# Composer(s) Whose Works you FInd the Most Beautiful



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I started off with the Romantics, then went to Mozart, dabbled in Impressionism, but now I'm finding myself extremely moved by J.S. Bach. There is such refinement and majesty in his music, it is like he is channeling God himself.

What about you?


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## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I will say William Baines for a starter


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

Iannis Xenakis...


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

You can´t bind yourself to one composer, there is just a bunch you like most and that can change from day to day.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Lately, I have been listening to Bruckner slow movements.


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

> Composer(s) Whose Works you Find the Most Beautiful


Beauty is not the first virtue I am looking for with music ... but if beauty mattered, I would look to Mozart's piano concertos.


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## PathfinderCS (11 mo ago)

As someone who has barely dipped their toes in the pool it's hard for me to really point this one out. Various works by Beethoven, Bach, and Mahler can be classified as beautiful, but I can't attribute that word to them as a whole. The closest I can think of is probably Brahms or Rachmaninoff

If we expand the scope outside of classical I could add James Newton Howard as well.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Composer(s) Whose Works you FInd the Most Beautiful


I think the beauty is in the interpretation.

How about this?

https://archive.org/details/lp_js-b...a-f_johann-sebastian-bach-zuzana-rikova-josef


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Bach and Webern.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> I think the beauty is in the interpretation.
> 
> How about this?
> 
> https://archive.org/details/lp_js-b...a-f_johann-sebastian-bach-zuzana-rikova-josef


I'll take a listen in a bit!


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> I think the beauty is in the interpretation.
> 
> How about this?
> 
> https://archive.org/details/lp_js-b...a-f_johann-sebastian-bach-zuzana-rikova-josef


Absolutely wonderful, thank you.


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## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

I would say Mozart. His music always has a beautiful quality, even when it’s dramatic


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

EvaBaron said:


> I would say Mozart. His music always has a beautiful quality, even when it's dramatic


If you would have asked me two months ago, I would have said Mozart too. Now I find him lacking in depth, and composing more from skill rather than a spiritual sense.


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

Captainnumber36 said:


> If you would have asked me two months ago, I would have said Mozart too. Now I find him lacking in depth, and composing more from skill rather than a spiritual sense.


Really? Try Piano Concerto No. 23 A major KV 488, the slow movement. Or the major works for clarinet. What kind of depth is lacking there?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Philidor said:


> Really? Try Piano Concerto No. 23 A major KV 488, the slow movement. Or the major works for clarinet. What kind of depth is lacking there?


Perhaps it's just really easy to do Mozart incorrectly, and I've just heard lots of uninspired versions.




 This was beautiful.


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

My favourite is Murray Perahia with the ECO.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Philidor said:


> My favourite is Murray Perahia with the ECO.


For the Concertos?


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

I meant just for the slow movement of #23. But yes, I like Perahia's way of playing the Mozart concertos. If only one cycle for the desert island, then Perahia.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I think part of my issues with Mozart include interpretations, but also that he just didn't strike gold nearly as often as Bach IMO. I do find many of his works quite shallow, yet catchy.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Alexander Borodin: the 2nd string quartet, symphony 2, In the Steppes of Central Asia, Prince Igor...beautiful tunes with beautiful harmony beautifully orchestrated.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I think part of my issues with Mozart include interpretations, but also that he just didn't strike gold nearly as often as Bach IMO. I do find many of his works quite shallow, yet catchy.


whens does Bach strike gold?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I think Bach struck gold with several of his major works such as The Well Tempered Clavier, Goldberg Variations, Art of the Fugue and so on.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I just really love slow pretty music. I think that's why I enjoyed that slow movement of Mozart's 23rd PC. This is why Chopin's Nocturnes are amongst my favorite works for solo piano, absolutely beautiful and stunning!



I also adore Mozart's piano sonatas. They are lovely! (Performed by Schiff)


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## That Guy Mick (May 31, 2020)

Erik Satie's Gymnopedies and Gnossienes are very relaxing. Surely Brahm's 3rd movement of third Symphony is worthy mention.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

That Guy Mick said:


> Erik Satie's Gymnopedies and Gnossienes are very relaxing. Surely Brahm's 3rd movement of third Symphony is worthy mention.


I agree with you on the Satie. I'll give the Brahm's a listen.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

The Brahm's was certainly beautiful. This is what art is to me.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I've always found Bach's Cello Suites quite favorable.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Me too, but I love Schubert's piano sonatas as much, that's why my statement: you just can't pic one.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

A candidate for me is Sergei Prokofiev, whom I think of as the Mozart of the 20th century but with more acidity and tang than WAM. He is capable of moments, phrases, passages of great and haunting beauty, especially in the piano concertos and the 2nd violin concerto, and of entire works such as the violin concerto No. 1.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> The Brahm's was certainly beautiful. This is what art is to me.


Aaaaaaaaagh. Just "Brahms" - NO apostrophe. Please.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Beautiful isn't a word I tend to use when listening to or describing music. It's vague and doesn't capture well the aesthetic qualities I value.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Beauty being in the eye of the beholder -- I'd say my eye is most easily drawn to J.S. Bach for music like the St. Matthew Passion, especially part 77, Now the Lord is laid to rest.

The best English version is from Sir David Willcocks featuring singers like Felicity Lott, John Shirley-Quirk and Alfreda Hodgson. No. 77, Now the Lord is laid to rest, starts at about 3:10:10 below with the text onscreen:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Beautiful isn't a word I tend to use when listening to or describing music. It's vague and doesn't capture well the aesthetic qualities I value.


Extensively analysed since Aristotle, probably before Aristotle. I mean, a difficult concept, like _just_ and _rational_, and one which is a central part of « folk aesthetics » and western philosophy.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Extensively analysed since Aristotle, probably before Aristotle. I mean, a difficult concept, like _just_ and _rational_, and one which is a central part of « folk aesthetics » and western philosophy.


Yes, and it's application to painting and sculpture, for example, is literal and relatively straightforward. In the case of music, by contrast, it strikes me as complexly metaphorical in some cases and/or, in others, etiolated or superficial. One can describe melodic "lines" (See, we're already on metaphorical ground before we've even started.) as graceful, the central qualities that make them so working by (metaphorical) analogy to motions in physical space, according to the rates and consistency of their changes in "curvature" over time. On the other hand, purely sensual aspects of musical "beauty" like euphony and timbre seem coarser and more primal than their visual counterparts. They often have little to do with the elements of form and the relationships among them that are at a work's essence.

In any case, I'm not saying one shouldn't talk of or philosophize about beauty in music - knock yourself out  - only that I don't generally find the word useful in describing or discussing music at the folk aesthetic level, by which I mean among friends with a pipe making the rounds.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> On the other hand, purely sensual aspects of musical "beauty" like euphony and timbre seem coarser and more primal than their visual counterparts. They often have little to do with the elements of form and the relationships among them that are at a work's essence.


I need to think about that!

(_Folk aesthetics_ is a an idea I just made up, by analogy with _folk psychology_, which is a much discussed idea - I think Dan Dennett coined it. But the two are very different. Folk aesthetics is informed, determined possibly, by academic critics - the judgements in the popular press, concert programmers, major recording publishers etc. These things determine whether a work is said to be serious or a pastiche or ridiculous by the general public. Folk psychology, by contrast, is a viable explanatory predictive theory.

All this comes with a warning: I've never studied aesthetics!)


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> I need to think about that!
> 
> (_Folk aesthetics_ is a an idea I just made up, by analogy with _folk psychology_, which is a much discussed idea - I think Dan Dennett coined it. But the two are very different. Folk aesthetics is informed, determined possibly, by academic critics - the judgements in the popular press, concert programmers, major recording publishers etc. These things determine whether a work is said to be serious or a pastiche or ridiculous by the general public. Folk psychology, by contrast, is a viable explanatory predictive theory.
> 
> All this comes with a warning: I've never studied aesthetics!)


I've read lots of Dennett's work but no primer was required to run with "folk aesthetics," although I just took it as a branch of cod philosophy.

I think it was Hanslick, perhaps among others, who suggested appreciating the sensual aspects of music requires the same sophistication as enjoying a warm bath.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> I've read lots of Dennett's work but no primer was required to run with "folk aesthetics," although I just took it as a branch of cod philosophy.
> 
> I think it was Hanslick, perhaps among others, who suggested appreciating the sensual aspects of music requires the same sophistication as enjoying a warm bath.


Folk psychology is the "common sense" system of belief/desire/intention attributions we all use day to day to explain and predict behaviours. It's a big part of Dennett's concept of _The Intentional Stance._ I'm reading Pierre Bourdieu on Flaubert and Manet at the moment - hence my interest in the way academic institutions determine ordinary "folk" judgements of what's acceptable and what's not in the arts.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

As was pointed out earlier, beautiful is rather a vague word that doesn't actually mean all that much. I would say that music is simply too vast to be confined by words truth be told. But we all do our damnedest here to describe what we're hearing!


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Neo Romanza said:


> As was pointed out earlier, beautiful is rather a vague word that doesn't actually mean all that much. I would say that music is simply too vast to be confined by words truth be told. But we all do our damnedest here to describe what we're hearing!


Yes, vague. 
I used to think that complexity and high levels of 'info' (like what can be gleaned from fugues while we're playing them) were the concepts which equated with beautiful (in the inner brain of emotional memories).

But now I think it's the whole effective package of metaphors (including such aspects as the artistic struggles during particular times in Art history, with the foundation and backdrop of the much older results of being human). So, it's only gotten more mysterious and complex for me, and I'm very interested in this subject.

It's such a challenge, because with a difficult subject I usually dissect and reduce and successfully re-learn from the basics. This approach works OK with higher math, meteorology and paleobotany etc., but with music (all the arts) the ambiguities offered by the basics gently undermines that approach. (And we're so lucky that it does.)

We know how any words are insufficient.

added:
Unlike other artists, composers are able to resolve the ambiguities for us, because of the dimension of time in music, we get the resolutions at the end (after our brain has had all the fun of trying to guess).


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Well, much as a few here have decided to remove the word ‘beautiful’ as having any value in the lexicon used to describe classical music works, the fact is that there are relatively few words in the English language that can be used for a work of art that is ‘pleasing to the senses’. Just because there can be differences of opinion when it comes to all things ‘aesthetic’ doesn’t mean that the word ‘beautiful’ doesn’t have value or that it is vague. In fact, it has value in describing works of the CP era that are often collectively described as beautiful. 

If one describes the adagio of the Beethoven Pathetique adagio as beautiful, are CM listeners likely to say, ‘I don’t see it.’ ‘Oh, that’s vague.’ Which begs the question, if you throw out the word, ‘beautiful’, what word would one use to describe the adagio? What do you think was Beethoven’s objective when Beethoven composed it? Is it a mystery? Do subjective aesthetics go so far as to make it impossible to know?

The fact is that for much of the CP era, works commonly had specific movements that were designed, using ‘beautiful’ melodies, to be ‘pleasing to the senses’. This isn’t rocket science. No need to parse, overthink or turn semantics upside down.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

DaveM said:


> Well, much as a few here have decided to remove the word 'beautiful' as having any value in the lexicon used to describe classical music works, the fact is that there are relatively few words in the English language that can be used for a work of art that is 'pleasing to the senses'. Just because there can be differences of opinion when it comes to all things 'aesthetic' doesn't mean that the word 'beautiful' doesn't have value or that it is vague. In fact, it has value in describing works of the CP era that are often collectively described as beautiful.
> 
> If one describes the adagio of the Beethoven Pathetique adagio as beautiful, are CM listeners likely to say, 'I don't see it.' 'Oh, that's vague.' Which begs the question, if you throw out the word, 'beautiful', what word would one use to describe the adagio? What do you think was Beethoven's objective when Beethoven composed it? Is it a mystery? Do subjective aesthetics go so far as to make it impossible to know?
> 
> The fact is that for much of the CP era, works commonly had specific movements that were designed, using 'beautiful' melodies, to be 'pleasing to the senses'. This isn't rocket science. No need to parse, overthink or turn semantics upside down.


So, we all get something that we can recognize as beautiful, but it's so multi-varied that we expect we're all getting that something of the same category, and we just can't come up with the best word (it's not surprising, music and words excite different brain centers)?


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorak, and Tchaikovsky. Of the 5, I choose Beethoven.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

DaveM said:


> If one describes the adagio of the Beethoven Pathetique adagio as beautiful, are CM listeners likely to say, 'I don't see it.' 'Oh, that's vague.' Which begs the question, if you throw out the word, 'beautiful', what word would one use to describe the adagio? What do you think was Beethoven's objective when Beethoven composed it? Is it a mystery? Do subjective aesthetics go so far as to make it impossible to know?
> 
> The fact is that for much of the CP era, works commonly had specific movements that were designed, using 'beautiful' melodies, to be 'pleasing to the senses'. This isn't rocket science. No need to parse, overthink or turn semantics upside down.


The point isn't that the word beautiful is wrong or inappropriate in describing that adagio, it's that it isn't very descriptive and it's hard to know what is meant by it and what qualities of the work it's a response to. It could mean anything from simply finding the movement soothing and sonorous, the aural equivalent of a warm bath, to finding something about its form and contours profoundly moving or its harmony ingenious or any number of other things. If someone says to me "that piece is beautiful" I usually just take that to mean they like it. Then I might try to get at what it is about the work they're responding to if they are able to express it.

More important, there are all different kinds of beauty. Intricate abstract patterns, like illuminations in the Book of Kells, Baroque fugues, or prolation canons are beautiful to some and just tedious to others. Some find gnarly solos by Frank Zappa profoundly beautiful, others find them abrasive and incoherent.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> The point isn't that the word beautiful is wrong or inappropriate in describing that adagio, it's that it isn't very descriptive and it's hard to know what is meant by it and what qualities of the work it's a response to. It could mean anything from simply finding the movement soothing and sonorous, the aural equivalent of a warm bath, to finding something about its form and contours profoundly moving or its harmony ingenious or any number of other things. If someone says to me "that piece is beautiful" I usually just take that to mean they like it. Then I might try to get at what it is about the work they're responding to if they are able to express it.
> 
> More important, there are all different kinds of beauty. Intricate abstract patterns, like illuminations in the Book of Kells, Baroque fugues, or prolation canons are beautiful to some and just tedious to others. Some find gnarly solos by Frank Zappa profoundly beautiful, others find them abrasive and incoherent.


But, during the CP era, the composers who composed the adagios/andantes of symphonies, concertos and sonatas created melodies that were designed to likely appeal to the senses (i.e. be described as beautiful) by those they expected to hear their works. The basic definition of the word 'beautiful' as describing something 'appealing to the senses' pretty much accounts for all the various way an individual might interpret 'beautiful' (which might include 'soothing', 'sonorous', 'profoundly moving' etc.) Again, there are not that many English words that provide that kind of broad meaning that likely will be understood by others without much need for explanation.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> The point isn't that the word beautiful is wrong or inappropriate in describing that adagio, it's that it isn't very descriptive and it's hard to know what is meant by it and what qualities of the work it's a response to. It could mean anything from simply finding the movement soothing and sonorous, the aural equivalent of a warm bath, to finding something about its form and contours profoundly moving or its harmony ingenious or any number of other things. If someone says to me "that piece is beautiful" I usually just take that to mean they like it. Then I might try to get at what it is about the work they're responding to if they are able to express it.
> 
> More important, there are all different kinds of beauty. Intricate abstract patterns, like illuminations in the Book of Kells, Baroque fugues, or prolation canons are beautiful to some and just tedious to others. Some find gnarly solos by Frank Zappa profoundly beautiful, others find them abrasive and incoherent.


Added to that landscape of differences between us, I've gone from devotedly searching (in the 1960s) for the best melodies and the most melodies in pop music, rapidly to the same obsession in CM.

Only the larger than life melodies of Chopin, LvB, Mozart and Schubert. Not the other works with less of a lyrical attractiveness (Bach, Handel, Haydn, and so I didn't get Schumann's lyricism).

But then after a few years, melodies weren't the main thing anymore. I tried to put myself into the place of the composer and grew appreciative of the other elements of great works. So for me, 'beauty' was changed, requiring more beautiful elements (the things you mention, and the logic of notes following prior notes, music theory). This find is difficult to describe to someone unaware.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

DaveM said:


> But, during the CP era, the composers who composed the adagios/andantes of symphonies, concertos and sonatas created melodies that were designed to likely appeal to the senses (i.e. be described as beautiful) by those they expected to hear their works. *The basic definition of the word 'beautiful' as describing something 'appealing to the senses' pretty much accounts for all the various way an individual might interpret 'beautiful' *(which might include 'soothing', 'sonorous', 'profoundly moving' etc.) Again, there are not that many English words that provide that kind of broad meaning that likely will be understood by others without much need for explanation.


Musical beauty in every era goes well beyond that which can be apprehended by the senses. It usually requires thought and comprehension along the lines Luchesi is describing above. So, I'd say that the definition of beauty you're citing is wholly inadequate to a well-rounded discussion of beauty in music.


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## That Guy Mick (May 31, 2020)

DaveM said:


> Just because there can be differences of opinion when it comes to all things 'aesthetic' doesn't mean that the word 'beautiful' doesn't have value or that it is vague. In fact, it has value in describing works of the CP era that are often collectively described as beautiful.


Well said. The vaguery of the term is an invitation to exploration, introspection, and a deeper understanding of the art form and its language. Grappling with words to describe musical concepts and value judgements is not an easy task. For those averse to mental exertion it is quite easy to dispense with questions of aesthetics by simply noting that beauty is subjective. Is it not generally agreed among Romantic listeners that Brahms' third movement, Poco allegretto, is not a beautiful piece, and why?


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

mbhaub said:


> Alexander Borodin: the 2nd string quartet, symphony 2, In the Steppes of Central Asia, Prince Igor...beautiful tunes with beautiful harmony beautifully orchestrated.


That's why they turned them into a hit Broadway musical. 






As for me, Mozart, who wrote his own musicals. Second place is a tie between Brahms and Schubert.


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## Agamenon (Apr 22, 2019)

Beauty? It depends on what do you understand as " beauty ". Precious?
Riveting?...

For me, Bach, Brahms and Mozart are the top 3. 
Parts of Beethoven, Wagner, Puccini and Monteverdi are runners up.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

I feel like listing the same composers all over again?

Exceptional beauty I find in: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, Sibelius and Ravel.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

When I was young it was all about the melodies for me. Who had the best melodies, who had the most melodies? what did they do with the melodies in larger works and forms?

Now I have a growing appreciation of the linear logic of the changing effects of the different notes in a key, and the structures which take advantage of all the relationships. 

In the older music the composers had a few notes to use for expression compared to later music. How did they achieve the expressive effects from their simple toolbox? It’s a lifelong study.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Chopin and Sibelius come to mind. Generally speaking, the Romantics prioritized beauty.


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## Subutai (Feb 28, 2021)

Anything from Imperial Russia. Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin. Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky Lyadov, Glazunov etc etc etc...........


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