# Which composers bear the most similarity in style to Beethoven?



## dillonp2020 (May 6, 2017)

I know that each individual composer should have their own, distinct style, but some features seem to be found in many. I love the works of Beethoven and am looking to broaden my horizons. A composer that invokes the same feeling of passion, and sometimes rage. Thank you in advance.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

Well, many composers after Beethoven tried to compose at his quality of composing- some perhaps more intensely focused on being like Beethoven (Brahms) than others (Vaughan Williams, who hated Beethoven's music). 

So a composer that invokes a feeling of passion, and sometimes rage- that would be composers like Schumann, Bruckner, Mahler, Stravinsky, Strauss, and Tchaikovsky, among others. But the same feeling of passion? and the same rage? I'm afraid that can only be done by Beethoven- not it that it's any better or worse than the styles of the composers I mentioned before... but you just won't find someone with these "same feelings of passion, and sometimes rage" out there. But if you like Beethoven's music, I would try all the composers I listed above.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

dillonp2020 said:


> I know that each individual composer should have their own, distinct style, but some features seem to be found in many. I love the works of Beethoven and am looking to broaden my horizons. A composer that invokes *the same feeling of passion, and sometimes rage*. Thank you in advance.


Brian Ferneyhough. Händel.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Brian Ferneyhough. Händel.


In three posts, we jump from Beethoven to Ferneyhough. The world has clearly gone mad.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Passion and sometimes rage. Adagio. Symphony No. 10 Mahler.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

JAS said:


> In three posts, we jump from Beethoven to Ferneyhough. The world has clearly gone mad.


"Back in my days, Ferneyhough was but a twinkle in his father's eye..." :scold:


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Of course, if one is simply looking for "style", contemporaries of Beethoven, like Hummel and Spohr, "sound" a bit like Beethoven.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Chronochromie said:


> "Back in my days, Ferneyhough was but a twinkle in his father's eye..." :scold:


Would that his mother had been suffering from a bad headache that night. That is all his supposed music gives me.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

I've always thought that Beethoven's style of composition had more to do with characteristics related to his classical and romantic periods such that composers that reminded of him would be from those periods. Passion and rage are characteristics that IMO are so general/broad that it would often be hard to make a connection with Beethoven just based on them.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

JAS said:


> Would that his mother had been suffering from a bad headache that night. That is all his supposed music gives me.


I'm not a fan either, but it's still music.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Chronochromie said:


> I'm not a fan either, but it's still music.


Fortunately, we don't need to agree.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Beethoven's student Ferdinand Ries did a pretty good job of imitating his teacher. Of course, his music is not as great as Beethoven's, but some of his works come close! Here's a particularly Beethovenian piece of his:


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

Liszt 
Prokofiev


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

Razumovskymas said:


> Liszt
> Prokofiev


That's interesting... I find these two composers to be quite different than Beethoven... Liszt is flashy, showy, and programmatic, and Prokofiev is perky, at times humorous, and "intelligent-sounding." I find Beethoven's qualities much different than either of these composers... but I suppose it could be argued that there are similarities. What are your reasonings?


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

JAS said:


> Fortunately, we don't need to agree.


That's the joy of internet and taste for us all.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bettina said:


> Beethoven's student Ferdinand Ries did a pretty good job of imitating his teacher. Of course, his music is not as great as Beethoven's, but some of his works come close! Here's a particularly Beethovenian piece of his:


You beat me to it. I'll add only what Beethoven said about him: "Ries imitates me too much." LvB didn't beat around the bush.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

How has no one said Haydn yet, the most obvious answer (as much as Beethoven wouldn't have wanted to admit)..


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

JAS said:


> In three posts, we jump from Beethoven to Ferneyhough. The world has clearly gone mad.


It's the quartets I was thinking of, the 3rd (passion and rage) and the 6th (which because of its scale and its transitions makes me think of Op 131)

Another composer who sometimes makes me think of Beethoven, because of the scale, is Jakob Obrecht, in the last two masses.


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Whoever it is, I hope no one will mention Schubert. While it is true that Schubert almost worshiped Beethoven, I found him at his best when he stayed true to himself and stopped chasing and mimicking the "grandeur" of Beethoven. Ironically, then, he was closer to Mozart. 

I will probably say the same thing for Brahms (though I'm sure many will disagree with me). Yes, another Beethoven worshipper, plus the burden of proving himself to be the worthy heir of a grand tradition, yet I find the Brahms that excites me the most (e.g. the late _klavierstucke_, the clarinet quintet/trio/sonatas, the violin sonatas and several lieder) is so un-Beethoven 

For me, the heir of Beethoven in term of style is Berlioz.


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

Tchaikov6 said:


> That's interesting... I find these two composers to be quite different than Beethoven... Liszt is flashy, showy, and programmatic, and Prokofiev is perky, at times humorous, and "intelligent-sounding." I find Beethoven's qualities much different than either of these composers... but I suppose it could be argued that there are similarities. What are your reasonings?


Yes they are quite different but the OP was talking about "A composer that invokes the same feeling of passion, and sometimes rage"

So although their styles and the way they make music is different I often find that the feelings they provoke are similar. Maybe not early Beethoven but rather middle period Beethoven. Letting the rage, passion and torment seep through.

Indeed there's less similarity with early Beethoven: Refinement, lightness, restraint, historically formed musical structure. The classical values that I greatly admire and often overlooked by the hardcore Romantic-Beethoven admirers. There's also less similarity with the late Beethoven (late string quartets and piano sonata's): no words for that and until now I never heard equals.

So you could say for the early Beethoven obviously you would rather look to his predecessors Haydn and Mozart. For the late Beethoven if anybody finds similar composers you should immediately let me know which ones 

But for the middle-period Beethoven I find Liszt and Prokofiev worthy equals.

Rage, passion, freshness, innovation each in their own way.

For me the way Prokofiev "reinvented" a relevant melodic language after Schoenberg and the likes is wonderful and makes me convinced that there's still LOTS of interesting full-on tonal music to be made.

And Liszt more or less reinvented pianistic virtuosity or at least added lots of expression after Beethoven.

Another thing that I find in the 3 composer is what I would describe as a diabolic fury. In Beethoven being more serious, Liszt more theatrical and Prokofiev more playful.

That's my highly personal view on the matter.


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

TCHAIKOVSKY use the same textures like BEETHOVEN.Dvorak also uses the same textures as Beethoven.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

Friedrich Witt (1770-1836). His Symphony in C major ("Jena") was for a time attributed to Beethoven. It wouldn't be the heaven storming Beethoven, however.


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## MissKittysMom (Mar 2, 2017)

No one has mentioned Shostakovich yet; he was an admirer of Beethoven, and covered the breadth of darker emotions in a way that few composers have matched. Suggestions:

Symphony 4 was to be his "symphonic credo" but was withdrawn after the infamous Pravda editorial. It is full of rage and violence, and could be understood as a depiction of Stalin's great terror of the 1930s. It was also said to be inspired by Gavriil Popov's Symphony 1, which is also worth tracking down.

Symphony 8 is a war symphony that contributed to his condemnation in 1948. It is oddly constructed with two scherzos, the second of which is full of rage. (Shostakovich wrote many scherzos, which were always dark and grotesque).

The 10th symphony is like an awakening when Shostakovich realizes that Stalin is dead and he survived. The second movement is said to be a musical portrait of Stalin, a pure expression of rage.

The 11th symphony is an ambiguous theatrical landscape of the 1905 revolution, and can be interpreted as a condemnation of the revolution.

The Piano Trio No. 2 is another war-time work that was both a memorial to his best friend, and an expression of outrage against rumors of the Holocaust that were beginning to spread in Russian during the war. The final movement is truly terrifying.

In a different direction, the late quartets are as introspective and idiosyncratic as the late Beethoven quartets. No. 13, in particular, is another distillation of rage and terror - especially for the viola player!


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

Second Bettina's mention of Ries. Very, very similar to Ludwig.

Liszt's career trajectory does parallel Beethoven's to some extent--early virtuosic works showing off his keyboard skills; mature phase with highly dramatic compositions, and late works that extend into the ethereal and are completely apart from what is going on in music at the time. Certainly his orchestral works owe a lot to Beethoven, but his piano pieces are more reflective of his friend Chopin to my mind.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

geralmar said:


> Friedrich Witt (1770-1836). His Symphony in C major ("Jena") was for a time attributed to Beethoven. It wouldn't be the heaven storming Beethoven, however.


Another composer in the same boat is Leopold Kozeluch. Several of his pieces were initially attributed to Beethoven by "music scholars" in the 20th century.


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