# Opposing composers



## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

I think Mozart and Liszt are in a way opposites: Mozart always has great, simple ideas which he expresses straight away with spareness of notes/form while Liszt seems to be all about form and maximally expressing minimal content.

What composers do you think oppose each other?


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## Lyricus (Dec 11, 2015)

Chopin and Wagner.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

Lyricus said:


> Chopin and Wagner.


In what way they oppose each other?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Bruckner:Schuman=Bloatedithy.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Wagner ( outer, extroverted consciousness, grandeur, bigger forms for expressing his ideas, all about orchestration) vs Chopin ( inner, introverted, private, smaller forms required to express ideas, miniature, poet of one instrument, so to say less known for his orchestration skills). 
without comparing one with the other in terms of greatness. Both are great in their own way.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Agamemnon said:


> maximally expressing minimal content


You must have mistaken Liszt for a minimalist composer.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

DeepR said:


> You must have mistaken Liszt for a minimalist composer.


well, I think what he wanted to say is that Liszt as opposed to Mozart has less substantial ideas in his compositions even though with his excellent skills of a decoration through a form he could present this content in a very elaborated way.
It's like comparing Marcus Aurelius with George Sand's writings. Both are interesting for their own reader, but the former expressed lots of ideas in a very short way typical to a stoic school while the latter is known for hundreds of pages beautiful writing expressing just few ideas but knowing for to create a story from them.

Importance of being stylish


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Rachmaninov ( nostalgy, depressive moods, much more into deeper feelings) vs R. Strauss ( optimism, lightness, more illustrative than emotional). Despite of his Electra and Salome, still for me this composer is like an artist who stays uninvolved, untouched by emotions of others, his "job" is to describe them , not to go through them, he just tells the story using his genius of a composition technique. While Rachmaninov equally gifted as a composer but in his music it's all about his own feelings put into music, self-expression, involvement.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

helenora said:


> well, I think what he wanted to say is that Liszt as opposed to Mozart has less substantial ideas in his compositions even though with his excellent skills of a decoration through a form he could present this content in a very elaborated way.
> It's like comparing Marcus Aurelius with George Sand's writings. Both are interesting for their own reader, but the former expressed lots of ideas in a very short way typical to a stoic school while the latter is known for hundreds of pages beautiful writing expressing just few ideas but knowing for to create a story from them.
> 
> Importance of being stylish


Exactly what I meant!


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

helenora said:


> Wagner ( outer, extroverted consciousness, grandeur, bigger forms for expressing his ideas, all about orchestration) vs Chopin ( inner, introverted, private, smaller forms required to express ideas, miniature, poet of one instrument, so to say less known for his orchestration skills).
> without comparing one with the other in terms of greatness. Both are great in their own way.


Wouldn't Wagner vs. Satie be a better opposition in this way?


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

quite. I just didn't think of Satie. But that's true. Satie's composing technique is rather minimalist as opposed to Wagner's , the same about ideas. They preferred different ideas


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Webern and R. Strauss (just to be absurd )


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Copland and Shostakovich. Aside from the obvious diametrically opposed styles, Copland was a lot better at Socialist Realism than DSCH. And he volunteered!


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## Lyricus (Dec 11, 2015)

helenora said:


> Wagner ( outer, extroverted consciousness, grandeur, bigger forms for expressing his ideas, all about orchestration) vs Chopin ( inner, introverted, private, smaller forms required to express ideas, miniature, poet of one instrument, so to say less known for his orchestration skills).
> without comparing one with the other in terms of greatness. Both are great in their own way.


Yep, exactly. Wagner the Grand v. Chopin the Elegant.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

how about finding an opposing composer for Handel among his contemporary fellows? well, obviously J.S.Bach comes to mind but difference isn't drastic. What would be your ideas?


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

helenora said:


> how about finding an opposing composer for Handel among his contemporary fellows? well, obviously J.S.Bach comes to mind but difference isn't drastic. What would be your ideas?


Rameau, representing French Baroque opera at its best, versus Handel, standing for the decaden...err I mean glory of early 18th century Italian opera.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

helenora said:


> how about finding an opposing composer for Handel among his contemporary fellows? well, obviously J.S.Bach comes to mind but difference isn't drastic. What would be your ideas?


Maybe Scarlatti, because he focused primarily on keyboard music, which wasn't a very important genre for Handel. Also, Scarlatti's style looked ahead to the forthcoming Classical era, whereas Handel's style was more firmly rooted in the Baroque idiom.


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Brahms, the structured, restrained _Apollonian_ vs. Scriabin, the primordial, ecstatic _Dyonisian _(that is, however, not to say that Brahms lacked passions and Scriabin lacked formal designs).

I love both and need both! My two piano gods nowadays.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Chronochromie said:


> Rameau, representing French Baroque opera at its best, versus Handel, standing for the decaden...err I mean glory of early 18th century Italian opera.


agreed. and emotional response from their music is quite different.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

*Wagner vs Brahms*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Romantics

case closed


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

I have to make a confession that I hardly ever knew operas of Domenico Scarlatti until today. I simply wanted to compare his style with one of Handel. We know Scarlatti for his sonatas, but we know that he composed other works as well.

So, when I've listened to his opera it sounds like Vivaldi, indeed, even though a bit simplified. 
He used homophonic texture as opposed to much more polyphony based Handel's style, but still it's difficult for me to define him as totally opposed to Handel. It's not about textures or/and simplicity of one and so called complexity of the other.....something is missing for me. 

So, Rameau vs Handel looks stronger as an opposition. or....it's just a case that Handel is a very unique composer?, difficult to compare....


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Wagner vs. Offenbach?


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

Me (and I don't mean Liszt) compared to Beethoven.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Stravinsky the objectivist argued against everything that Mahler the subjectivist stood for, and if Mahler had heard Stravinsky he might have done similarly.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

helenora said:


> quite. I just didn't think of Satie. But that's true. Satie's composing technique is rather minimalist as opposed to Wagner's , the same about ideas. They preferred different ideas


I came over to pit _Mahler_ against Satie, but I see I've been beaten to it, sort of.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

I think Brahms v. Scriabin is an excellent opposition. (And Scriabin greatly disliked Brahms' music too).

As for the OP. I think both Mozart and Liszt cannot be so easily pigeonholed. And are not as dissimilar as Brahms v. Scriabin, or even Brahms v. Wagner.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

How about Rachmaninov and Stravinsky? Distinctly different musical languages, and no love lost between them.


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

Alan Hovhaness had a long correspondence with Jean Sibelius. In his 1984 documentary he contrasted *Sibelius* the _spiritual_ with *Stravinsky* the _intellectual_. He also called Stravinsky "jealous" and "nasty."


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