# 1 Island - 1 Composer



## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Suppose you were going to be stuck on a deserted island for the rest of your life and you could only bring the music of one composer: who would it be? 

If you can't decide then write your choice thus: 

"For me it would be a choice between Bach and Mahler." (But please try to make it no more than two). 

I would probably pick Bach.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

If I knew for certain that I was going to stuck on a deserted island for the rest of my life, I'd throw myself off the first convenient cliff. But I'd leave some Mozart in my personal effects for the benefit of future explorers.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I don't mind my own company so I'd live on the island and listen to Bach.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Bach, but I'd hire a lawyer first to negotiate the inclusion of all his lost and doubtful works as well.


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2016)

Bach & Beethoven. A bit like bread & butter. Or claret with a fine beef fillet.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Wagner & Bruckner. A bit like id & superego. A life on a deserted island would probably be closer to ascetism than pleasure, so I'd choose the superego and Bruckner.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

It would have to be someone who could make me laugh and there is only one in the business for that - WAM


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> If I knew for certain that I was going to stuck on a deserted island for the rest of my life, I'd throw myself off the first convenient cliff.


That would be cheating, you would just wake up back on the island. No way off, no way to shorten life, just you and one composer until the end.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

We live on 1 island, so Prokofiev will suffice + a connection to the internet.


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## nbergeron (Dec 30, 2015)

I'd go with Schubert because he covers all emotional bases for me. There's appropriate Schubert to accompany any frame of mind.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

If we get the musicians in addition to the music, and assuming they're ideal musicians and I get to be the conductor, then I'd choose Nicolas Gombert.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Bach.

..................


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Edgard Varèse and a huge PA system. 

I'm sure a neigbouring Bach fan would come to complain at some point and save me......


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## poconoron (Oct 26, 2011)

Mozart, the master of all musical genres.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

poconoron said:


> Mozart, the master of all musical genres.


Couldn't find his trombone concerto. He was also weak in cello sonatas. A real sluggard he was.


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## Boldertism (May 21, 2015)

Beethoven, no doubt.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Klassic said:


> That would be cheating, you would just wake up back on the island. No way off, no way to shorten life, just you and one composer until the end.


The band in heaven / plays my favorite song / they play it once again / play it all night long.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

*J.S. Bach.*

Bringing with me 5-6 different harpsichord performances of the Well Tempered Clavier, Book Two*; 5-6 harpsichord performances of the Keyboard Partitas*; 5-6 performances of the Cello Suites* and finally, the Nathan Milstein performances of the Solo Violin Sonatas and Partitas.

*(Too many fine performances to list here).

I've never been so dead sure of anything in my life.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Verdi..........................:tiphat:


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## OldFashionedGirl (Jul 21, 2013)

Baaaaaaaachhhhhhhhh!!!


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Handel because he was more cosmopolitan an individual.


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## Ilarion (May 22, 2015)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Edgard Varèse and a huge PA system.
> 
> I'm sure a neigbouring Bach fan would come to complain at some point and save me......


And save me...?

Don't bet on it - Ditch the obscene PA and maybe, just maybe I'll fly my Sikorski Sea Stallion and drop you a line........


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## Ilarion (May 22, 2015)

TalkingHead said:


> Bach & Beethoven. A bit like bread & butter. Or claret with a fine beef fillet.


"Where's the Beef"???


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

But what if the composer is stuck on a deserted island?


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## SalieriIsInnocent (Feb 28, 2008)

Mozart, though I don't know how well we'd do on the island. Beethoven looked like a man who could build a decent raft.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Prokofiev, I think. He certainly would not take any orders from me, but I maybe could cajole him, as the months and years rolled by, into writing now a little more along the lines of the Haydn pastiche, now perhaps something similar to the Alexander Nevsky, maybe some more symphonies in any number of musical directions, more quartets (listen to SQ #2!), opera, movie music, more piano stuff of all kinds, violin, ethnic things like the Overture on Hebrew Themes..... A one-man composing machine!


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

Anonymous, for the range of different music he/she/it/they provide and the cheatiness of it.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Xenakis--the composer I'd most trust to build an adequate raft to make our escape in.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

One thing-I'm a devout loner.

Here's hoping each of us gets his own island.....otherwise, forget it!


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Charles Koechlin is my choice.
If I would be allowed non-classical music (soundtracks) as well, then all my albums of film music by Alex North would accompany me too.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

poconoron said:


> Mozart, the master of all musical genres.


After Bach, he would have been my second choice.

Perhaps after 5 years or so, I would be allowed a trip back to the mainland to exchange my Bach CDs for some Mozart.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Definitely J.S. Bach.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

^^^If we get assigned to the same island, we could trade CDs.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Any gorgeous women composers to choose from? It can get lonely stuck on an island all alone!


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

I'd be so torn between Chopin and Mozart, but in the end it'd have to be Chopin. Though Wulfie's _oeuvre_ was so much larger, I'd pine away without my Fryderyk. So Chopin it is.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Kieran said:


> Any gorgeous women composers to choose from? It can get lonely stuck on an island all alone!


Sorry, you don't get the composer you only get their music.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

hpowders said:


> ^^^If we get assigned to the same island, we could trade CDs.


We gon' party like it's 1685!


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Debussy. .


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> Handel because he was more cosmopolitan an individual.


Cosmopolitan sensibilities won't get you far on a deserted island.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Mozart, no question. There's a ton of other music I'd be sad to miss out on, but Mozart is the one I could never do without.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Klassic said:


> Sorry, you don't get the composer you only get their music.


Harsh! It'll have to be Wolfie, then...


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

There really is only one answer to this question 
Just look at the volume and quality I will be able to choose from on my island
Enough said, I think


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I would rather 1 island, 1 genre. Then I could say, OPERA! Otherwise, if it is instrumental music I would have to go with Beethoven. But my opera likes are spread among many composers.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Blancrocher said:


> Xenakis--the composer I'd most trust to build an adequate raft to make our escape in.


"Excellent, Iannis, I love the nice modernist lines in the raft you made, now, finally, we will be able to escape this island...; hey, what's that?... over there, in those palm trees... go and see... _of course, I'm not going to leave without you!_..."


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## Überstürzter Neumann (Jan 1, 2014)

Without doubt Bruckner.


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

It'd be Prokofiev I think.

His 2nd piano concerto is the single work that I cannot seem to get tired listening to.

His music is also very varied in terms of inspiration.


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

Kieran said:


> Any gorgeous women composers to choose from? It can get lonely stuck on an island all alone!












A very gorgeous woman composer.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Kieran said:


> Any gorgeous women composers to choose from? It can get lonely stuck on an island all alone!


How about Felix Mendelssohn's composer sister Fanny? 
A hair restyling would bring out her gorgeous looks.


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

Florestan said:


> How about Felix Mendelssohn's composer sister Fanny?
> A hair restyling would bring out her gorgeous looks.


Why is Felix crossdressing?


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I think it would have to be Captain Beefheart. As he's deceased I suppose he's classical and I wouldn't be the only person doing weird stuff going insane upon the my oh my.


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

I want to feel happy in that island, so it's Mozart for me.


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## Martyn Harper (Jan 27, 2016)

J.S. Bach. 

Hopefully I would be able to hear the strains of Beethoven drifting over from a neighbouring island as well.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Ian Anderson. 

Sorry, Herr Beethoven. Even you don't quite compare. Anderson's music is an old friend.


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

Excessive listening will leave me sick of Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, Wagner (almost), and all my other favorite composers, even my back up favorites like Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel, and others, who usually withstand my fatigue by sounding exotic. When everyone else is exhausted, the WTC and Art of Fugue will still sound fresh, and I don't even "like" them all that much - they're just so dense with _stuff _that it's hard to get tired of all the stuff in them. So I guess Bach would be the smart choice.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> Excessive listening will leave me sick of Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, Wagner (almost), and all my other favorite composers, even my back up favorites like Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel, and others, who usually withstand my fatigue by sounding exotic.


Another pitch for Prokofiev: In a famous remark to Boswell, Samuel Johnson stated, "No, Sir, when a man is tired of Prokofiev, he is tired of life; for there is in Prokofiev all that life can afford." The amazing thing is that Johnson actually died 107 years before Prokofiev was born; the puzzle is still a mystery today.


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

Hands down -- Prokofiev


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Actually it would be easier to pick who I would not want: David Middendorf


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

arpeggio said:


> Actually it would be easier to pick who I would not want: David Middendorf


Arnold Schoenberg. I'm so sorry...


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Abraham Lincoln said:


> Arnold Schoenberg. I'm so sorry...


I'm sure if you listened to more, you'd find _some_ Schoenberg music to love.


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## Alydon (May 16, 2012)

I would have to try and do a deal on this one - all of Bach's keyboard works and all Beethoven's chamber music.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Mahlerian said:


> I'm sure if you listened to more, you'd find _some_ Schoenberg music to love.


I wouldn't be so sure.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Dim7 said:


> I wouldn't be so sure.


Why? He wrote all kinds of music, from the extremely accessible to the more esoteric. Some of the problem people have with his more difficult works is unfamiliarity with the language, and much of the rest with terminology that frames their perception.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Mahlerian said:


> Why? He wrote all kinds of music, from the extremely accessible to the more esoteric. Some of the problem people have with his more difficult works is unfamiliarity with the language, and much of the rest with terminology that frames their perception.


What would be "extremely accessible" Schoenberg? Verklärte Nacht? String Quartet in D major?


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> I'm sure if you listened to more, you'd find _some_ Schoenberg music to love.


I know, but still, I wouldn't want to be stuck on a deserted island with only Schoenberg to listen to.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Dim7 said:


> What would be "extremely accessible" Schoenberg? Verklärte Nacht? String Quartet in D major?


I don't understand why not. I like both those works even though I'm still being "introduced" to Schoenberg.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Dim7 said:


> What would be "extremely accessible" Schoenberg? Verklärte Nacht? String Quartet in D major?

















None of these should be difficult for someone who's accustomed to post-Wagnerian music. And no responses about how they "don't sound like Schoenberg," please. The first one isn't particularly characteristic, perhaps, but the latter two sound like no one else.


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