# Greatest composers???



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Two amusing articles from the Telegraph. "A few weeks back I dared to suggest Ravel might not be in the front rank of composers. This attracted a barrage of protest from various musicians and composers. What was strange was the tone of personal resentment, as if by casting doubts on Ravel's greatness I'd attacked them personally." Anyway...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100265449/my-league-table-of-great-composers/

and

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/10737383/What-makes-a-great-composer.html


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

So many statements there I can't take seriously coming from my own view of the world, from the "greatness" of Chopin and Shostakovich to the idea of greatness being about "proper technique" which modern composers simply couldn't have daaaahling - it's just generally the mark of the smug amateur (if I may be so blunt)

So he can keep his league tables and his limited Ravel but great Chopin. Good on him for giving music writing a go but I'll take Tom Service and the slightly curmudgeonly Andrew Clements any day


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

See also http://www.talkclassical.com/31398-why-league-tables-may.html


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

To follow on from my ranting ad-hom against both the Messrs Telegraph (but seriously - no Debussy, no Brahms? Who are these chumps and who let them write about music?), the "greatness" they seem to prize appears to be a hefty dose of received wisdom from some fairly stately and very British sources - direct descent from Donald Tovey, don't you know - with a liberal dash of "I know what I like" fine music listener. Does the music world need any more of this sort of stodgy gate-keeping and taste-making? I'd make my own league table but I don't think it's that useful an endeavour

The winner is the commenter who says: "you'll never get agreement on questions of artistic merit" - so listen widely, find some things you like and follow up! Classical music will not fall in your lap, you have to do some work (much in the way you won't accidentally get hooked on underground hip-hop or Indian ragas or European space-disco). And I'm willing to put the house on more schoolkids thrilling to a live orchestra playing Ravel than debating the relative merits of Schumann and Chopin or Bach and Handel

Hmmmmm - "you'll never get agreement on questions of artistic merit". Now that would be quite an opening gambit for a TC thread ;-)


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

"you'll never get agreement on questions of artistic merit"
I fully agree with that one.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Different strokes for different folks. But as R. Strauss once stated, with great self-knowledge: "I may not be a First Class composer, but I'm a first rate Second Class composer.".


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## Guest (Apr 3, 2014)

"He declared that only pompous music lovers say you can’t rank classical composers into best, good, and indifferent. Making rank orders of different human types is harmlessly entertaining, and something we do all the time."

Now gimme a ranked list, PetrB!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

One of the people commenting on the first article thinks Shostakovich's 4th Symphony is "an atonal travesty", and thanks Stalin for making Shostakovich write the 5th in a different style....

...

...

Although it is a little heartening to see others suggest that the author was wrong to leave off Monteverdi. Honestly, all of these lists end up biased against music earlier than Bach and later than Brahms, simply because the period from 1700 to 1900 is most ingrained in the repertoire.

Edit: In reference to the second article, Satie is indeed an interesting case. He had so little technique but a good deal of imagination.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Two amusing articles from the Telegraph. "A few weeks back I dared to suggest Ravel might not be in the front rank of composers. This attracted a barrage of protest from various musicians and composers. What was strange was the tone of personal resentment, as if by casting doubts on Ravel's greatness I'd attacked them personally." Anyway...
> 
> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100265449/my-league-table-of-great-composers/
> 
> ...


Interesting reads, but worthless. Stravinsky is deservedly revered but there is also Bartok, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Berio, Nono, Kagel, Carter, Feldman, Lutosławski, Messiaen, etc.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Based on these two articles, it would appear that the current standard of DT journalism is considerably inferior to the casual posts by some of our esteemed members. 

What a waste of ink.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Dear _Telegraph_,

In a brace of recent columns, your so-called journalists performed abysmally not only by giving opinions that did not match exactly with my own but by thinking about things in a way different from the way I think about things. How dare you, sir. How very dare you.

Yours faithfully,

Nereffid,
Little Frothing-in-Anger.


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## chalkpie (Oct 5, 2011)

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Interesting reads, but worthless. Stravinsky is deservedly revered but there is also Bartok, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Berio, Nono, Kagel, Carter, Feldman, Lutosławski, Messiaen, etc.


Kagel? Never heard him but I love all of the other cats you listed.

What is a good starting point? Thanks man.


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## Guest (Apr 3, 2014)

Opinions are fun


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Two amusing articles from the Telegraph. "A few weeks back I dared to suggest Ravel might not be in the front rank of composers. This attracted a barrage of protest from various musicians and composers. What was strange was the tone of personal resentment, as if by casting doubts on Ravel's greatness I'd attacked them personally." Anyway...
> 
> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100265449/my-league-table-of-great-composers/
> 
> ...


Well, I'm glad there's _someone_ out there, at least, who's willing to give Mozart and Stravinsky a fair hearing.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

arcaneholocaust said:


> "He declared that only pompous music lovers say you can't rank classical composers into best, good, and indifferent. Making rank orders of different human types is harmlessly entertaining, and something we do all the time."
> 
> Now gimme a ranked list, PetrB!


Okeedoh: Ravel is a great _second tier great_ composer. So are Shostakovich and Prokofiev. (Hey, I love two out of the three. My self-conceit is not crushed that I like not only the greatest of the great.)

Medtner doesn't even get into the bottom third tier.

All music written much before 1890 is a bunch of incoherent nasty noise and fails to express any emotion or beauty.

Uh... O.K. so already, I have brain fatigue


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

chalkpie said:


> Kagel? Never heard him but I love all of the other cats you listed.
> 
> What is a good starting point? Thanks man.


I'd start here... the composer in a film presentation
Mauricio Kagel ~ _Ludwig van_


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

arcaneholocaust said:


> Opinions are fun


 Yea & Nay -- because displays of flat-out ignorance or stupidity can make the recipients more than uncomfortably embarrassed.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Kagel's Sankt Bach Passion impressed me


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

*Here is what free access to the internet has done for us and to us...*

Here is what free access to the internet has done for us and to us:

It has allowed legions of people _who think they and their opinions are interesting_ to publish them on the web. Often, those who publish are there because they have found there is little or no interest in them or their opinions more locally, as within their family or immediate circle of associates.

The source of these myriad articles and blogs by vapid yet vocal posters seems to come primarily from a frightening gene pool of (mainly male) Dweebs, doesn't it?

This venue of the internet, where any can post their articles and blogs, is, for the deathly dull and plebeian public school sort -- the boring, studiously petty academic, or socially inept type -- _a dream come true._

Our contemporary anything -- across the board -- has not yet been sorted out by several earlier generations of "consensus." Ergo: of the internet and our own time, one has to sort out what one thinks to be of value for oneself -- which when it comes to criticism and blogs on the wwwInternetz, is very like sorting through a mountain of virtual, odorless, steaming pony dung


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Here is what free access to the internet has done for us and to us: (etc.)


(Hmmm...thought the better of posting that. But it was pretty good!)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Two amusing articles from the Telegraph.
> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100265449/my-league-table-of-great-composers/
> 
> and
> ...


"We were not amused." :lol:


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## Kilgore Trout (Feb 26, 2014)

PetrB said:


> This venue of the internet, where any can post their articles and blogs, is, for the deathly dull and plebeian *pubic* school sort


Pun intended ?
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Splitting hairs aren't you?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> Splitting hairs aren't you?


I'm laughing so very hard, but _dude,_ that is just so wrong


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Kilgore Trout said:


> Pun intended ?
> aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa


No, funny typo, corrected. I just PM'd a colleague to give them a heads up on their nominating Stravinsky's cantata _Oedipus *Tex*_ on a TC list


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> (Hmmm...thought the better of posting that. But it was pretty good!)


Thanks, old bean.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> No, funny typo, corrected. I just PM'd a colleague to give them a heads up on their nominating Stravinsky's cantata _Oedipus *Tex*_ on a TC list


If your friend doesn't tell you first: "Oedipus Tex is a satirical Western-themed oratorio by P. D. Q. Bach that follows the adventures of Oedipus Tex ("you may have heard of my brother Rex") in Thebes Gulch."

See also http://oedipustex.com/ for a group whose name I can't quote in full here... :lol:


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Bumped thread.

I read the article and personally I find it too insistent. It insists that greatness is something I must have a rational conversation with others about (insisting somehow he knows this, and implying that my own definition won't be good enough.) The author insists that, even though he adores Satie, he's sure everyone will agree with him that Satie wasn't one of the greats. Well I know lots of people who don't adore Satie, but they'd be hesitant to call anyone a bad composer even if almost no one understands their music. How would people know if they're bad, if they don't understand it properly? Why would the composer himself write it and prefer it? hence, why are the snobs simply out of the loop on that composer? This objective version of greatness is a fallacy called 'argument form ignorance:' They can't prove they're right, by just demonstrating I don't know. However, I have a definition of greatness, and it works quite well for me, but it isn't contingent on having to understand artists or composers I simply don't understand (nor pretend to.)

My definition of greatness is simply a comparison with my definition of favorites: Favorites are the artists which seem to do the best things, to me. Great artists on the other hand, seem to do a bunch of good things I like. They're well-versed in encompassing many aspects of creativity I like, but they're not the singularly _favorite_ things I like. For that reason, some favorite composers don't need to be great. Said composer can do the best things without doing everything else I'm within enjoying. By this definition I also don't consider a few certain composers that many praise, to be that great. Namely, Schubert and Handel. I just don't understand or enjoy much of what they do, so I'm not within claiming they're great, or pretending to have that knowledge. They might be objectively great, but neither it seems others can definitively appraise if a composer by the name of Einaudi or Froberger are great: Feeling it to be true/factual that they aren't, isn't a good argument, so I just say there are many great composers I can hear for myself!...

Among my least favorites there are composers much greater than my favorites: Bach definitely. Shostakovich. Vaughan Williams. I love Dvorak more than Debussy but I can just tell that Debussy is a greater composer. He achieves _more_ things I enjoy. As for the topic starter, certainly Ravel. And Schubert does do some things I enjoy (having a fine sense of voice-leading [which he has] is not one of them and) I'm just not overall impressed, or knowledgeable enough, to consider him great. I'll let others do that.


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