# Composers you listen to proportionally more than others



## musicrom (Dec 29, 2013)

(Bear with me, I found this to be a fun exercise.)

I took my top 200 artists listened to on Last.fm (I have it synced with Spotify), and took a look at how many overall listeners each of them had. For example, Beethoven has 2 million listeners. Then I found my most-listened to composers with <X overall listeners (the numbers in parentheses below are overall listeners). Here's what I got:


Overall: Ludwig van Beethoven (2M)
<2M: Dmitri Shostakovich (571K)
<571K: Sergei Prokofiev (566K)
<566K: Jean Sibelius (474K)
<474K: Igor Stravinsky (466K)
<466K: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (139K)
<139K: Paul Hindemith (72K)
<72K: Alexander Glazunov (36K)
<36K: Henri Dutilleux (20K)
<20K: Mieczysław Weinberg (8K)
<8K: Magnus Lindberg (7K)
<7K: Arthur Lourié (3K)
<3K: Karl Goldmark (2.6K)
<2.6K: Sergei Taneyev (2.3K)
<2.3K: Kara Karayev (700)

Also shoutout to Pascal Dusapin, Jörg Widmann, & Vasily Kalinnikov, who have among the highest ratios of my listens to overall listeners, even though they're not in the list above.

This seems like a quite accurate representation of my musical preferences. More so than my actual most-listened to list.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any online tool to automate this, so I don't expect that others will spend so much time on this. Just wondering what composers you listen to a lot, that others probably are less familiar with.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I'm pretty high proportion of Karayev too, as well as Schreker, Kodaly, Jongen and Glazunov.

The highest proportion is who your spirit composer is. Almost everyone has a different spirit composer.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Ethereality said:


> The highest proportion is who your spirit composer is. Almost everyone has a different spirit composer.


That's not true. My spirit composer is Schumann (_saudade_ and insanity). I listen to hundreds of composers more often proportional to overall popularity.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Ethereality said:


> The highest proportion is who your spirit composer is. Almost everyone has a different spirit composer.





BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> That's not true. My spirit composer is Schumann (_saudade_ and insanity). I listen to hundreds of composers more often proportional to overall popularity.


What's a spirit composer? Is it something like:
"I thought to myself, 'May thy pure and peaceful spirit hover around me, dear Haydn! If I can ever become like thee, peaceful and guileless, in all matters none on earth has such deep reverence for thee as I have.' (Sad tears fell from my eyes. . . .)"" -Schubert


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

To me it's the composer no one else seems to listen to but whom you enjoy: ie. spirit animals are a plenty/diverse, everyone has a unique spirit.

If you say your spirit composer is Haydn, this won't tell me much about you since lots of people love Haydn.

But if you say your spirit composer is Joseph Fiala or Paul Wranitzky, I can understand your individual soul or spirit more clearly... what makes you different from others.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

I'm old school in that I still buy CDs, however, looking at what I listen to the most, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Dvorak make up about 75% of my listening.

The next 15% are Bach, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Copland.

About 5% Handel, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saens, Debussy, Holst, Shostakovich, and Bernstein.

The last 5% is everyone else.

Composers that I acknowledge as great but that I never listen to just because I don't like the music include: Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, Mahler, Bruckner, Verdi, R. Strauss, and Chopin.

Yes, I'm very skewed in my listening, but I know what I like.


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## Bruckner Anton (Mar 10, 2016)

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms are the composers that I listen to a lot more than others. But I also enjoy good pieces by lesser known composers.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

The problem is I’d have no idea how to find out who I listen to the most. All of my listening stems from 19th and 20th Centuries, but I don’t think I could narrow down my list to say 10 because I have no idea who those 10 would be. Somedays I feel like Late Romantic composers like Mahler, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Rachmaninov, Bruckner, Glazunov et. al. Other days, I want to listen to post-war avant-garde composers like Boulez, Ligeti, Scelsi, Xenakis, Berio et. al. I go through these long phases where a group of composers gain prominence while others on put on hold.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

These composers are in my Spotify folder labeled "Top Tier" - 

Bach
Boulez
Bernstein
Carter
Dallapiccola
Duruflé
Golijov
Feldman
Grisey
Satie
Stravinsky
Webern

So I must assume these are the ones I listen to the most when I listen to Classical music. There's a somewhat longer list in the folder "Second Tier," but to be honest it probably could use some updating since although I recognize the names as composers I have been interested in, I don't recall spending much time with them recently.


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## 8opus (Jul 17, 2021)

Very surprised to not really see Chopin on anyone's list.

-Chopin
-Bach
-Beethoven/Mozart/Rachmaninof/Brahms
-Listz


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## mossyembankment (Jul 28, 2020)

Schumann, for me. He is not in the top tier for most people, but he is my #1.


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## ClassicalMaestro (Dec 10, 2017)

Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Sor


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

ClassicalMaestro said:


> Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Sor


One of the items does not belong in the series...


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Berlioz and Dvorak. Rzewski has recently joined this company due to me getting an obsession with his works following his death. 

Honestly from a "numerical" perspective like in the OP, Rzewski would almost certainly be tops for me.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Bach and Beethoven are the two who garner the most listening time from my stereo rig, and I've been favoring Beethoven this particular 250th birthday year.

Still, though these two B's offer me the most plays of any other composer (and they _did _write a lot of music!) I actually spend more time (music listening time) with everybody else, often exploring new music ("new" as in both recent and as in as yet unfamiliar to me). For example, my turntable is currently playing the Sinfonietta för stråkorkester op 14 (1946-47) by Torsten Sörenson, available on disc three of the box set _Göteborgs Symfoniker: Recordings 1930-1978_.















I was actually interested in hearing the Symphony by Sven-Eric Johanson, but I decided to play through the opening piece first, since it escapes my recollection. Enjoying the work so far, even in the older-style mono sound.

But I've already this week listened to a couple of Cantatas by Bach and the cello sonatas by Beethoven. So, this is my experience. Those two big guns (or big B's) against everybody else.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Because of their symphonic and string quartet output I probably listen to more Beethoven and Dvorak than any other composer (even Haydn or Schubert). Otherwise I spread my listening quite well amongst many others.


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## Fredrikalansson (Jan 29, 2019)

I have what I call "companion composers", which are probably the same as other people's "spirit" composers. They have been with me since my youth, and whatever new areas I'm exploring, whatever my new enthusiasms, I always return to them. It has nothing to do with the amount of listening time I devote to them. For instance, I listen to Bach more, but Tallis, Berlioz, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Martinu strike closer to my heart.

Have others had similar experience with select composers?


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## Nedeslusire (Jul 27, 2021)

Fredrikalansson said:


> I have what I call "companion composers", which are probably the same as other people's "spirit" composers. They have been with me since my youth, and whatever new areas I'm exploring, whatever my new enthusiasms, I always return to them. It has nothing to do with the amount of listening time I devote to them. For instance, I listen to Bach more, but Tallis, Berlioz, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Martinu strike closer to my heart.
> 
> Have others had similar experience with select composers?


Yes same here, I have an obsession with composers of the High Renaissance such as Palestrina, Lassus and Victoria. Tallis and Byrd are close to my heart as well. Absolutely adore Ralph Vaughan Williams also.

Apart from that I play a lot of Byzantine music by ensembles such as Cappella Romana or Byzantion, but in those cases it's more the CD collections that count rather than individual composers from the Byzantine middle ages.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I give most composers in my collection a fair crack of the listening whip whether they are my favourites or not - because of this, and also due to the size of my collection, I never listen to the output of a composer more than once every six to twelve months. I'm more than happy with this arrangement - it keeps everything nice and fresh.


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## ClassicalMaestro (Dec 10, 2017)

Kreisler jr said:


> One of the items does not belong in the series...


He belongs in mine. I'm a guitar player and I like Sor. He also composed some nice symphonies.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Also, I interpreted this thread as composers you listen to proportionately more than others _do_. Would be great to get a quantity count here to see which composers are considered actually _great_ by their fanbase, and then their favorite _pieces_ which differ from the mainstream. Musicrom I think weagree with Karayev, Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov being quite great (although I probably like a lot more Classical era than you do.). I tried to simulate this list here using a different method (explained further into the thread.)


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