# Who is the composer's composer?



## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

When you have a profession you have a different perspective on the work of other professionals in your field than the general public has. So I guess composers themselves listen in a slightly different way to music of other composers than the general audience does. And so their judgement could be different than the general public's. Is this the case in classical music and who would be the composer's composer? Is it Mozart (because there are quotes abound by all kind of other composers who praise Mozart)? Or is there (also) a more unknown composer who has inspired all other composers?

Who is the composer who is admired by all other composers? Who is the composer's composer?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Jerry Goldsmith, apparently.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

Art Rock said:


> Jerry Goldsmith, apparently.


You shouldn't believe everything Google tells you. ;-)


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Stravinsky, for his variety & his volume. His sky-high intellect places him up there with other geniuses in other disciplines, IMO.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

I’d go with Bach. Even when the general public had no idea who he was, Mozart and Beethoven (and Haydn too I think) were studying his work. He was “rediscovred” by Mendelssohn. And in more recent times it seems to me no composer has inspired more works by other composers.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

Indeed Bach is the great name for start. He is a master in the musical aesthetic, any composer - me included - can always learn more from his works and be inspired in different aspects.

On the other hand, *for a living composer*, I really can't believe it is possible to select one single composer when the theme is "textures" in composition. After 1850 we have the great "boom" and even if we mention a composer who could use all the then "new information", like Liszt did, we still will be very impressed by the new generation which were born after 1860 (Debussy, Busoni, Scriabin, Schoenberg, Bartok, Stravinsky, Sorabji, Messiaen, Ligeti, etc)

Also we have the great importance of orchestration and the different solutions for the "how to" of a composer's daily life with several people like Berlioz, Ravel, Varese,... well... too many aspects and works to deal with, while I write here I remember why there are so many great ones to a composer...

all this waste of time I did to say I can't select one... I'm sorry... :lol:

Indeed Mozart is always one of the most remembered (with Bach and Beethoven), but I'm not sure how impressive Mozart really was to some composers who clearly had not been influenced by his works in any sense...
I strongly believe Palestrina is the one who must be remembered (specially after Fux' Gradus ad Parnassus) as the first influence to any composer after 1730's... and even Bach was well aware of his techniques...

Best
Artur


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bach. His music is technically transcendent, and it shows its bones, not wrapping itself in Classicism's elegant manners and sensuous charm or Romanticism's emotional effusiveness and pictorialism.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Bach. When Mozart looked at Bach's manuscripts he said, "Here is something we can all learn from!"


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

"That you are going to publish Sebastian Bach's works is something that does good to my heart, which beats in love of the great and lofty art of this ancestral father of harmony." --Beethoven to Hofmeister, 1801

Also: "His name ought not to be Bach (brook), but Ocean, because of his infinite and inexhaustible wealth of tonal combinations and harmonies." --1824


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## Guest (Oct 22, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> Who is the composer who is admired by all other composers? Who is the composer's composer?


Without a survey of a range of composers, it would be difficult to say, wouldn't it? I can see how a guess would come up with Bach, an entirely valid 'historical' contender, but it might be more interesting to find out about the contemporary scene.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Back to part of the original question, composers are divided in the way they listen to music themselves, as I got from reading up on their opinions on others. But in general they would value techniques more than the general public who value effect more. Some composers that others generally respect are Bach, Beethoven. Brahms has his supporters, but also some very hostile enemies. One composer i found was generally not respected so much was Berlioz. Even Stravinsky was appalled by some of his uses of harmony.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

There's a quote about The Velvet Underground, to the effect that "they didn't sell many records, but everyone who bought one started a band". I've seen that quote referenced a couple of times recently, once in the context of Walter Hill's film _The Driver_ and another in the context of Dorothy Dunnett's _Lymond Chronicles_. There may well be an equivalent modern composer who's had a similar sort of influence. But in terms of composers of the historical past, I suspect the views of composers won't be that different from the views of non-composers.


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## Flavius (Oct 7, 2017)

Considering the contemporary scene, I should think it might be Messiaen. Composers have been going off in all directions, but the most distinctive, Boulez, for instance, have gone into the music world through the door opened by Messiaen: a subliminal sound world of nature cries, warnings, pleadings (the forlorn calls of a stag), touching on instinctive responses, and based on mathematical patterns, a modern 'take' on our mediaeval inheritance. Traditional sense of melodic phrasing and relationship is discarded for the seeming disjointedness of bird song.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Phil loves classical said:


> ...One composer i found was generally not respected so much was Berlioz. Even Stravinsky was appalled by some of his uses of harmony.


"A tub of pork and beer." --Hector Berlioz, on George Frederick Handel

"The worst musician among the musical geniuses." --Maurice Ravel, on Hector Berlioz


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## Flavius (Oct 7, 2017)

Berlioz' torch of genius, of course, was ignited by Gluck, who was admired by both Beethoven and Wagner, despite Handel's comment that his cook knew more counterpoint. Rossini was trashed by Beethoven, though he continues to charm and delight his audiences. But re Gluck, you might say that he announced a new era in theater music, and every opera composer after him is indebted. I recently took interest in the contralto Ewa Podles, and ended up with all the Gluck operas available, though he had been a one-opera composer for me. Despite Handel's comment, he might well be considered a composer's composer, for his dramatic and melodic genius.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

After playing a Mozart Piano Concerto for students in his composition class, Ligeti proclaimed, "I have written nothing!"

Mozart's music is indeed a kind of North Star for composers, but ultimately, I believe it is Bach who is their Nestor, the sage and learned guide in how one traverses the musical firmament.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

PeterFromLA said:


> After playing a Mozart Piano Concerto for students in his composition class, Ligeti proclaimed, "I have written nothing!"
> 
> Mozart's music is indeed a kind of North Star for composers, but ultimately, I believe it is Bach who is their Nestor, the sage and learned guide in how one traverses the musical firmament.


Sounds like Ligeti's opinion of contemporary music would ruffle some feathers around here. Wonder what he'd say about Alma Deutscher...


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

PeterFromLA said:


> After playing a Mozart Piano Concerto for students in his composition class, Ligeti proclaimed, "I have written nothing!"
> 
> Mozart's music is indeed a kind of North Star for composers, but ultimately, I believe it is Bach who is their Nestor, the sage and learned guide in how one traverses the musical firmament.


Ligeti must have said that at the Liszt Academy in Budapest - few nations have greater reverence for Mozart than Hungary and I think his comment needs to be taken in that context.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

Francois Couperin, for a composer who is not a household name, has a really significant influence when it comes to other composers.

First you can reference the fact that Couperin was almost definitely a very strong influence on J.S. Bach, and Bach's 'innovation' of using the thumb for keyboard playing was used earlier by Couperin. Certainly all of the French composers whose music relies largely on ornaments they way Couperin's does (Rameau being the chief major).

But that's neither here nor there because when you look at the post-baroque influence it gets really interesting. There's that Brahms took it upon himself (along with Frederich Chrysander) edit and publish most of Couperin's existing keyboard music in the late 19th century, as well as performing his music in public.....Then you have Richard Strauss writing not one but two dance suites modeled after pieces by Couperin.

Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin isn't an homage to Couperin specifically as much as it is French keyboard suites in general, but the ornamentation in the music suggests a strong lineage from Couperin specifically, and the title is an obvious nod to Couperin.

Then there's Thomas Ades with another suite modeled on pieces of Couperin 




I think Debussy said something like "Couperin's music is loved by those of the foremost taste".

Also, as a composer's composer, Pergolesi comes to mind. Just the fact that other composers, including Bach, couldn't keep their hands off his music and tried to make arrangements of it is saying something.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> Francois Couperin, for a composer who is not a household name, has a really significant influence when it comes to other composers.
> 
> First you can reference the fact that Couperin was almost definitely a very strong influence on J.S. Bach, and Bach's 'innovation' of using the thumb for keyboard playing was used earlier by Couperin. Certainly all of the French composers whose music relies largely on ornaments they way Couperin's does (Rameau being the chief major).
> 
> ...


Thanks for this post, I'm grateful for the time it took you to write it.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2017)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> Just the fact that other composers, including Bach, couldn't keep their hands off his music and tried to make arrangements of it is saying something.


One of the things it is saying is that all composers drew on the music of their predecessors; it's in the nature of time (conventionally at least) that it only moves forward: Bach would not have been able to "not keep his hands off" the music of his descendants.

This is not to invalidate the claims that Couperin and Pergolesi were influential, but to point out that if you want to identify a 'composer's composer', there is an inbuilt problem: composers can only vote for those who came before, not after.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

There was a thread a few years ago with a similar topic, but with generally more examples per post:

Composers' Lists of Greatest Composers


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Bach. His music is technically transcendent, and it shows its bones, not wrapping itself in Classicism's elegant manners and sensuous charm or Romanticism's emotional effusiveness and pictorialism.


Reminds me of this, by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace, 
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.

O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! (_Bach_) alone
Has looked on beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only, and then far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

trazom said:


> There was a thread a few years ago with a similar topic, but with generally more examples per post:
> 
> Composers' Lists of Greatest Composers


Thanks. Especially this post by martijn is very impressive and interesting:



> Hello, I'm new here. This is an interesting topic, but as someone who has done quite some research in this field, I must say there are quite some errors here.
> 
> Among composers, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven have always been the most popular composers. If you were to hold a poll among composers, probably Mozart would end as number 1, with Beethoven a close second. Here some favorite composers of great composers:
> 
> ...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Totenfeier said:


> Reminds me of this, by Edna St. Vincent Millay:
> 
> Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare.
> Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
> ...


Millay proves her own point. Her florid rhetoric is more like "shapes of shifting lineage" than "beauty bare."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> One of the things it is saying is that all composers drew on the music of their predecessors; it's in the nature of time (conventionally at least) that it only moves forward: Bach would not have been able to "not keep his hands off" the music of his descendants.
> 
> This is not to invalidate the claims that Couperin and Pergolesi were influential, but to point out that if you want to identify a 'composer's composer', there is an inbuilt problem: composers can only vote for those who came before, not after.


It's isn't a question of who composers liked, but of whose music exemplifies qualities with which composers, irrespective of time and style, are concerned. The music of Bach, perhaps more than that of any other composer, has been called "timeless."


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Palestrina
Bach
Webern


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> It's isn't a question of who composers liked, but of whose music exemplifies qualities with which composers, irrespective of time and style, are concerned. The music of Bach, perhaps more than that of any other composer, has been called "timeless."


Did someone say it is a question of 'like?


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Millay proves her own point. Her florid rhetoric is more like "shapes of shifting lineage" than "beauty bare."


Actually, the one I find unendurable is "O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day/When first the shaft into his vision shone/Of light anatomized!" Wretched. Like Shelley's "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!"

"Have heard her massive sandal set on stone," however, seems Bach-like, at least to me.


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

DavidA said:


> Bach. When Mozart looked at Bach's manuscripts he said, "Here is something we can all learn from!"


My understanding is that Mozart held Carl Philip Emanuel in higher regard than JS. Mozart learnt his craft in part by spending many hours transcribing the music of CPE. In later years he took great pains to visit CPE, and declared "He is the father, we are the children."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> Did someone say it is a question of 'like?


Sorry. Let me rephrase: "It isn't a question of who composers drew on or who influenced them, but of whose music exemplifies qualities with which composers, irrespective of time and style, are concerned."


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