# The heaviest classical composer?



## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

Who do you think is?


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Maybe it was Rossini.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Probably Beethoven.


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

Starting with troll comments could be a good thing, but I was being serious. Who do you think the heaviest 20th or 21st century composer is, in your opinion?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

They say Prokofiev had really long arms and big hands.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing? Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bartok, Shostakovich or somebody else


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## Guest (May 10, 2016)

Xenakiboy said:


> Who do you think is?


Tell me what heavy constitutes for you, in classical music?


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Brahms got really fat as he aged but was pretty thin when he started Composing


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

William Howard Taft


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Heavy as in serious? I agree, Beethoven. He had to have been one of the first headbangers.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

In chav London heavy can just me good, or at least it could about five years ago, I've not heard it for a while it's true. 

Anyway the heaviest classical composer is Lachenmann


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Photos of the elder Ralph Vaughan Williams show him as no lightweight. Stravinsky would be a stick figure next to RVW. Copland too.


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## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

Allan Pettersson


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Mussorgsky. He was often heavily loaded with booze.


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## Richard8655 (Feb 19, 2016)

Florestan said:


> Mussorgsky. He was often heavily loaded with booze.


He must have been loaded to come up with Ballet of Unhatched Chicks. Many probably got much of their "inspiration" in that state.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Perhaps we can collaborate and compose an 'Obesity Symphony' Possible Movement Titles:
I- Ode to a Cheeseburger
II- Andante- Terramisu Rhapsody
III- Scherzo-Racing to the bakery before they sell out of donuts
IV- Rondo Finale-Splitting My Pants as I sit Down at A Weight WAtchers Meeting


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

'Heavy' as in "Whoa man, that was like hev-eee"? If so, I vote for Mahler.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

I thought you meant in terms of depth. But, in terms of (imposing) physical stature, I'll go with Glazunov (mid-1890s through mid/late 1920s). He really thinned out during his final years due to years of deprivations and ill-health. Rather sad, really. 

For a while, Bruckner was rather heavy (1870s through mid-1880s), before illness set in. Borodin too was quite heavy (and Hubert Parry).


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

Harrison Birtwistle really tonked it on over the last thirty years but recent photos seem to show a slimmed-down version. Oliver Knussen - never a man of sylph-like dimensions - is also rather broader in the beam these days, and if Mark Anthony Turnage doesn't watch it he might have to consider entering a doorway sideways on before too long as well..


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Sloe said:


> Maybe it was Rossini.


Even if he was heavy, he could write light music.

Tell me: What is the purpose of this thread??


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

premont said:


> Even if he was heavy, he could write light music.
> 
> Tell me: What is the purpose of this thread??


I don´t know people ask for the sexiest composer so why can´t they ask for the heaviest composer.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Poor guy who started this thread, it was a legitimate question and the intentional misinterpretation was all too predictable. But it was taken in a good direction all the same. 

The symphony of weight gain was another composer's answer to the 'Obesity Symphony'. More programmatic.

Mvt 1: The sedentary life and fine dining
Mvt. 2: Recipes on youtube and ambitions of starting a restaurant
Mvt. 3: Pure eatin', fat over flavor
Mvt. 4: Experimental Psychedelic Pancakes
Mvt. 5: Oh my god I'm so fat!


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## jtbell (Oct 4, 2012)

MarkW said:


> William Howard Taft


Especially when he fronted the Supremes.

For "heavy" as in "heavy metal", there's Jón Leifs (e.g. "Hekla").

For "heavy" as in German food, there's Max Reger.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

No, Johann Sebastian, your _butt_ makes your butt look big.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Handel was quite obese in weight. His music was mighty.


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

Damn, either I didn't specify enough (thinking that you'd assume what I was meaning) or you're all trolling. I was meaning heaviest as in, darkest, most aggressive styled composers, building off the developments of Varese, Xenakis, Ligeti, Penderecki etc. 

Now that we've cleared that up...


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

clavichorder said:


> Poor guy who started this thread, it was a legitimate question and the intentional misinterpretation was all too predictable. But it was taken in a good direction all the same.
> 
> The symphony of weight gain was another composer's answer to the 'Obesity Symphony'. More programmatic.
> 
> ...


Thanks for understanding, because the weight of composers REALLY affects their music...


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Xenakiboy said:


> Damn, either I didn't specify enough (thinking that you'd assume what I was meaning) or you're all trolling. I was meaning heaviest as in, darkest, most aggressive styled composers, building off the developments of Varese, Xenakis, Ligeti, Penderecki etc.
> 
> Now that we've cleared that up...


Have you tried Elliot Carter String Quartets? I first suggested Beethoven because he came out of a period of music that was of the lightest, fluffiest classical elegance, didn't add too many new chords and used the available forms, and he is more intense than most of the 19th century composers that followed him.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Xenakiboy said:


> Damn, either I didn't specify enough (thinking that you'd assume what I was meaning) or you're all trolling. I was meaning heaviest as in, darkest, most aggressive styled composers, building off the developments of Varese, Xenakis, Ligeti, Penderecki etc.
> 
> Now that we've cleared that up...


Absolutely we were trolling. It seems like you have taken it in stride. Welcome aboard.
Personally, I like the last movements of Tchaikovsky 6 and Brahms 4, or the Adagio of Mahler 10, but these may be a bit to late Romantic Period for your question. Bartok's String Quartets or Ligetti might be closer to your intentions.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Handel was quite obese in weight. His music was mighty.


Handel was so massive that whenever he went to the seashore the tide came in.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

KenOC said:


> Handel was so massive that whenever he went to the seashore the tide came in.


His celestial greatness.


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## EarthBoundRules (Sep 25, 2011)

Heavy as in dark? Shostakovich.


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

EarthBoundRules said:


> Heavy as in dark? Shostakovich.


Heavy as in (but not limited to) dark, aggressive, violent, shocking. Both in the harmonic sense (really dissonant) and the timbrel (heavy percussion).


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing?


I noticed that reference, and you thought you could sneak it in. "I am the coming of a new age"


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I love this thread.... And y'all should know why






*AHEM*

Enough said...

:lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I think Reger qualifies. His music might too.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

Edgar Varése, no other like him. Not in vain he co- worked with Antonin Artaud (who tought Messiaen's music was too light). Words and music by two truly bombastic artists


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## TradeMark (Mar 12, 2015)

Xenakiboy said:


> Heavy as in (but not limited to) dark, aggressive, violent, shocking. Both in the harmonic sense (really dissonant) and the timbrel (heavy percussion).


You might want to look into Bartok. His music seems to fit that description relatively well.


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

TradeMark said:


> You might want to look into Bartok. His music seems to fit that description relatively well.


I own almost all his work's on cd/Vinyl and own quite a few scores, he was one of the composers that got me into classical, no stranger to Bartok!


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Heliogabo said:


> Edgar Varése, no other like him. Not in vain he co- worked with Antonin Artaud (who tought Messiaen's music was too light). Words and music by two truly bombastic artists


I agree (though it's Edgard. not Edgar). Arnold Schoenberg was a formidable hombre for abandoning a concept of tonality that had been generally accepted in Western music for centuries, but having done that, he was otherwise quite conservative, clinging to traditional 19th-century classical forms. Charles Ives was one of the earliest to embrace outright dissonance. Your boy Xenakis is also one bad dude. Elliott Carter is indeed a king of dissonance in much but not all of his work. George Rochberg too. I think the Max Reger suggestion was a joke. He's a favorite composer of mine, a neo-Brahmsian with thicker orchestral textures, and yes, distinctly more dissonance than Brahms, but it's hard to see how Brahms could be one's baseline for dissonance.


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

fluteman said:


> I agree (though it's Edgard. not Edgar). Arnold Schoenberg was a formidable hombre for abandoning a concept of tonality that had been generally accepted in Western music for centuries, but having done that, he was otherwise quite conservative, clinging to traditional 19th-century classical forms. Charles Ives was one of the earliest to embrace outright dissonance. Your boy Xenakis is also one bad dude. Elliott Carter is indeed a king of dissonance in much but not all of his work. George Rochberg too. I think the Max Reger suggestion was a joke. He's a favorite composer of mine, a neo-Brahmsian with thicker orchestral textures, and yes, distinctly more dissonance than Brahms, but it's hard to see how Brahms could be one's baseline for dissonance.


I like Varese, he was a great and innovative composer. Xenakis (if you've noticed my name) is my single favorite composer, he was another one of the three composers that got me into classical when I was younger. I've discovered Elliot Carters music coincidentally recently and I like what I've heard very much!! Haven't heard Rochberg though, have to check him out! any suggestions?


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## Guest (May 12, 2016)

I associate "heavy" with popular music, perhaps because of my background (metal head). Bartok's SQs already mentioned; this is music for King Crimson. Wasn't able to say much else....but then I'm just listening to Ravel's Gaspard which appears to be an unprovoked assault on a piano.


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

dogen said:


> I associate "heavy" with popular music, perhaps because of my background (metal head). Bartok's SQs already mentioned; this is music for King Crimson. Wasn't able to say much else....but then I'm just listening to Ravel's Gaspard which appears to be an unprovoked assault on a piano.


Gaspard de la nuit is an amazing piece, I have it on vinyl. Its nice to put on, like any Ravel. Bartok was one of the first composers I was into, so maybe I'm desensitized to him?


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## Guest (May 13, 2016)

I reckon you've already heard the main culprits.


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

Kinda surprised nobody's mentioned Der Stockhausen.






And then on the other hand Beethoven, symphony 9, movement 1, beginning of the recapitulation still sounds pretty darn *heavy* to me.


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

Sigh... In answer to the hilariously misunderstood OP, a composer I consider particularly "heavy" is Josef Suk (1874-1935). His life and works are both dark and tragic. His _Azrael_ is worth a listen. And he might have been overweight...


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

I'd suggest it would be hard to find a 'heavier' composer than Allan Pettersson.


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## Medtnaculus (May 13, 2015)

Easily Florent Schmitt.

EG: Psalm 47, Tragedie de Salome, Ombres, Le petit elfe ferme loeil, symphonie concertante...


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

fluteman said:


> I think the Max Reger suggestion was a joke. He's a favorite composer of mine, a neo-Brahmsian with thicker orchestral textures, and yes, distinctly more dissonance than Brahms, but it's hard to see how Brahms could be one's baseline for dissonance.


I wonder if you've heard Reger's string quartets, though? They are very dissonant indeed, especially the Op. 74 behemoth. Not for the faint-hearted. I think they'd qualify as heavy.

My suggestion is Gloria Coates, again for her astoundingly 'heavy' string quartets.

I'm quite surprised no-one's mentioned Pierre Boulez yet, actually.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Hildadam Bingor said:


> Kinda surprised nobody's mentioned Der Stockhausen.


The thought had crossed my mind, but there are so many light-hearted moments in Stockhausen's works that I can't say he's as "heavy" a composer as, say, Reger or Lachenmann, both of whom have already been mentioned, and I'll second that.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

TurnaboutVox said:


> I'm quite surprised no-one's mentioned Pierre Boulez yet, actually.


Good call. Boulez made Milton Babbitt sound like Leroy Anderson.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I'm pretty sure Brahms was reincarnated as Orson Welles.


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

TurnaboutVox said:


> I wonder if you've heard Reger's string quartets, though? They are very dissonant indeed, especially the Op. 74 behemoth. Not for the faint-hearted. I think they'd qualify as heavy.


I recently listened to Reger's string quartets and thought Op. 74 was the strangest piece. The other quartets were well crafted, enjoyable works, but Op. 74 sounded rather blunt or obtuse to me. I'm not sure if it is the most mediocre piece or an outstanding piece among his quartets.



> My suggestion is Gloria Coates, again for her astoundingly 'heavy' string quartets.
> 
> I'm quite surprised no-one's mentioned Pierre Boulez yet, actually.


Boulez's music is complex, but it feels ultra-sharp and clear, and gives me an impression of lightness.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Delicious Manager said:


> I'd suggest it would be hard to find a 'heavier' composer than Allan Pettersson.


Pettersson is maybe more disturbed sounding maybe...but heavy does not necessarily equate morbid or disturbed. Wagner maybe outdoes Beethoven occasionally. Mahler and Strauss are getting more diffuse for me, more just behemoths. Brahms on the other hand is extremely dense and solid, but not always as 'heavy.' Bach can be very heavy to me. I describe it as 'the stretch' when certain composers pursue something to the point of bending minds and gather more force in the end, without necessarily the weightiest onset. Bruckner has it sometimes, but he becomes comparatively blocky. Schoenberg actually has this, to my ears, in his earlier music, but it's just so 'high cholesterol...'

And that was an attempt at a serious answer.


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