# How do you define Tier 1, Tier 2...composers?



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I've read many posts where a member talks about tier 1, tier 2, or lower tier composers. I'm never sure exactly what is meant by these terms. I don't know if someone's tier 2 composers are all composers I greatly respect and love. When people say tier 1, do they mean something like the top 10 or so composers? The top 25? More? When someone uses the term tier 2, do they essentially mean composers of little interest? 

I'm not so much interested in whether a particular composer is tier 1,2, 3, etc.. I have no doubt that almost no matter how tiers are defined Schoenberg would be tier 1 to some and tier 3 or lower to others. I'm really more interested in how people think about the tiers so that I can better understand how the terms are used in posts.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Ranking composers by levels (Tier 1, tier 2, etc.)

There was a bit of discussion in the above link. Personally I don't believe in tiers in composers, moreso with works. I think many great composers such as Vaughan Williams wrote some stuff that is equal to the best of others like Mozart and Beethoven. I suspect some rank in tiers in terms of how prolific or how many works in the canon.


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

Likwise, I find the whole tier thing pretty meaningless. Perhaps a musicologist with a Ph.D could meaningfully rank composers based on their skill levels and contributions, but I certainly never could. So I'm content to enjoy who I enjoy and leave the ranking to those who enjoy that endeavor.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

At least one person seems to equate tiers partly with the breadth of a composer's output which seems to me to be a very arbitrary and mostly meaningless distinction.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

D Smith said:


> Likwise, I find the whole tier thing pretty meaningless. Perhaps *a musicologist with a Ph.D could meaningfully rank composers* based on their skill levels and contributions, but I certainly never could. So I'm content to enjoy who I enjoy and leave the ranking to those who enjoy that endeavor.


Surely you jest!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I would rather see categories: piano sonatas, violin sonatas, 19th-century symphonies, and so on, rather than meaningless tiers as if a work could be accurately rated as being on the 34th tier or the 54th tier or the 70th tier or the 500th tier. I think it’s demeaning to the music, and those who decide such things may not be accurate at all. Does listening to a work that’s supposedly on the 34th tier sound inviting? I don’t think so. I would like to see a different rating system, even just using extensive lists, that is more respectful of the music and doesn’t put a stigma on a work that is supposedly only good enough to be in the 40th tier. It’s cutting the boundary line between quality works far too thin and I believe the tier categories are highly misleading because there’s too many of them with no clear meaning of what each tier means.


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## Littlephrase (Nov 28, 2018)

My theory is that tiers, rankings and categories in general are the products of intellectual boredom. When one amasses an immense knowledge of composers and periods in music history, one feels compelled to organize and hierarchize as a preventive measure against boredom with the material. It’s a way of putting all the “clutter” to good use. 

In other words, it’s a game for the entertainment of the cognoscenti, especially those with a disposition to order and structure things.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

I don’t see what the big problem is. You would almost think that placing composers into tiers was politically incorrect.


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## ECraigR (Jun 25, 2019)

DaveM said:


> I don't see what the big problem is. You would almost think that placing composers into tiers was politically incorrect.


It just isn't very useful. I've always disliked the need to put things into tiers, groupings, rankings of best and worst. For me, it doesn't accomplish anything. Composer X may be judged a second tier composer, or whatever, but if I enjoy composer X then what does it matter? Does it point to a deficiency in my taste? If it does, and I like composer Y who is universally acclaimed as first tier, then does that even out? I agree with Littlephrase that the need to tier and rank things derives from a kind of intellectual need to categorize.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

ECraigR said:


> It just isn't very useful. I've always disliked the need to put things into tiers, groupings, rankings of best and worst. For me, it doesn't accomplish anything. Composer X may be judged a second tier composer, or whatever, but if I enjoy composer X then what does it matter? Does it point to a deficiency in my taste? If it does, and I like composer Y who is universally acclaimed as first tier, then does that even out? I agree with Littlephrase that the need to tier and rank things derives from a kind of intellectual need to categorize.


I find it an interesting excercise. It's not all about you and what you like or don't like. And what you or Littlephrase thinks that says about me or anyone else who may like to do it is irrelevant, not to mention a lame attempt at armchair psychoanalysis.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

I think hierarchical lists can be useful in finding something else to listen to. We all have limited time, and it can be helpful to winnow down our choices of music, books, movies, television. 

They are not useful for arriving at any sort of objective truth, as they are inherently subjective. The most objective list is probably one of which compositions and composers are most popular and most played. It won't tell you anything intrinsic about the music, but it will at least aggregate the opinions of many.

I have found that most lists of the most popular/played works in the canon are on to something. People like the music for a reason. I know it's pleasing on an intellectual level to think you've discovered some amazing secret, but generally it's an opinion held by a small minority.


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## Littlephrase (Nov 28, 2018)

DaveM said:


> I find it an interesting excercise. It's not all about you and what you like or don't like. And what you or Littlephrase thinks that says about me or anyone else who may like to do it is irrelevant, not to mention a lame attempt at armchair psychoanalysis.


Guilty as charged on the count of armchair psychoanalysis.

However, I by no means discourage or even dislike tiering, ranking or anything of that nature. It is indeed fun and stimulating. This is the premise of my whole argument after all!


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Meaningless without definitions.

For compositions, I use a personal tier system, purely based on my own preference:

Hors concours: the very best, less than 100 compositions overall
First tier ("essential"): works I cannot do without if I had to rebuild my CD collection
Second tier ("important"): works I would not like to do without if I had to rebuild my CD collection
Third tier ("good to have"): works I would like to have if I had to rebuild my CD collection
Fourth tier ("not required, or for completion"): the rest

It does help me in my own ranking of composers as well, but again, that's subjective.


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## ECraigR (Jun 25, 2019)

DaveM said:


> I find it an interesting excercise. It's not all about you and what you like or don't like. And what you or Littlephrase thinks that says about me or anyone else who may like to do it is irrelevant, not to mention a lame attempt at armchair psychoanalysis.


The last part isn't fair. That there is an intellectual exercise in grading things you acknowledge. I simply said I don't find it useful.


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## Guest (Jul 13, 2019)

I haven't been involved at all in any of the "tiers" work but was under the impression that the on-going work was in connection with ranking works, and that the rank of the composer in each case was incidental.

I say this because the area of forum where the results are set out is entitled:

_The Talk Classical Community's Favorite and Most Highly Recommended Works_

The forum link takes you to this place where the results seem to be set out:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18t_9MHZTENbmYdezAAj4LRM0-Eak_MYO1HssZW2FX1U/edit

..........

Whether the "tiers" lists are based on works or composers, I think it would be useful if the organisers could produce tables listing results by genre. As far as I can see, based on a quick comparison of certain genres, the "tiers" results don't tally all that well with the rankings produced in the earlier "_TC Recommended Works Lists_". Obviously each set of lists was produced at a different time and by different people, but it does look confusing to have two alternative sets of results each with the title incorporating "TC Recommended .."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I agree that it serves little practical purpose to rank composers. Different people value different things in music, and composers may differ so much in what they're trying to do and in what they do well that there's little basis for common agreement as to who belongs in what "tier." That said, it's natural to assess what we perceive as quality in things, and it can be fun to compare and debate the merits of composers' work. The perception of quality in art will always be largely dependent on our experience, education, sensitivity and intuition: you "know it when you see (hear) it," to the extent that "knowing" is the applicable word.

There are several composers whose work has kept me, over a long lifetime of musical exposure and practice, in a state of perpetual incredulity at the scope, or power, or skill, or sheer incomprehensibility of their achievement. For me that exclusive company includes Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner; if I have a "top tier," those four occupy it (and if anyone wanted to add Brahms, I wouldn't object). If I were to expand my top tier beyond them, it would immediately grow very large, and so I see little value in creating precise rankings for composers in general. I do still make some quality distinctions, but those will be of little value to anyone else, and I don't waste time thinking, much less talking, about them.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> ...There are several composers whose work has kept me, over a long lifetime of musical exposure and practice, in a state of perpetual incredulity at the scope, or power, or skill, or sheer incomprehensibility of their achievement. For me that exclusive company includes Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner; if I have a "top tier," those four occupy it (and if anyone wanted to add Brahms, I wouldn't object). If I were to expand my top tier beyond them, it would immediately grow very large, and so I see little value in creating precise rankings for composers in general. I do still make some quality distinctions, but those will be of little value to anyone else, and I don't waste time thinking, much less talking, about them.


I'm curious Woodduck, since you also say: "I rarely have the urge to listen to Mozart" (#7 'Are you blinded by your bias towards a certain style?')


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

In keeping with the question asked in the OP:

I see any tier-based system as being based on objective evidence, not what anyone’s individual preference is. Objective evidence would be the judgment of composers and audiences over the centuries, the impact and influence on the composers, the music and the classical music culture in general that followed. There may be some disagreement over how many tiers there are and who fits into them based on the evidence, but the fact that Vaughan Williams may or may not have written something equivalent to Beethoven and Mozart will have nothing to do with it.

Is it really going to be that hard to see Tier 1 composers as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

DaveM said:


> In keeping with the question asked in the OP:
> 
> I see any tier-based system as being based on objective evidence, not what anyone's individual preference is. Objective evidence would be the judgment of composers and audiences over the centuries, the impact and influence on the composers, the music and the classical music culture in general that followed. There may be some disagreement over how many tiers there are and who fits into them based on the evidence, but the fact that Vaughan Williams may or may not have written something equivalent to Beethoven and Mozart will have nothing to do with it.
> 
> Is it really going to be that hard to see Tier 1 composers as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven?


That merely makes 'tier' equivalent to 'degree of popularity'.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

And who says that the first tier is only 3? why not 6? 10? 20?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

janxharris said:


> I'm curious Woodduck, since you also say: "I rarely have the urge to listen to Mozart" (#7 'Are you blinded by your bias towards a certain style?')


It's very possible to appreciate the qualities of great art without feeling a personal affinity for the artist's style. Most of my favorite music is not by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven or Wagner, and I find that while my tastes change over the years, my appreciation of composers' achievements changes much less. In fact, my appreciation of Mozart has grown far beyond what it was thirty years ago, yet I've experienced no corresponding increase in my inclination to listen to his works. I don't listen to much Bach or Beethoven these days either, and put on Wagner mainly when there's time to take in a whole opera.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> It's very possible to appreciate the qualities of great art without feeling a personal affinity for the artist's style. Most of my favorite music is not by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven or Wagner, and I find that while my tastes change over the years, my appreciation of composers' achievements changes much less. In fact, my appreciation of Mozart has grown far beyond what it was thirty years ago, yet I've experienced no corresponding increase in my inclination to listen to his works. I don't listen to much Bach or Beethoven these days either, and put on Wagner mainly when there's time to take in a whole opera.


That makes sense.

I rarely put Bach on these days.

But being familiar with certain iconic works - I rank him in the top tier.


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## Guest (Jul 13, 2019)

Can someone please tell me where I can find the list of composers by "tier" that you are referring to.

As per my post #15, I can only find a list of ranked works.

The thread that was referred to in post # 2 on ranking composers by tier fizzled out about 2 years without apparently reaching any conclusions.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

janxharris said:


> That merely makes 'tier' equivalent to 'degree of popularity'.


That seems to be the dismissive reflex response whenever a subject like this is discussed. The premise is apparently that the primary reason for Bach, Beethoven and Mozart being in Tier 1 is popularity rather than the fact that they created something that was objectively superior to others. By that measure, Leonardo da Vinci, Van Gogh and Einstein are remembered for their popularity and Meryl Streep is considered one of our greatest actresses not because she amazes her peers and audience by the mastery of her craft, but because of her popularity.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I remember having an "argument" with a violinist friend over whether Tchaikovsky was a first, second, or third rate composer. I insisted that he was no better than second rate, citing the godawful cadenza in the first movement of his violin concerto as something no first rate composer would perpetrate. My friend had played the concerto and liked it, so I had some fun twitting him ("that's music only a violinist could love"). We considered how we'd rate some other composers, but certainly were not expecting any definitive answers. Such debates are fine if we think of them as mostly a game.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> It's very possible to appreciate the qualities of great art without feeling a personal affinity for the artist's style. Most of my favorite music is not by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven or Wagner, and I find that while my tastes change over the years, my appreciation of composers' achievements changes much less. In fact, my appreciation of Mozart has grown far beyond what it was thirty years ago, yet I've experienced no corresponding increase in my inclination to listen to his works. I don't listen to much Bach or Beethoven these days either, and put on Wagner mainly when there's time to take in a whole opera.


It would be interesting to probe this further. I'm still finding it difficult to resolve 'rarely having the urge to listen to' composers whose music that has kept you, 'in a state of perpetual incredulity at the scope, or power, or skill, or sheer incomprehensibility of their achievement.'

You're making allowances for styles you don't have an affinity with it would seem.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

DaveM said:


> That seems to be the dismissive reflex response whenever a subject like this is discussed. The premise is apparently that the primary reason for Bach, Beethoven and Mozart being in Tier 1 is popularity rather than the fact that they created something that was objectively superior to others. By that measure, Leonardo da Vinci, Van Gogh and Einstein are remembered for their popularity and Meryl Streep is considered one of our greatest actresses not because she amazes her peers and audience by the mastery of her craft, but because of her popularity.


I would not dare suggest any particular writer of music was objectively superior to others. Why aren't we to consider your comments arrogant DaveM?


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

I agree it is largely just fun to rank things in life and mostly subjective rather than objective 
It doesn’t matter if it’s composers, golfers, writers, artists etc the debates are much the same with people keen to champion there personal favourites
Now back to the matter at hand with composers, my personal ranking would be Haydn in one group and all the rest in the other, nice and simple


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I apologize that I wasn't clearer in my meaning of "tier 1", "tier 2", etc.. I'm not referring to lists of works or composers or detailed rankings like those seen in TC threads. Instead, I'm referring to general descriptive terms that mean something like superior, very good, good. Woodduck used the terms first, second, and third rate here.



Woodduck said:


> I remember having an "argument" with a violinist friend over whether Tchaikovsky was a first, second, or third rate composer. I insisted that he was no better than second rate, citing the godawful cadenza in the first movement of his violin concerto as something no first rate composer would perpetrate. My friend had played the concerto and liked it, so I had some fun twitting him ("that's music only a violinist could love"). We considered how we'd rate some other composers, but certainly were not expecting any definitive answers. Such debates are fine if we think of them as mostly a game.


This meaning was what I had in mind, and perhaps I should have used the term "rate" rather than "tier". I chose "tier" because I had seen members use that term more often than "rate". For example:



> composer x certainly qualifies as good as any tier 2 American composer I've heard.





> composer x rises occasionally to Tier 2 status.


Many TC members may not like to rank composers, but I think others have a general sense of first, second, and third rank (or tier). It's those descriptive terms that I'm trying to better understand.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Art Rock said:


> Meaningless without definitions.


Exactly and why I asked people to supply such definitions.



Art Rock said:


> For compositions, I use a personal tier system, purely based on my own preference:
> 
> Hors concours: the very best, less than 100 compositions overall
> First tier ("essential"): works I cannot do without if I had to rebuild my CD collection
> ...


Thanks. These descriptions give me a reasonable sense of how you view tiers (at least for works).


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Well, it's relative; Franz Xaver Süssmayr for example was popular in his day, but today he is mostly known as the one who finished Mozart's Requiem, as the composer died before finishing it; Vivaldi was almost completely forgotten after his death, until the 20th century's Baroque revival; so it's about the time's point of view as well as general quality.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

DaveM said:


> ... Is it really going to be that hard to see Tier 1 composers as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven?


Do you view tier 1 as just 3 (or roughly 3) composers? I believe you have the sense that these 3 stand out from the others such that they should be viewed as in their own tier.



Art Rock said:


> And who says that the first tier is only 3? why not 6? 10? 20?


Yes. I think some people place a small number of composers in their top tier (rank) while others would place many more. If I were to use the term first tier or rank, I might think of more like 30-50 composers.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

If any composer wrote something good, they are tier one, which means I'll listen. But all composers wrote stuff I don't like.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Partita said:


> Can someone please tell me where I can find the list of composers by "tier" that you are referring to.


If you are asking me, I was not referring to a list of composers but rather to how people use the term in a descriptive sense.


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## Guest (Jul 13, 2019)

mmsbls said:


> If you are asking me, I was not referring to a list of composers but rather to how people use the term in a descriptive sense.


Thanks. I thought that I might have missed some kind of formal list of composers by "tier" somewhere on the website. I did look but couldn't find anything, except a very long list of works graduated by "tier" stuck on some google website. it does look very strange, with no information on how it was constructed, who participated, and comprising a rag-bag of items across all genres.

Is it possible that the people who use the term "tier" that you have observed are possibly not going to divulge how they go about ranking composers by "tier". It could be that the "Rankers" - if I may call them that - have a secret methodology of which they are sworn to secrecy. One may need to send in a "mole" in to uncover what lurks behind the outer curtain. There may be no way back, so I'm not volunteering.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Almost everything depends on context. From a certain POV, Chopin or Dvorak are absolutely "tier one," but from another POV only 1-3 are "tier one."


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## Beethoven14 (Feb 14, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> The perception of quality in art will always be largely dependent on our experience, education, sensitivity and intuition: you "know it when you see (hear) it," to the extent that "knowing" is the applicable word.
> 
> There are several composers whose work has kept me, over a long lifetime of musical exposure and practice, in a state of perpetual incredulity at the scope, or power, or skill, or sheer incomprehensibility of their achievement.


To define tiers of art it seems then required to posit a wisest mind with the maximal "experience, education, sensitivity, intuition". The most rarified choices of this posited wisest mind would be the first tier.

This method of positing through a supposed wiser mind explains why canons are ultimately formed by great artists. We gain more respect for Bach knowing that Mozart and Beethoven studied him intensely. We gain more respect for Beethoven hearing Schubert's praise of him. But I stress that this posited wisest mind can never be a human like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven but instead is something more abstract. That this abstract can make 'choices' is a personification of the asymptotic nature of "experience, education, sensitivity, intuition."


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

It's all a matter of consistent quality, and as such, it's undefineable. I go back to R. Strauss's oft-quoted but remarkably self-aware self-analysis: "I may not be a first class composer, but I'm a first rate second class composer." i.e., however you define it, he may not be ranked with the likes of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, etc., but among the second (tier),he rates very high.


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## ECraigR (Jun 25, 2019)

DaveM said:


> That seems to be the dismissive reflex response whenever a subject like this is discussed. The premise is apparently that the primary reason for Bach, Beethoven and Mozart being in Tier 1 is popularity rather than the fact that they created something that was objectively superior to others. By that measure, Leonardo da Vinci, Van Gogh and Einstein are remembered for their popularity and Meryl Streep is considered one of our greatest actresses not because she amazes her peers and audience by the mastery of her craft, but because of her popularity.


Distinction by Pierre Bourdieu aptly demonstrates that most things having to do with aesthetic taste come down to popularity and social standing. I don't think the three composers you mention would indubitably be first tier for any merits of their own, just as I don't believe that Shakespeare would undeniably be a first tier author, even though I'm quite a big Shakespearean.


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## Guest (Jul 13, 2019)

science said:


> Almost everything depends on context. From a certain POV, Chopin or Dvorak are absolutely "tier one," but from another POV only 1-3 are "tier one."


Can you clarify what the purpose is of your ongoing work producing a large number of "TC Recommended" works stratified by tier?

How do you form the tiers? What criteria are used?

How do you decide on which work within any given tier should be placed higher or lower than another work, when the works being considered are of mixed genres?

Are you intending to produce separate lists for each main genre, as derived from these longer lists of mixed genres? If so, when may we see them?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

ECraigR said:


> Distinction by Pierre Bourdieu aptly demonstrates that most things having to do with aesthetic taste come down to popularity and social standing. I don't think the three composers you mention would indubitably be first tier for any merits of their own, just as I don't believe that Shakespeare would undeniably be a first tier author, even though I'm quite a big Shakespearean.


IMO, there is a cart before the horse way of thinking going on here where skill is secondary to popularity. Tiger Woods has been a wildly popular golfer because he could sink 20 foot putts and, with only a view of the flag, chip from the sand trap within inches of the hole. Beethoven wouldn't have been popular if he had composed the output of (the composer) Engelbert Humperdinck.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

janxharris said:


> I would not dare suggest any particular writer of music was objectively superior to others. Why aren't we to consider your comments arrogant DaveM?


Okay, I've done some composing. Speaking of arrogance, I declare Beethoven to not be objectively superior to me. As is your claim to be speaking for 'we'.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

mmsbls said:


> Do you view tier 1 as just 3 (or roughly 3) composers? I believe you have the sense that these 3 stand out from the others such that they should be viewed as in their own tier.


If the criteria are as objective as possible then, yes. These 3 influenced what followed because of original innovation, mastery of several different forms of classical music and the ability to move people at a level few others have. These composers set broad blueprints for what was to follow. Composers studied Bach and introduced more counterpoint into their music. Composers (for one thing) studied Beethoven's ability to develop more melody out of less. Do we even have to list what composers learned from Mozart?



> Yes. I think some people place a small number of composers in their top tier (rank) while others would place many more. If I were to use the term first tier or rank, I might think of more like 30-50 composers.


Then, my guess is that who you like determines what goes into the top tiers.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I don't think the average person who uses the descriptive tier 1, 2, 3 or first, second, third rank actually has a detailed ranking in mind. I have assumed that those terms are more general and used in place of terms such as superior, very good, good, etc.. I just wondered if people who use them think of first rate or tier 1 as maybe 3-5, 10, 25, or more composers. As Art Rock said, it's impossible to know exactly what someone means unless we know their thinking. 

I don't use the terms in this manner, but my sense when seeing the terms used is that I have a much more inclusive view of first rate. MR suggested that anyone who wrote something good is tier 1. I've never thought about classical music "one hit wonders" or if they exist, but I might generally view MR's suggestion as reasonable if expanded to a few works.


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## Littlephrase (Nov 28, 2018)

Sure, establishing a canon or a hierarchy of what composers are Great or Important or Essential can be useful for the unwashed initiates into the art form, but seriously: should a composer’s place on a hypothetical “objective” tier list dictate people’s listening priorities? If people want to listen to Grieg or Saint-Saens instead of Schoenberg or Stravinsky, even though the latter two are obviously more “Important”, that’s their prerogative.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

DaveM said:


> ... Then, my guess is that what you like determines what goes into the top tiers.


Well, Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart are my favorite composers, and to me they do stand out from others somewhat. I don't know enough about music to determine which composers I would place in a given tier based on musical ability. The post above maybe gives my very general sense of how I would view descriptive tiers or ranks. Basically I'm stunned by the powerful, beautiful, engaging music of many composers to the point where I view a significant number as, let's say, amazing.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I'm really getting quite tiered with all this attempt to classify, sub-classify, sub-sub... etc.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Littlephrase1913 said:


> Sure, establishing a canon or a hierarchy of what composers are Great or Important or Essential can be useful for the unwashed initiates into the art form, but seriously: should a composer's place on a hypothetical "objective" tier list dictate people's listening priorities? If people want to listen to Grieg or Saint-Saens instead of Schoenberg or Stravinsky, even though the latter two are obviously more "Important", that's their prerogative.


I would not say that a composer's place on a tier list _should_ dictate listening priorities. Some people find their tastes to be fairly similar to others; therefore, group assessments can be a useful guide to finding works one will enjoy. It's a practical matter. For example, using suggestions from groups of like minded people (i.e. TC members) in the form of lists has been quite useful for me.


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## Guest (Jul 13, 2019)

I regard the idea of "tiers" as being completely unnecessary. 

By all means produce ranked lists of composers (or works) and argue about whether the rankings are meaningful. Once the list is produced there's no need to overlay the results with a further subjective element based on stratifying the results into "tiers". That further step is "over-egging". 

Once a ranked list is produced, all that's appropriate thereafter is to refer to the top 3, 10, 20 or whatever other number suits.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

DaveM said:


> Okay, I've done some composing. Speaking of arrogance, I declare Beethoven to not be objectively superior to me. As is your claim to be speaking for 'we'.


My 'we' would be those that think we shouldn't arrogate objectivity here.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

mmsbls said:


> Well, Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart are my favorite composers, and to me they do stand out from others somewhat. I don't know enough about music to determine which composers I would place in a given tier based on musical ability. The post above maybe gives my very general sense of how I would view descriptive tiers or ranks. Basically I'm stunned by the powerful, beautiful, engaging music of many composers to the point where I view a significant number as, let's say, amazing.


And that is my feeling and experience also. As (I believe) Woodduck said, I don't listen to those three all that much these days. Because of labels such as Hyperion and those who have provided collections of recordings of lesser-known works from the 19th century on YouTube, I have, unexpectedly, been able to have the wonderful sense of classical music discovery that I haven't experienced for many years.

As an example, I dismissed the earliest Bruckner symphonies for years, but for me, in this moment of time, there is nothing more beautiful than this first 2 minutes:


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Becca said:


> I'm am really getting quite tiered with all this attempt to classify, sub-classify, sub-sub... etc.


What if I were to say you are a top-tier poster.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Littlephrase1913 said:


> but seriously: should a composer's place on a hypothetical "objective" tier list dictate people's listening priorities?


To my knowledge, that's something no one has suggested - at least not seriously.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

janxharris said:


> I'm still finding it difficult to resolve 'rarely having the urge to listen to' composers whose music that has kept you, 'in a state of perpetual incredulity at the scope, or power, or skill, or sheer incomprehensibility of their achievement.'
> 
> You're making allowances for styles you don't have an affinity with it would seem.


"Making allowances"? What an odd way of looking at the appreciation of art.

In 70 years I've done plenty of listening and have acquired very clear ideas about a lot of music. Does the frequency with which we listen to a thing necessarily have anything to do our perception of quality? I knew that Beethoven's Opus 131 and Wagner's _Parsifal_ were transcendental masterpieces when I first encountered them in high school. A lifetime of musical study and practice have only enriched and confirmed those understandings. I may have less affinity for Mozart than I do for Beethoven or Wagner, but that doesn't prevent me from perceiving the largeness of his achievement. I will, though, concede that others who love his music more might understand his greatness even better than I do.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> "Making allowances"? What an odd way of looking at the appreciation of art.
> 
> In 70 years I've done plenty of listening and have acquired very clear ideas about a lot of music. Does the frequency with which we listen to a thing necessarily have anything to do our perception of quality? I knew that Beethoven's Opus 131 and Wagner's _Parsifal_ were transcendental masterpieces when I first encountered them in high school. A lifetime of musical study and practice have only enriched and confirmed those understandings. I may have less affinity for Mozart than I do for Beethoven or Wagner, but that doesn't prevent me from perceiving the largeness of his achievement. I will, though, concede that others who love his music more might understand his greatness even better than I do.


For me to admit that I don't have the urge to listen to a particular work (or a composer's works) would be because I thought it / them flawed.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

janxharris said:


> For me to admit that I don't have the urge to listen to a particular work (or a composer's works) would be because I thought it / them flawed.


Does that mean that you consider your taste an absolute guage of musical excellence? Can you confidently say "I don't care for [insert composer or work], therefore there is something wrong with it"?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Does that mean that you consider your taste an absolute guage of musical excellence? Can you confidently say "I don't care for [insert composer or work], therefore there is something wrong with it"?


No - but I can proffer why it doesn't work for me. I'm just curious about the tension between acknowledging a composer's great achievements whilst having no urge to listen to them.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

janxharris said:


> No - but I can proffer why it doesn't work for me. I'm just curious about the tension between acknowledging a composer's great achievements whilst having no urge to listen to them.


If I were technically competent in analyzing music, I can easily imagine finding a jazz composer or country music composer who wrote technically wonderful works but works that I don't enjoy simply because I don't like jazz or country music. If one dislikes a particular aesthetic, the music could be very well written but unenjoyable.

My understanding of your critique of Mozart was that you didn't enjoy the music and then found issues (i.e. flaws) that others did not view as flaws. So for you, there is no such thing as well written music you don't like by definition. You will find aspects that you consider flaws even though others see no such failure.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

DaveM said:


> What if I were to say you are a top-tier poster.


I sometimes feel that I am detierorating


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Becca said:


> I sometimes feel that I am detierorating


Dry your tiers and post with new detiermination.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

janxharris said:


> That merely makes 'tier' equivalent to 'degree of popularity'.


If Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc simply happened to be popular by sheer luck (just because us common people happened to like them more in our modern age.) And their level of craftsmanship and inspiration was not that extraordinary in any way, how do you explain why they were more influential and inspiring to other/later composers in history than many others.
The classical music tradition consists of thousands of composers, but the fact is there are some who contributed more to building the tradition and have far-reaching influence than others with their work. 
For example, Tchaikovsky ultimately decided to become a composer himself after hearing Don Giovanni. 
http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart
_"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."_
Also, read this article: "Topology and evolution of the network of western classical music composers"
https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epjds/s13688-015-0039-z



janxharris said:


> I would not dare suggest any particular writer of music was objectively superior to others.


If you really thought all types or writers of music were equal in terms of level of mastery, why would you keep saying that classical period composers were bad with harmony in practically every thread about the classical era.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DaveM said:


> Dry your tiers and post with new detiermination.


Tierrible! ...............


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

janxharris said:


> No - but I can proffer why it doesn't work for me. I'm just curious about the tension between acknowledging a composer's great achievements whilst having no urge to listen to them.


There's only time to listen to so much music. Don't worry. I'm not giving up Mozart for Katy Perry (and don't ask me what's wrong with Katy Perry ).


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Tierrible! ...............


One man's tierrible is another man's tierrific.


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## Minor Sixthist (Apr 21, 2017)

I would agree that things went downhill following the release of Perry's 2010 magnum opus, "California Gurls."


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> I agree that it serves little practical purpose to rank composers. Different people value different things in music, and composers may differ so much in what they're trying to do and in what they do well that there's little basis for common agreement as to who belongs in what "tier." That said, it's natural to assess what we perceive as quality in things, and it can be fun to compare and debate the merits of composers' work. The perception of quality in art will always be largely dependent on our experience, education, sensitivity and intuition: you "know it when you see (hear) it," to the extent that "knowing" is the applicable word.
> 
> There are several composers whose work has kept me, over a long lifetime of musical exposure and practice, in a state of perpetual incredulity at the scope, or power, or skill, or sheer incomprehensibility of their achievement. For me that exclusive company includes Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner; if I have a "top tier," those four occupy it *(and if anyone wanted to add Brahms, I wouldn't object)
> *. If I were to expand my top tier beyond them, it would immediately grow very large, and so I see little value in creating precise rankings for composers in general. I do still make some quality distinctions, but those will be of little value to anyone else, and I don't waste time thinking, much less talking, about them.


I'll add Brahms for you.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

My Tier 1 List:

1. Bach
2. Beethoven
3. Mozart
4. Brahms
5. Tchaikovsky
6. Haydn
7. Schubert
8. Mahler
9. Chopin
10. Wagner


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Why I find it hard to rank composers in tiers, is because some composer were not prolific, but wrote some really amazing works. Berlioz with Symphonie Fantastique, and Stravinsky with Rite of Spring are standout works. I love Haydn, but which of his works go that far in terms of scope and imagination? He was very prolific and consistent, with lots of "first-rate" works, but not anything that represents a pinnacle of music of the period, in my view, even though there is nothing by Haydn I don't like. I dislike a lot in Brahms, and find him distasteful often, but his creativity is undeniable, and I think his 3rd symphony and clarinet quintet are really up there, above Haydn's music. I love Tchaikovsky, but his music is so unlike others, and works in different ways, it is hard to rank him as well.

So my top tier composers (based on this criteria) are, in no order (I can't imagine how I'd order them):

Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Berlioz, Vaughan Williams, Wagner, Ravel, Debussy, Webern, Brahms (maybe), Bartok, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Bach

Rest of the pack:

Haydn, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Schubert, too many to name.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Partita said:


> Can you clarify what the purpose is of your ongoing work producing a large number of "TC Recommended" works stratified by tier?
> 
> How do you form the tiers? What criteria are used?
> 
> ...


Just to avoid confusion, I think the word "tiers" has caused you to associate the thread we're currently in with "the Talk Classical community's favorite and most highly recommended works" project, but this thread seems to be asking about composers rather than works, and it seems to be asking an "in general" question rather than referring to any particular, specific list or ranking.

It doesn't seem like anyone else has made that association, and I don't want to derail this thread, so I've answered your questions as well as I can in that thread. We can discuss it there if you want.


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## Guest (Jul 14, 2019)

science said:


> Just to avoid confusion, I think the word "tiers" has caused you to associate the thread we're currently in with "the Talk Classical community's favorite and most highly recommended works" project, but this thread seems to be asking about composers rather than works, and it seems to be asking an "in general" question rather than referring to any particular, specific list or ranking.
> 
> It doesn't seem like anyone else has made that association, and I don't want to derail this thread, so I've answered your questions as well as I can in that thread. We can discuss it there if you want.


Thanks for the explanation.

You're correct that I did think that this thread's discussion of "tiers" for composers might be a spin-off from the work you have been organising in the _"The Talk Classical community's favorite and most highly recommended works" _project.

As the name implies, this ongoing project arranges works by "tiers", and it seemed that those works might form the basis for deducing a listing of composers by "tiers". But it doesn't, so I will drop the matter.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Besides the questioning of tiers, how many votes go into rating anything that is supposedly representative of the forum? Five, ten, twelve? And further, how does anyone know that the works have actually been _heard_ that people are voting on? Some of the works appear highly obscure. On the other hand, maybe it's just a game, a casual pastime, and real votes don't matter. But to me, it's not clear whether people have actually heard what they're rating and the ratings are somewhat questionable. I would think that people would have to hear everything they're voting on for any ratings or tiers to have real value.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Larkenfield said:


> Besides the questioning of tiers, how many votes go into rating anything that is supposedly representative of the forum? Five, ten, twelve? And further, how does anyone know that the works have actually been _heard_ that people are voting on? Some of the works appear highly obscure. On the other hand, maybe it's just a game, a casual pastime, and real votes don't matter. But to me, it's not clear whether people have actually heard what they're rating and the ratings are somewhat questionable. I would think that people would have to hear everything they're voting on for any ratings or tiers to have real value.


I think you're asking questions that have little to do with this thread. Perhaps you could check the link that science gave and ask the questions there?


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Beethoven14 said:


> To define tiers of art it seems then required to posit a wisest mind with the maximal "experience, education, sensitivity, intuition". The most rarified choices of this posited wisest mind would be the first tier.
> 
> This method of positing through a supposed wiser mind explains why canons are ultimately formed by great artists. We gain more respect for Bach knowing that Mozart and Beethoven studied him intensely. *We gain more respect for Beethoven hearing Schubert's praise of him*. But I stress that this posited wisest mind can never be a human like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven but instead is something more abstract. That this abstract can make 'choices' is a personification of the asymptotic nature of "experience, education, sensitivity, intuition."


I think in these cases our opinions are merely validated.

There are composers that Beethoven rated highly that posterity doesn't pay to much attention.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> If I were technically competent in analyzing music, I can easily imagine finding a jazz composer or country music composer who wrote technically wonderful works but works that I don't enjoy simply because I don't like jazz or country music. If one dislikes a particular aesthetic, the music could be very well written but unenjoyable.
> 
> My understanding of your critique of Mozart was that you didn't enjoy the music and then found issues (i.e. flaws) that others did not view as flaws. So for you, there is no such thing as well written music you don't like by definition. You will find aspects that you consider flaws even though others see no such failure.


With regard to Mozart, I have praised him as well - particularly his more mature work - and it's humbling to keep in mind that such a tender age equates to when many composers are still struggling to find their way. Though I don't enjoy most of his work, I accept that my analysis doesn't objectively prove any 'shortcomings' - however, that Mozart used and reused certain harmonic patterns is, I think, undeniable. Whether this irritates a particular listener or not is clearly subjective.

Listening to his 40th symphony the other day - I was in complete awe.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> If Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc simply happened to be popular by sheer luck (just because us common people happened to like them more in our modern age.) And their level of craftsmanship and inspiration was not that extraordinary in any way, how do you explain why they were more influential and inspiring to other/later composers in history than many others.
> The classical music tradition consists of thousands of composers, but the fact is there are some who contributed more to building the tradition and have far-reaching influence than others with their work.
> For example, Tchaikovsky ultimately decided to become a composer himself after hearing Don Giovanni.
> http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart
> ...


I do think that most (edit: some) of the composers you mention had extraordinary skills hammeredklavier - I'm just not prepared to exalt my opinion beyond what it is - one person's view.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> If you really thought all types or writers of music were equal in terms of level of mastery..


I don't think that.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

A lot of disdain for ranking is no surprise but when we are posting on topic most of our time here is spent _comparing _the merits of works, composers, performances and genres. Sometimes we do it in the form of subjective judgments but more often than not we end up making statements that seem to be intended as objective (statements of fact). So, I think ranking is second nature to us here. The majority view in this thread that ranking is some kind of game played by soulless people who can't just settle down and enjoy the music they like must apply, then, only to the act of trying to organise and systematise our judgments. It seems a little intolerant to me - some people like to organise their thoughts and perceptions.

Some of us feel that an ability to make meaningful value comparisons in music must rest on a poster's technical competence to make such judgments but clearly if music has worked it can be accessed (and judged) by lay folk? Experts can throw light on how music works but I don't think they can help much in valuing it. Of course, our judgments are subjective but we can approach objectivity, I think, when we get agreement over time among informed and experienced listeners about which composers and works are great, which are good and which are poor. I know many hate "the canon" and see statements that merely reinforce it as unimaginative, dull or even somehow wrong ("you agree with most informed listeners over the last hundred years so you must be wrong"!). Making a virtue out of having surprising tastes can sometimes (if rarely) be interesting but more often it is rather tiresome.

So I don't have much problem with tiers. Broad categories of value - which is what tiers are - seem useful to us in talking about music and perhaps even in thinking about it. They can also help to guide us to music that we might enjoy. But it doesn't have to coincide with our own tastes and it can still be useful to know when it doesn't: *knowing *that Mozart is very great even though you don't like him _that_ much yourself is both possible and desirable.

Then there is the question of definition - defining tiers - which some feel a need for. But does something a broad as a tier require a definition? Any such definition is likely to be made up of words that can also be debated and disputed - words like "inspired", "great" or a reference to a general consensus (which is not the same thing as mere popularity) - used in comparisons between composers, pieces or whatever.


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## Guest (Jul 14, 2019)

I don't have any problem with the idea of ranking composers according to one's own personal preferences. I would guess that most people have at least some idea who their favourite composers are, even if it may not be a long list for beginners. I have my own list but it's almost always in a state of flux regards the exact position of composers in my "top 10". The reason it's in a state of flux is because I don't have very strong preferences of one composer over another among any of them. 

Outside the top 10 things are even more hazy for me. I have a bunch of some 30-40 composers whose works I turn to every so often. There are many others beyond these whose works I access even less frequently. Sometimes seeing a thread about a composer here on the forum may spark a revived interest in one of these others.

Where I have trouble is in considering forum polls for composers. I have looked at several polls but my only involvement occasionally was to query certain aspects of the proposed methodology for gaining the raw data, and obtaining aggregated results. In principle, a decent poll of forum members' preferences ought to be capable of coming up with results in terms of showing what the majority opinion is regarding the perceived relative quality of different composers based on their personal views (not objective evidence). In practice, I'm afraid that my misgivings about sample size and election of participants were usually too severe for me to have much faith in the detailed results. 

Despite these weaknesses, I very much doubt that the top 3 positions - Bach, Beethoven, Mozart - are incorrect. It's the positions for composers further down the lists that are more sensitive to data collection methodology. Another fact is that even if the sampling procedures were carried out to better standards the sampling errors are such that the rankings of composers further down the list are still likely to be subject to such wide margins of uncertainty that that the individual ranks could vary by quite large amounts either way of their central positions.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

From what I’ve seen in some of the posts above, the challenge of creating tiers based on as objective evidence as possible is the difficulty people have being objective.


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## Guest (Jul 14, 2019)

DaveM said:


> From what I've seen in some of the posts above, the challenge of creating tiers based on as objective evidence as possible is the difficulty people have being objective.


I would say that the problem is a concatenation of issues: reaching agreement upon which factors are relevant in an objective assessment; the difficulty of measuring each of them at all reliably; the uncertainty about the weights to be attached to each.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

No objective tier measure is forthcoming it would seem.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

janxharris said:


> No objective tier measure is forthcoming it would seem.


Yes there is. What hasn't been forthcoming is evidence that it's all about popularity.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I'm a bit confused about the discussion of objective rankings. Any set of metrics for rankings would be subjective and likely not to work for everyone. Given that rankings seem to be used as suggestions, wouldn't people simply want to know what works or which composers others like the most or find most engaging?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

DaveM said:


> Yes there is. What hasn't been forthcoming is evidence that it's all about popularity.


Where DaveM? --------------------


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> I'm a bit confused about the discussion of objective rankings. Any set of metrics for rankings would be subjective and likely not to work for everyone. Given that rankings seem to be used as suggestions, wouldn't people simply want to know what works or which composers others like the most or find most engaging?


Which is why there is no 'big three' - just a most popular three.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

DaveM said:


> ...The premise is apparently that the primary reason for Bach, Beethoven and Mozart being in Tier 1 is popularity rather than the fact that they created something that was objectively superior to others....


Of all the music that's been composed, how much would you say you have heard?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

janxharris said:


> No objective tier measure is forthcoming it would seem.


What would qualify for you for this? What would an objective measure (for assigning to very broad categories) that you approved of look like. There have certainly been suggestions in this thread that have not been convincingly dismissed. Remember that it is also likely that there are probably many different ways in which a composer could attain first tier status, depending on the type of music they are writing.

And, BTW, how do you dismiss the consensus as wrong?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

There’s a psychology to consider when trying to do ratings that I think is ignored. If you have tiers, then someone’s who is on the third tier can seem third-rate, certainly not first-rate or the composer would classified higher. But if you have a Greats List, you can have 10 to 100 out composers or works on it and none of them will seem second, third or fourth tier, and yet one can still sort out preferences or favorites among them under the title of great or excellent or good or whatever. The idea of trying to pigeonhole a composer or work into a tier, though it may seem interesting as an exercise, has not been beneficial to me on the psychological side of the music. The idea of listening to a second- or third-tier composer or work has never excited me. In fact, I find it a depressant. But degrees of greatness or excellence can take many forms without it being numbered. It makes a difference how the groupings, the lists are labeled.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> What would qualify for you for this? What would an objective measure (for assigning to very broad categories) that you approved of look like. There have certainly been suggestions in this thread that have not been convincingly dismissed. Remember that it is also likely that there are probably many different ways in which a composer could attain first tier status, depending on the type of music they are writing.
> 
> And, BTW, how do you dismiss the consensus as wrong?


I don't accept that there could ever be an objective measure and I'm not aware of any convincing suggestions. The consensus equates to 'most people like certain composers' - which, while I respect, doesn't have objective credibility.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ I'm not sure that is an answer on how this thread has proved or agreed with your personal view on the matter. A consensus of informed people is frequently used as an objective measure in the social sciences.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> There's a psychology to consider when trying to do ratings that I think is ignored. If you have tiers, then someone's who is on the third tier can seem third-rate, certainly not first-rate or the composer would classified higher. But if you have a Greats List, you can have 10 to 100 out composers or works on it and none of them will seem second, third or fourth tier, and yet one can still sort out preferences among them under the title of great or excellent or good or whatever. The idea of trying to pigeonhole a composer or work into a tier, though it may seem interesting as an exercise, has not been beneficial to me on the psychological side of the music. The idea of listening to the second-rate or third-tier composer has never excited me. In fact, I find it a depressant. But But greatness or excellence can take many forms without it being numbered.


Fair enough. But I do find it almost impossible when thinking of a piece or a composer to recognise how amazing the work or composer is. There is a huge difference that I cannot avoid between music that seems so inspired that it is mystifying how anyone could have created it (1st tier) and music that is merely good and interesting and rewarding (2nd tier). And it seems to me that the "conclusion" that I can't help but reach has been widely shared by experienced listeners. At the same time, I can't help but recognise that some composers or works are really not very good (= 6th tier).


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> ^ I'm not sure that is an answer on how this thread has proved or agreed with your personal view on the matter. A consensus of informed people is frequently used as an objective measure in the social sciences.


I don't equate music with science. And the 'informed listener' might be difficult to define.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> Fair enough. But I do find it almost impossible when thinking of a piece or a composer to recognise how amazing the work or composer is. There is a huge difference that I cannot avoid between music that seems so inspired that it is mystifying how anyone could have created it (1st tier) and music that is merely good and interesting and rewarding (2nd tier). And it seems to me that the "conclusion" that I can't help but reach has been widely shared by experienced listeners. At the same time, I can't help but recognise that some composers or works are really not very good (= 6th tier).


Is this your definition of 'tier' - or is there a formal definition? Please forgive my ignorance.


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## Beethoven14 (Feb 14, 2019)

Enthusiast said:


> music that seems so inspired that it is mystifying how anyone could have created it (1st tier)


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

janxharris said:


> Is this your definition of 'tier' - or is there a formal definition? Please forgive my ignorance.


I wasn't aiming for a definition so much as a description of what I think when I listen to music. I don't think a definition is needed, is it?



> I don't equate music with science. And the 'informed listener' might be difficult to define.


Again why do we need a definition. Strangely you want to be much more "scientific" than I do! I only mentioned the type of evidence that is accepted in the social sciences because I felt they should be sufficient to satisfy you as well as social scientists.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> I wasn't aiming for a definition so much as a description of what I think when I listen to music. I don't think a definition is needed, is it?
> 
> Again why do we need a definition. Strangely you want to be much more "scientific" than I do! I only mentioned the type of evidence that is accepted in the social sciences because I felt they should be sufficient to satisfy you as well as social scientists.


I'm rather confused by your response. Perhaps I wrongly inferred that you think that an object tier measure exists?


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2019)

Enthusiast said:


> Fair enough. But I do find it almost impossible when thinking of a piece or a composer to recognise how amazing the work or composer is. There is a huge difference that I cannot avoid between music that seems so inspired that it is mystifying how anyone could have created it (1st tier) and music that is merely good and interesting and rewarding (2nd tier). And it seems to me that the "conclusion" that I can't help but reach has been widely shared by experienced listeners. At the same time, I can't help but recognise that some composers or works are really not very good (= 6th tier).


Can you provide a list of "tier 1" and "tier 2" works that you believe meet the criteria you've set out above, i.e. "inspired and mystifying" for "tier 1", and "merely interesting and rewarding" for "tier 2", as based on widely shared views amongst experienced listeners or whatever?

Make sure they're exhaustive lists.

I bet you will find that the lists will be attacked heavily, either for certain exclusions or inclusions. The reason for this is that there is no clear definition of any of the terms you've used, and the results will depend on how you select a sample of "experienced listeners". Who are they? How much experience is required? Any formal qualifications needed?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

janxharris said:


> Which is why there is no 'big three' - just a most popular three.





janxharris said:


> I don't accept that there could ever be an objective measure and I'm not aware of any convincing suggestions. The consensus equates to 'most people like certain composers' - which, while I respect, doesn't have objective credibility.


I believe there is obviously a big three. Those three are most popular, but they are much more. I would guess that they and their works are written about more than other composers and their works. As Enthusiast said:



Enthusiast said:


> ^ I'm not sure that is an answer on how this thread has proved or agreed with your personal view on the matter. A consensus of informed people is frequently used as an objective measure in the social sciences.


Yes, there are no objective metrics that everyone would agree on to deliberate the question, and even if there were, those using the metrics could differ subjectively on their assessments. Why is it so important to you that the big three are only subjectively the big three?


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2019)

Larkenfield said:


> There's a psychology to consider when trying to do ratings that I think is ignored. If you have tiers, then someone's who is on the third tier can seem third-rate, certainly not first-rate or the composer would classified higher. But if you have a Greats List, you can have 10 to 100 out composers or works on it and none of them will seem second, third or fourth tier, and yet one can still sort out preferences or favorites among them under the title of great or excellent or good or whatever. The idea of trying to pigeonhole a composer or work into a tier, though it may seem interesting as an exercise, has not been beneficial to me on the psychological side of the music. The idea of listening to a second- or third-tier composer or work has never excited me. In fact, I find it a depressant. But degrees of greatness or excellence can take many forms without it being numbered. It makes a difference how the groupings, the lists are labeled.


I agree with this. I think I said similar elsewhere.

In essence, it's difficult enough to produce a list of "great composers" from 1 to 100 that might be expected to command any respect, even if the criterion is one simply of "popularity". The question is: "popularity among who?". But then superimposing onto that list a further breakdown involving "tiers" is just pushing the thing beyond reasonable limits of credibility.

It would be of much interest to me to hear from those members who have devoted much of their time voting for works in various "tiers" if they could use this thread to advise and shed any possible light on how their approach to "tiers" might be adapted to apply to composers.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

janxharris said:


> I'm rather confused by your response. Perhaps I wrongly inferred that you think that an object tier measure exists?


You wrongly inferred that I care! But I do think that there has been broad agreement over at least 100 years about which composers are among the most inspired. I wouldn't and don't call this a measure and am not interested in measuring anything in music.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

I've long since stopped ranking composers.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Partita said:


> It would be of much interest to me to hear from those members who have devoted much of their time voting for works in various "tiers" if they could use this thread to advise and shed any possible light on how their approach to "tiers" might be adapted to apply to composers.


I've been thinking about this while this thread took its course. As stated before, for myself I tend to classify compositions in tiers:

Hors concours: the very best, less than 100 compositions overall
First tier ("essential"): works I cannot do without if I had to rebuild my CD collection
Second tier ("important"): works I would not like to do without if I had to rebuild my CD collection
Third tier ("good to have"): works I would like to have if I had to rebuild my CD collection
Fourth tier ("not required, or for completion"): the rest

Can this translate to composers? Possibly something along these lines:

Hors concours: 6 or more works in tiers HC and 1, at least 1 in HC.
First tier: 6 or more works in tiers HC, 1 and 2, at least 2 in tier HC or 1, but not qualified for composer tier HC
Second tier: 6 or more works in tiers HC, 1 and 2, but not qualified for composer tiers HC and 1
Third tier: 6 or more works in tiers HC, 1, 2 and 3, but not qualified for composer tiers HC, 1 and 2
Fourth tier: the rest

This would mean that my composers hors concours tier would be Bach, Mahler, Brahms, Schubert, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Dvorak, Mendelssohn - which lines up with my current top 8 (in that order). The likes of Mozart, Beethoven, Bruckner, Debussy, Wagner and many others would end up in tier 1.

This is just a first idea, and of course the number 6 is somewhat random.

EDIT: and it probably requires some adjustment in terms of size of the works - a four hour opera or a 10 minute symphonic poem get the same weight in the ranking above.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Partita said:


> Can you provide a list of "tier 1" and "tier 2" works that you believe meet the criteria you've set out above, i.e. "inspired and mystifying" for "tier 1", and "merely interesting and rewarding" for "tier 2", as based on widely shared views amongst experienced listeners or whatever?
> 
> Make sure they're exhaustive lists.
> 
> I bet you will find that the lists will be attacked heavily, either for certain exclusions or inclusions. The reason for this is that there is no clear definition of any of the terms you've used, and the results will depend on how you select a sample of "experienced listeners". Who are they? How much experience is required? Any formal qualifications needed?


You are joking, surely? Really, I don't have the time or interest to produce exhaustive lists or all the great and good music ever composed! I would be at it for a week and even then would certainly have forgotten some. It is probably not that difficult to give examples - like much of Mozart K300 and after, Beethoven's symphonies, quartets and most of his piano sonatas, much of Bach etc. etc. - and, although some might disagree with some of these, it is not going to stop me intuitively feeling that they are "top tier" works and that the great majority of serious and experienced listeners over the last 100 years or more felt/feel the same. Where there are disagreements they will be from many different angles and concerning many different works (s0 hardly damaging the weight of support for the works) ... and, to be honest, I would feel those disagreements told me more about the dissenter than the piece.

I wonder why you worry so much about this? Or why you feel a need to pin it down? Does it really matter? It is how I find the world: that _in general _the music I value most highly has been valued in the same way by a broad consensus over more than a century. I don't think it would be appropriate to argue about individual members of any such list as my argument concerns generalities and general agreements. And, of course, my argument breaks down with newer music - some of which I value just as highly.


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2019)

The concept of "tiers" doesn't resonate with me. There are a small number of composes which, in my perception, epitomize different eras (Bach, Mozart/Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms). It's more a function of their outsized influence, rather than the fact that their works are in a different class. There are works by other composers that are just as important to me.


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2019)

Enthusiast said:


> You are joking, surely? Really, I don't have the time or interest to produce exhaustive lists or all the great and good music ever composed! I would be at it for a week and even then would certainly have forgotten some. It is probably not that difficult to give examples - like much of Mozart K300 and after, Beethoven's symphonies, quartets and most of his piano sonatas, much of Bach etc. etc. - and, although some might disagree with some of these, it is not going to stop me intuitively feeling that they are "top tier" works and that the great majority of serious and experienced listeners over the last 100 years or more felt/feel the same. Where there are disagreements they will be from many different angles and concerning many different works (s0 hardly damaging the weight of support for the works) ... and, to be honest, I would feel those disagreements told me more about the dissenter than the piece.
> 
> I wonder why you worry so much about this? Or why you feel a need to pin it down? Does it really matter? It is how I find the world: that _in general _the music I value most highly has been valued in the same way by a broad consensus over more than a century. I don't think it would be appropriate to argue about individual members of any such list as my argument concerns generalities and general agreements. And, of course, my argument breaks down with newer music - some of which I value just as highly.


I wasn't joking at all. I thought you might have had a list you use to illustrate the method you were proposing.

If you don't have a list, and accept that it would take you a week to produce even a half-baked one, what chance do you think a group of expert listeners could agree upon a list? There would be virtually zero chance, as they'd be fighting like cats and dogs amongst themselves. It's downright obvious.


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2019)

Art Rock said:


> I've been thinking about this while this thread took its course. As stated before, for myself I tend to classify compositions in tiers:
> 
> Hors concours: the very best, less than 100 compositions overall
> First tier ("essential"): works I cannot do without if I had to rebuild my CD collection
> ...


Can you clarify whether this method of placing composers into "tiers" is something that you believe can only be used at the single personal level, i.e. for oneself. Or is it a procedure you believe could be applied to cover a group of people based on their collective view of the quality of works in order to produce one composite list of composers in any tier?

I won't ask any more questions until this key matter is clarified.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Since the starting premise of qualifying compositions in the five possible tiers is purely based on individual preference, this method will not work for a group of people. Even averaging is difficult, because people will have different ideas about what constitutes "essential", "important" and so on.

For Science's game of tiers, which is based on compositions, i use my qualification of works to determine which works I will vote for and with how many points.


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2019)

Art Rock said:


> Since the starting premise of qualifying compositions in the five possible tiers is purely based on individual preference, this method will not work for a group of people. Even averaging is difficult, because people will have different ideas about what constitutes "essential", "important" and so on.
> 
> For Science's game of tiers, which is based on compositions, i use my qualification of works to determine which works I will vote for and with how many points.


That's exactly what I thought, which is why I didn't bother asking a lot of further questions.

Purely for one's own benefit, I see no problem in what you suggest as a method for compiling a list of composers by tier. Subject to a bit of finessing, it sounds like a good idea, provided of course one has the essential building blocks, namely quite a long list works categorised by "HC", level 1, level 2 etc.

As you say, its possible usage for an individual cannot be generalised to produce a list based on aggregated data from a sample of people. This is because there is likely to be no common ground on key definitions like "HC", level 1 etc.

A further problem would be that for many people their lists of favoured works probably do not extend as far would be necessary to calculate reliable averages across all members. For this each participant would need to have specific works identified in each of the various levels, and this is unlikely to be the case for many people.

So, it still leaves the problem of there being no satisfactory method of ranking composers by tiers except possibly at the personal level. I wonder if any other "works" ranking specialist might be able to offer any other suggestions on how this might be done at the aggregate level.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Is it possible to put classical music composers in tiers without any subjectivity intruding? Probably not. Is it possible to put composers into tiers with objectivity trumping subjectivity/popularity as much as possible? Yes, particularly with composers where we have decades of experience to rely on. The process would be more difficult the more tiers used, but there’s no reason to have that many.

What would some of the information be that we could use (partly repeating myself):

1. The influence they have had on other composers.
2. The influence they had on the direction classical music that followed.
3. The extent to which they were innovative, creating music that was unique to them and for which there was no or little precedent.
4. Mastery of their art and ability in all the different classical music forms, instrumental in general, symphonic form in general, more specifically composing for different instruments, composing sonatas, quartets, symphonies, concertos, songs, operas, religious-based works.
5. Melodic originality, composing melodic material that is unique to that composer and, as much as possible, not derivative of other composers.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Partita said:


> I wasn't joking at all. I thought you might have had a list you use to illustrate the method you were proposing.
> 
> If you don't have a list, and accept that it would take you a week to produce even a half-baked one, what chance do you think a group of expert listeners could agree upon a list? There would be virtually zero chance, as they'd be fighting like cats and dogs amongst themselves. It's downright obvious.


Sorry but I wasn't proposing a method. As I think I made clear, I was merely describing how I see the world. I don't think it is particularly important or useful for anyone to produce a list but despite that one has emerged over the years. It is sometimes called "the canon" - a much derided phenomenon on this forum - and can be found within any decent brief history of western classical music. Individuals may debate the presence of this or that work or composer - although I generally agree with the implied list, I do myself feel that some works on it are not for me - but I don't think that makes it any less valid and, in general, I think such disputes are of little interest (even when the disputant is a famous musician).


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2019)

DaveM said:


> Is it possible to put classical music composers in tiers without any subjectivity intruding? Probably not. Is it possible to put composers into tiers with objectivity trumping subjectivity/popularity as much as possible? Yes, particularly with composers where we have decades of experience to rely on. The process would be more difficult the more tiers used, but there's no reason to have that many.
> 
> What would some of the information be that we could use (partly repeating myself):
> 
> ...


It doesn't work.

1. Even assuming that each of 1-5 was quantifiable, how is each factor to be weighted together, i.e. what numerical weights should be applied to each one?

2. "Influence" is very tricky for the following main reasons:

(a) Suppose Composer X is considered to be "influential" in some way. But what if he composed little of any value? How would this affect his score if he himself was not that great a composer?

(b) Shouldn't the composer(s) who influenced Composer X get some of the credit, and if so how much?

(c) What if Composer X influenced later composers in a manner that displaced Composer Y (assume the latter is approx the same vintage as Composer X) whose influence on later composers might have been even more beneficial? Should Composer X be given a negative weight in such circumstances? How would we know what Composer Y might have achieved in terms of influence?​
3. Considerations relating to things like _"mastery of their art and ability in all the different classical music forms"_ would downgrade the likes of Mahler and possibly upgrade a load of much less capable composers who tried hard in all spheres but generally composed nothing but third-rate works.

4. Why attach significance to "melodic ability" when there are several other attributes of music quality that could also be considered? How would atonal composers fare when there's little if any "melody". 
How would one quantify any of these attributes?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Partita said:


> It doesn't work.
> 
> 1. Even assuming that each of 1-5 was quantifiable, how is each factor to be weighted together, i.e. what numerical weights should be applied to each one?
> 
> ...


If you had been able to ask Brahms why Beethoven influenced him, do you think his answer would have been because he was so popular?


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2019)

Enthusiast said:


> Sorry but I wasn't proposing a method. As I think I made clear, I was merely describing how I see the world. I don't think it is particularly important or useful for anyone to produce a list but despite that one has emerged over the years. It is sometimes called *"the canon"* - a much derided phenomenon on this forum - and can be found within any decent brief history of western classical music. Individuals may debate the presence of this or that work or composer - although I generally agree with the implied list, I do myself feel that some works on it are not for me - but I don't think that makes it any less valid and, in general, I think such disputes are of little interest (even when the disputant is a famous musician).


You mention "the canon". I recall a long time ago here at T-C a thread that discussed the idea that there is the canon. The gist of it was that there is no single canon, but a whole raft of them depending on one's purposes and audience. I'll see if I can find it, as it could be relevant here insofar that it may affect the status accorded to various composers. I think I know who started that thread but am not completely sure.

Meanwhile, I'll just say again that I would accept that it may be possible produce a list of the "greatest" composers based on certain yardsticks (e.g. popularity among defined groups of listeners), but it's a further level of difficulty to segment that list into tiers 1, 2. 3 etc. That's because the numbers included in each tier are much more arbitrary.


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2019)

DaveM said:


> If you had been able to ask Brahms why Beethoven influenced him, do you think his answer would have been because he was so popular?


I'm not quite sure of the relevance of this question to the comments I made, but if it has something to do with the matter of "influence" I don't see how it affects the generality of what I said.

To answer it the best I can, obviously Brahms was partly influenced by Beethoven, but so too were various other composers in the 19th C after Beethoven's death. That doesn't mean that they all slavishly based all of their work on what Beethoven achieved. Nor was Beethoven the only composer who had any influence on Brahms. It's well known that Brahms also admired Schumann. He was also greatly impressed by Schubert, and delved back into Haydn's work too.

Trying to calculate the individual influence of each composer on a later composer is nigh on impossible, given the complexity of all the relevant inter-relationships involving many previous composers. To arrive at any meaningful evaluation would require some kind of mathematical model involving various "input-output" matrices showing sources and outputs, in order to derive proper measures of influence. It's so complex that it's not even worth speculating about.


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## Armanvd (Jan 17, 2017)

mmsbls said:


> I'm really more interested in how people think about the tiers so that I can better understand how the terms are used in posts.


I define tiers based on how much a composer affected the history and path of music. I put innovators and pioneers like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy, Mahler, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, etc. in the first tier. and so on..


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Partita said:


> I'm not quite sure of the relevance of this question to the comments I made, but if it has something to do with the matter of "influence" I don't see how it affects the generality of what I said.
> 
> To answer it the best I can, obviously Brahms was partly influenced by Beethoven, but so too were various other composers in the 19th C after Beethoven's death. That doesn't mean that they all slavishly based all of their work on what Beethoven achieved. Nor was Beethoven the only composer who had any influence on Brahms. It's well known that Brahms also admired Schumann. He was also greatly impressed by Schubert, and delved back into Haydn's work too.
> 
> Trying to calculate the individual influence of each composer on a later composer is nigh on impossible, given the complexity of all the relevant inter-relationships involving many previous composers. To arrive at any meaningful evaluation would require some kind of mathematical model involving various "input-output" matrices showing sources and outputs, in order to derive proper measures of influence. It's so complex that it's not even worth speculating about.


Okay, I guess you don't have the ability to be the slightest objective because your argument amounts to the black and white 'no'. Not to mention that your post above suggests that you're missing the point completely.


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2019)

DaveM said:


> Okay, I guess you don't have the ability to be the slightest objective because your argument amounts to the black and white 'no'. Not to mention that your post above suggests that you're missing the point completely.


What exactly is your point? I didn't observe one. All I saw was a rather silly question but which I nevertheless attempted to answer.

Are you perchance getting annoyed because you realise that none of your arguments seems to make much sense or achieve wider acceptance, and your're blaming me for pointing this out?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Armanvd said:


> I define tiers based on how much a composer affected the history and path of music. I put innovators and pioneers like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy, Mahler, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, etc. in the first tier. and so on..


Thank heaven someone gets it. This is an example of where it is possible to use as much objective evidence as possible, in this case, directed at one or two parameters. Schoenberg was not nearly as popular as Beethoven and I am not a fan of any of his music, but objectivity demands that he would be placed in a relatively high tier because he, almost single-handedly, changed the direction of classical music in the 20th century.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Partita said:


> What exactly is your point? I didn't observe one. All I saw was a rather silly question but which I nevertheless attempted to answer.
> 
> Are you perchance getting annoyed because you realise that none of your arguments seems to make much sense or achieve wider acceptance, and your're blaming me for pointing this out?


No, I'm just annoyed at you.


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2019)

There was mention earlier about "the canon", and I said that I recall seeing a thread on this topic a long time ago.

In case it might be of relevance to this thread, it is below:

The Western Musical Canon

It's worth a read, if only to see the discussion about different "canons", suggesting that one needs to be careful before banding around phrases as if they have well-defined meanings but which have potentially different interpretations depending on context.

The discussion also brings out that there is hardly universal agreement on which works are included in each type of "canon".


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2019)

DaveM said:


> No, I'm just annoyed at you.


You don't mean that.


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2019)

Armanvd said:


> I define tiers based on how much a composer affected the history and path of music. I put innovators and pioneers like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy, Mahler, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, etc. in the first tier. and so on..


Are you suggesting that your definition of "tiers" has sufficient merit that it could, or should, have wider acceptance among other people who are interested in classical music, or is it something that you recognise as being only of relevance to your way of thinking about this issue?

If the former, I don't accept it being valid either for me or as recommendation for others to follow.

I think it's too narrow as it's based solely on innovation and influence. This sounds somewhat phoney to me, as if the list of composers may have came first, and the justification followed. For example, you could just as easily have selected the same list of composers and used some other criterion, like for example most popular composers in each major time period.

Even within your selected criterion, you've missed out several key composers like Monteverdi, J Haydn, Schubert who were also influential composers, in greatly helping to catapult the new music styles into greater significance. The exclusion of important names like this just make the whole thing look dodgy. Do you not think that your list might possibly be doing a disservice to such other composers?

If, however, your intended use of this concept of "tier" is solely for your own personal use, what exactly is its value to you? For me, I can't see that it would serve any useful purpose at all. Does it, for example, enable you to prioritise your listening schedules? If it does, it seems to be a rather bizarre way of organising one's music. I don't have any such lists and yet I manage to get by well enough without them, and have done so for as many years as I can remember.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Art Rock said:


> I've been thinking about this while this thread took its course. As stated before, for myself I tend to classify compositions in tiers:
> 
> Hors concours: the very best, less than 100 compositions overall
> First tier ("essential"): works I cannot do without if I had to rebuild my CD collection
> ...


Thank you for responding to my OP. Your method is rather detailed which is, of course, fine. If you relatively quickly came up with composers for those tiers, do you think they would differ significantly with a more detailed analysis of the composers. In other words would a quick assessment of the tiers give significantly different results than a well thought out assessment?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Armanvd said:


> I define tiers based on how much a composer affected the history and path of music. I put innovators and pioneers like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy, Mahler, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, etc. in the first tier. and so on..


Thank you for responding to my OP. Do you think there are composers of top quality that may not be great innovators or pioneers? I'm thinking perhaps of Brahms.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Partita said:


> Are you suggesting that your definition of "tiers" has sufficient merit that it could, or should, have wider acceptance among other people who are interested in classical music, or is it something that you recognise as being only of relevance to your way of thinking about this issue?
> 
> If the former, I don't accept it being valid either for me or as recommendation for others to follow. ...


Reading your posts today, I think perhaps you are missing several points.

1) You seem to be arguing against a belief that no one has postulated and against one that I'm guessing extremely few in the entire world, if any, believe.

Does anyone actually believe that large numbers of composers can be objectively ranked with little uncertainty? I assume not. No one here has argued that. I stated that any set of metrics would be subjective, and no one argued with me. Case closed.

2) You seem to believe that there can be no uses for dividing composers into tiers.

There are many good uses for dividing composers into tiers. Not everyone will agree on each use, but then not everyone has to take part in the exercise.

a) It's fun. If one doesn't find it fun, one does not have to take part. There are countless composer games played on TC by many members. I doubt any of those playing would say it's not at least moderately fun.

b) The result of ordering composers can be a very useful tool. By far the most useful book on music I've ever read was Goulding's Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1000 Greatest Works.  I went from having an interest in classical music to becoming passionate about listening to classical music by using that ordered set of composers. All music history classes use something like an ordered set of composers. I doubt any introductory class has mentioned William Herschel.

c) It's helpful to have an ordered set when suggesting composers to relatively new listeners. The general view being that humans respond relatively similarly to music (e.g. most people will like Dvorak more than William Herschel).

d) An ordered list does not have to be objective, statistically valid, or even roughly precise to be of value. I was very happy to learn that Messiaen was a highly thought of modern composer so I started listening. The results were wonderful, and I didn't have to listen to hundreds of modern composers to find one I would enjoy so much.

e) I would say all TC members, not merely most people, has something like an ordered set of composers in their heads. Not a detailed set, but a general ranking such that they could quickly order many pairs of composers. In some sense we all do it on some level.

So, yes, a precise, objective ordering of composers is not possible, but so what?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> Thank you for responding to my OP. Your method is rather detailed which is, of course, fine. If you relatively quickly came up with composers for those tiers, do you think they would differ significantly with a more detailed analysis of the composers. In other words would a quick assessment of the tiers give significantly different results than a well thought out assessment?


The advantage of this system (which I stress again only works for an individual, in this case me) is that a detailed analysis per composer is not required. I have a pretty good idea already for the works that end up in HC or tier 1, so for the top names, I can quickly assign a composer's tier. For composers who have less impact in my taste, it would take more time, but it's also less interesting whether e.g. Poulenc would be in tier 3 or 4.

The disadvantage is that it is rather sensitive to the arbitrary number of six works to make a distinction - make that five or seven and even the top tiers change. And as stated, it's rather unfair to long duration works like operas.

I'm not sure if it could really be fine tuned effectively, and also not if that would be worthwhile.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

You can rank them any way you like, people will never fully agree on the criteria to differentiate between the tiers and which composer belongs to what tier. All this time is better spent listening to music.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> I believe there is obviously a big three. Those three are most popular, but they are much more. I would guess that they and their works are written about more than other composers and their works.


Personally, I would avoid using 'big' - it's too tendentious.


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## Guest (Jul 16, 2019)

mmsbls said:


> Reading your posts today, I think perhaps you are missing several points.
> 
> etc
> 
> etc


I don't think I have missed any points. Your comments suggest that I'm the only one expressing negative views about the value of ranking composers by tiers. That is not correct. All I have tried to do is to amplify and elaborate upon the sceptical views expressed by several others.

I have been at pains to make clear that I have no problem with anyone's method for placing composers into separate tiers, provided it's for their own purposes. I have expressed some doubts about the actual method proposed in some cases because it seems to produce some odd results (you mentioned one example yourself concerning Brahms.)

Occasionally, however, it hasn't been clear whether the method suggested is purely for the individual's own benefit, or whether it is seen as a method that can possibly be extended to a group of individuals, with a view to obtaining some kind of collective view thus having greater credibility. In a few posts it has been suggested it ought to be possible to contrive such a method. Here, not unreasonably, I have questioned the validity of some of the methods proposed where they strike me as being defective.

As for all of your other comments, yes of course some people like constructing lists and I don't doubt doubt that many find them useful as learning devices. I have used such lists myself, and have occasionally referred to the usefulness of the _TC Recommended Lists._ for individual genres. But these and all other similar lists have huge statistical uncertainties associated with them. You say that people are generally aware of this, so case closed. I reckon you could be rather optimistic about this. As I'm sure you must be aware, there have been a number of quite heated disputes in various threads over the years arising over the exact placing of certain composers on lists.

On this matter of reliability, all I have tried to do is to bring out more clearly than some people might otherwise believe just how ropy the results can be, such that individual placements could be out by very large amounts. Seasoned data collectors know this only too well, but I've seen evidence that some folk look upon these lists as if they're supposed to have a fundamental validity and begin to criticise the individual rankings they don't like. Some individuals carry out forms of further statistical analysis on the lists that are far too complex to be of any possible value, given the fragile nature of basic data.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Whether we like it or not, we find ourselves within particular communities, and all communities have particular traditions. The communities of classical music listeners are no exception. 

The traditions of these communities have handed down to us canons of composers and works. Some of those canons are so explicit that veteran members of the communities are all aware of them: the trinity of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven is so well established that anyone who challenges it forcefully must either have really impressive credentials or understood that they will be regarded as presumptuous attention-seekers. 

Other canons are less clear, harder to discover, and more open to question. One way of exploring and questioning them is to propose lists and to debate the merit of those lists. Not everyone will enjoy an activity so fraught with specificity and disagreement, and some people will love it, but everyone will learn from it.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Larkenfield said:


> Besides the questioning of tiers, how many votes go into rating anything that is supposedly representative of the forum? Five, ten, twelve? And further, how does anyone know that the works have actually been _heard_ that people are voting on? Some of the works appear highly obscure. On the other hand, maybe it's just a game, a casual pastime, and real votes don't matter. But to me, it's not clear whether people have actually heard what they're rating and the ratings are somewhat questionable. I would think that people would have to hear everything they're voting on for any ratings or tiers to have real value.


I came to this thread to find this post, which I really like. I haven't been able to forget it since I read it several days ago. But I'll reply to it on the appropriate thread and then post a link to it here (this is the link).


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

science said:


> Whether we like it or not, we find ourselves within particular communities, and all communities have particular traditions. The communities of classical music listeners are no exception.
> 
> The traditions of these communities have handed down to us canons of composers and works. Some of those canons are so explicit that veteran members of the communities are all aware of them: the trinity of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven is so well established that anyone who challenges it forcefully must either have really impressive credentials or understood that they will be regarded as presumptuous attention-seekers.
> 
> Other canons are less clear, harder to discover, and more open to question. One way of exploring and questioning them is to propose lists and to debate the merit of those lists. Not everyone will enjoy an activity so fraught with specificity and disagreement, and some people will love it, but everyone will learn from it.


It's unclear to me what 'trinity', or 'big three' means.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

janxharris said:


> It's unclear to me what 'trinity', or 'big three' means.


Foundational, at the core of the music, central, essential, _foundational_ in the history of the music (disregarding your usual dissing of Mozart). These three names always come up as greats whether one happens to agree or not. I agree with these three because there's endless speculation about who's number four, but these three names come up repeatedly and one can only challenge their status at the risk of damaging one's own. Better to stay silent than speak unwisely and foolishly about them. They have earned their place and are endless wells of creativity for the wise, receptive, and knowledgeable. Just don't.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Larkenfield said:


> Foundational, at the core of the music, central, essential, _foundational_ (disregarding your usual dissing of Mozart). These three names always come up as greats whether one happens to agree or not. I agree with the list because there's endless speculation about who's number four, but these three names come up repeatedly and one can only challenge their reputations at the risk of damaging one's own reputation, status and position. Better to stay silent than speak unwisely and foolishly about them. They have earned their positions and are like endless wells of creativity for the wise, receptive, and knowledgeable.


I, too, think they are all great but it's arrogant to say they are greater than other composers. To suggest that one should be silent on this is extraordinary.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Partita said:


> ... As for all of your other comments, yes of course some people like constructing lists and I don't doubt doubt that many find them useful as learning devices. ...


I think we basically agree then.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

janxharris said:


> I, too, think they are all great but it's arrogant to say they are greater than other composers. To suggest that one should be silent on this is extraordinary.


I think Larkenfeld made an excellent point about speculation on number four compared to basic acceptance of the big three. When people use the term "the big three", they are not expressing an opinion on which composers are the best or greatest but rather recognition of the fact that the group of classical music listeners has collectively assessed those three composers as standing out from all others.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> I think Larkenfeld made an excellent point about speculation on number four compared to basic acceptance of the big three. When people use the term "the big three", they are not expressing an opinion on which composers are the best or greatest but rather recognition of the fact that the group of classical music listeners has collectively assessed those three composers as standing out from all others.


You have then, regarding 'trinity', that it doesn't confer 'best' or 'greatest' but, nevertheless, that they stand out from all the others. I'd say most of the well know composers stand out in some way. Like your OP on 'tiers'. I remain confused about what is meant by 'trinity'.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

janxharris said:


> You have then, regarding 'trinity', that it doesn't confer 'best' or 'greatest' but, nevertheless, that they stand out from all the others. I'd say most of the well know composers stand out in some way. Like your OP on 'tiers'. I remain confused about what is meant by 'trinity'.


I'm not sure about "trinity" since I'm unfamiliar with that usage for composers, but I take the term "big three" as referring to the collective opinion of classical music listeners when asked which composers are their favorites or the greatest.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> I'm not sure about "trinity" since I'm unfamiliar with that usage for composers, but I take the term "big three" as referring to the collective opinion of classical music listeners when asked which composers are their favorites or the greatest.


Nothing wrong with your statement - but clearly some music lovers think they can pronounce objectively on this.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

janxharris said:


> Nothing wrong with your statement - but clearly some music lovers think they can pronounce objectively in this.


I wonder if anyone on TC actually believes their or others' assessment of composers is truly objective. People have said that there exist objective criteria and that collectively many agree on those criteria. But I think those arguing for a roughly objective ordering would agree that "there exist objective criteria which collectively many _subjectively_ agree on using." I think people understand that while the metrics can be objective, the selection and weighting of the metrics is subjective. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't remember anyone arguing against that view.


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## Guest (Jul 16, 2019)

mmsbls said:


> I think Larkenfeld made an excellent point about speculation on number four compared to basic acceptance of the big three. When people use the term "the big three", they are not expressing an opinion on which composers are the best or greatest but rather recognition of the fact that the group of classical music listeners has collectively assessed those three composers as standing out from all others.


What you say is valid and I'm not questioning it, but it has given rise to a thought ...

Briefly explained, suppose it were possible to construct a good sample of members' opinions on their favourite composers. I know there are all manner of problems, but assume they can be overcome.

Looking at the results, it should be possible to read off the hierarchy of composers in terms of popularity according to this sample.

It is very likely that Beethoven, Bach, Mozart would feature in the top 3. There might, or might not, be be a significant difference between each of them. I would guess, however that this group of 3 would stand out vis-a-vis the composers further down the list.

After the top 3, there would be a decline in votes with names like Brahms, Schubert, Haydn, Wagner, Tchaikovsky appearing at some stage. I'm not speculating on the order here, just listing likely candidates.

Armed with these results, one could then examine to see whether or not there are any obvious-looking "clusters" or "groupings" in the votes, relating to a certain number of composers that distinguishes that cluster from another cluster either side of it.

If such clustering exists in the data, then it might form the basis of a categorisation of composers by "tier". This would need to be understood as being exclusively a popularity based "tier" ranking of composers, with no wider implications as to "greatness" of composers in each tier.

My guess, and it's no more than that, is that it would be difficult to find any further clear-cut "clusters" below that for the top 3. I say this because I think that the decline rate per composer after the first 3 would be too evenly spread to be able to discern any clear clusters. I may be wrong. To test it would require a good sample, and there are problems here that I doubt could be overcome satifactorily.

Anyway, that's roughly how I can possibly envisage "tiers" of composers being determined empirically, if such exist, with no appeal to judgements like influence, originality or anything else.


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## Armanvd (Jan 17, 2017)

Partita said:


> Are you suggesting that your definition of "tiers" has sufficient merit that it could, or should, have wider acceptance among other people who are interested in classical music, or is it something that you recognise as being only of relevance to your way of thinking about this issue?
> If the former, I don't accept it being valid either for me or as recommendation for others to follow.


IMO this tier is useful for some listeners and useless for others. For example a music student or any other listener who wants to understand the path of music throughout history should first listen to innovators and pioneers of music history but for someone who just listen to music and doesn't care about this kind of stuff can listen to whatever he/she wants.



Partita said:


> I think it's too narrow as it's based solely on innovation and influence. This sounds somewhat phoney to me, as if the list of composers may have came first, and the justification followed. For example, you could just as easily have selected the same list of composers and used some other criterion, like for example most popular composers in each major time period.


Well I didn't do that.


Partita said:


> Even within your selected criterion, you've missed out several key composers like Monteverdi, J Haydn, Schubert who were also influential composers, in greatly helping to catapult the new music styles into greater significance. The exclusion of important names like this just make the whole thing look dodgy. Do you not think that your list might possibly be doing a disservice to such other composers?


Well I'm no Professional Musicologist/Musician. I didn't say my list was perfect. I just made that list based on what I have learnt until now.


Partita said:


> If, however, your intended use of this concept of "tier" is solely for your own personal use, what exactly is its value to you? For me, I can't see that it would serve any useful purpose at all. Does it, for example, enable you to prioritise your listening schedules? If it does, it seems to be a rather bizarre way of organising one's music. I don't have any such lists and yet I manage to get by well enough without them, and have done so for as many years as I can remember.


Well this tier is for my personal use. IMO the value of this kind of lists is for when you don't know what to listen to.


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## Armanvd (Jan 17, 2017)

mmsbls said:


> Thank you for responding to my OP. Do you think there are composers of top quality that may not be great innovators or pioneers? I'm thinking perhaps of Brahms.


Of course there are. They will go to tier 2 for me.
Brahms, Schubert, Chopin, Handel, Haydn, etc...


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## Guest (Jul 16, 2019)

Armanvd said:


> IMO this tier is useful for some listeners and useless for others. For example a music student or any other listener who wants to understand the path of music throughout history should first listen to innovators and pioneers of music history but for someone who just listen to music and doesn't care about this kind of stuff can listen to whatever he/she wants.
> 
> Well I didn't do that.
> 
> ...


All comments perfectly reasonable. Thanks for responding.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

janxharris said:


> Personally, I would avoid using 'big' - it's too tendentious.





janxharris said:


> It's unclear to me what 'trinity', or 'big three' means.





janxharris said:


> I, too, think they are all great but it's arrogant to say they are greater than other composers. To suggest that one should be silent on this is extraordinary.


Is this keeping you up at night?


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

mmsbls said:


> Reading your posts today, I think perhaps you are missing several points.
> 
> 1) You seem to be arguing against a belief that no one has postulated and against one that I'm guessing extremely few in the entire world, if any, believe.
> 
> ...


I think there is a general trend that in most lists, the greatest composers are the most accessible composers, or that reached out to the most people. But some take it to be objective, believe me, as it comes up in many discussions I come across. How does anyone compare Bach with Stravinsky? Stravinsky clearly outdoes Bach in the rhythm department, but how about with harmony? Harder to say. They are great in their own way. But because Stravinsky reaches a lot less people (I've never heard him requested on my local Classical radio station), and Bach resonates with more often with listeners, he is consistently listed higher, but hardly a standard of quality, since fans of the current pop idols are more numerous than those of a certain Classical composer.

I also have that book. The best part of the book are the quotes and assessments of composers on themselves and others.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Phil loves classical said:


> I think there is a general trend that in most lists, the greatest composers are the most accessible composers, or that reached out to the most people. But some take it to be objective, believe me, as it comes up in many discussions I come across.


I would agree about accessibility. As I mentioned, I'm not sure if those arguing for objectivity believe there can be a fully objective assessment or if they are arguing that lists can have some level of objectivity.



Phil loves classical said:


> How does anyone compare Bach with Stravinsky? Stravinsky clearly outdoes Bach in the rhythm department, but how about with harmony? Harder to say. They are great in their own way. But because Stravinsky reaches a lot less people (I've never heard him requested on my local Classical radio station), and Bach resonates with more often with listeners, he is consistently listed higher, but hardly a standard of quality, since fans of the current pop idols are more numerous than those of a certain Classical composer.


Personally I think it's easy to compare because I'm comparing based mostly on how engaging their music is to me. Bach is more engaging, but Stravinsky is more engaging than most others. I know others think that makes for poor comparisons, but I think not. I use lists as suggestions for works or new composers. The best suggestions are from a group of people similar to me. I find that TC members, in general, constitute such a group so their suggestions, especially en masse, work very well for me.

I think I view lists as tools; whereas, others seem to view them as an attempt at describing reality. One works well while the other is much less successful.



Phil loves classical said:


> The best part of the book are the quotes and assessments of composers on themselves and others.


When I was just starting with classical music, almost every part of the book was perfect for me. Now, I also use it mostly for quotes.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

There is a difference between a list made up of what people like and one that uses as much objective information available on the parameters that the list is based on. To say that any objectivity is impossible is ridiculous as is the premise that objectivity without some subjectivity intruding is possible.

People make objective comparisons all the time when their well-being depends on it. If one is looking for a good surgeon, will he/she rely on the opinions of people they trust and who may be more educated on the subject or on those who are unreliable in other situations that require being informed? If available, will they rely on the opinions of other surgeons or on a friend who recommends a surgeon because he has such a nice personality?

Point being that, no matter, what the subject, the ability to make objective comparisons is proportional to the amount of objective information on the subject.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Here is a nice resource that gives lots of suggestions to what is representative of each period. Without getting into tierring composers. On the left are the periods you can click and see the suggestions:

http://www.classical.net/music/rep/lists/med.php


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Phil loves classical said:


> I think there is a general trend that in most lists, the greatest composers are the most accessible composers, or that reached out to the most people. But some take it to be objective, believe me, as it comes up in many discussions I come across. How does anyone compare Bach with Stravinsky? Stravinsky clearly outdoes Bach in the rhythm department, but how about with harmony? Harder to say. They are great in their own way. But because Stravinsky reaches a lot less people (I've never heard him requested on my local Classical radio station), and Bach resonates with more often with listeners, he is consistently listed higher, but hardly a standard of quality, since fans of the current pop idols are more numerous than those of a certain Classical composer.


You often say things like Stravinsky is more challenging to listen to than Bach. Some people think it's a compliment, but I think in a lot of cases, "something is challenging to listen to" can be another way of saying it is boring or unappealing to listen to because the composer isn't totally capable of expressing emotion through techniques. 
At least to me, much of 20th century classical music sounds like it's more appropriate as film music. The fact that Stravinsky is less accessible than Bach doesn't make Stravinsky more "elitist classical music" than Bach in any way. It just means Stravinksy's music simply has different uses from Bach's.
Look at the video below at 7:50, an example of Stravinsky's music working perfectly as film music.
If there's far more people in the popular culture thinking that Stravinky's music works far better as film music than Bach, how can you say Stravinsky is less accessible than Bach to the popular masses?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Well, I suppose one could use Bach in a cinematic car chase scene rather than something more appropriately contemporary and rhythmic. What a comparison. Stravinsky has earned his place too and sometimes he wrote picturesque ballet music, which suggests that his music was intended to be supportive of the dance. Unfortunately, Bach didn’t write Lutheran inspired ballet music, so Stravinsky shouldn’t be blamed if his type of music is sometimes used cinematically.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> You often say things like Stravinsky is more challenging to listen to than Bach. Some people think it's a compliment, but I think in a lot of cases, "something is challenging to listen to" can be another way of saying it is boring or unappealing to listen to because the composer isn't totally capable of expressing emotion through techniques.
> At least to me, much of 20th century classical music sounds like it's more appropriate as film music. The fact that Stravinsky is less accessible than Bach doesn't make Stravinsky more "elitist classical music" than Bach in any way. It just means Stravinksy's music simply has different uses from Bach's.
> Look at the video below at 7:50, an example of Stravinsky's music working perfectly as film music.
> If there's far more people in the popular culture thinking that Stravinky's music works far better as film music than Bach, how can you say Stravinsky is less accessible than Bach to the popular masses?


I said they are great in their own way. I don't feel emotion in a lot of Bach's music, personally, but it is still brilliant. I'm asking why should music that is less accessible to most people be considered less good, and does great music have to be about projecting clear emotions.


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## Guest (Jul 17, 2019)

DaveM said:


> There is a difference between a list made up of what people like and one that uses as much objective information available on the parameters that the list is based on. To say that any objectivity is impossible is ridiculous as is the premise that objectivity without some subjectivity intruding is possible.
> 
> People make objective comparisons all the time when their well-being depends on it. If one is looking for a good surgeon, will he/she rely on the opinions of people they trust and who may be more educated on the subject or on those who are unreliable in other situations that require being informed? If available, will they rely on the opinions of other surgeons or on a friend who recommends a surgeon because he has such a nice personality?
> 
> Point being that, no matter, what the subject, the ability to make objective comparisons is proportional to the amount of objective information on the subject.


I agree with you up to a point. It's probably the case that in some areas where judgements are required on quality issues there is some scope for introducing objective elements. For example, if one was choosing, say, an eye consultant for an operation it might be possible to gain an appreciation of who are the "best" by asking around for opinions from the relevant areas of medical expertise, as well as friends who have had direct personal experience. With a medical service issue like this, there is also the "price" factor. There is no guaranteed positive correlation between fees charged and quality of service, but it's one potentially relevant quantifiable measure that might be appropriate in an overall assessment.

Nothwithstanding the above, I would still argue that at the other end of the spectrum lies the more problematic area of deciphering possible objective measures of "greatness" in areas like classical music composers. Such situations are different from current music stars stars whose earnings/fees can be used as a possible measure of "greatness". In the case of historical classical music composers (who obviously form the vast majority of the relevant field of candidates) it's likely to be very difficult to find an agreed verdict among professional musicians of any description, as they all no doubt will have their own preferences and prejudices among different composers.

Even assuming a measure of agreement could be established amongst a body of music "professionals" concerning a group of composers considered to be the "greatest", I doubt that they would be able to reach a consensus on any particular numerical ranking among them, or layering by "tier". All that's likely to emerge from any such deliberations is a list of composer names that would be no surprise to anyone who is more than vaguely familiar with classical music. Things would finish up exactly where they started, i.e. in a continued state of dispute and uncertainty.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Partita said:


> Even assuming a measure of agreement could be established amongst a body of music "professionals" concerning a group of composers considered to be the "greatest", I doubt that they would be able to reach a consensus on any particular numerical ranking among them, or layering by "tier". All that's likely to emerge from any such deliberations is a list of composer names that would be no surprise to anyone who is more than vaguely familiar with classical music. Things would finish up exactly where they started, i.e. in a continued state of dispute and uncertainty.


Yes, but I think it best to say we end up in a continued state of personal preference and discovery.

This poll and tier business is fun stuff; taking it seriously isn't reasonable.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I find the whole tier thing pretty meaningless. Perhaps a musicologist with a Ph.D could meaningfully rank composers based on their skill levels and contributions, but I certainly never could. _

I find it fairly simple to rank composers in several tiers. The top tier is composers whose music is always interesting, who never disappoint. The second tier would be more half and half, the third made up of people like Rimsky-Korsakov -- one hit wonders.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

larold said:


> _I find the whole tier thing pretty meaningless. Perhaps a musicologist with a Ph.D could meaningfully rank composers based on their skill levels and contributions, but I certainly never could. _
> 
> I find it fairly simple to rank composers in several tiers. The top tier is composers whose music is always interesting, who never disappoint. The second tier would be more half and half, the third made up of people like Rimsky-Korsakov -- one hit wonders.


Do you have a very rough sense of how many composers you might place in the top tier (or the next tier)? Obviously more listening could add or subtract composers from that tier, but do you have some guess at present?


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

larold said:


> _I find the whole tier thing pretty meaningless._


_

It's not meaningless to the individual who creates it. We tend to place too much emphasis on groups when it's the individual who deserves top billing._


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## Guest (Jul 19, 2019)

Bulldog said:


> It's not meaningless to the individual who creates it. We tend to place too much emphasis on groups when it's the individual who deserves top billing.


The text you quote by larold was not his statement but something he quoted from post #3.

larold seems to agree with your point, from what I gather from his post.

I agree with you too, provided it's one's personal "tier" list. A problem occurs if someone tries to recommend a personal "tier" list for general application. We've been around that track several times now.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> If Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc simply happened to be popular by sheer luck (just because us common people happened to like them more in our modern age.) And their level of craftsmanship and inspiration was not that extraordinary in any way, how do you explain why they were more influential and inspiring to other/later composers in history than many others.
> The classical music tradition consists of thousands of composers, but the fact is there are some who contributed more to building the tradition and have far-reaching influence than others with their work.
> For example, Tchaikovsky ultimately decided to become a composer himself after hearing Don Giovanni.
> http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart
> ...


Tchaikovsky clearly adored Mozart but if you are suggesting that Pyotr's views were balanced and untainted by subjective consideration then it's worth restating his opinion of Brahms: a '_conceited mediocrity_,' and, '_a talentless bas****..._'.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

larold said:


> The second tier would be more half and half, the third made up of people like Rimsky-Korsakov -- one hit wonders.


Yet, I think it's these one hit wonder pieces that should be in the 1st tier and we forgo ranking the actual composers. Of course we have a whole thread on that and no one would agree with that either.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

janxharris said:


> Tchaikovsky clearly adored Mozart but if you are suggesting that Pyotr's views were balanced and untainted by subjective consideration then it's worth restating his opinion of Brahms: a '_conceited mediocrity_,' and, '_a talentless bas****..._'.


I think he was on to something about Brahms.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Fabulin said:


> I think he was on to something about Brahms.


I don't have a problem with anyone thinking such about any great composer.


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