# Defining 'The Big Three'



## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

What is an acceptable definition of this often used shorthand that generally refers to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart?

Without denigrating these composers in any way, _I would assume it cannot mean general compositional superiority_. It is, surely, more a rather nebulous acknowledgement of their popularity amongst concert goers and record buyers (dilettante or otherwise).

As an example, YouGuv's 'The most popular classical composers in the UK' has:

1. Beethoven
2. Mozart 
3. J.S. Bach



> YouGov Ratings measures the popularity and fame of anything and everything, based on millions of responses from the British public. It is the biggest and boldest attempt ever made to quantify what Britain thinks. YouGov is doing this by publishing nationally representative popularity scores for thousands of things. YouGov Ratings is built on top of our accurate and precise methodology, which the Pew Research Center says "consistently outperformed" other online polling companies.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

It means "Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven".


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Fabulin said:


> It means "Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven".


That's what the 'three' refers to, yes.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

The three who, when you take the average of individuals' tastes (be they amateur listeners or experts - no matter how to define the latter), always get out on top.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Most sales of media, concerts


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Mandryka said:


> Most sales of media, concerts


Would Bach be in the top 3 with this criterion?


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Art Rock said:


> Would Bach be in the top 3 with this criterion?


I would think so. I was just at an all-Bach piano recital last night and it was a full house. Not all classical concerts I go to sell out like that, but the "big names" often do. Everyone loves Bach.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Speaking personally I would prefer a big 4 through including Brahms. That would give me the four composers who feel somehow different to all the others and represent a foundation for my listening. But I probably only spend a quarter of my listening time with them and just "below" the four there are (for me) probably something like 10 or 20 composers whose music I love greatly.

BTW I am not sure what "compositional superiority" might mean and doubt very much that the term applies to what feels important to me in explaining why I love the composers I do love.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

flamencosketches said:


> I would think so. I was just at an all-Bach piano recital last night and it was a full house. Not all classical concerts I go to sell out like that, but the "big names" often do. Everyone loves Bach.


Mozart, people say that if a performer wants to make a bit of money, all he has to do is release some Mozart.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Enthusiast said:


> Speaking personally I would prefer a big 4 through including Brahms. That would give me the four composers who feel somehow different to all the others and represent a foundation for my listening. But I probably only spend a quarter of my listening time with them and just "below" the four there are (for me) probably something like 10 or 20 composers whose music I love greatly.


I could post exactly the same but with Bach, Mahler, Brahms and Schubert as the names.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

if I should add a fourth the holy trinity, I might add Monteverdi. Neither Brahms nor Mahler are sufficiently original or revolutionary to fit the highest pantheon in my opinion. Bach is the culmination of Baroque, Mozart is the culmination of classicism, Beethoven is the culmination of Romantism, Monteverdi is the culmination of Renaissance


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Jacck said:


> Beethoven is the culmination of Romantism


Tchaikovsky is the culmination of Romanticism. Beethoven is its beginning.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Art Rock said:


> I could post exactly the same but with Bach, Mahler, Brahms and Schubert as the names.


I did wonder about Mahler and Schubert and could not justify the four except to say that in some way they _feel_ qualitatively different to all the others to me, that much of their work seems to come from a different place to the others - influences and history alone do not fully explain how their music is for me. Given such vagueness, it is interesting to me that the big three so reliably emerge as the big three even though there are many individuals who would count it differently and perhaps don't even like the music that one or more of them wrote.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> *Speaking personally I would prefer a big 4 through including Brahms. That would give me the four composers who feel somehow different to all the others and represent a foundation for my listening. *But I probably only spend a quarter of my listening time with them and just "below" the four there are (for me) probably something like 10 or 20 composers whose music I love greatly.
> 
> BTW I am not sure what "compositional superiority" might mean and doubt very much that the term applies to what feels important to me in explaining why I love the composers I do love.


Not only do I agree with your choices, I agree with your criteria.

I used to group Schubert with the four you mention, but he has slipped to fifth, not because my opinion of his masterpieces has diminished, but because he wrote fewer of them. Mahler is in the next group.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

janxharris said:


> What is an acceptable definition of this often used shorthand that generally refers to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart?
> 
> Without denigrating these composers in any way, _I would assume it cannot mean general compositional superiority_. It is, surely, more a rather nebulous acknowledgement of their popularity amongst concert goers and record buyers (dilettante or otherwise).


Since taking polls among record-buyers and concert-goers - or forum members - is a rather recent phenomenon and one that doesn't interest many of us even now, it may be relevant to ask whether, and for how long, the Big Three have been the Big Three among musically knowledgeable people who don't make judgments based on statistical surveys of the man on the street. I don't think the expression "Big Three" was coined by music magazines, radio stations, or chat rooms.

What's your justification for assuming that it "cannot mean general compositional superiority"? Or for thinking that popularity is the only alternative?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

I will repeat that in the case of the great composers, they are popular because they are great, not great because they are popular. And of course it is primarily due to compositional superiority.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

DaveM said:


> I will repeat that in the case of the great composers, they are popular because they are great, not great because they are popular. And of course it is primarily due to compositional superiority.


not necessarily. As the genre of popular music shows, the masses can be convinced to listen to even total garbage because they think it is popular. So popular "hits" are made. The recording studio pays the radios to play it over and over again, and thus create hits out of garbage. I am not suggesting that it works the same with classical music, but it might play some role. Some classical works are played over and over again on the classical radios and on concerts, people hear them, get used to them and then require them. So a positive feedback loop between exposure and popularity forms.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Jacck said:


> not necessarily. As the genre of popular music shows, the masses can be convinced to listen to even total garbage because they think it is popular. So popular "hits" are made. The recording studio pays the radios to play it over and over again, and thus create hits out of garbage. I am not suggesting that it works the same with classical music, but it might play some role. Some classical works are played over and over again on the classical radios and on concerts, people hear them, get used to them and then require them. So a positive feedback loop between exposure and popularity forms.


*cough* Brahms *cough*


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Fabulin said:


> *cough* Brahms *cough*


I hope you did not catch the coronavirus ?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Jacck said:


> not necessarily. As the genre of popular music shows, the masses can be convinced to listen to even total garbage because they think it is popular. So popular "hits" are made. The recording studio pays the radios to play it over and over again, and thus create hits out of garbage. I am not suggesting that it works the same with classical music, but it might play some role. Some classical works are played over and over again on the classical radios and on concerts, people hear them, get used to them and then require them. So a positive feedback loop between exposure and popularity forms.


You are referring to what happens with popular music and artists as we know it today which is a totally different situation from the subject of the great CM composers we're talking about.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

If we were to investigate what composers and other accomplished classical musicians have thought of the composers who make up our musical inheritance, which ones do you suppose would be most admired? If we're going to ask anyone who the Big Three are (or whether there really are a Big Three), aren't these the best people to ask?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

DaveM said:


> You are referring to what happens with popular music and artists as we know it today which is a totally different situation from the subject of the great CM composers we're talking about.


but the exposure-popularity positive feedback loop likely does exist in CM. Orchestras are forced to play the same workhorses over and over again, because only those attract crowds, and they attract crowds, because the crowds were exposed to them and know them and require them. So yes, I do think that popularity exists also in CM and that it distorts the concerts. Of course this is not in contradiction to the fact, that those workhorses are great works. They indeed are and they are popular in part because of that, but in part also because this exposure-popularity feedback loop.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

General Motors
Ford
Chrysler


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MarkW said:


> General Motors
> Ford
> Chrysler


Bah. I wouldn't have anything but a Toyota (21 trouble-free years with my Tacoma and an expectation that it'll outlive me).


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Jacck said:


> but the exposure-popularity positive feedback loop likely does exist in CM. Orchestras are forced to play the same workhorses over and over again, because only those attract crowds, and they attract crowds, because the crowds were exposed to them and know them and require them. So yes, I do think that popularity exists also in CM and that it distorts the concerts. Of course this is not in contradiction to the fact, that those workhorses are great works. They indeed are and they are popular in part because of that, but in part also because this exposure-popularity feedback loop.


But that's not the point here. The question is what comes first, the cart or the horse. You want to keep repeating something that is not the issue. No one (that I know of) is questioning that popularity in the end brings people to concerts. That is the endpoint of the process that started when the great composers created great music in the first place.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Bah. I wouldn't have anything but a Toyota (21 trouble-free years with my Tacoma and an expectation that it'll outlive me).


Some here would say that Toyotas are great because they're popular rather than popular because Toyota routinely makes great cars.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> If we were to investigate what composers and other accomplished classical musicians have thought of the composers who make up our musical inheritance, which ones do you suppose would be most admired? If we're going to ask anyone who the Big Three are (or whether there really are a Big Three), aren't these the best people to ask?


I think that the BBC did this sort of survey and that they plumped for Bach, Stravinsky and Beethoven.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DaveM said:


> Some here would say that Toyotas are great because they're popular rather than popular because Toyota routinely makes great cars.


The difference is that Bach can't be reviewed in Consumer Reports.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> I think that the BBC did this sort of survey and that they plumped for Bach, Stravinsky and Beethoven.


Those folks must have been forced to watch Tom Hulse in a pink wig crawling under a table saying "eat ****."

After all, Mozart was real "Classicism" and Stravinsky was only "Neo."


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

janxharris said:


> What is an acceptable definition of this often used shorthand that generally refers to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart?
> 
> … It is, surely, more a rather nebulous acknowledgement of their popularity amongst concert goers and record buyers (dilettante or otherwise).
> 
> ...


Of course, before there were record buyers, or even records, there were folks who acknowledged a sense of superiority as artists towards B, B, and M. Among these were concert goers, certainly, but also composers themselves. In other words, artists recognizing other artists.

Artists are perhaps more aware of what skills and abilities and inspirations and that enigmatic, arcane and ineffable "genius" lies behind the works produced by certain practitioners in their fields. When one looks back over the history of music to see which three men have repeatedly produced the most awe, one comes up with certain names, none of which prove surprising, because they awe us still.

Some artists are simply better than others, and we inherently sense this even though we struggle to find words that define exact parameters by which to measure such competence.

T.S. Eliot once remarked: ""Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third." There remains a truth in that statement, just as there is to say: "Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven divide the world among them. There is no fourth."


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## Bigbang (Jun 2, 2019)

flamencosketches said:


> I would think so. I was just at an all-Bach piano recital last night and it was a full house. Not all classical concerts I go to sell out like that, but the "big names" often do. Everyone loves Bach.


Did you say you went to a all-Bach "piano" recital?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Opinions vary! For example, nobody has mentioned the composer that Beethoven (who knew a thing or two about music) placed as the unquestioned number one.


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## Bigbang (Jun 2, 2019)

Jacck said:


> if I should add a fourth the holy trinity, I might add Monteverdi. Neither Brahms nor Mahler are sufficiently original or revolutionary to fit the highest pantheon in my opinion. Bach is the culmination of Baroque, Mozart is the culmination of classicism, Beethoven is the culmination of Romantism, Monteverdi is the culmination of Renaissance


Not sure of the meaning or definition of culmination but I just bought a philips duo---The best of the renaissance, and Monteverdi's works was not even listed.

I think Beethoven while not exactly the culmination of the classical period kicked the door down for the romantic period and the modern to follow. Oh, and help usher in the "modern" piano as he demanded better pianos.


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## Bigbang (Jun 2, 2019)

DaveM said:


> You are referring to what happens with popular music and artists as we know it today which is a totally different situation from the subject of the great CM composers we're talking about.


Totally agree. Not only that I would anyday take an opportunity to hear the classics in a concert hall over some............well, nevermind.

It is really about experiencing what is different about a work "live" and recorded. Classical music will evolve to something new and different in terms of how we listen to it. We live in an age where we do not need to attend concerts, sorry to say it but it is what it is.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

I just checked my usual sources; Piston, Seigmeister, Persichetti, Grout, Harvard Dictionary, Tovey, and Copland. Couldn't find the term "compositional superiority." If it means superiority in the act of creation then perhaps I need to check the Kama Sutra?


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## Bigbang (Jun 2, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> If we were to investigate what composers and other accomplished classical musicians have thought of the composers who make up our musical inheritance, which ones do you suppose would be most admired? If we're going to ask anyone who the Big Three are (or whether there really are a Big Three), aren't these the best people to ask?


No not really. I think it boils down to what the average person wants to listen to and the total quantity of works come back to the popularity of the composer. Bach can be considered a late comer as he was raised from the "dead" by circumstances (that is, popular now), where Beethoven, Mozart (though his works went through changes of popularity--piano sonatas more so in the past I think) were now the talk of the town from then on.

The "experts" have opinions, dry as many are. If you think I am going to dig through all that Bach history on why he was so wonderful and immerse myself in all his glory, ain't happening. I get the main hits...and have them on cd..cantatas, orchestral works, piano works, oops, I mean the modern interpretation of his old works. I do not have to dig that much for Beethoven and Mozart. To some degree the experts brought them to me and I had to open my ears and eyes to find out more.

Listen people...there are people on amazon who brag on classical sampler cds who are stuck...they listen to the same cd over and over with non classical music. They do not know any more about Beethoven/Mozart than that one cd. This mean one thing and one thing only...each person must work to find out what classical music is about as it will not be like pop music, as it will come and go.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Room2201974 said:


> I just checked my usual sources; Piston, Seigmeister, Persichetti, Grout, Harvard Dictionary, Tovey, and Copland. Couldn't find the term "compositional superiority." If it means superiority in the act of creation then perhaps I need to check the Kama Sutra?


It's two words. They're both in any standard dictionary.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bigbang said:


> No not really. I think it boils down to what the average person wants to listen to and the total quantity of works come back to the popularity of the composer. Bach can be considered a late comer as he was raised from the "dead" by circumstances (that is, popular now), where Beethoven, Mozart (though his works went through changes of popularity--piano sonatas more so in the past I think) were now the talk of the town from then on.
> 
> The "experts" have opinions, dry as many are. If you think I am going to dig through all that Bach history on why he was so wonderful and immerse myself in all his glory, ain't happening. I get the main hits...and have them on cd..cantatas, orchestral works, piano works, oops, I mean the modern interpretation of his old works. I do not have to dig that much for Beethoven and Mozart. To some degree the experts brought them to me and I had to open my ears and eyes to find out more.
> 
> Listen people...there are people on amazon who brag on classical sampler cds who are stuck...they listen to the same cd over and over with non classical music. They do not know any more about Beethoven/Mozart than that one cd. This mean one thing and one thing only...each person must work to find out what classical music is about as it will not be like pop music, as it will come and go.


The question is "How do we define the term 'Big Three?" Anyone can have their own standard for what makes a composer "big." If it's popularity among average people, as you suggest, the BIg Three might be Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and Brian Wilson (have I just dated myself? So be it).

I'm merely pointing out that the idea of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as the Big Three originated among non-average people (those "dry" experts you mention) as well as concertgoers, and had currency and a considerable consensus before the standards applicable to pop music success had infected the entire culture. Those three composers have been placed at the pinnacle of Western musical achievement by musicians with fair constancy since their works have been familiar to the great mass of both average and non-average people seriously interested in classical music. Bach took a bit longer than the others to attain wide exposure, and other composers have often been placed with or near them in the pantheon: Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wagner, in recent times Stravinsky... There are certainly a number of reasons for granting or denying any of these figures (and others) the honor of membership in such an exclusive club. But the point is that the 3 have been the 3 for a very long time, and it's a bit foolish to begin a discussion of the subject with an assumption that there are no qualities intrinsic to their work that justify it.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Bigbang said:


> Did you say you went to a all-Bach "piano" recital?


That's exactly what I said, actually.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> and it's a bit foolish to begin a discussion of the subject with an assumption that there are no qualities intrinsic to their work that justify it.


So what are the qualities that separate the "big three" from the "compositionaly inferior?" What are they doing * musically* that sets them above others?


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

I'm always amazed to find F.J. Haydn and G.F. Handel left out of these discussions or lists, and Brahms mentioned. After all, I seriously doubt that Brahms considered himself to be a superior or even equal composer to F.J. Haydn, who he considered to be one of the giants. Rather, I'd imagine that if Brahms heard someone make such a claim he'd only laugh and correct them, and not out of modesty. We know that Beethoven counted Handel, J.S. Bach, and Mozart in his top three, and that late in his life Beethoven considered Handel to be the only composer that he was still learning from (according to his pupil Ferdinand Ries--but probably also Bach, too, given the strong influence of Bach's fugal writing on the Late Quartets and Late Piano Sonatas). While I'd be shocked if Mozart wouldn't have placed Haydn in his top three (& Handel, too), given how strongly influenced and deeply indebted Mozart was to Haydn for developing most, if not all of the musical forms that he worked in--such as the string quartet, symphony, piano trio, piano sonata, etc. (and to Handel for his operas?). Indeed, that's why Beethoven counted Mozart in his top three and not Haydn, because he felt that Mozart had taken all the forms that Haydn had given him and perfected them.

So, if we're talking about compositional superiority or 'super genius', I think there should be a "big five"--Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, & Beethoven. Though, of course, I'd be tempted to place Josquin Desprez on that list, too. The only problem is I'm not sure whose place he'd take. It's difficult to bump any one of those 5 composers off the 'big' list.

At the same time, shouldn't we also consider and reflect upon who were the most important 'seminal' composers in music history, or those that changed the course and evolution of music in the most significant ways? Obviously, Bach, Haydn, & Beethoven should be counted as vital composers in that regard, as well. But shouldn't we also consider the early polyphonists as equally important to the history of music?

That strikes me as an important question, and one where subjectivity probably shouldn't figure into the discussion quite as much. I wonder, is it possible for us to reach some consensus about who were the top three or top five or top ten most 'seminal' composers in music history? Off the top of my head, composers such as De Vitry, Machaut, Dunstable, Dufay, Ockeghem, Ciconia, Desprez, Monteverdi, Corelli, Vivaldi, and Debussy come to my mind, but there are likely many others that should be a part of any such discussion. 

So, who were the most influential, pivotal composers in music history--per age? Can we reach an agreement on which composer or composers most ushered in each new age of music? (as Beethoven & Schubert did for the Romantic age?)

Which of course doesn't mean that the most seminal composers are necessarily the greatest composers, either. For example, the playwright Christopher Marlowe single handedly gave Shakespeare his model for a five act play structure written in iambic pentameter verse, but it was Shakespeare's super genius that turned Marlowe's invention into something even greater, and I think few people would disagree with that. So, I'd imagine that there are similar instances in the history of music--such as with Haydn & Mozart? Although, personally, I'm not sure that I'd argue Mozart was a better composer than Haydn, except in his operas--which, for me, is the only genre where Mozart clearly excelled over Haydn.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Josquin13 said:


> I'm always amazed to find F.J. Haydn and G.F. Handel left out of these discussions or lists, and Brahms mentioned. After all, I seriously doubt that Brahms considered himself to be a superior or even equal composer to F.J. Haydn, who he considered to be one of the giants. Rather, I'd imagine that if Brahms heard someone make such a claim he'd only laugh and correct them, and not out of modesty. We know that Beethoven counted Handel, J.S. Bach, and Mozart in his top three, and that late in his life Beethoven considered Handel to be the only composer that he was still learning from (according to his pupil Ferdinand Ries--but probably also Bach, too, given the strong influence Bach's fugal writing on the Late Quartets and Late Piano Sonatas). While I'd be shocked if Mozart wouldn't have placed Haydn in his top three (& Handel, too), given how strongly influenced and deeply indebted Mozart was to Haydn for developing most, if not all of the musical forms that he worked in--such as the string quartet, symphony, piano trio, piano sonata, etc. (and to Handel for his operas?). Indeed, that's why Beethoven counted Mozart in his top three and not Haydn, because he felt that Mozart had taken all the forms that Haydn had given him and perfected them.


We're at a different point in history and will inevitably judge these composers differently. The ability of a composer to remain fresh and to speak to later ages and sensibilities has to be relevant, as does the message his music has for us. We can't perceive Handel and Haydn as Beethoven or Brahms did, and on the whole they don't seem to speak to us as profoundly as Bach and Mozart do (or, for that matter, as Beethoven and Brahms do).



> So, if we're talking about compositional superiority or 'super genius', I think there should be a "big five"--Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, & Beethoven. Though, of course, I'd be tempted to place Josquin Desprez on that list, too. The only problem is I'm not sure whose place he'd take. It's difficult to bump any one of those 5 composers off the 'big' list.


We'll all have our lists of Big So-and-Sos. Josquin was a splendid composer and has my great admiration, but pre-Baroque polyphonic music expresses a different cultural sensibility and inhabits a different stylistic world, and thus seems to remain the passion of relatively few. There are only certain respects in which it can meaningfully be compared with the music of the common practice era.



> At the same time, shouldn't we also consider and reflect upon who were the most important 'seminal' composers in music history, or those that changed the course and evolution of music in the most significant ways? Obviously, Bach, Haydn, & Beethoven should be counted as vital composers in that regard, as well. But shouldn't we also consider the early polyphonists as equally important to the history of music?
> 
> That strikes me as an important question, and one where subjectivity probably shouldn't figure into the discussion quite as much. I wonder, is it possible for us to reach some consensus about who were the top three or top five or top ten most 'seminal' composers in music history? Off the top of my head, composers such as De Vitry, Machaut, Dunstable, Dufay, Ockeghem, Ciconia, Desprez, Monteverdi, Corelli, Vivaldi, and Debussy come to my mind, but there are likely many others that should be a part of any such discussion.
> 
> So, who were the most influential, pivotal composers in music history--per age? Can we reach an agreement on which composer or composers most ushered in each new age of music? (as Beethoven & Schubert did for the Romantic age?)


Influence on the course of music is certainly one of the factors we consider in judging the importance of composers, but should it be the major consideration in defining the notion of a "Big Three"? As you point out,



> Which of course doesn't mean that the most seminal composers are necessarily the greatest composers, either. For example, the playwright Christopher Marlowe single handedly gave Shakespeare his model for a five act play structure written in iambic pentameter verse, but it was Shakespeare's super genius that turned Marlowe's invention into something even greater, and I think few people would disagree with that. So, I'd imagine that there are similar instances in the history of music Such as with Haydn & Mozart? Although, personally, I'm not sure that I'd argue Mozart was a better composer than Haydn, except in his operas--which, for me, is the only genre where Mozart clearly excelled over Haydn.


Haydn was unquestionably more of a seminal figure than Mozart, and it would be hard to argue that his compositional skill was inferior. But most people seem to think that Mozart surpassed Haydn in a number of genres, not just opera, and that his music attained greater emotional subtlety and depth. The expressive power of music takes us into subjectivities and intangibles, but I do think that what music communicates to us is one of the more important criteria by which art is judged. The Big Three have communicated compellingly to a lot of people over many generations, and I think it's because they communicate things of exceptional universality. This can't be said to the same degree of some other composers we call "great" such as Brahms, Wagner, Mahler, Debussy or (insert name), whose expressive worlds seem more personal and exclusive. I think it's no accident that the Big Three are from pre-Romantic eras, before music came to be seen largely as a vehicle of personal expression. Even Beethoven, at his most expressively specific, retains the Classical emphasis on universality, embodied in the Classicist's strictness of form.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Josquin13 said:


> ...
> 
> ... Although, personally, I'm not sure that I'd argue Mozart was a better composer than Haydn, except in his operas--which, for me, is the only genre where Mozart clearly excelled over Haydn.


Have you never heard the last 20 or so Mozart Piano Concerti?


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Josquin13 said:


> ...
> ...For example, the playwright Christopher Marlowe single handedly gave Shakespeare his model for a five act play structure written in iambic pentameter verse, but it was Shakespeare's super genius that turned Marlowe's invention into something even greater, and I think few people would disagree with that. ...


Kit Marlowe, born the same year as Shakespeare (1564), tragically died (most likely murdered) at the early age of 29. By that year, 1593, Shakespeare had written maybe four plays (the three _Henry VI_ histories among them), none of them his best work, and they may likely have been collaborations with Marlowe. On the other hand, by that same year Marlowe had completed his handful of masterworks including _The Jew of Malta_, _Edward the Second_, _Tamburlaine_, and _Doctor Faustus_, all of which had a tremendous influence upon Shakespeare. I suspect that had Shakespeare died in 1593 we would not much know his name, at least not as a playwright. Had Marlowe gotten the chance to go on … well, it's like contemplating what Mozart or Schubert may have accomplished with more years to work.

And, I hate to be disagreeable, but the five-act structure common to Elizabethan and Jacobean plays (including those of Marlowe and Shakespeare) was something unknown to the playwrights who wrote the plays of that era. Rather the five-act division was done later by various editors who prepared the plays for publication, well after the deaths of these writers. The editors were likely influenced by the Greek and Roman tragedy formats which generally featured five episodes alternated with Choral odes.

In fact, the very early English tragedy titled _The Tragedie of Gorboduc_, by Sackville and Norton, features five acts. The play was written a few years before Shakespeare and Marlowe were born. It is true that Marlowe was an influence upon Shakespeare, and Shakespeare seems to verify this in a couple of passages in his own plays where he pays homage to Marlowe, but the five act play structure is generally not what is discussed when the topic of Marlowe's influence upon Shakespeare is broached. Rather, it is generally the strength of Marlowe's blank verse and his individuation of characters that seem to be the major topics of discussion.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

'The big three' has nothing to do with 'composers' or 'popularity' as far as I can tell... The most popular composers are an after-effect of what the big three are (why classical is still popular today and why Mozart, Beethoven and Bach are on the top lists.) The big three are actually a result of the _critical_ trend in _all_ of music at any point in time. This critical trend is something most of us (indirectly) experience through what we society as a whole deems 'knowledgeable' opinion, but what it actually (scientifically) seems to represent (as I noted in another thread) is an average representation of the circling opinions of the most _agreeable_ individuals in society in contrast to the average opinions of _everyone_, which the latter as a strange phenomenon yields a very different and less agreeable result due to its calculation of majority outlier opinions. _Majority outlier opinions._ It's a very strange phenomenon indeed! The overall point seems to be, this statistical expression appears in our cultural evolution: most knowledgeable ~(correlated to) most agreeable, and what this actually seems to signify on a more _removed_ level is_ experience_, instead of popularity.

It is why Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart are the most critically acclaimed at any point in time since the 1800s, not even of all time. Society tends to consider the most artistically knowledgeable individuals similar to their wide acceptance; it's those individuals who don't actually capture the odder opinions of most people / outliers, who are the most highly-regarded in musical circles, and it's this one of many social phenomenon that most people aren't actively conscious of: The pure domino effect of social survey and criticism throughout the years brings us not only a human perspective of judging 'sound,' but it can be argued that music itself is the result of this social domino effect from the beginning. Our way of understanding sound, and what music actually is, is essentially one. We know that social memes (the non-genetics) have hardwired the majority of genetic changes to our species, ie. we are adapted for our environment. Fruit tastes right for a reason but delicious junk food tastes better--communication and nature sounds right for a reason, but music sounds better. *A more passive measure like 'popularity throughout time'* unfortunately doesn't provide us the most agreeablity, nor does it account for the higher-level thought going on. It has never done this ongoing topic justice, as collective knowledge continues to update in our causal discourse.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Ethereality said:


> 'The big three' has nothing to do with 'composers' or 'popularity' as far as I can tell... The most popular composers are an after-effect of what the big three are (why classical is still popular today and why Mozart, Beethoven and Bach are on the top lists.) The big three are actually a result of the _critical_ trend in _all_ of music at any point in time. This critical trend is something most of us (indirectly) experience through what we society as a whole deems 'knowledgeable' people, but what it actually (scientifically) seems to represent (as I noted in another thread) is an average representation of the circling opinions of the most agreeable individuals in society, compared to the average of opinions of everyone, which as a strange phenomenon yields a very different and less agreeable result due to its calculation of majority outlier opinions. _Majority outlier opinions._ It's a very strange phenomenon indeed! The overall point seems to be, this statistical expression appears in our cultural evolution: most knowledgeable ~(correlated to) most agreeable, and what this actually seems to signify on a more _removed_ level is_ experience_, instead of popularity. This is why Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart are the most critically acclaimed at any point in time since the 1800s, not even of all time. Society tends to consider the most artistically knowledgeable individuals similar to their wide acceptance; it's those individuals who don't actually capture the odder opinions of most people / outliers, who are the most highly-regarded in musical circles, and it's this one of many social phenomenon that people aren't actively conscious of: the pure domino effect of social survey and criticism throughout the years.
> 
> A more passive measure like 'popularity' throughout time, unfortunately doesn't provide us the most agreeablity. It has never done this ongoing topic justice.


Let me try to summarize this.

Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are called the Big Three because that's what the most "agreeable" people call them. Most people, being less "agreeable," have no say in the matter.

Did I miss anything?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Let me try to summarize this.
> 
> Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are called the Big Three because that's what the most "agreeable" people call them. Most people, being less "agreeable," have no say in the matter.


Is that the same as 'the deplorables'?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DaveM said:


> Is that the same as 'the deplorables'?


Sounds pretty deplorable to me.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> Let me try to summarize this.
> 
> Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are called the Big Three because that's what the most "agreeable" people call them. Most people, being less "agreeable," have no say in the matter.
> 
> Did I miss anything?


The way it actually happens in our social evolution to higher and higher forms is ie. from communication and sounds (most varied), to music and poetry (normalizing), to higher musical forms (critically agreed upon) is a _spectrum _of discourse starting from an unknowable past, not a categorical "us vs them." What is only so is, this _phenomenon_ is measurable, and that we can't measure "popularity throughout time." We can measure (to some degree of modern tool) who fits the _standards of critical knowledge_ in this day and age:



Ethereality said:


> The pure domino effect of social survey and criticism throughout the years brings us not only a human perspective of judging 'sound,' but it can be argued that _music itself _is the result of this social domino effect from the beginning. Our way of understanding sound, and what music actually is, is essentially one. We know that social memes (the non-genetics) have hardwire*d the majority of genetic changes to our species, ie. we are adapted for our environment.* Fruit tastes right for a reason but delicious junk food tastes better--At a human level, communication and nature sounds right for a reason, but music sounds better. A more passive measure like 'popularity throughout time' unfortunately doesn't provide us the most agreeablity, not justly accounting for the higher-level thought being constantly updated in our causal discourse.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Jacck said:


> if I should add a fourth the holy trinity, I might add Monteverdi. Neither Brahms nor Mahler are sufficiently original or revolutionary to fit the highest pantheon in my opinion. Bach is the culmination of Baroque, Mozart is the culmination of classicism, Beethoven is the culmination of Romantism, Monteverdi is the culmination of Renaissance


Renaissance/baroque/classical/romantic are merely "academic" distinctions, and are not absolute. We could alternatively put Bach and Mozart in the same "18th century" category looking at similarities like their harpsichord-playing tradition, the amount of figured bass in their writing. And put composers of the next century, in the "19th century" category.
The concept of the "Big Three: Bach/Mozart/Beethoven" was not created merely by "picking one good composer from each era". They're the ones that continually inspired and made huge impression in the Western classical music tradition ever since their time (probably more than others), and although I think the Renaissance ones like Palestrina and Gesualdo are also good, they didn't really make an impression on later generations of composers for over centuries as much as Bach/Mozart/Beethoven did. Sure, they did their part in development of classical music in their time, but their "impact" was not quite like Bach/Mozart/Beethoven.

"If Papa has not yet had those [instrumental] works by Eberlin copied, so much the better, for in the meantime I have got hold of them and now I see (for I had forgotten them) that they are unfortunately far too trivial to deserve a place beside Handel and Bach. With due respect for his four-part composition I may say that his clavier fugues are nothing but long-drawn-out voluntaries." -Mozart, letter to his father, 1782

"I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven." -Wagner

"In Bach, the vital cells of music are united as the world is in God." -Mahler



Jacck said:


> not necessarily. As the genre of popular music shows, the masses can be convinced to listen to even total garbage because they think it is popular. So popular "hits" are made. The recording studio pays the radios to play it over and over again, and thus create hits out of garbage. I am not suggesting that it works the same with classical music, but it might play some role. Some classical works are played over and over again on the classical radios and on concerts, people hear them, get used to them and then require them. So a positive feedback loop between exposure and popularity forms.


Would you include this in your category of "crappy popular stuff"? I often see you bashing Mozart/Beethoven with your logic, but never Schubert:





(I find the portrayal of the constant vamp of the piano part in the video hilarious. :lol

Having "illogical hatred" for the popular/overplayed stuff just because it's popular/overplayed seems equally "brainless" in my view. (I've seen many pop/rock/metal fans doing this) I think the classical music fandom shouldn't judge music this way. How popular/overplayed something is shouldn't affect your judgement because it has nothing to do with how good/bad it is in terms of the quality of composition.

I think the Golden Age of classical music composition ended long ago. There's far too much good stuff produced in the common practice period alone, I feel there's no more need to produce any more in our time. Sometimes when I come across people who argue "ban Beethoven in the 250th anniversary of his birth so that we can play modern classical music more in concert halls", they strike me more as 20th/21th century film-music listeners, rather than real classical music listeners. If this continues to be an issue, I think we should part our ways. Redefine "classical music" by separating all the "underrated" 20th/21th century stuff into a genre of their own (ex. "contemporary music"), like how jazz is a separate genre from classical. Let them leave "real classical music" and create a separate genre of their own to perform/promote all the "underrated stuff" they want. (And we would also have separate forums, communities etc)

btw, I'm interested in a lot of contemporaries of Mozart and Beethoven (such as Hasse, Eberlin, Adlgasser, M. Haydn, Kozeluch, Abel, Quantz, G. Benda, Hummel, Cherubini, Danzi, Dussek etc) , I can say the general level of Mozart and Beethoven's work still stands out in their time. I can't say the same for Schubert's (aside from the fact he produced some beautiful tunes), unfortunately. And I do think the general public isn't informed enough of the truths of Schubert: his "semi-professionalism", misleading them into thinking he was actually fully "professional" like Haydn and Handel. So artists like Schubert actually benefit from the public's ignorance.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> I think that the BBC did this sort of survey and that they plumped for Bach, Stravinsky and Beethoven.


I found that ranking pretty bizzare. They had Phillip Glass and John Cage around 20th~25th places, but completely neglected Handel and Mendelssohn. I have zero respect for the composers who participated in that ranking anyway (such as Chin Unsuk). And I certainly don't consider Glass and Cage as real classical music composers.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

The issue there is we're asking successful 'composers.' So due to limiting the field of inquiry to "imaginary, invented domains" like _classical music,_ we've removed all objectivity from the measure. You might as well ask only hip hop artists who the best composers are.

As described above, the best domain for collecting top names in music I believe is the whole human sphere at its most harmonious. If we hypothetically had just a "Love Beethoven Hate Bach" camp and visa versa, then neither of these two could be considered great, there's no consensus. But instead we see a mathematical convergence to these two musicians from most people today, not to most popular artists of the century like The Beatles, Elvis, Michael Jackson etc.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

SONNET CLV said:


> Kit Marlowe, born the same year as Shakespeare (1564), tragically died (most likely murdered) at the early age of 29. By that year, 1593, Shakespeare had written maybe four plays (the three _Henry VI_ histories among them), none of them his best work, and they may likely have been collaborations with Marlowe. On the other hand, by that same year *Marlowe had completed his handful of masterworks including The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, Tamburlaine, *and _Doctor Faustus_, all of which had a tremendous influence upon Shakespeare. I suspect that had Shakespeare died in 1593 we would not much know his name, at least not as a playwright. Had Marlowe gotten the chance to go on … well, it's like contemplating what Mozart or Schubert may have accomplished with more years to work.
> 
> And, I hate to be disagreeable, but the five-act structure common to Elizabethan and Jacobean plays (including those of Marlowe and Shakespeare) was something unknown to the playwrights who wrote the plays of that era. Rather the five-act division was done later by various editors who prepared the plays for publication, well after the deaths of these writers. The editors were likely influenced by the Greek and Roman tragedy formats which generally featured five episodes alternated with Choral odes.
> 
> In fact, the very early English tragedy titled _The Tragedie of Gorboduc_, by Sackville and Norton, features five acts. The play was written a few years before Shakespeare and Marlowe were born. It is true that Marlowe was an influence upon Shakespeare, and Shakespeare seems to verify this in a couple of passages in his own plays where he pays homage to Marlowe, but the five act play structure is generally not what is discussed when the topic of Marlowe's influence upon Shakespeare is broached. Rather, it is generally the strength of Marlowe's blank verse and his individuation of characters that seem to be the major topics of discussion.


I'm not sure what you get out of this sort of analysis based on the development of certain formal characteristics (or perhaps only of the fashion for them). Lesser artists can influence great ones, perhaps? But reading (or even better seeing) any of those Marlowe "masterworks" that you list would find it hard to accept Marlowe as someone who might have been as great as Shakespeare was. To start with Shakespeare's characters are so much more rounded and so the dramas about them are so much more powerful.

In music, too, I feel we would get so much nearer to what works if we dropped an analytical search for compositional excellence and just listened to whole works.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Since taking polls among record-buyers and concert-goers - or forum members - is a rather recent phenomenon and one that doesn't interest many of us even now, it may be relevant to ask whether, and for how long, the Big Three have been the Big Three among musically knowledgeable people who don't make judgments based on statistical surveys of the man on the street. I don't think the expression "Big Three" was coined by music magazines, radio stations, or chat rooms.
> 
> What's your justification for assuming that it "cannot mean general compositional superiority"? Or for thinking that popularity is the only alternative?


Wouldn't it take an objective argument to prove that the best regarded compositions of the 'Big Three' are superior to those of the rest? Are you saying you accept that the three wrote superior music to someone like Wagner whom you are known to champion?

'Popularity' would include the views of those 'musically knowledgeable people' you mention; let's not forget that such informed music lovers aren't exempt from some dodgy biases.

I wanted to spend more time responding but can't at the moment and apologies if my assumption re Wagner is off.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

DaveM said:


> I will repeat that in the case of the great composers, they are popular because they are great, not great because they are popular. And of course it is primarily due to compositional superiority.


If, as you say, they are great because their compositions are superior (irrespective of popularity) then isn't there an onus on you to demonstrate as much? Essentially, you are attempting to objectively denigrating works not by the three that some listeners actually consider greater.


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## Alinde (Feb 8, 2020)

Hammeredklavier, mate, give a teenager a break!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

In Beethoven's case, he clearly was an innovator as he went, in his own time and ours. In Mozart and Bach's case, I think it was due to a re-examination of their output, along with repeated performances. I think their piano/keyboard output (all three) had a lot to do with it.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Bigbang said:


> Not sure of the meaning or definition of culmination but I just bought a philips duo---The best of the renaissance, and Monteverdi's works was not even listed.
> 
> I think Beethoven while not exactly the culmination of the classical period kicked the door down for the romantic period and the modern to follow. Oh, and help usher in the "modern" piano as he demanded better pianos.


Monteverdi invented the genre of opera, his surviving operas are real masterpieces of beauty. He composed many wonderful madrigals, some amazing church music. The Vespers are real masterpiece too, one of the best church musics ever composed imho. He transitioned from renaissance into baroque. Real genius and revolutionary, sadly neglected.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> I think that the BBC did this sort of survey and that they plumped for Bach, Stravinsky and Beethoven.


that's right - Stravinsky ahead of Beethoven - ha ha ha - and all because of 1 outstanding piece

Mozart was 4th.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

SONNET CLV said:


> Have you never heard the last 20 or so Mozart Piano Concerti?


no accounting for taste

I know people who love mozart's symphonies, concertis - but see nothing of any worth in the operas - but then neither do those listeners think anything of Haydn's operas.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

SONNET CLV said:


> Kit Marlowe, born the same year as Shakespeare (1564), tragically died (most likely murdered) at the early age of 29. By that year, 1593, Shakespeare had written maybe four plays (the three _Henry VI_ histories among them), none of them his best work, and they may likely have been collaborations with Marlowe. On the other hand, by that same year Marlowe had completed his handful of masterworks including _The Jew of Malta_, _Edward the Second_, _Tamburlaine_, and _Doctor Faustus_, all of which had a tremendous influence upon Shakespeare. I suspect that had Shakespeare died in 1593 we would not much know his name, at least not as a playwright. Had Marlowe gotten the chance to go on … *well, it's like contemplating what Mozart or Schubert may have accomplished with more years to work.*
> 
> And, I hate to be disagreeable, but the five-act structure common to Elizabethan and Jacobean plays (including those of Marlowe and Shakespeare) was something unknown to the playwrights who wrote the plays of that era. Rather the five-act division was done later by various editors who prepared the plays for publication, well after the deaths of these writers. The editors were likely influenced by the Greek and Roman tragedy formats which generally featured five episodes alternated with Choral odes.
> 
> In fact, the very early English tragedy titled _The Tragedie of Gorboduc_, by Sackville and Norton, features five acts. The play was written a few years before Shakespeare and Marlowe were born. It is true that Marlowe was an influence upon Shakespeare, and Shakespeare seems to verify this in a couple of passages in his own plays where he pays homage to Marlowe, but the five act play structure is generally not what is discussed when the topic of Marlowe's influence upon Shakespeare is broached. Rather, it is generally the strength of Marlowe's blank verse and his individuation of characters that seem to be the major topics of discussion.


That comment is off the mark - Mozart's qualitative output is vast - in a way that Marlowe's was not. Schubert too.

Who bothers with Marlowe today? And compare that with Mozart and Schubert.

I would say Bizet is a better example - of an artist who began to make an impact and was cut down relatively early.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

DaveM said:


> Is that the same as 'the deplorables'?


I must be a deplorable. I acknowledge that Bach is great, but have no interest. I acknowledge that Mozart is great, but have no interest. Perhaps Mozart's music is gutless vs the gut wrenching work that Ludwig put into his music. Mozart like champagne, sickly sweet. Beethoven like a good dry wine you can roll around on your tongue. Beethoven was pushing the envelope, but Haydn and Mozart were more solidly set in classical era.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

The thread has moved from defining the Big Three to who exactly is in the top group. That's fine. Getting back to the OP, I generally agree with the following:



Woodduck said:


> If we were to investigate what composers and other accomplished classical musicians have thought of the composers who make up our musical inheritance, which ones do you suppose would be most admired? If we're going to ask anyone who the Big Three are (or whether there really are a Big Three), aren't these the best people to ask?





Art Rock said:


> The three who, when you take the average of individuals' tastes (be they amateur listeners or experts - no matter how to define the latter), always get out on top.


Personally, I'd give more weight to what those who worked and lived with classical music (composers, performers, conductors) than to "average people," but I believe ArtRock is correct that both groups collectively place Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart in the top group.

When people evaluate composers they use a wide variety of metrics including technical writing, aesthetics (do I like their works and how much), innovation, influence on other composers, and possibly other aspects. Few will agree on how to weight these metrics even if they agree on the "score" a given composer has for a particular metric. Some will place aesthetics extremely high, and that's perfectly OK.

So defining the Big Three boils down to a general, collective assessment among the (vast?) majority of large groups of classical music listeners. Individuals in any such group will use differing metrics with different weights, but the overall assessment will generally give the same result - Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

janxharris said:


> If, as you say, they are great because their compositions are superior (irrespective of popularity) then isn't there an onus on you to demonstrate as much? Essentially, you are attempting to objectively denigrating works not by the three that some listeners actually consider greater.


If you notice, my comment said 'the great composers', not 'the 3 great composers'. There are more than 3 great composers.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

janxharris said:


> ...Essentially, you are attempting to objectively denigrating works not by the three that some listeners actually consider greater.


Isn't there a difference between saying a group of composers is great and denigrating composer X? If I arbitrarily call a group of 25 composers great, would I be denigrating Schoenberg, whose music I love, because he may just miss that grouping?


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

SixFootScowl said:


> I must be a deplorable. I acknowledge that Bach is great, but have no interest. I acknowledge that Mozart is great, but have no interest. Perhaps Mozart's music is gutless vs the gut wrenching work that Ludwig put into his music. Mozart like champagne, sickly sweet. Beethoven like a good dry wine you can roll around on your tongue. Beethoven was pushing the envelope, but Haydn and Mozart were more solidly set in classical era.


Mozart's later works, especially the vocal ones, are not at all "gutless".


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

janxharris said:


> Wouldn't it take an objective argument to prove that the best regarded compositions of the 'Big Three' are superior to those of the rest?


Music, and excellence in music, has to be perceived before it can be explained or evaluated. It's possible to talk at great length about what makes a composer or work extraordinary, but the words will mean nothing to someone who can't hear what they refer to and can't value what he's hearing. An Indian musician could talk all day about why one sitar player is a great musician and another merely good, and I'd be lucky to understand half of what he was telling me despite the fact that I have some acquaintance with sitar music and do enjoy it. Demands for "objective proof" in music are a bottomless pit, since aesthetic values are all contextual and conditional and rest on wider values which themselves can be contested (though often at the price of absurdity). There's always someone who will ask, "Can you PROVE OBJECTIVELY that order is superior to chaos? That beauty is preferable to ugliness? That existence is better than nonexistence? That anything is superior to anything?"



> Are you saying you accept that the three wrote superior music to someone like Wagner whom you are known to champion?


In some respects, yes; in others, no. But Wagner is a special case, for obvious reasons. As artistic achievements I think his greatest works are comparable to anything human beings have created, but music is only part (though by far the most important part) of them.



> 'Popularity' would include the views of those 'musically knowledgeable people' you mention; let's not forget that such informed music lovers aren't exempt from some dodgy biases.


Dodgy biases tend to get ironed out over time. The Big 3 have had plenty of time to answer their critics.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> If we were to investigate what composers and other accomplished classical musicians have thought of the composers who make up our musical inheritance, which ones do you suppose would be most admired? If we're going to ask anyone who the Big Three are (or whether there really are a Big Three), aren't these the best people to ask?


Exactly! The premise that the 'great' composers are known as such based purely on the parameter of popularity is a real head scratcher (I'm trying to be kind). Just one example of the gist of your post: "_it took Brahms 14 years to complete the piece [his first symphony] because he felt the weight of Beethoven so much on his shoulders_" Why was that? Was Brahms afraid of not being as popular or was it that he wanted to create something that had the originality, substance and quality that people recognized in Beethoven's music; that 'something' that people associate with 'greatness'.


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## Flossner (Mar 8, 2020)

Jacck said:


> if I should add a fourth the holy trinity, I might add Monteverdi. Neither Brahms nor Mahler are sufficiently original or revolutionary to fit the highest pantheon in my opinion. Bach is the culmination of Baroque, Mozart is the culmination of classicism, Beethoven is the culmination of Romantism, Monteverdi is the culmination of Renaissance


I thought Monteverdi was considered to be one breaking from Renaissance practice, moving away from the predominatly polyphonic style of Palestrina to a more homophonic style.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> The concept of the "Big Three: Bach/Mozart/Beethoven" was not created merely by "picking one good composer from each era". They're the ones that continually inspired and made huge impression in the Western classical music tradition ever since their time (probably more than others)...
> 
> "I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven." -Wagner
> 
> "In Bach, the vital cells of music are united as the world is in God." -Mahler


I have gained a new, greater respect for Wagner (not that I did not already have a great respect for this music maker) from the quotation posted by hammeredklavier. Can it be that Wagner steps ahead of even Mahler to acknowledge that Bach is _indeed_ God himself?


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## Bigbang (Jun 2, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> Let me try to summarize this.
> 
> Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are called the Big Three because that's what the most "agreeable" people call them. Most people, being less "agreeable," have no say in the matter.
> 
> Did I miss anything?


No. In fact I have seen all three named as the "greatest" composer in some article or interview at one time or another. I can't say I ever heard any other name come up number 1. Anyone who has an article or video clip where some expert says any other composer I would like to see it out of curiosity.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

SONNET CLV said:


> Kit Marlowe, born the same year as Shakespeare (1564), tragically died (most likely murdered) at the early age of 29. By that year, 1593, Shakespeare had written maybe four plays (the three _Henry VI_ histories among them), none of them his best work, and they may likely have been collaborations with Marlowe. On the other hand, by that same year *Marlowe had completed his handful of masterworks including The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, Tamburlaine*, and _Doctor Faustus_, all of which had a tremendous influence upon Shakespeare. I suspect that had Shakespeare died in 1593 we would not much know his name, at least not as a playwright. Had Marlowe gotten the chance to go on … *well, it's like contemplating what Mozart or Schubert may have accomplished with more years to work.*
> 
> And, I hate to be disagreeable, but the five-act structure common to Elizabethan and Jacobean plays (including those of Marlowe and Shakespeare) was something unknown to the playwrights who wrote the plays of that era. Rather the five-act division was done later by various editors who prepared the plays for publication, well after the deaths of these writers. The editors were likely influenced by the Greek and Roman tragedy formats which generally featured five episodes alternated with Choral odes.
> 
> In fact, the very early English tragedy titled _The Tragedie of Gorboduc_, by Sackville and Norton, features five acts. The play was written a few years before Shakespeare and Marlowe were born. It is true that Marlowe was an influence upon Shakespeare, and Shakespeare seems to verify this in a couple of passages in his own plays where he pays homage to Marlowe, but the five act play structure is generally not what is discussed when the topic of Marlowe's influence upon Shakespeare is broached. Rather, it is generally the strength of Marlowe's blank verse and his individuation of characters that seem to be the major topics of discussion.





Enthusiast said:


> I'm not sure what you get out of this sort of analysis based on the development of certain formal characteristics (or perhaps only of the fashion for them). Lesser artists can influence great ones, perhaps? But reading (or even better seeing) any of those Marlowe "masterworks" that you list would find it *hard to accept Marlowe as someone who might have been as great as Shakespeare was.* To start with Shakespeare's characters are so much more rounded and so the dramas about them are so much more powerful.
> 
> In music, too, I feel we would get so much nearer to what works if we dropped an analytical search for compositional excellence and just listened to whole works.


and



PlaySalieri said:


> That comment is off the mark - *Mozart's qualitative output is vast - in a way that Marlowe's was not. Schubert too.
> 
> Who bothers with Marlowe today? *And compare that with Mozart and Schubert.
> 
> I would say Bizet is a better example - of an artist who began to make an impact and was cut down relatively early.


Not to turn this thread into a drama critique, but …. I have maintained many a time, and continue to, that Mozart is a miracle amongst human artists. He's the one in a billion, or a million billion, and is hardly matter for comparison to anyone. I do fantasize (and I know, vainly) about what might have been had he been able to tap into the musical mindset of Beethoven and reflect upon that composer's contributions to musical "form" and "sound" and the whole "philosophical revolution" that was happening in arts following the French Revolution and the sprouting seeds of Romanticism. Had Mozart lived to 1830, to the age of 74, what music might we have had from him? Such thoughts boggle my own thinking and produce the same kind of pent-up explosiveness I experience when contemplating the vastness of the universe or the minuteness of quantum particles.

Too, my respect for Schubert remains almost without peer. What might he have accomplished musically had he lived on to, say, age 57, the age at which Beethoven himself died too young. I recall reading once something to the effect that: somebody calculated the amount of time it would take to hand notate Schubert's works, and that it proves nearly impossible within the span of 15 years of so, the length of Schubert's compositional career, to have written those works even had the composer not eaten or slept during that time. But, it wasn't this great impossibility that provoked wonder in him who did this calculation. What struck him with awe was that nearly every one of the works Schubert produced in that time was a masterpiece.

I often find it easier to ponder astrophysics, cosmology, and the quantum theory, simultaneously, than to reflect upon the musical achievements of Mozart and Schubert.

But poor Christopher Marlowe. By the age of 29 he had written some astounding dramas. And, sure, he never did create the great "rounded" characters of his fellow playwright Will Shakespeare, but neither did Will Shakespeare in those first three _Henry VI_ plays! What Shakespeare _did_ do was reflect upon those characters Marlowe had created -- Barabas, Edward, Tamberlaine, Faustus -- and built upon what Marlowe had taught him to finally achieve what critic Harold Bloom terms "the invention of the human" in literature. We somewhat know how Shakespeare learned and who his influences were, and we can trace his dramaturgical growth/development through the thirty-seven or so plays he produced and finally come to confront Hamlet and Macbeth, Falstaff and Cleopatra, Rosalind and Shylock. Shylock is a good example of a character lifted from a Marlovian drama and developed to greater heights by Shakespeare. Shylock shines with the illumination of a finely polished diamond, while Barabas merely twinkles at times. But is there even that much twinkle in any of the _Henry VI_ plays? We can analyze Shakespeare's origins and growth, but where did Marlowe come from with such gifts at such an early age?

It may be unfair to compare Marlowe to Shakespeare in terms of lifetime accomplishments, but the comparison between the years 1585 and 1590 likely gives the nod to Marlowe. We study/read/perform Marlowe's plays today because they are all he wrote; we study/play/perform Shakespeare's early _Henry VI_ plays because Shakespeare also wrote _them_. And, I suspect that of those of you reading this comment there are many more familiar with the aforementioned dramas by Marlowe than with those three Shakespeare Henry VI plays. (These are not the ones featuring Hal and Falstaff, by the way.)

For us literary folk, and us drama folk, the death of Marlowe was a great blow, worthy of our lamentation. True, he may never have achieved what Shakespeare finally was capable of, but we cannot know what that alternate universe would have ultimately revealed.

Nor can we know what Mozart or Schubert, or Bizet, may have accomplished beyond what they did, but I'm sure that many of us wish they had had a greater opportunity to have done something more. I know I wish that. And I see no harm in ruminating upon the matter.

Finally, to return to an above quotation: "Mozart's qualitative output is vast - in a way that Marlowe's was not. Schubert too." I agree heartily. Mozart is a miracle, and so is Schubert in my opinion. But playwriting is different from musical composition, at least it seems so since ancient Greek times. Haydn wrote over 100 symphonies and much other music; the ancient playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides wrote prodigiously, from some 70 to 120 plays each. I lament that we have so few of their works to witness, but isn't it odd that the few we do have rank among the great masterworks of drama? If Sophocles wrote 120 plays and we have only 7 extant, and all 7 are masterworks (and they are), what of those other 113? The headache begins anew.

Marlowe's qualitative output is not so bad considering that we still study that handful of plays he wrote prior to being killed at age 29. Shakespeare, indeed, the great Shakespeare for whom I have inestimable esteem (having read, researched and written about, acted in, directed, and designed plays of his), follows Marlowe in qualitative output to age 29. Which makes me wonder what that above quote -- "Mozart's qualitative output is vast - in a way that Marlowe's was not. Schubert too." -- even means, when one figures Shakespeare into the equation under equal circumstances.

My appreciation and respect for Shakespeare is only rivalled by my appreciation and respect for Mozart (and in the realm of visual arts, Michelangelo). These artists have achieved seemingly super-human status, and it perhaps remains more critical that we honor and enjoy what they have accomplished than meaninglessly speculate upon what may or may not have been. Still, that human side of us ponders as it will, and that's okay, too.

I thank all of you who read what I write on this site, and especially thank those who find it worth comment.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

SixFootScowl said:


> I must be a deplorable. I acknowledge that Bach is great, but have no interest. I acknowledge that Mozart is great, but have no interest. Perhaps Mozart's music is gutless vs the gut wrenching work that Ludwig put into his music. Mozart like champagne, sickly sweet. Beethoven like a good dry wine you can roll around on your tongue. Beethoven was pushing the envelope, but Haydn and Mozart were more solidly set in classical era.


Interesting how perceptions differ. Haydn comes across to me as an excellent craftsman, with very little depth in his soul. Bach and Mozart sound enlightened, Beethoven sounds like someone who is trying very hard to be enlightened, selling it even.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

tdc said:


> Beethoven sounds like someone who is trying very hard to be enlightened, selling it even.


He was enlightened but in a different way, and perhaps some of us are just more attuned to each enlightenment. Beethoven was enlightened by the potential for depth in_ single statements_: how they could overarchingly develop within themselves by using clever harmony/rhythm matching to round out a profound pathway, and for me at least, Beethoven kind of represents a music appreciation 101 by how he was able to showcase this fact, inspiring precisely the modus for Romanticsm: "The new development."

Whether one wants to call Beethoven "genius" or "one of the best because he was privileged," I personally see nothing bad about the second title. To me he was perfecting the basics, the 101s.

When Beethoven heard music like Mozart's and Bach's, I honestly think it was a lot more similar to how the great Romantics heard the music than how Mozart and Bach heard it: it's kind of like waking up on the wrong side of the bed and suddenly Classical music sounds different. I don't know if Haydn 'got' it.



Woodduck said:


> Let me try to summarize this.
> 
> Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are called the Big Three because that's what the most "agreeable" people call them. Most people, being less "agreeable," have no say in the matter.
> 
> Did I miss anything?


Also, I'm not really sure if the above was rhetorical, but I don't get it. Though I did answer in the negative to your question.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

SONNET CLV said:


> Not to turn this thread into a drama critique, but …. I have maintained many a time, and continue to, that Mozart is a miracle amongst human artists. He's the one in a billion, or a million billion, and is hardly matter for comparison to anyone. I do fantasize (and I know, vainly) about what might have been had he been able to tap into the musical mindset of Beethoven and reflect upon that composer's contributions to musical "form" and "sound" and the whole "philosophical revolution" that was happening in arts following the French Revolution and the sprouting seeds of Romanticism. Had Mozart lived to 1830, to the age of 74, what music might we have had from him? Such thoughts boggle my own thinking and produce the same kind of pent-up explosiveness I experience when contemplating the vastness of the universe or the minuteness of quantum particles.


I might fantasize if Mozart and Beethoven were somehow switched. Beethoven is the earlier of the two, with the short life, I would like to hear this music as I feel it would be less dramatic and developed than Mozart, more in a _forward Baroque spirit, _even.

I think Romanticism owes equally to Mozart and the thought excites me to hear Beethoven before Mozart. It won't be too long though, my copy of Universe Simulator is arriving soon, and I'll be the dunce before both of them.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Ethereality said:


> I might fantasize if Mozart and Beethoven were somehow switched. Beethoven is the earlier of the two, with the short life, I would like to hear this music as I feel it would be less dramatic and developed than Mozart, more in a _forward Baroque spirit, _even.
> 
> I think Romanticism owes equally to Mozart and the thought excites me to hear Beethoven before Mozart. It won't be too long though, my copy of Universe Simulator is arriving soon, and I'll be the dunce before both of them.


I take it you mean had Beethoven (with his mind and sensibilities) been born in 1756 and lived till 1791, how might his music have progressed? If he even would have become a composer! It seems I heard from somewhere that Beethoven's father pushed him into music in order to make money in the way the Mozart's family was profiteering from their genius son. In any case, had Beethoven been the earlier composer I suppose he would have written music closer to that we hear from Haydn, but I suppose it would have been rather remarkable in any case. Haydn on steroids, perhaps. Beethoven's genius was as an innovator, so he likely would have taken off from Haydn's works and perhaps written the same (or similar) First and Second symphonies, and first three Piano Concertos, and those early piano sonatas and string quartets, all of which seem to have been influenced perhaps more by Haydn than by Mozart.

And, had Mozart been born in 1770? He would have had similar models to those the born in 1756 Mozart had, and so he, too, may have produced much of his same music. Though I see Beethoven as an innovator and revolutionary, I see Mozart more in the role of a perfector, one of those artists who takes the materials already around him and brings them to their finish, their height. Perfectors bring the art form to a glorious end, in a sense, which opens the door to the Innovators to bring on something new. Innovators open the door and start anew. This is what Beethoven did, having seen Mozart's music brought to an illustrious height. Only something "new" could do; else one would simply repeat Mozart, and probably at a much lesser level.

Schubert reminds me of an elder Mozart, writing the kind of music Mozart may have penned under the influence of Beethoven. This is the special miracle of Schubert, who is, in a sense, Mozart Part II. Mendelssohn might be Mozart Part III, but that's a greater stretch. Still, I see more the influence of Schubert and Mozart in Mendelssohn's brand of Romanticism than I see the influence of Beethoven. Brahms, on the other hand, strikes me as a logical progression from Beethoven, with a little bit of a step between from Robert Schumann. Wagner, too, is a Beethoven progression. Both Brahms and Wagner were perfectors, taking the Romantic art form introduced by Beethoven to a great height, and then leading to the door for something new. Both Brahms and Wagner seem, to me, predecessors of Schoenberg, one of the great Innovators. Schoenberg realizes the Romanticism of Brahms and Wagner (two composers he worships) is at an end game, and so he institutes a new way to progress.

Yes, it's fun to speculate.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

DaveM said:


> If you notice, my comment said 'the great composers', not 'the 3 great composers'. There are more than 3 great composers.


Apologies if I made an assumption though you have implied that you consider the three objectively greater:



DaveM said:


> Of course, that Einstein was our greatest theoretical physicist merely equates to the fact that he was the most popular.


which was a response to my citation of another poster:

"...I think we can take it as fact that Bach Mozart and Beethoven were the three greatest composers in Western classical music...."

And this exchange:



DaveM said:


> Have done so frequently during the more than one long discussions about it. Not going to repeat it except to say that creating melodies, developing them, orchestrating in original ways and so on are skills and there are objective ways to show that some are more skilled at it than others. Not to mention that creating something that has attracted countless people from different cultures for centuries goes well beyond simple popularity.


in response to my:



> I'm not actually averring that Bach, Beethoven and Mozart aren't the greatest - rather that such is not provable (or at least has not been). Music is not like science which makes testable predictions - making objective verification possible.
> 
> Your assertion requires defending DaveM.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

It's all a matter of time & place and in hindsight it means nothing at all.









The same equation 5 years earlier or 70 years later will give a complete different result.

How can one compare composers from 600+ years of for their supposed quality? It is just a matter of taste.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> Isn't there a difference between saying a group of composers is great and denigrating composer X? If I arbitrarily call a group of 25 composers great, would I be denigrating Schoenberg, whose music I love, because he may just miss that grouping?


If an assertion is made that certain composer's works are objectively superior to all others then it would be.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ That's not true. If 25 composers were named by someone as the greatest ever that would not mean the person's #26 was "no good" it would just mean that the person felt that there were 25 composers (out of all there have ever been) who were greater. What difference would it make if the person added an assertion that their judgment is objective? That claim - dubious though it may be - is not related to the standing of #26.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

SONNET CLV said:


> I take it you mean had Beethoven (with his mind and sensibilities) been born in 1756 and lived till 1791, how might his music have progressed? If he even would have become a composer! It seems I heard from somewhere that Beethoven's father pushed him into music in order to make money in the way the Mozart's family was profiteering from their genius son. In any case, had Beethoven been the earlier composer I suppose he would have written music closer to that we hear from Haydn, but I suppose it would have been rather remarkable in any case. Haydn on steroids, perhaps. Beethoven's genius was as an innovator, so he likely would have taken off from Haydn's works and perhaps written the same (or similar) First and Second symphonies, and first three Piano Concertos, and those early piano sonatas and string quartets, all of which seem to have been influenced perhaps more by Haydn than by Mozart.
> 
> And, had Mozart been born in 1770? He would have had similar models to those the born in 1756 Mozart had, and so he, too, may have produced much of his same music. Though I see Beethoven as an innovator and revolutionary, I see Mozart more in the role of a perfector, one of those artists who takes the materials already around him and brings them to their finish, their height. Perfectors bring the art form to a glorious end, in a sense, which opens the door to the Innovators to bring on something new. Innovators open the door and start anew. This is what Beethoven did, having seen Mozart's music brought to an illustrious height. Only something "new" could do; else one would simply repeat Mozart, and probably at a much lesser level.
> 
> ...


Interesting text. I agree with most what you said, but Wagner for me is an innovator, not just a perfector (perhaps an innovator and perfector?).


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Allerius said:


> Interesting text. I agree with most what you said, but Wagner for me is an innovator, not just a perfector (perhaps an innovator and perfector?).


Of course, you're right there. An artist can certainly belong to both schools at the same time, though likely one persuasion will have sway over the other. Though I view Mozart as the great perfector, as was J.S. Bach (who seems to have killed off the further development of Baroque-style music), I could argue that Mozart was an innovator in both the operatic form and the piano concerto. Few "classical era" pieces reach as close to the newer "Romantic" sensibility than do those late Mozartian operas and piano concertos.

Beethoven, for me, remains a powerful innovator first and foremost. He seems to have floundered around a bit in Haydn-like classicism for the first few years of his compositional career, but when the Third Symphony comes along all is changed forever. And he never stops after that to look back. It's all charge ahead forward. Which left a lot of new channels of operation open for further exploration: forms, genres, harmonies, instrumental use possibilities, philosophical underpinnings. Which leads to a riches for the following crop of Romantic composers, all of whom, in some sense, tap into Beethoven's contributions. This makes that crop of 19th century Romantics largely of the perfectionist school. Beethoven left a lot of things to perfect, and composers are still working on it.

Of course, eventually the innovator Debussy would come along with his wildly mad ideas on harmony and instrumental color, and a completely new avenue is opened for further exploration by a new crop of perfectors.

It doesn't tell the whole story, certainly, or solve all of the critical/historical problems of artistic progression, but the concept of the innovator and perfector does seem to explain a lot in a coherent sense. And it's applicable to all art forms. And of course all art forms have artists who prove practitioners in both areas, which is an intriguing arena of exploration. A great perfecter might prove an innovator in a single, strong area, which then others will go on to perfect. It is this work of innovators and perfectors that pushes the arts forward.

ADDENDA -- I add this while I can. Above I speak of Perfectors and Innovators in the art field. There is a third school, the Imitators. This includes the large bulk of artists who do little more than strive to repeat what is out there, never attaining a need to perfect anything or lacking the gift of innovating. Imitators are not necessarily "bad" artists, and they encompass a wide range of skills and abilities, some being better than others, but they are largely for the consumer market and they supply us with the day to day art that fills our lives without ever making a notable splash which will land them into the front ranks of art immortality.

In music, the composer Ferdinand Ries is a prime example of an Imitator. A contemporary of Beethoven, Ries apparently admired Beethoven greatly and knew him well. His own symphonies are Beethoven-like without ever stepping into the realm of "greatness", whatever that may be. Anyone unfamiliar with Ries might do well to listen to the composer's own Fifth Symphony, and they will become immediately cognizant of what an imitative artist is. The music is well-crafted and certainly listenable, but … (Interestingly enough, that Fifth Symphony was actually the fourth one Ries wrote, but through publication channels it was assigned the number five, which changes everything when it comes to one's appreciation of the work. Poor Ries. I think a single listen to this piece explains what I am trying to say.)

One last point about the Imitators.... Such artists, the bulk of those who work in arts, may also have a thread of Perfectionism or Innovation in them, which accounts for those few works or bits and pieces or moments of works which give us a particular "awe" effect. Occasionally such an artists "hits one out of the park" to use a baseball metaphor. But those moments prove exceptions rather than rules. And Art remains a complex thing to nail down to a specific cause or effect.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

SONNET CLV said:


> ADDENDA -- I add this while I can. Above I speak of Perfectors and Innovators in the art field. There is a third school, the Imitators. This includes the large bulk of artists who do little more than strive to repeat what is out there, never attaining a need to perfect anything or lacking the gift of innovating. Imitators are not necessarily "bad" artists, and they encompass a wide range of skills and abilities, some being better than others, but they are largely for the consumer market and they supply us with the day to day art that fills our lives without ever making a notable splash which will land them into the front ranks of art immortality.
> 
> In music, the composer Ferdinand Ries is a prime example of an Imitator. A contemporary of Beethoven, Ries apparently admired Beethoven greatly and knew him well. His own symphonies are Beethoven-like without ever stepping into the realm of "greatness", whatever that may be. Anyone unfamiliar with Ries might do well to listen to the composer's own Fifth Symphony, and they will become immediately cognizant of what an imitative artist is. The music is well-crafted and certainly listenable, but … (Interestingly enough, that Fifth Symphony was actually the fourth one Ries wrote, but through publication channels it was assigned the number five, which changes everything when it comes to one's appreciation of the work. Poor Ries. I think a single listen to this piece explains what I am trying to say.)
> 
> One last point about the Imitators.... Such artists, the bulk of those who work in arts, may also have a thread of Perfectionism or Innovation in them, which accounts for those few works or bits and pieces or moments of works which give us a particular "awe" effect. Occasionally such an artists "hits one out of the park" to use a baseball metaphor. But those moments prove exceptions rather than rules. And Art remains a complex thing to nail down to a specific cause or effect.


In [Hollywood / anglophone] film, one could argue that Max Steiner was a perfector, E.W. Korngold a perfector, Bernard Herrmann an innovator, Miklós Rózsa an innovator, Alex North an innovator, Jerry Goldsmith an innovator, Elmer Bernstein something in the middle, John Barry a perfector, and John Williams perhaps the ultimate perfector. Hans Zimmer could be called an innovator, perhaps, although how much are his "innovations" artistically worth is a subject for another debate. So far there has been no "big" perfector for what Zimmer brought in, only a ton of imitators.

Composers like James Horner, James Newton Howard, Michael Giacchino, Alan Silvestri, Bruce Broughton, back in the day Bronisław Kaper, Hugo Friedhofer, and asunder smaller fry are imitators. In fact, it is the prevalence of imitators that gives "film music" such a bad rep. It takes tremendous artists to not become just that on insane schedules.

Mozart and Schubert would have probably loved Hollywood, whereas Beethoven, as Williams suggested once, would have hated it.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

SONNET CLV said:


> Of course, you're right there. An artist can certainly belong to both schools at the same time, though likely one persuasion will have sway over the other. Though I view Mozart as the great perfector, as was J.S. Bach (who seems to have killed off the further development of Baroque-style music), I could argue that Mozart was an innovator in both the operatic form and the piano concerto. Few "classical era" pieces reach as close to the newer "Romantic" sensibility than do those late Mozartian operas and piano concertos.
> 
> Beethoven, for me, remains a powerful innovator first and foremost. He seems to have floundered around a bit in Haydn-like classicism for the first few years of his compositional career, but when the Third Symphony comes along all is changed forever. And he never stops after that to look back. It's all charge ahead forward. Which left a lot of new channels of operation open for further exploration: forms, genres, harmonies, instrumental use possibilities, philosophical underpinnings. Which leads to a riches for the following crop of Romantic composers, all of whom, in some sense, tap into Beethoven's contributions. This makes that crop of 19th century Romantics largely of the perfectionist school. Beethoven left a lot of things to perfect, and composers are still working on it.
> 
> ...


Would you argue, then, that the greatest artists are the ones who blend all the best traits of Innovators, Perfectors, and Imitators? Or do you think one of those is a more worthy quality than the rest? For me, the composer who best sums up all three qualities is Bach - he imitated the "stile antico" of Renaissance polyphony in several works, he perfected polyphony and the "new style" until there was nowhere left for Baroque music to go, and he made monstrous innovations in the use of music for expression, for intellect, for a higher purpose than anyone else had ever imagined. Admittedly, that last one may be somewhat subjective. I also see Mozart as a great perfector of all genres, but I would argue that Brahms has a good case to occupy that spot (he does in my personal Big 3). And of course, it would be hard to say that Beethoven was not The Ultimate Innovator of music history. The early modernists - Debussy, Ives, Stravinsky, Schoenberg... were titans of innovation, but I feel that everyone since then has, to some degree or other been an imitator (not that I'm saying this is a bad thing). But then, could we logically say that all Romantics were imitators of Beethoven because they used the musical language that he popularized; or that all atonal composers are imitators of Schoenberg? I think not. But something to chew on.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

SONNET CLV said:


> Though I view Mozart as the great perfector, as was J.S. Bach (who seems to have killed off the further development of Baroque-style music), I could argue that Mozart was an innovator in both the operatic form and the piano concerto. Few "classical era" pieces reach as close to the newer "Romantic" sensibility than do those late Mozartian operas and piano concertos.


Professor Craig Wright views Mozart as an innovator, in his 3 lectures:

14.1 - Piano Concerto in D minor

"... Just as Haydn was more or less the inventor of the modern string quartet, so Mozart was the father of the piano concerto. He set out the structural framework of the piano concerto, one that lasted into the romantic era, here it is. Mozart developed a stereotypical approach to the first movement of the concerto. It goes by several names, concerto form, double exposition form are the two most common. Double exposition form is a good name for this form because there are as you can see, two expositions. We have one exposition as we had in sonata-allegro form development, recapitulation. But now we have another exposition added at the beginning. The first exposition allows the orchestra to present most of the themes by itself. The pianist will add a couple later on, and do so all in the tonic key.
...
Well I hope you'll share with me my beliefs that this is an extraordinary movement, and how different from the ethos or the feeling of a Baroque concerto of the sort that we experienced with Bach and Vivaldi. Baroque concertos usually just have one mood for a movement. Mozart is full of many different moods. And that helps make these classical movements very exciting, very dramatic. And with its D minor sound, it's almost demonic. ..."

14.2 - Don Giovanni

"... Now we're going to go on to a trio, a very short one, that's an excellent example of a vocal ensemble by Mozart. What's a vocal ensemble? Well, obviously, it's a group of singers. But in the case of Mozart, it's a very special kind of ensemble, three, four, five, even six soloists, each of whom has a different point of view. They don't speak their emotions in succession as they would in an older Baroque opera seria, but all together vocal counterpoint here. Using a vocal ensemble, Mozart can move the drama along faster. Mozart's kind of opera is more fluid, faster paced, and more realistic. Here's how this little vocal ensemble plays out. Don Giovanni is over top of him. Mozart wrote this exquisite little trio here. It goes by very quickly. No body ever noticed it, but it's some of the most beautiful music that he ever wrote. ..."

14.3 - The Requiem


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Fabulin said:


> In [Hollywood / anglophone] film, one could argue that Max Steiner was a perfector, E.W. Korngold a perfector, Bernard Herrmann an innovator, Miklós Rózsa an innovator, Alex North an innovator, Jerry Goldsmith an innovator, Elmer Bernstein something in the middle, John Barry a perfector, and John Williams perhaps the ultimate perfector. Hans Zimmer could be called an innovator, perhaps, although how much are his "innovations" artistically worth is a subject for another debate. So far there has been no "big" perfector for what Zimmer brought in, only a ton of imitators.
> 
> Composers like James Horner, James Newton Howard, Michael Giacchino, Alan Silvestri, Bruce Broughton, back in the day Bronisław Kaper, Hugo Friedhofer, and asunder smaller fry are imitators. In fact, it is the prevalence of imitators that gives "film music" such a bad rep. It takes tremendous artists to not become just that on insane schedules.
> 
> Mozart and Schubert would have probably loved Hollywood, whereas Beethoven, as Williams suggested once, would have hated it.





Allegro Con Brio said:


> Would you argue, then, that the greatest artists are the ones who blend all the best traits of Innovators, Perfectors, and Imitators? Or do you think one of those is a more worthy quality than the rest? For me, the composer who best sums up all three qualities is Bach - he imitated the "stile antico" of Renaissance polyphony in several works, he perfected polyphony and the "new style" until there was nowhere left for Baroque music to go, and he made monstrous innovations in the use of music for expression, for intellect, for a higher purpose than anyone else had ever imagined. Admittedly, that last one may be somewhat subjective. I also see Mozart as a great perfector of all genres, but I would argue that Brahms has a good case to occupy that spot (he does in my personal Big 3). And of course, it would be hard to say that Beethoven was not The Ultimate Innovator of music history. The early modernists - Debussy, Ives, Stravinsky, Schoenberg... were titans of innovation, but I feel that everyone since then has, to some degree or other been an imitator (not that I'm saying this is a bad thing). But then, could we logically say that all Romantics were imitators of Beethoven because they used the musical language that he popularized; or that all atonal composers are imitators of Schoenberg? I think not. But something to chew on.





hammeredklavier said:


> Professor Craig Wright views Mozart as an innovator, in his 3 lectures:
> 
> 14.1 - Piano Concerto in D minor
> ...
> ...


I'm pleased to see so many of you actually pondering this theory of artistry by which I've made many of my own judgments concerning quality of art over the years. Like all subjective concepts it is general and broad and leaves open much for debate, but it does seem to address a viable means of assessing quality in art and skill/talent/genius in artistry.

Harold Bloom, long a favorite literary critic of mine, proposes in his book _Genius_ that there exist many types of genius. To each of the 100 writers Bloom discusses, he pins a specific type of genius, and thus genius becomes a much more narrow and precise quality than that somewhat foggy large, vague notion we generally assume it is.

I have long wished Bloom had been a musical critic as well as a literary one, but his own genius is geared towards language. I long for a Bloom-like critic who could examine the various aspects of genius in composers. Alex Ross in books such as his _The Rest is Noise_ comes close, but the field is still open for a Bloom-like analysis of musical genius. (Both Ross and Bloom, by the way, are recipients of the esteemed MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Award, putting them into a fine company of folks we largely view as geniuses.)

In any case, thank you for reading. And pondering.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I wonder if the majority of methods used to compile "top lists" are too positivity-based, not asking equally for the negative opinions people have towards composers.

If we rephrase the question like "which composers are overrated," yielding a different measure with attention towards the negative side of opinions... according to the data on one website the adjusted Top 25 might look more like this:

1. Mozart	(by a huge margin)
2. Schubert
3. Beethoven
4. Bach
5. Haydn
6. Brahms
7. Mahler
8. Schumann
9. Wagner
10. Ravel	
11. Dvořák
12. Mendelssohn
13. Handel	
14. Shostakovich
15. Sibelius
16. Debussy
17. Bartók
18. Strauss, R
19. Stravinsky
20. Prokofiev
21. Tchaikovsky
22. Chopin
23. Bruckner
24. Monteverdi
25. Liszt

Mozart here I assume fits an ideal balance between the other two, the deviating excellences of both the majority finds central within Mozart. For TC, this can be mimicked_ to a degree _in thread games where composers can get voted down as much as they get voted up, however we're still left to wonder if the majority of methods being _positively-based_ are giving the classical community an incomplete impression (influencing us, so to speak, according to whatever arbitrary standard.)


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I will repeat that in the case of the great composers, they are popular because they are great, not great because they are popular. And of course it is primarily due to compositional superiority._

I would agree with this and say it's why some composers are still being performed regularly hundreds of years after their death in Des Moines, Sacramento and Schenectady while others are forgotten. Anyone can catch on, at least for a while, in a megamarket like London, New York or Tokyo.

Great art has lasting affect and influence; it never goes out of style and always creates new fans everywhere.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

SONNET CLV said:


> I'm pleased to see so many of you actually pondering this theory of artistry by which I've made many of my own judgments concerning quality of art over the years. Like all subjective concepts it is general and broad and leaves open much for debate, but it does seem to address a viable means of assessing quality in art and skill/talent/genius in artistry.
> 
> Harold Bloom, long a favorite literary critic of mine, proposes in his book _Genius_ that there exist many types of genius. To each of the 100 writers Bloom discusses, he pins a specific type of genius, and thus genius becomes a much more narrow and precise quality than that somewhat foggy large, vague notion we generally assume it is.
> 
> ...


I'll have to track that down; I always find Bloom fascinating to read even if I don't completely agree with his criticism. I've been meaning to read his book on Shakespeare; _The Invention of the Human_. I know it's not always helpful to apply literary-type criticism to music, but all art shares at least a portion of that fundamental paradigm that dictates the flow of culture.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Ethereality said:


> I wonder if the majority of methods used to compile "top lists" are too positivity-based, not asking equally for the negative opinions people have towards composers.
> 
> If we rephrase the question like "which composers are overrated," yielding a different measure with attention towards the negative side of opinions... according to the data on one website the adjusted Top 25 might look more like this:
> 
> ...


I'm not certain if the above list is the most overrated composers (i.e. Mozart is the most overrated composer) or a list of top composers with the particular negative aspect, most overrated, included somehow (i.e. Mozart is the greatest composer taking into account how much people overrate him).


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

*Foremost*, it's important to know that the point is in recognizing that most top lists are taken by positive fans of said composers, where 'haters' don't get to vote for how _negative_ they feel towards a composer, and we might begin to wonder if our common knowledge is all wrong. Who are the real _Big Three?_ An easy example to grasp is, number of people might think _John Cage_ is very overrated, as so his real position is actually _much lower_ than we have calculated. The only way it's been reflected is by not voting for him, instead of (a) first giving _every single composer_ a negative number value and (b) then sorting the composers by_ least negative_, instead of_ most positive._ If we did this, we might find his true rank: much lower. Thus, if this overall adjustment is actually reflected in common knowledge, I really don't know. It's easy to say we know _The Big Three _without truly having calculated all perspectives.

Thus, once you grasp the above, essentially some favorite composers don't get much heat, and on the other hand, some of the greatest get a lot of heat from others, a lot of controversy, and it makes us wonder if we should call them as great as their fans do. What the above list is, is an incomplete (using limited information) picture of what "the least negative composers" might look like. However, I should explain, what you don't want to do is look at the list and say "No, X should be higher because his music is obviously more profound" or something like that, because there's a _feel_ to this list, and the _feel_ is more about saying "People strongly feel Y is overrated, and so _maybe_ they really are, to a degree that we haven't touched upon."

The _feel_ of the list really isn't "most people agree these are the least negative," it is, "some people feel really negatively more towards certain composers," and the important part for me is to imagine what this list might _actually _look like if we (a) calculate this information more and (b) use the final information as a daily part of discussion as much was we biasedly do the opposite.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Music, and excellence in music, has to be perceived before it can be explained or evaluated. It's possible to talk at great length about what makes a composer or work extraordinary, but the words will mean nothing to someone who can't hear what they refer to and can't value what he's hearing. An Indian musician could talk all day about why one sitar player is a great musician and another merely good, and I'd be lucky to understand half of what he was telling me despite the fact that I have some acquaintance with sitar music and do enjoy it. Demands for "objective proof" in music are a bottomless pit, since aesthetic values are all contextual and conditional and rest on wider values which themselves can be contested (though often at the price of absurdity). There's always someone who will ask, "Can you PROVE OBJECTIVELY that order is superior to chaos? That beauty is preferable to ugliness? That existence is better than nonexistence? That anything is superior to anything?"
> 
> In some respects, yes; in others, no. But Wagner is a special case, for obvious reasons. As artistic achievements I think his greatest works are comparable to anything human beings have created, but music is only part (though by far the most important part) of them.
> 
> Dodgy biases tend to get ironed out over time. The Big 3 have had plenty of time to answer their critics.


That you pointed out the difficulty of comparing Wagner with 'the three' is on point and effectively limits the scope and import of this phrase.

If 'the big three' is general acknowledgement of the popularity (now and historically) of JSB, LVB and WAM amongst musically knowledgeable folk and the general public then I think that is an acceptable definition. Anything beyond such as vague claims about objective superiority of their compositions is (I'm sure you would agree) unsupportable.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

janxharris said:


> That you pointed out the difficulty of comparing Wagner with 'the three' is on point and effectively limits the scope and import of this phrase.
> 
> If 'the big three' is general acknowledgement of the popularity (now and historically) of JSB, LVB and WAM amongst musically knowledgeable folk and the general public then I think that is an acceptable definition. Anything beyond such as vague claims about objective superiority of their compositions is (I'm sure you would agree) unsupportable.


Actually, no, I wouldn't agree that no objective claims can be made about the superiority of some works of art over others. I would only qualify that with a reminder that all evaluations are contextual and rest on deeper values which themselves may be rejected. I think I made that clear in my previous post. Musicians and others with deep understanding of musical styles and techniques can expound at some length on the excellences of a Bach fugue or a Haydn sonata movement or a Beethoven quartet or a Wagner opera. These things are really there to be heard and analyzed. Anyone is free not to value them regardless, but it can't be effectively argued that these works are not outstanding examples of their kind.

Recognition of musical excellence is not solely the province of the sophisticated. One with little musical knowledge may hear and appreciate quality without being able to explain it, or even to understand an explanation when it's offered. Hence the greatness of Beethoven's 5th seems mysterious, magical, or "nonobjective." The seemingly eternal popularity of that symphony is not the reason we consider it great. We can actually hear that it is, and a good set of ears makes these arguments about "objectivity" seem tedious and pointless.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Actually, no, I wouldn't agree that no objective claims can be made about the superiority of some works of art over others. I would only qualify that with a reminder that all evaluations are contextual and rest on deeper values which themselves may be rejected. I think I made that clear in my previous post. Musicians and others with deep understanding of musical styles and techniques can expound at some length on the excellences of a Bach fugue or a Haydn sonata movement or a Beethoven quartet or a Wagner opera. These things are really there to be heard and analyzed. *Anyone is free not to value them regardless, but it can't be effectively argued that these works are not outstanding examples of their kind. *
> 
> Recognition of musical excellence is not solely the province of the sophisticated. One with little musical knowledge may hear and appreciate quality without being able to explain it, or even to understand an explanation when it's offered. Hence the greatness of Beethoven's 5th seems mysterious, magical, or "nonobjective." The seemingly eternal popularity of that symphony is not the reason we consider it great. We can actually hear that it is, and a good set of ears makes these arguments about "objectivity" seem tedious and pointless.


That's a bold assertion Woodduck - and I am unclear as to where you draw the line for those you deem unworthy of such praise (that being the context of the thread).

Separation of the sheep from the goats?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

janxharris said:


> That's a bold assertion Woodduck - and I am unclear as to where you draw the line for those you deem unworthy of such praise (that being the context of the thread).
> 
> Separation of the sheep from the goats?


Why is it necessary to draw a line, much less say where it should be drawn? Where do you draw the line between red and orange? Between shrubs and trees? Between high intelligence and genius? Between liking and loving? Between sadness and depression? Between pudginess and obesity? For that matter, between sheep and goats (since they are both caprines)?

I don't waste much time on things I deem unworthy of praise, unlike a certain other member who seems to think I praise Wagner too highly and thinks it's his job to sneer about it in public (see post #94). I pity those stunted, shriveled up souls who panic when they see others loving something too much and think they need to put out the flames with the firehose of cynicism.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Actually, no, I wouldn't agree that no objective claims can be made about the superiority of some works of art over others.


Well, could you state some of those objective claims for us?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Room2201974 said:


> Well, could you state some of those objective claims for us?


What exactly do you want to hear a claim about? I'm not aware that there's such a thing as a claim about nothing in particular.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> What exactly do you want to hear a claim about? I'm not aware that there's such a thing as a claim about nothing in particular.


Wherever objective compositional superiority takes you will be fine with me.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Room2201974 said:


> Wherever objective compositional superiority takes you will be fine with me.


I'm afraid that compositional superiority doesn't "take me" anywhere in particular on this sunny morning. But a friend would like to take me to lunch. That would surely make for a well-composed day.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I'm afraid that compositional superiority doesn't "take me" anywhere in particular on this sunny morning. But a friend would like to take me to lunch. That would surely make for a well-composed day.


Well in that case I suggest that you order the impartial Cobb salad, wash that down with some unbiased ice tea and finish it all off with some unprejudiced key lime pie for dessert. BTW, stay away from the green key lime pies, they're very partisan.

......."though in the meantime some necessary question of the play be then to be considered"


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Liszt, Thalberg, Bortkiewicz. Do I win something? :lol:

(nice conversation. Unfortunately a lot has been told and I don't know so much music to make greatness verdicts).


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Why is it necessary to draw a line, much less say where it should be drawn? Where do you draw the line between red and orange? Between shrubs and trees? Between high intelligence and genius? Between liking and loving? Between sadness and depression? Between pudginess and obesity? For that matter, between sheep and goats (since they are both caprines)?
> 
> I don't waste much time on things I deem unworthy of praise, unlike a certain other member who seems to think I praise Wagner too highly and thinks it's his job to sneer about it in public (see post #94). I pity those stunted, shriveled up souls who panic when they see others loving something too much and think they need to put out the flames with the firehose of cynicism.


It isn't necessary (to draw a line) - so I wonder why you wrote:



Woodduck said:


> Those three composers have been placed at the pinnacle of Western musical achievement by musicians with fair constancy since their works have been familiar to the great mass of both average and non-average people seriously interested in classical music. Bach took a bit longer than the others to attain wide exposure, and other composers have often been placed with or near them in the pantheon: Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wagner, in recent times Stravinsky... There are certainly a number of reasons for granting or denying any of these figures (and others) the honor of membership in such an exclusive club. But the point is that the 3 have been the 3 for a very long time, and it's a bit foolish to begin a discussion of the subject with an assumption that there are no qualities intrinsic to their work that justify it.


Sorry to press you but if we aren't elevating their (the three's) compositions (their 'best' loved at least) above all others - how can we say they are the 'pinnacle of Western musical achievement'?

What are the reasons for 'granting...these figures...the honour of membership in such an exclusive club'? I can only think that it rests on their success at the concert hall, in record sales and praise from knowledgeable reviewers...which sounds a lot like popularity. Nothing wrong with that - but unless we are saying 'they simply wrote better music than the rest' we aren't saying that much.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Please refrain from personal comments and concentrate on the OP.

Some posts have been removed pending moderator discussion.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

When I was studying Counterpoint and Fugue, Bach was the greatest. So much music. Like an ocean in a planet 100 bigger than earth.

When I was playing for my piano diploma, Liszt was my God. His Pilgrime Years and his concerts drove me to some success.

When I was teaching the piano, Beethoven came to my life. No Beethoven, no candy for the students. Every ffffn day I was worshiping him.

When I start to listen and to collect music, much more great composers came to my life, depended on my mood. Every day a different one. 

More, I don't know…


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> I found that ranking pretty bizzare. They had Phillip Glass and *John Cage around 20th~25th* places, but completely neglected Handel and Mendelssohn. I have zero respect for the composers who participated in that ranking anyway (such as Chin Unsuk). And I certainly don't consider Glass and Cage as real classical music composers.





mmsbls said:


> The thread has moved from defining the Big Three to who exactly is in the top group. That's fine. Getting back to the OP, I generally agree with the following:
> 
> Personally, I'd give more weight to what those who *worked and lived with classical music (composers, performers, conductors) than to "average people," *but I believe ArtRock is correct that both groups collectively place Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart in the top group.
> 
> ...


Glass was listed as the '27th greatest composer'. Composers' opinions do matter, but a lot depends from which Era. Would Mozart have thought Glass deserves to be the 27th greatest composer? I'm 100% sure he could find at least 50 composers he deemed more worthy. The fact that list was compiled by contemporary composers already shows a very strong bias towards contemporary music aethethics. Saariaho was listed at #17. But how original was she? Maybe she influenced those relative new composers that voted, but what would Shostakovich have thought of that?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

NLAdriaan said:


> Fun fact: if you take away all the bombast and misleading context of W's work, you end up with another W: Anton Webern.


https://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/richard-wagner.pdf
Fun fact #2: "The most frequent comment about Wagner's music is, "There are some great moments but long half hours." but the expectation of the next tremendous moment is worth the wait and can be edge of the seat excitement."


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Phil loves classical said:


> Glass was listed as the '27th greatest composer'. Composers' opinions do matter, but a lot depends from which Era. Would Mozart have thought Glass deserves to be the 27th greatest composer? I'm 100% sure he could find at least 50 composers he deemed more worthy. The fact that list was compiled by contemporary composers already shows a very strong bias towards contemporary music aethethics. Saariaho was listed at #17. But how original was she? Maybe she influenced those relative new composers that voted, but what would Shostakovich have thought of that?


I feel that composers like John Cage are too far removed from the classical music tradition. (He said himself: _'If you listen to Mozart and Beethoven, it's always the same. But if you listen to the traffic here on Sixth Avenue, it's always different.'_. and this idea is reflected in his own music.) I feel they should be classified as another genre of music (ex. contemporary music) separated from classical music; they're as different from classical music as jazz and newage are different from classical music.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

The "big three" exist in fact as a popularity contest. Opinion, composed of way too many variables, is the "G" in the "GIGO" equation. How do we know for sure that "compositional superiority" alone is what we are measuring when we consult popularity contests? We don't!!!!!

Riddle me this:

In nearly 1000 years of Western music "composition" how come the "greatest" talent is so unequally distributed to a time where three composers worked just a few decades of each other? Aren't we in part, by consulting our popularity tables, really measuring our love of thematic tonal music too? How about our love for three of the greatest back stories in all western art? These are just a couple of the variables that cloud the issue when opinion is our "data."

Then too, there are educational practices to take into account. Do you remember in middle grades where you were required to take that _Tone Row_ class? How soon you forget...remember, it came right after the course in _Color and Talea_. No of course not; I took Glee Club and what did we do? A production of _You're A Good Man Charlie Brown_. Exposing me to what composer?????

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Phil loves classical said:


> Glass was listed as the '27th greatest composer'. Composers' opinions do matter, but a lot depends from which Era. Would Mozart have thought Glass deserves to be the 27th greatest composer? I'm 100% sure he could find at least 50 composers he deemed more worthy. The fact that list was compiled by contemporary composers already shows a very strong bias towards contemporary music aethethics. Saariaho was listed at #17. But how original was she? Maybe she influenced those relative new composers that voted, but what would Shostakovich have thought of that?


Probably an easy way to get around that potential bias would be to include performers and conductors in the "large group." Also, as was pointed out in the original thread, the contemporary composers were asked to suggest only 5 composers. Creating a list of 50 composers by asking for people's top 5 will almost guarantee huge uncertainties past the top 5 or 10.

That list was interesting because of the source of information, but to use it as a way to understand history's greatest composers would clearly be problematic.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Room2201974 said:


> *The "big three" exist in fact as a popularity contest.* Opinion, composed of way too many variables, is the "G" in the "GIGO" equation. How do we know for sure that "compositional superiority" alone is what we are measuring when we consult popularity contests? We don't!!!!!


You know of no such "fact." You fail to distinguish between popularity - an inherently empty and frivolous condition - and the collective judgment of experienced, knowledgeable, sensitive and perceptive people, who exist in every field of human endeavor. Apparently the latter sorts of people don't exist for you, or you simply choose arbitrarily to discount them. Why?



> In nearly 1000 years of Western music "composition" how come the "greatest" talent is so unequally distributed to a time where three composers worked just a few decades of each other?


Bach was born in 1685, Mozart in 1756, Beethoven in 1770. That's a span of nearly a century, not a few decades. You're distorting facts to enhance your plausibility.



> Aren't we in part, by consulting our popularity tables, really measuring our love of thematic tonal music too?


"Thematic tonal music" describes most of the music of the Western world over half a millennium, and of much of the rest of the world as well. There's evidently a considerable human preference for it, based on something. On what, do you suppose? Maybe that question is relevant?



> How about our love for three of the greatest back stories in all western art? These are just a couple of the variables that cloud the issue when opinion is our "data."


What "back stories"? What variables? Some opinions carry more weight than others. Some data are more significant. The "issue" is not cloudy for musicians and those who've studied music in depth. There's room for disagreement about whether composer A or B, or work C or D, is superior. It may in fact be impossible to say, or the question may be meaningless. None of that invalidates the reasonableness of the historical consensus regarding the Big Three.

If there are going to be a Big Three - and really, who cares whether there are or not? - are there more likely candidates than Bach, Mozart and Beethoven?


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I sort of agree the Big 3 is a result of a popularity contest, but that there is also more to that popularity. Their music speaks to the mind as well as emotion at the same time. It's that synergy that is unmistakable. And that is why they are popular and also great. I like a lot of music that speaks to my mind, but when I return to those 3 (ok, at least Mozart and Beethoven), only then I realize I was missing the emotional element. Their music is not overly complex to appreciate, and that can be a good thing.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Phil loves classical said:


> Their music is not overly complex to appreciate, and that can be a good thing.


I take a grain of salt whenever anyone says something is easy listening (or not easy listening). The common consensus among most classical music listeners is that a lot of modern (20th century) classical music is "harder to listen and to be understood" than the general common practice music. But is it really? Take Stockhausen's _Luzifers Abschied_, for example. I think the entire piece can be used as soundtrack for a horror film (given that the scenes fit the music). But you will never ever see anybody in our time talking like this.

A: hey, let's watch _that_ horror movie. 
B: No. The soundtrack is too intricate. I can't understand the music, it drives me mad.. just too incomprehensible.
A: WTF?? Are you nuts? LOL

So in this case, what's the difference between Luzifers Abschied and horror film music?
Is the general 20th/21th century music really that intricate/hard to understand as people claim, or are we trying to appreciate the musical culture with a wrong approach? -Must it be used as film music to be fully appreciated? Isn't Luzifers Abschied just a bad piece of "incidental music"? Isn't "a piece of incomplete art" that needs visual content simultaneously going with it to be fully "understood"? (I'm just asking)






It is my opinion you can get a far better, convincing contemporary classical music listening experience in a cinema than a concert hall. A lot of composers of the 20th/21th centuries strike me as "glorified" film music composers. Someone could argue, "isn't opera music of the common practice period the same as modern film music in this regard?" -I would say no because common practice opera music is "complete art", (the music can still be appreciated without being used as background music to visual content), whereas a lot of the music by the later "film music composers" is not.

I think the various collective criteria of talent / skill / technique / know-how in melody / harmony / counterpoint / motivic working / structure / instrumentation, etc are what matter the most. The common practice composers were constantly tested of their skills in these strict criteria. Bach / Mozart / Beethoven are among the most exemplary in this regard, they proved time and time again through their influence and impact through centuries.

Likewise, I don't see that much merit in terms of raw "genius" in stuff like Debussy's _La Mer_ as other people do. I don't think Saint-Saens was simply being old-fashioned or close-minded when he criticized Debussy. He just had a different perspective in art. I think the classical music fandom nowadays gives way too much credit to anyone who vandalizes traditional practices like form and voice-leading, to pose as a great innovator and at the same time cover up his own weaknesses. Not all of the "experiments" ended up being "successful". In fact, this is an area where actual talent / genius really comes in. The major composers of the past succeeded, whereas the modernists did at a far lesser degree. Perhaps this is why The Golden Age of Classical Music Composition had sadly come to an end. The modernists' music is just not inspirational enough to their later generations. I blame it on them. They didn't "meet the expectations".


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Room2201974 said:


> In nearly 1000 years of Western music "composition" how come the "greatest" talent is so unequally distributed to a time where three composers worked just a few decades of each other?


Well then we could also ask: "Why are the most famous, successful, and influential classical music composers throughout history all Europeans? Are other races untalented?"
in creation of art, I think culture / environment / tradition are among the most important elements. The early modern (the common practice period) Europe was conditioned to produce the most extraordinary artists of classical music. The tradition of culture accumulated up to that point from the ancient times had fully ripened. 
I also want to remind that, in some ways, "talent" is a vague concept. How much of it is "natural" or "learned" is unclear. How much of it comes from "personal experience"? How much of it plays into creating "art"? This is a question not even science has answered yet.

View attachment 130858

"How could he, who grew up at La Côte-Saint-André isolated from any serious music-making until the age of 18, receiving only a rudimentary musical education in his childhood and youth, never mastering an instrument, not encouraged by his family at any stage to undertake a musical career, compete with the child of Salzburg, son of a highly skilled musician who devoted his life to his son's musical upbringing and who took him from early childhood all around Europe to meet the greatest masters of his day? Berlioz must have felt this difference, and his often arrogant tone in discussing Mozart's music seems barely to mask a deep-rooted sense of insecurity about his musical abilities."


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the last class many of you need to take for your advanced degree in music composition from Talk Classical Music Conservatory®. Since a piece of music and a poem share some creative similarities, let's us begin today with _Understanding Poetry_, by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D. Let me read from the introduction:

"To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech. Then ask two questions: One, how artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered, and two, how important is that objective. Question one rates the poem's perfection, question two rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered, determining a poem's greatest becomes a relatively simple matter.

If the poem's score for perfection is plotted along the horizontal of a graph, and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness.

A sonnet by Byron may score high on the vertical, but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great. As you proceed through the poetry in this book, practice this rating method. As your ability to evaluate poems in this matter grows, so will - so will your enjoyment and understanding of poetry. "

**************

The learning outcomes of this class are quite simple: What Dr. J. Evans Pritchard Ph.D. has done for poetry we can apply to superior composition. By the end of the class we will be able to rank the greatest of the composers with a certainty above mere opinion. 

So who wants to go first? Please illuminate us with the superior compositional standards we my use to cull out the authors of _Ein Deutsches Requiem_, _ Messe de Nostre Dame_, and _Tristan And Islode_, these mere mortal men, from the demigods of the big three.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> I feel that composers like John Cage are too far removed from the classical music tradition.


Even if we both agree John Cage is far from the top (see my explanation why we can agree), I don't think it matters exactly if he's far-removed from traditions, because the qualification is to just be one of the greatest writers of music. Them mostly being Classical is by virtue of the appeal of Classical. I don't know who else would be on the real list besides Classical composers.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Room2201974 said:


> In nearly 1000 years of Western music "composition" how come the "greatest" talent is so unequally distributed to a time where three composers worked just a few decades of each other? Aren't we in part, by consulting our popularity tables, really measuring our love of thematic tonal music too? How about our love for three of the greatest back stories in all western art? These are just a couple of the variables that cloud the issue when opinion is our "data."


The explanation for this is fairly simple. There are 2 markers to pay attention to. The majority of the most ambitiously creative and prolific writers of "quality" music existed around Beethoven's period. Tons of "quality" music was written before and especially after this time, but the composers themselves were not the most_ ambitiously creative_ and _prolific_ writers, and visa versa: there have been tons of _ambitiously creative_ and _prolific_ writers recently, but they haven't written tons of "quality" music. It only happens we see _both_ in Beethoven's era because _both _were the main focus of Beethoven's era. I hope that explanation makes perfect sense.

You should seriously see the poll: _What is the greatest era of Classical music? _The result is: *20th Century.* It has nothing to do with the greatness of the composers, but the quantity of composers and how much music there is.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Room2201974 said:


> Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the last class many of you need to take for your advanced degree in music composition from Talk Classical Music Conservatory®. Since a piece of music and a poem share some creative similarities, let's us begin today with _Understanding Poetry_, by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D. Let me read from the introduction:
> 
> "To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech. Then ask two questions: One, how artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered, and two, how important is that objective. Question one rates the poem's perfection, question two rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered, determining a poem's greatest becomes a relatively simple matter.
> 
> ...


Cute.

You must realize that... No, I take that back. You may be totally oblivious... Anyway, I'll assume the worst, and tell you that if you are asking someone here to describe what it is that makes _A German Requiem,_ the _Messe de Nostre Dame_, or _Tristan und Isolde_ greater works of art than similar works (if there are any) deemed lesser in quality, you are asking an extremely complex and deep question that will put that someone to a great deal of work. You would receive at the very least an initial statement of aesthetic qualities which are almost universally judged as marks of quality in art generally, and in music in particular. But, since all aesthetic judgments are contextual, those judgments would themselves imply more fundamental value judgments which you would then probably claim have validity only in that they are widely accepted - or, as you are fond of saying, "popular." It would clearly not make the slightest difference to you who those judgments were "popular" among, and given your non-response to my last post, I think I'm safe in supposing that a survey of Fox News viewers would be equivalent in your mind to a survey of all the world's musicologists, composers and performing artists. But it gets worse: even if you were to accept the aforementioned general aesthetic judgments as valid, the value of the next stage of the argument - the application of widely accepted principles to the works in question - would depend on your ability to see, hear and understand the specific instances to which they applied.

Given time and energy to take on the project, I could take you through the score of _Tristan_ (the work I know best of the three you cite) and show, for example, the way striking and original themes are stated and developed; the way a few basic ideas generate a great diversity of material and ensure unity and cohesion over an enormous time scale; the way complex chromatic harmony is controlled by a sure sense of tonal progression; the way freely constructed melodies are contained by underlying formal structures; the way distinct musical episodes are skillfully transitioned into one another by means of motivic transformation and integrated into deep tonal schemes characterized by carefully plotted key relationships...

I could do those things, at considerable cost in time and effort. But my work wouldn't end there. I would then have to delve into the dramatic themes of the opera and show how all the musical techniques that Wagner has mastered have been marshaled to create an integrated work of art which is stunningly unique, which greatly expanded the concept of musical drama, and which has no parallel in the musical creations of its time and scarcely any rival in its field since. The reasons why _Tristan_ has stood the test of time and retained its "popularity" - more properly, its reputation as one of the supreme works in the canon of Western art - are not arcane secrets, but they do require an ability to understand them, or at least a capacity to respond to the power of the work as seen and heard.

Whether or not you're capable of such understanding, it should be obvious that such a presentation is not practical on this forum. But really now, why would you seriously imagine that anyone would want to put out that kind of effort on behalf of someone whose attitude toward the question of artistic excellence is typically expressed in mockery? Given your flippancy, I think I've been more than generous in saying as much as I have.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

> Anyway, I'll assume the worst, and tell you that if you are asking someone here to describe what it is that makes A German Requiem, the Messe de Nostre Dame, or Tristan und Isolde greater works of art than similar works (if there are any) deemed lesser in quality


I think he's asking about what separates the "big 3" specifically from composers like Brahms, Wagner, and Machaut, but I agree with the rest of your post nonetheless. And I certainly agree that Room (a poster I usually admire) is being a little bit flippant here.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

hammeredklavier said:


> Well then we could also ask: "Why are the most famous, successful, and influential classical music composers throughout history all Europeans? Are other races untalented?"
> in creation of art, I think culture / environment / tradition are among the most important elements. The early modern (the common practice period) Europe was conditioned to produce the most extraordinary artists of classical music. The tradition of culture accumulated up to that point from the ancient times had fully ripened.


This is just plain silly. Western Classical music was written by people born and brought up in Western culture. Musicians of many other cultures had a different "classical" tradition to create within. So, yes, culture is important. Duh.

Then the world shrunk and composers in one culture began explorations of the musics of other cultures - a process that has a lot longer to run, I think - as did audiences and performers.

What does all of this prove or demonstrate?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Ethereality said:


> Even if we both agree John Cage is far from the top (see my explanation why we can agree), I don't think it matters exactly if he's far-removed from traditions, because the qualification is to just be one of the greatest writers of music. Them mostly being Classical is by virtue of the appeal of Classical. I don't know who else would be on the real list besides Classical composers.


Maybe I'm agreeing with you or maybe not (your possible blindness to the existence and worth of other music traditions confused me a little). I am not much of a Cage fan but isn't it obvious he is part of the western classical tradition? You can trace the links easily enough. Or you can listen to his music a bit and tell us what tradition is does belong in. Of course, some in this thread define that tradition as having ended but it has only ended for them.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> This is just plain silly. Western Classical music was written by people born and brought up in Western culture. Musicians of many other cultures had a different "classical" tradition to create within. So, yes, culture is important. Duh.


No. It's not silly. There were Golden Ages (period) and Cultural Centers (location) of Art that prospered and flourished in history. It was my reply to Room's post #110. Vienna and Berlin were cultural centers for classical music in the early modern times. Not Cairo, Tokyo, or Buenos Aires. Yes, they were all making "music" of some kind, but let's not get into arguments like "Art is subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We cannot say European art music is superior to Egyptian traditional music."



Enthusiast said:


> Then the world shrunk and composers in one culture began explorations of the musics of other cultures - a process that has a lot longer to run, I think - as did audiences and performers.
> What does all of this prove or demonstrate?


I don't know what YOU're trying to prove or demonstrate. Are you talking about Arab or Indian "classical musicians" who were active around the time Europe was going through the baroque period? Or today's contemporary composers in non-western countries? Mozart and Beethoven had already incorporated Turkish elements in their music - this was only as significant as incorporating European folk music elements. Nothing really changed and non-western cultures never had a rich tradition of art music like Europe did.
The ones that are generally accepted as giants of "classical music" (we generally mean "western classical music" when we say "classical music" in this forum) are likes of Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Mahler, etc.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

The big three are three *of* the greatest composers in western art music. But *the* three greatest? I remain doubtful of such a claim. Fifty years of studying this stuff and I have yet to ascertain:

The compositional superiority of Bach over Vivalidi.

The compositional superiority of Mozart over Machaut.

The compositional superiority of Beethoven over Brahms.

Great Lully's baton!!!, it does not seem likely to me that such a distinction can be teased out using popularity contests of mere opinion polls.* If compositional superiority be a true thing then evidence outside of opinion must exist. And shouldn't that evidence, when applied to my examples above, give us all the "correct" answers?

Or, it just may be my lack of understanding of aesthetics. Why can't I see what everyone else must surely see - that Beethoven's first modulation in Opus 131 to the subdominant is aesthetically superior to Brahms' first modulation in Opus 114, also to the subdominant??? If I just understood this better it would be as clear to me as the nose on Tycho Brahe's face why it must be that Beethoven is compositionally superior.

*One only has to look at Karen Carpenter's selection as rock drummer of the year in _Playboy's_ 1975 poll for a prime example of the accuracy of such devices to identify true musical ability.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Ethereality said:


> Even if we both agree John Cage is far from the top (see my explanation why we can agree), I don't think it matters exactly if he's far-removed from traditions, because the qualification is to just be one of the greatest writers of music. Them mostly being Classical is by virtue of the appeal of Classical. I don't know who else would be on the real list besides Classical composers.


If John Cage should be considered classical (who deliberately tried to be the opposite of what the mainstream giants stood for) I don't see how Yiruma and Yuhki Kuramoto should not be. I would say there should be a much stricter line dividing classical music from contemporary genres - much like the line that divides "classical literature vs modern literature". I can't care less what the contemporary composers who participated in the BBC composer ranking survey thought about classical music. It's doubtful if all of them are "real classical music composers". Ask Yiruma or Yuhki Kuramoto who is the greatest No.1 composer ever lived. They might answer "Chopin". I wouldn't take that seriously, the same way I don't take the BBC composer ranking seriously.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Objective "compositional superiority" may not exactly be what characterizes the Big Three. As Woodduck and others have pointed out, every composer wrote differently, which leaves room for people like Room to argue the same convenient argument "Art is subjective. No composer is superior to another". But perhaps we should slightly alter the OP's question to ask why some composers _"failed to inspire"_ like others did in the tradition and history.

"This "revelation" of the music of Don Giovanni on the threshold of adulthood was a crucial factor in his decision a few years later to leave behind him the security of a career in the civil service and to aspire to become a composer. As he later confessed to Nadezhda von Meck in a letter from 1878 (quoted in more detail below): "The music of Don Giovanni was the first music which produced a tremendous impression on me. It awoke a holy enthusiasm in me which would later bear fruit. Through this music I entered that world of artistic beauty inhabited only by the greatest geniuses [...] It is to Mozart that I am obliged for the fact that I have dedicated my life to music. He gave the first impulse to my musical powers and made me love music more than anything else in the world""



janxharris said:


> It is, surely, more a rather nebulous acknowledgement of their popularity amongst concert goers and record buyers (dilettante or otherwise).


I think some people are just plain jealous their favorite artists didn't have impact through history like the Big Three did.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> If John Cage should be considered classical (who deliberately tried to be the opposite of what the mainstream giants stood for) I don't see how Yiruma and Yuhki Kuramoto should not be. I would say there should be a much stricter line dividing classical music from contemporary genres - much like the line that divides "classical literature vs modern literature". I can't care less what the contemporary composers who participated in the BBC composer ranking survey thought about classical music. It's doubtful if all of them are "real classical music composers". Ask Yiruma or Yuhki Kuramoto who is the greatest No.1 composer ever lived. They might answer "Chopin". I wouldn't take that seriously, the same way I don't take the BBC composer ranking seriously.


Are you playing dumb? I don't buy that you don't understand the difference between new age composers like Yiruma and John Cage.

Let's set that aside for a moment. What tradition would you say Cage belongs to, if not western art music?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

flamencosketches said:


> Are you playing dumb? I don't buy that you don't understand the difference between new age composers like Yiruma and John Cage.
> Let's set that aside for a moment. What tradition would you say Cage belongs to, if not western art music?


There are people in jazz, metal, rock who claim they're the true descendants of classical music. I have noticed this especially with metal practitioners.
And now, some people can't accept the fact that there exists the Big Three of Classical Music. 
I think the only solution to this is to clearly classify "different types of classical music" into sub-genres. "Classical music vs contemporary music". Much like how "classical literature" and "modern literature" are clearly divided in literature.
In your own new genre of "contemporary music" (or whatever you want to call it), pick your own Big Three. Stravinsky-Debussy-Shostakovich, or Cage-Ligeti-Glass, or whatever you like. And we should have separate forums and communities.
Since classical music is such a big genre with a long history and rich diversity, we can't arrive at an agreement. I guess it's time to divide things up for better organization.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> There are people in jazz, metal, rock who claim they're the true descendants of classical music. I have noticed this especially with metal practitioners.
> And now, some people can't accept the fact that there exists the Big Three of Classical Music.
> I think the only solution to this is to clearly classify "different types of classical music" into sub-genres. "Classical music vs contemporary music". Much like how "classical literature" and "modern literature" are clearly divided in literature.
> In your own new genre of "contemporary music" (or whatever you want to call it), pick your own Big Three. Stravinsky-Debussy-Shostakovich, or Cage-Ligeti-Glass, or whatever way you like. And* we should have separate forums and communities.*
> Since classical music is such a big genre with a long history and rich diversity, we can't arrive at an agreement. I guess it's time to divide things up for better organization.


Ah! So _that's_ your endgame with all this. Separate but equal communities. As you well know, that is not going to happen, and you will find few to share your stance on this. I'm sorry, but you're stuck with us for the long haul. As you are the kind of person who only likes Mozart and hates contemporary music, you may be blind to the fact that there are many of us out there who love both Mozart _and_ contemporary music, and see it as all part of a continuum. I'm afraid you can't separate one from the other.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

hammeredklavier said:


> No. It's not silly. There were Golden Ages (period) and Cultural Centers (location) of Art that prospered and flourished in history. It was my reply to Room's post #110. Vienna and Berlin were cultural centers for classical music in the early modern times. Not Cairo, Tokyo, or Buenos Aires. Yes, they were all making "music" of some kind, but let's not get into arguments like "Art is subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We cannot say European art music is superior to Egyptian traditional music."
> 
> I don't know what YOU're trying to prove or demonstrate. Are you talking about Arab or Indian "classical musicians" who were active around the time Europe was going through the baroque period? Or today's contemporary composers in non-western countries? Mozart and Beethoven had already incorporated Turkish elements in their music - this was only as significant as incorporating European folk music elements. Nothing really changed and non-western cultures never had a rich tradition of art music like Europe did.
> The ones that are generally accepted as giants of "classical music" (we generally mean "western classical music" when we say "classical music" in this forum) are likes of Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Mahler, etc.


I'm not trying to prove something but I am expressing doubt about your statements. I feel fairly certain your knowledge of non-Western traditions (and also of music outside of the period that interests you) is very limited and that your conclusions - if valid at all - are only valid for the western classical tradition and only during a part of its history. It may feel like the bits you have spent your life with are the bits that matter but I can assure you that there are plenty of people in the world who would disagree strongly and that some of them may be well acquainted with both their own traditions and the western classical one. It's not a major point but it does illustrate how big bold statements can be shown to be quite limited in scope. Culture is not limited to your own interests. Even if you were God it wouldn't be!


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> I feel that composers like John Cage are too far removed from the classical music tradition. (He said himself: _'If you listen to Mozart and Beethoven, it's always the same. But if you listen to the traffic here on Sixth Avenue, it's always different.'_. and this idea is reflected in his own music.) I feel they should be classified as another genre of music (ex. contemporary music) separated from classical music; they're as different from classical music as jazz and newage are different from classical music.


If Cage is far removed from the classical music tradition, so are Kagel, Stockhausen, Berio, Xenakis, etc. One of the defining characteristics of the western classical tradition is _innovation_. The aforementioned composers would not have produced the body of work they did unless they stood on the innovative foundation laid by those who came before them.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> Objective "compositional superiority" may not exactly be what characterizes the Big Three. As Woodduck and others have pointed out, every composer wrote differently, which leaves room for people like Room to argue the same convenient argument "Art is subjective. No composer is superior to another". But perhaps we should slightly alter the OP's question to ask why some composers _"failed to inspire"_ like others did in the tradition and history.
> 
> "This "revelation" of the music of Don Giovanni on the threshold of adulthood was a crucial factor in his decision a few years later to leave behind him the security of a career in the civil service and to aspire to become a composer. As he later confessed to Nadezhda von Meck in a letter from 1878 (quoted in more detail below): "The music of Don Giovanni was the first music which produced a tremendous impression on me. It awoke a holy enthusiasm in me which would later bear fruit. Through this music I entered that world of artistic beauty inhabited only by the greatest geniuses [...] It is to Mozart that I am obliged for the fact that I have dedicated my life to music. He gave the first impulse to my musical powers and made me love music more than anything else in the world""
> 
> I think some people are just plain jealous their favorite artists didn't have impact through history like the Big Three did.


Not at all hammeredklavier. I acknowledge the impact of the three as you describe it - that it would seem to be greater - and having such an impact is all good and worthy of praise. Not inspiring _as many_ approving fans need not be described as a failing - or are you suggesting that the _depth_ to which those that are moved by the three is greater than those that are moved by other composers because there are more of them?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

flamencosketches said:


> Ah! So _that's_ your endgame with all this. Separate but equal communities. As you well know, that is not going to happen, and you will find few to share your stance on this. I'm sorry, but you're stuck with us for the long haul. As you are the kind of person who only likes Mozart and hates contemporary music, *you may be blind to the fact that there are many of us out there who love both Mozart and contemporary music, and see it as all part of a continuum*. I'm afraid you can't separate one from the other.


Almost everyone I know who loves contemporary classical music also loves former periods as well. The bolded part above is something I find strongly supported on TC and when reading about classical music. In general, modern and contemporary composers follow the tradition of classical music or art music. They study past masters, understand their music, and try to produce something innovative but related to earlier music. So many talk about their influences which can be Bach or Mozart or maybe other composers whose influences were Baroque, Classical, or Romantic composers. It is a continuum, but the change from Medieval music through today is certainly astonishing.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Room2201974 said:


> The big three are three *of* the greatest composers in western art music. But *the* three greatest? I remain doubtful of such a claim. Fifty years of studying this stuff and I have yet to ascertain:
> 
> The compositional superiority of Bach over Vivalidi.
> 
> ...


You're beating that phrase "compositional superiority" to death. It was first used here by another poster, but you seem to have adopted it with enthusiasm. What do you mean by it? Do you think it includes all the elements on which we base judgments of composers and their work?

"Mairzy Doats" is arguably a perfect melody, as perfect as any by Mozart. Maybe its composer should be ranked as equal to Mozart in "compositional superiority."



> If compositional superiority be a true thing then evidence outside of opinion must exist. And shouldn't that evidence, when applied to my examples above, give us all the "correct" answers?


That leaves the question of how we recognize evidence and "correct" answers when we see them. Would you recognize them? What would be your criteria for "correctness"?



> Or, it just may be my lack of understanding of aesthetics. Why can't I see what everyone else must surely see - that Beethoven's first modulation in Opus 131 to the subdominant is aesthetically superior to Brahms' first modulation in Opus 114, also to the subdominant??? If I just understood this better it would be as clear to me as the nose on Tycho Brahe's face why it must be that Beethoven is compositionally superior.


No, it wouldn't. I know that it wouldn't, because comparing a single modulation in a single work with one in a different work would not prove anything, and citing such an example merely trivializes the issue. You might as well compare "Mairzy Doats" with "Porgi amor."

When you say you've studied this stuff for fifty years, what exactly have you studied that enables you to judge the quality of musical works and leads you to think that Machaut may be as great a composer as Mozart?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Room2201974 said:


> The big three are three *of* the greatest composers in western art music. But *the* three greatest? I remain doubtful of such a claim. Fifty years of studying this stuff and I have yet to ascertain:
> 
> The compositional superiority of Bach over Vivalidi.
> 
> ...


I'm not even going to address the Bach vs Vivaldi and Mozart vs Machaut issue except to say that your parameters for comparison must be remarkably narrow. As for Brahms vs Beethoven, there are all sorts of reasons why Beethoven is placed above Brahms, but when it comes to the comparison you're making with Op131 vs Op114 respectively, that one parameter you're using is hardly proof of anything, but if you choose to use it, the fact is Beethoven did it first.

Anyone who has read about how Brahms approached his initial major orchestral works knows that he studied Beethoven prodigiously and didn't compose them until he felt he could come close to rising to LvB's level. None of this is to disparage Brahms' accomplishments particularly when it comes to his Piano and Violin Concertos and Symphonies which were, by any measure, amazing creations.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

DaveM said:


> I'm not even going to address the Bach vs Vivaldi and Mozart vs Machaut issue except to say that your parameters for comparison must be remarkably narrow. *As for Brahms vs Beethoven, there are all sorts of reasons why Beethoven is placed above Brahms*, but when it comes to the comparison you're making with Op131 vs Op114 respectively, that one parameter you're using is hardly proof of anything, but if you choose to use it, the fact is Beethoven did it first.
> 
> Anyone who has read about how Brahms approached his initial major orchestral works knows that he studied Beethoven prodigiously and didn't compose them until he felt he could come close to rising to LvB's level. None of this is to disparage Brahms' accomplishments particularly when it comes to his Piano and Violin Concertos and Symphonies which were, by any measure, amazing creations.


What are they DaveM?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)




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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

janxharris said:


> What are they DaveM?


You keep asking for education. Does this mean that you have no idea yourself?


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

Wooduck writes, "We're at a different point in history and will inevitably judge these composers differently. The ability of a composer to remain fresh and to speak to later ages and sensibilities has to be relevant, as does the message his music has for us. We can't perceive Handel and Haydn as Beethoven or Brahms did, and on the whole they don't seem to speak to us as profoundly as Bach and Mozart do (or, for that matter, as Beethoven and Brahms do)."

I wouldn't disagree that every generation will decide for themselves about whether these composers "remain fresh and speak" to them, musically. But over the past four decades or so we've been living in what has been and continues to be an unprecedented revival of the music of both Handel and Haydn via public performances & hundreds of recordings between the two; which has involved the unearthing of works long neglected by previous generations, along with a scholarly reexamination of their opuses that has never happened before--at least, to the same extent. This extraordinary rebirth has proven to be an incredible opportunity for listeners & musicians alike. 

Therefore, given the popularity of the music of Handel and Haydn today--since I assume that people have attended these many concerts and avidly bought the huge quantity of new period recordings that have been released over the past forty years or so, it seems strange to say that the current relevancy of Handel and Haydn has in any way become diminished for the present generation. I do realize that that's not exactly what you're saying, rather you've stated that "on the whole they don't speak to us as profoundly as Bach and Mozart do" (or Beethoven and Brahms), but at the same time the stock of both composers has risen dramatically over the course of the early music revival--even if that reappraisal doesn't get fully reflected here on Talk Classical (as the case may be?). In other words, I'd argue that it's not as easy a claim to make--that Bach and Mozart speak to us more profoundly--as it once was before the period revival had so thoroughly explored and revealed the entire opuses of both Handel and Haydn--delivering much of their music from relative neglect and obscurity. & therefore, I don't think that I'd be alone to claim that the revival has put both Handel and Haydn more on par with Bach and Mozart than ever before--though I'd agree that neither composer is generally seen as quite being their equal, at least not yet. To my mind, the revival has also shown that both Handel & Haydn easily surpassed Brahms in terms of the sheer quantity and quality of their music. & all of that has been a revelation. 

(Of course, there will always be Brahms lovers that claim his music speaks more profoundly than Handel and Haydn, but that's not a foregone conclusion, especially for listeners that don't remain exclusive to the Romantic age in their listening habits. And for those listeners that aren't maybe quite as enthusiastic about the late Romantic era, Brahms isn't a top 5 composer, nor even a top 10 composer. As much as I admire and enjoy Brahms' chamber music and late piano pieces and German Requiem, etc., I don't think that his output compares favorably to that of either Handel or Haydn. No doubt people will leap to point out that it's all subjective and that I'm merely expressing my own personal preference and opinion, and while that is true to an extent, I wonder, is the hierarchy that unquestionably exists within music and art (and science), really all so purely subjective and just a matter of personal opinion? I don't think so. Clearly, when it comes to musical genius, not everyone is created equal. That's obvious. For example, I would say that very few human beings (even among composers) can mentally think polyphonically in the same way that J.S. Bach did--juggling & improvising all those complex, multi dimensional, criss crossing fugal lines simultaneously in his head and making them work so seamlessly and brilliantly and inventively and beautifully. & I could say much the same thing about Handel. Both composers possessed an extremely rare musical IQ, the sum of which was so much more than an average or even high musical intelligence. They simply weren't normal at all, musically.)

For example, when I first began collecting classical music back in the early 1980s, recordings of Handel's operas (& oratorios) were quite scarce. All of the new period recordings hadn't come out yet. Then, John Eliot Gardiner made the first ever period recording of Handel's opera Tamerlano, and I remember a composer friend one day declaring that Tamerlano was "the greatest opera ever composed". Considering my friend's wealth of musical knowledge, as both a composer and a highly regarded teacher of composition, I couldn't deny that his 'opinion' carried considerable weight, and yet I was quite surprised to hear him make such a bold claim. Handel's Tamerlano, the single greatest opera ever composed, really? better than Don Giovanni? (Of course I immediately made a trip to Tower Records and bought the Gardiner recording; although ultimately I came to prefer other operas by Handel, such as Alcina, Ariodante, & Serses.) 

Since those days, there have been more and more Handel operas recorded and released, along with several more versions of Tamerlano--to the point where most, if not all of Handel's operas have now received multiple, excellent recordings. The result being that I was no longer even mildly surprised when I recently heard one music critic exclaim that Handel was "the greatest opera composer ever". While I don't entirely agree with that statement (since I think that Mozart was the greatest opera composer ever), nevertheless, I don't think that such a boast could have been made before the period revival rescued the majority of Handel's operas from obscurity and brought them back to life for us, to newly discover and reevaluate; nor is his claim as shocking as it would have been once. I expect the same can be said about Handel's oratorios and cantatas. All thanks to the tireless efforts of the many period conductors over the past several decades that have brought this music back to life for us: such as McCreesh, Curtis, McGegan, Minkowski, Gardiner, Pinnock, Hogwood, Jacobs, Banzo, Hickox, Petrou, Christie, Parrott, Minasi, Bonizzoni, Lamon, Gester, Fasolis, Neumann, Curnyn, etc.. In other words, we now know today that Handel was so much more than just a composer of the Messiah, Water Music, Royal Fireworks, and various Concerti Grossi, opuses 3 & 6. To the extent that I'd personally now place him higher in my pantheon than Mozart, but only by a slim margin, whereas I wouldn't have even considered doing so several decades ago. 

The period movement has also similarly released hundreds of new recordings of Haydn's opus: which again, has allowed us to newly discover and reassess Haydn's music to an extent that was never possible before. I can't speak for others, but these days I listen to Haydn's music more than I do Mozart's. Although that may be due to my getting older, since I'm beginning to see Haydn as more of an older person's composer, being that I've come to appreciate his music more now than I did in my youth.

Wooduck writes, "Josquin was a splendid composer and has my great admiration, but pre-Baroque polyphonic music expresses a different cultural sensibility and inhabits a different stylistic world, and thus seems to remain the passion of relatively few. There are only certain respects in which it can meaningfully be compared with the music of the common practice era."

I agree, it does express a "different cultural sensibility" from our world today, and I'd argue one that is superior. For example, I don't see it as an outrageous comment to claim that the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance was the most spiritually enlightened period in music history. Although I wouldn't go as far as to claim, as pianist Glenn Gould did, that the last vestige of that great spiritual tradition was heard in the music of the English composer Orlando Gibbons and that after Gibbons, music went into a decline. But I do see Gould's point here, and think it is a valid one. In his favor, I can't deny that at one point in music history, all those beautiful, selfless, & deliberately "anonymous" composers of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance (like the architects of the great Gothic Cathedrals) got replaced by composers with larger egos and a growing motivation for fame and worldly recognition. Yet, at the same time, I'd disagree with Gould that there haven't been some great spiritually minded composers since Orlando Gibbons, even if we do know their actual names (such as Bach with his Mass in B minor and Handel with his Messiah, to name two standout examples.) And yet, at the same time I think that Gould was right, music does get uglier and less purely devotional, on the whole. 

That's why the 'sacred' music of Arvo Pärt, John Tavener, Ivan Moody, Gavin Bryars, James McMillan, and others, in our own time, has interested me. These composers are looking back to the Middle Ages and Renaissance in an attempt to rediscover a spirituality and lack of ego in music that has largely become lost. & I suspect that they and the composers they subsequently influence will play a more important role in the future of what music is to become than is presently realized. 

Again, working in tandem with this new contemporary spiritual awakening, if you will, has been an important early music movement that has unearthed and newly performed and recorded a huge quantity of music from the Middle Ages and Renaissance--most of which had not been performed for many centuries. (In other words, you have to take into account just how far the music from this period has come over the past several decades, emerging from almost total obscurity to a new, if in some cases tentative familiarity for many listeners.) For example, each year new recordings get issued of music by one or more almost totally neglected, obscure Franco-Flemish composers, and the quality of the music is astonishingly high. In other words, I don't think that the full breath and range of the Burgundian and Franco-Flemish musical renaissance has yet to be fully appreciated, even in 2020. But I believe that that will eventually happen, inevitably--even if the audience for this music remains a niche group among classical listeners, as you point out (although I should in turn point out that it is no where near as small a clique as it used to be, nothing like). Indeed, it has already happened in regards to such composers as Johannes Ockeghem, Josquin Desprez, Guillaume Dufay, and Orlando Lassus, whose music has become much more widely heard and esteemed than ever before--thanks to the tireless efforts of so many early music ensembles and their leaders, who have performed and recorded these composers' entire opuses (Lassus's thousands excepted): such as Edward Wickham and The Clerks Group's complete ASV survey of the masses of Ockeghem, or the Tallis Scholars' first ever recent completion of the complete masses of Josquin Desprez, or the Medieval Ensemble of London's survey of the complete secular works of Guillaume Dufay, etc. etc. The result being that the place of these composers in music history has been reevaluated and grown more prominent and is more secure than ever before. If we didn't see them as major composers before, we do now. And, as I see it, that trend will only continue.

(I'm not sure that I'm familiar with your phrase, "the common practice era", by that do you mean the era of modern conservatory practice? If so, then yes that is at odds with the early music revival, in more ways than one.)

SONNET CLV writes, "Have you never heard the last 20 or so Mozart Piano Concerti?"

Yes, & I agree that that was an embarrassing omission. I don't know how in the world Mozart's Piano Concertos slipped my mind, since they're among my favorite works by him. Lately, I've been so focused on Handel and Mozart operas & choral music that I just plain forgot about the piano concertos. But I do agree that Haydn's PCs are not on the same level with Mozart's. Although interestingly, I recall pianist Rudolf Serkin once remarked that he considered Haydn's Piano Trios to be on the same "sublime" level as Mozart's Piano Concertos, and I tend to agree with Serkin. 

SONNET CLV writes, "Kit Marlowe, born the same year as Shakespeare (1564), tragically died (most likely murdered) at the early age of 29."

Marlowe was without question murdered. His autopsy exists and I've read it. He was killed by three men, whose identities are now known: one of whom shoved a knife through one of Marlowe's eyes into his brain, killing him instantly. Prior to the final knife blow, Marlowe was also stabbed multiple times. So evidently, there was quite a struggle. It was reported that Marlowe cursed his vile murderers before they killed him. 

SONNET CLV writes, "they may likely have been collaborations with Marlowe"

I've never heard or read that Marlowe and "Shakespeare" collaborated in any way. But they did know each other, and moved within the same circles, sharing friends in common, and not one but two patrons simultaneously in the early 1590s. It's not impossible that they wrote together, but it is extremely unlikely, considering that they were major rivals at the time, and both their patrons had them busily working on separate projects (with the exception of the 'competition' spoken about in the Sonnets, where they were pitted against each other by the young Earl of Southampton). 

Personally, I wouldn't downplay the quality of Shakespeare's Henry VI trilogy in relation to Marlowe's plays, either. These three plays were an immense success and hugely popular in London at the time. Have you ever seen them performed on the stage? Plus, I think you're mistaken that by the spring of 1593 the Bard had only written about "four plays". But I do agree with you that Marlowe's plays and his "mighty" blank verse had a tremendous influence on the man that wrote the plays of Shakespeare.

SONNET CLV writes, "And, I hate to be disagreeable, but the five-act structure common to Elizabethan and Jacobean plays (including those of Marlowe and Shakespeare) was something unknown to the playwrights who wrote the plays of that era. Rather the five-act division was done later by various editors who prepared the plays for publication, well after the deaths of these writers. The editors were likely influenced by the Greek and Roman tragedy formats which generally featured five episodes alternated with Choral odes."

Actually, that's not as strong an argument as some scholars today suppose. The truth is that we don't have the original handwritten manuscripts by either playwright, which, in Shakespeare's case were presumably given over in bulk by the actors Heminges and Condell to the printer of the First Folio in 1623. & the first printed Folio is divided into acts and scenes, as the scenes for each act reset at "prima" for each new act--although yes the acts are not explicitly stated on the page itself, but rather incorporated via these scenic divisions. But you are right that the earlier Quartos don't explicitly reveal a five act structure (for the most part?), which really doesn't mean much (as most of the Quartos appear to be hastily put together, and are 'early' versions of the plays). Nevertheless, these First Folio divisions undoubtedly come from the author of the plays and not some less educated printer, as the First Folio was certainly printed directly from the author's original hand written manuscripts (in the sonnets he claims that he wrote on 'tablets'). Nor, contrary to common belief is it at all certain that the real author of the works of Shakespeare wasn't still alive in 1623 when the First Folio was printed. For example, the 1623 printing of Othello in the First Folio differs from 1622 Quarto of Othello by containing about 160 newly penned or added lines that presumably came directly from the author, who also made various other amendments to Othello and to his other plays in order to ready them for their first 'real' publication. So, who wrote these new lines between 1622 and 1623, if not the Bard?--certainly not some hack printer, or two mere actors. In other words, it's very likely that in 1622-23 Heminges and Condell were serving as front men for the author with the printer of the First Folio. 

However, so far, the various candidates proposed for the authorship of the works have all been utterly bogus, and demonstrably so--especially the unquestionably dead Marlowe (murdered in 1593), the tyrant Queen Elizabeth I (who the Bard & his circle lived in terror of), Mary Sidney (a nutty proposal), William Stanley (an even nuttier proposal), and most ludicrous of all, the profligate Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere. Yet many of the arguments made on behalf of these quite ignorantly chosen candidates have been perfectly valid, sound, and accurate. 

But I'm not going to get into all that on this forum, as isn't the right place to do so, nor is that the subject of this thread (so please don't ask me to). I was simply making an analogy between Haydn's considerable influence on Mozart, and Marlowe's on Shakespeare, which I think holds true to a good extent.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

DaveM said:


> You keep asking for education. Does this mean that you have no idea yourself?


I myself put Beethoven above Brahms (as much a I like Brahms) but I'm just expressing an opinion.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Josquin13 said:


> Wooduck writes, "We're at a different point...


Wow - what a great post...not that I necessarily agree...but very interesting.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> When you say you've studied this stuff for fifty years, what exactly have you studied that enables you to judge the quality of musical works and leads you to think that Machaut may be as great a composer as Mozart?


I've been studying unimportant things like biographies, theory textbooks, and lots of black notes on paper. But obviously these items are subdominant to the objectivity standards of popularity polls.

"Compositional superiority" is not a musical term that can be defined outside of said such popularity polls. But I was hoping that your higher order aesthetic understanding could provide us with a working definition.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

janxharris said:


> I myself put Beethoven above Brahms (as much a I like Brahms) but I'm just expressing an opinion.


'What are they DaveM?' is an opinion?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

DaveM said:


> 'What are they DaveM?' is an opinion?


I'm not following you.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Room2201974 said:


> I've been studying unimportant things like biographies, theory textbooks, and lots of black notes on paper. But obviously these items are subdominant to the objectivity standards of popularity polls.
> 
> "Compositional superiority" is not a musical term that can be defined outside of said such popularity polls. But I was hoping that your higher order aesthetic understanding could provide us with a working definition.


As you might have surmised, I wouldn't have chosen the term "compositional superiority" as a blanket description of music or composers, since it tells us nothing concrete. I neither brought it into the conversation nor intend to perpetuate it. The problem isn't defining it but applying it. Any number of composers - all the big names, in fact - have left us superior compositions, compositions that it's difficult or impossible to imagine being improved in any way. The ability to turn out such compositions is certainly one criterion of excellence; others would be the ability to do it consistently and often. That narrows the field somewhat, but still leaves many, many composers to participate in this rather silly competition. There's more to artistic distinction than competence at putting a piece together.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

janxharris said:


> I'm not following you.


In your post #194, you responded to my post that was a response to Room2201974 with 'What are they DaveM?'. When I questioned that response, you came back with 'I'm just expressing an opinion'.

I wasn't responding to any opinion of yours so what are you talking about?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Josquin13 said:


> I was simply making an analogy between Haydn's considerable influence on Mozart, and Marlowe's on Shakespeare, which I think holds true to a good extent.


I think Mozart also made a strong impression on Haydn since Haydn referenced Mozart's work many times after Mozart's death. ("... it is interesting that, having influenced Haydn, Bach (CPE) later allowed himself to be influenced by the younger composer, just as Haydn later influenced and was influenced by Mozart. ...")

Compare the string figures in measure 9 of Confitebor tibi domine from Mozart Vesperae solennes de confessore (1780)
with those of Gloria from Haydn Schöpfungsmesse (1801)
---
Mozart Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550: II. Andante (1788)
Erblicke hier, betörter Mensch from Haydn oratorio Die Jahreszeiten (1801)
---
Adagio introduction from Mozart: String Quartet No.19 In C, K.465 - "Dissonance" (1785)
Die Vorstellung des Chaos from Haydn oratorio Die Schöpfung (1798)
( "... Yet he remained a bit flummoxed by this opening, saying only "if Mozart wrote it he must have meant it." This from the composer who, later on, would make a musical depiction of Chaos resolved into blinding C Major light in The Creation. ..." )
---
the way the first movements open:
Mozart - String Quartet No. 15 in D minor K. 421 (1783)
Haydn - String Quartet Op. 76, No. 2 in D minor 'Quinten' (1797)
---
Agnus Dei from Mozart Krönungsmesse (1779)
Agnus Dei from Haydn Harmoniemesse (1802)
Adagio from symphony No.98 (1792)


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> It is my opinion you can get a far better, convincing contemporary classical music listening experience in a cinema than a concert hall. A lot of composers of the 20th/21th centuries strike me as "glorified" film music composers. Someone could argue, "isn't opera music of the common practice period the same as modern film music in this regard?" -I would say no because common practice opera music is "complete art", (the music can still be appreciated without being used as background music to visual content), whereas a lot of the music by the later "film music composers" is not.


I've been trying to understand your posts about "glorified film music" for quite some time. Do I understand correctly that you mean it in the sense of something like "ballet specialists" that Tchaikovsky didn't think highly of, only less skilled?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

DaveM said:


> In your post #194, you responded to my post that was a response to Room2201974 with 'What are they DaveM?'. When I questioned that response, you came back with 'I'm just expressing an opinion'.
> 
> I wasn't responding to any opinion of yours so what are you talking about?


Still not really following you but if you don't want to respond to my simple question that's fine. 
Beethoven is not 'put above' Brahms except within the confines of personal opinion (where the converse is observed too).


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

mmsbls said:


> Almost everyone I know who loves contemporary classical music also loves former periods as well. The bolded part above is something I find strongly supported on TC and when reading about classical music. In general, modern and contemporary composers follow the tradition of classical music or art music. They study past masters, understand their music, and try to produce something innovative but related to earlier music. So many talk about their influences which can be Bach or Mozart or maybe other composers whose influences were Baroque, Classical, or Romantic composers. It is a continuum, but the change from Medieval music through today is certainly astonishing.


This is certainly true (I think) but at the same time the listener does need to adjust their expectations, to listen in different ways, to look for different things when s/he moves from one musical era to another. We don't go to Mozart expecting Schumann - even if we can hear links between the two - and we don't expect Boulez to satisfy us in the same way that Beethoven does.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Fabulin said:


> I've been trying to understand your posts about "glorified film music" for quite some time. Do I understand correctly that you mean it in the sense of something like "ballet specialists" that Tchaikovsky didn't think highly of, only less skilled?


I don't know how to explain it more comprehensively. "Background music" of many different types and purposes had been written for centuries, but none is as "over-hyped" in the way modern "background music" is. Think about the things said about it these days, for example: _"there's so much to it, you'll never ever understand it ever."_
I find Stockhausen (for example) so aesthetically and effectually compatible with "horror film music". -I think the two are interchangeable. If it's "horror film music", then it's just "horror film music". People shouldn't pretend it's something more than "horror film music". I'm not sure if this is a good analogy for this case but -people shouldn't try to sell a banana at a million dollars pretending it's a complete piece of art.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Enthusiast said:


> This is certainly true (I think) but at the same time the listener does need to adjust their expectations, to listen in different ways, to look for different things when s/he moves from one musical era to another. We don't go to Mozart expecting Schumann - even if we can hear links between the two - and we don't expect Boulez to satisfy us in the same way that Beethoven does.


I agree 100%. In fact, my enjoyment of modern music was delayed precisely because I was listening for the same things I loved in earlier music. I had to learn to hear the music differently before I was able to enjoy most modern/contemporary music.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> I don't know how to explain it more comprehensively. "Background music" of many different types and purposes had been written for centuries, but none is as "over-hyped" in the way modern "background music" is. Think about the things said about it these days, for example: _"there's so much to it, you'll never ever understand it ever."_
> I find Stockhausen (for example) so aesthetically and effectually compatible with "horror film music". -I think the two are interchangeable. If it's "horror film music", then it's just "horror film music". People shouldn't pretend it's something more than "horror film music". I'm not sure if this is a good analogy for this case but -people shouldn't try to sell a banana at a million dollars pretending it's a complete piece of art.


Please, feel free to share an example of a work by Stockhausen that would make any sense in a horror movie. I don't think you're getting your point across clearly with words.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

hammeredklavier said:


> I don't know how to explain it more comprehensively. "Background music" of many different types and purposes had been written for centuries, but none is as "over-hyped" in the way modern "background music" is. Think about the things said about it these days, for example: _"there's so much to it, you'll never ever understand it ever."_
> I find Stockhausen (for example) so aesthetically and effectually compatible with "horror film music". -I think the two are interchangeable. If it's "horror film music", then it's just "horror film music". People shouldn't pretend it's something more than "horror film music". I'm not sure if this is a good analogy for this case but -people shouldn't try to sell a banana at a million dollars pretending it's a complete piece of art.


Do you honestly believe that those who enjoy modern/contemporary classical music think of it as background music? Do you believe those people think it's essentially horror film music? I've read many posts by people who do enjoy the music, and I'm pretty sure I've never seen anyone describe it as "there's so much to it, you'll never ever understand it ever."

Obviously you don't enjoy such music. Fine. I don't enjoy much Stockhausen, but I imagine most people would find Mozart vastly better background music than Stockhausen. It's not uncommon that people who strongly dislike an activity, a food, or a type of art will go out of their way to describe such things in a profoundly negative manner. Personally, I find that people who do enjoy certain activities, foods, or music, give vastly better descriptions than those who strongly dislike those things.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mmsbls said:


> Personally, I find that people who do enjoy certain activities, foods, or music, give vastly better descriptions than those who strongly dislike those things.


That usually applies even to first-rate curmudgeons like G. B. Shaw. Generally the only people who can make negativity entertaining are humorists, but most of those who actually have the skills to skewer things effectively also have the discrimination and tact to choose their targets, and their audiences, wisely.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

flamencosketches said:


> Please, feel free to share an example of a work by Stockhausen that would make any sense in a horror movie. I don't think you're getting your point across clearly with words.


I've already cited his _Luzifers Abschied_ as an example in the earlier posts.

I'm just saying, in the context of modern horror film effects, Stockhausen's music makes perfect sense. There's a lot of music of the past I think in terms of aesthetic qualities resembling oratorio or opera ( 10m ) or hymn ( 47m35s ) . 
Music reflects society and culture. Film is an indispensable part of modern culture. Composers in the modern times have provided music for films of various genres such as horror films. You don't think Stockhausen would have written a piece similar to _Luzifers Abschied_ as soundtrack for a horror film even if he was paid to do it?



mmsbls said:


> Obviously you don't enjoy such music. Fine. I don't enjoy much Stockhausen, but I imagine most people would find Mozart vastly better background music than Stockhausen. It's not uncommon that people who strongly dislike an activity, a food, or a type of art will go out of their way to describe such things in a profoundly negative manner.


I'm not expressing negativity or contempt for any kind of music here. What I'm saying is more like "different kinds of music have different purposes". In the context of a sad drama show, those Chopin-inspired pieces of Yuhki Kuramoto can make everyone cry (for example).



mmsbls said:


> I'm pretty sure I've never seen anyone describe it as "there's so much to it, you'll never ever understand it ever."


Really? Whenever there is a discussion of modern music, everyone's like "I do/don't understand [the stuff]". So much so that I almost wonder if we are making too big of a deal over it. It's quite bizarre to me, because many of the conversations sound like to me: "I do/don't understand the horror film music of Boulez", "I do/don't understand the horror film music of Stockhausen". I'm often baffled. When it comes to this sort of music, why is there such a dire need to "understand"? If you enjoy listening to a certain type of music, you listen, but if you don't enjoy, you don't listen to it. It's as simple as that.


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