love everything from the Classical Period composers (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) and people in the Romantic era that compose in the Classical Period forms and genres (i.e. Mendelssohn, Brahms, Dvorak). I'm not a big fan of the overblown radical Romantics (Wagner, Mahler, Bruckner, Strauss) and my 20th century tastes lean towards works with more tonal structure (Copland, Holst, Shostakovich) and adherence to Classical Period forms and genres (symphony, concerto, string quartets, etc). I also seem to go for more secular music rather than sacred.

That point of this ramble is to see if anyone else's "go to" listening preferences are that narrow and what it means about the listener (if anything).


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I think I'm still narrowing in on what I love the best and finding out my favorites. I think you can have two people with the same narrow taste and have it tell two completely different things about the people in question.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

My Dutch wooden shoe broke at Verdi's : None.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

OP you have not said how your listening tastes indicate your personality/world view etc - all you have done is compile a list of composers and how much of their music you listen to.

so what started out as an interesting question you have not answered.

what it means about the listener?

all it means is they like some composers/eras more than others.


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## Genoveva (Nov 9, 2010)

There's nothing exceptional about the likes and dislikes among the composers listed. It looks like a very ordinary list to me, and in fact is not a million miles away from my preferences. There's no way it could indicate anything at all about a person's personality/world view or whatever.


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