# What are some of your favorite classical composers?



## themadguitarist (Feb 13, 2016)

I love Tchaikovsky's work the most but Debussy and Hayden are close seconds. You can't go wrong with Beethoven and Mozart but almost everyone enjoys their work...


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Beethoven and I can't list any others because I don't think Brahms or Mendelssohn are classical, are they?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

That's a very broad topic. The more music I hear, the less certain I am that I have favorites -- or rather, I have several hundred favorites and I can no longer rank them.

I suppose Beethoven still tops my list -- I listened to the adagio from the 9th symphony at work today and it still moves me greatly. I can't listen to the whole symphony at work. I'd be useless.

But I'm moving more and more into composers closer to our time. The Lutoslawski piece (_Livre pour orchestre_ - Gunther Herbig / Berlin Symphony Orchestra) came up on my iPod at random today. It nearly blew my mind and I was still useless anyway. Pretty intense stuff!

I'll try not to bore everyone with a list of hundreds. But don't encourage me.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

They're all in my Hearem (see my blog post) :tiphat: It's not completely up-to-date, but, for the most part, these are my favourites to the present.


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## dsphipps100 (Jan 10, 2016)

Nobody else can match Gustav Mahler. He's like sonic cocaine, especially in SACD Surround Sound.


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## dsphipps100 (Jan 10, 2016)

Florestan said:


> Beethoven and I can't list any others because I don't think Brahms or Mendelssohn are classical, are they?


We sure could have used you in this thread...

http://www.talkclassical.com/42112-movie-themes-soundtracks-category.html

...several hours ago!


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Too many. I wish I had fewer favorites. If I had to choose only one? J.S. Bach


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Shostakovich and Bach.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Those who read my posts here at TalkClassical.com will already know that I cherish Haydn, often calling him "my favorite composer". Not that I recognize him as "the best" composer. But I hold a great fondness for Haydn's music, which proves uplifting and can always put me in a good mood. (I am currently undertaking a Haydn symphony marathon and have been listening to the symphonies in numerical order, one a day, since January 1st of this year. It continues on....)

I worship at the shrines of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikowsky, Schoenberg ... and Pierre Boulez. So many "favorite" composers. In fact, because I enjoy music so much -- it's a passion, really -- I admire nearly every creative soul engaged in making music. More power to them all! I wouldn't want to whittle down to one or a handful of composers. I want the world of created soundscapes to increase. I want there always to be someone new I haven't heard, something new I haven't heard ....


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

themadguitarist said:


> I love Tchaikovsky's work the most but Debussy and Hayden are close seconds. You can't go wrong with Beethoven and Mozart but almost everyone enjoys their work...


That's quite a range. Tchaikovsky has the emotion, Debussy has the dreams, and Haydn has the structure. Beethoven is the most human and Mozart is the Raphalean angel tinged with sadness.

I don't think I could pin you down into a box with a list like that.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Weston said:


> I'll try not to bore everyone with a list of hundreds. But don't encourage me.


Once again, you've spoken my mind. :tiphat:


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

*Glazunov*: Urbane, voguish writing for the most part, but brother is he capable of surprises now and then, while his profound Russian lyricism is never in doubt.
*Bruckner*: his high humane spirituality, the summit of the mountain of musical expressionism.
*Tchaikovsky*: the guy who never was afraid to let himself go.
*Bax*: A master of mood music: so wide-ranging emotionally, with great, often glowing orchestration. Bax is also a master of structure and form.
*Myaskovsky*: Likewise wide-ranging, and like Bruckner and Bax, a great composer of slow movements. From his earliest of pieces to his last, you sense a rather turbulent journey like, say, Boris Pasternak (and his Doctor Zhivago), and ultimately a man of the world.
*Wagner*: this revolutionary who pushes human experience to the limit on stage.
*Nielsen*: whose music matches his philosophy of life to the tee. There's nothing pretentious or assuming in his music.
*Tubin*: Very physical like Nielsen (a quite like Nielsen in matters meaningful), but emotionally gripping, yet scenic. His Fourth is wonderful in its sublimity and his piano music idyllic.
*Massenet*: the giant of 19th Century French opera.
*Rachmaninoff*: mawkish for some, but profoundly Russian and a great composer for the piano.

And with some many composers in my collection whom I admire greatly, and with no apologies or regrets (Mahler, Alfven, Atterberg, Melartin, Sibelius, Vaughan-Williams, Pettersson, Ravel, Goldmark, Creston, Ives, to name literally more than a few), these listed composers are those to whom I return with regularity.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I particularly enjoy Brahms, Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Prokofiev, Ravel, Bartok, and Respighi. And a whole bunch of other composers also.


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

Florestan said:


> Beethoven and I can't list any others because I don't think Brahms or Mendelssohn are classical, are they?


If we're talking Classical Era, only 3 in the OP apply. Still, Mendelssohn and Brahms, while firmly in the Romantic, have definite Classical influences. Then again, they were both as concerned (possibly) with the music of others (Bach, Schumann, Schubert, Dvorak) as they were their own. Schumann championed Brahms. Brahms championed Dvorak. Mendelssohn championed Schubert and Bach. Dvorak may have loved Schubert more than we'll ever know, but the influence is there. No doubt. The common thread with these composers? Mozart.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

dsphipps100 said:


> We sure could have used you in this thread...
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/42112-movie-themes-soundtracks-category.html
> 
> ...several hours ago!


Yeah, I never visited that thread because I don't really do movies. But taking a peek at a few hours ago and I see that here I very narrowly defined classical, exclusing Brahms and Mendelssohn because they were not on Wikipedia's list of classical composers, yet I realize that in the broadest sense, people think of classical as practically anything that requires formal orchestral instruments or something like that--meaning classical vs pop the two fundamental categories of music (or course that statement could start a new thread that will go on forever--or would it be better to say formal vs informal music?).


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## Stirling (Nov 18, 2015)

Bach, Handel,Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Verdi, Wagner, Brahms, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Puccini, Debussy, Ravel, R Strauss, Skriabin, Mahler, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Koechlin, Bartok, Berg, Haas, Schostakovich, Copland, Gershwin, Parker, Davis, Sondheim, Newberry


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Shostakovich and Bach.


Now if only you liked Bowie, we'd be cut from the same cloth..


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Fugue Meister said:


> Now if only you liked Bowie, we'd be cut from the same cloth..


Never took to him, but my other qualities are good.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Hors concours:
Johann Sebastian Bach

Next:
Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, Franz Schubert

Then:
Claude Debussy, Antonin Dvorak, Felix Mendelssohn, Ernest John Moeran, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Maurice Ravel, Dmitri Shostakovitch, Jean Sibelius, Richard Wagner

More:
William Alwyn, Samuel Barber, Arnold Bax, Ludwig van Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, Benjamin Britten, Anton Bruckner, Frederic Chopin, Gabriel Faure, Edvard Grieg, Sofia Gubaidulina, Joseph Haydn, Modest Mussorgsky, Carl Nielsen, Sergei Prokofiev, Giacomo Puccini, Joachim Raff, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Ottorino Respighi, Camille Saint-Saens, Aulis Sallinen, Richard Strauss, Josef Suk, Toru Takemitsu, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Peteris Vasks, Ralph Vaughan Williams

Even more:
John Adams, Kalevi Aho, Hugo Alfven, Anton Arensky, Malcolm Arnold, Kurt Atterberg, Grazina Bacewicz, Carl P.E. Bach, Granville Bantock, Amy Beach, Alban Berg, Luciano Berio, Max Bruch, Gavin Bryars, John Cage, Aaron Copland, Frederick Delius, Alphons Diepenbrock, Edward Elgar, George Enescu, John Field, Gerald Finzi, Cesar Franck, Luis de Freitas Branco, Robert Fuchs, George Gershwin, Philip Glass, Alexander Glazunov, Reinhold Gliere, Henryk Gorecki, Alexander Gretchaninov, Howard Hanson, Hamilton Harty, Paul Hindemith, Vagn Holmboe, Gustav Holst, Alan Hovhaness, Hans Huber, Johann Hummel, John Ireland, Giya Kancheli, Mieczyslaw Karlowicz, Charles Koechlin, Erich Korngold, Leopold Kozeluch, Jon Leifs, Douglas Lilburn, Franz Liszt, Sergei Lyupanov, James MacMillan, Bohuslav Martinu, Peter Maxwell Davies, Olivier Messiaen, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Goesta Nystroem, Arvo Part, Hans Pfitzner, Astor Piazzolla, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Max Reger, Steve Reich, Ferdinand Ries, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Christopher Rouse, Franz Schmidt, Alfred Schnittke, Robert Schumann, Peter Sculthorpe, Valentin Silvestrov, Bedrich Smetana, Louis Spohr, Charles Villiers Stanford, Igor Stravinsky, Karol Szymanowski, Eduard Tubin, Tomas Luis de Victoria, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Antonio Vivaldi, Carl Maria von Weber, Charles-Marie Widor, Alexander von Zemlinsky


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

^^^^
And Joly Braga Santos?


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Never took to him, but my other qualities are good.


Hey two out of three ain't bad... :tiphat:


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Art Rock said:


> Hors concours:
> Johann Sebastian Bach
> 
> Next:
> ...


Is there anything you don't like? Geez.


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## Chromatose (Jan 18, 2016)

I'm a big fan of all the Russians, Borodin is one of my favorites but I won't say I don't like the classics too i.e. Bach, Beethoven, & Mozart.


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## Chromatose (Jan 18, 2016)

Morimur said:


> Is there anything you don't like? Geez.


Is it that surprising that some people enjoy more than just Bach, I've seen your posts on more than just music, doesn't seem to me that you enjoy very much of anything. Although to be fair I suppose if you could only have just one composer you chose wisely.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

J.S. Bach
Ravel
Rodrigo
Bartok
Debussy
Brahms
Ives
Mozart
Prokofiev
Albeniz
Monteverdi
Schnittke


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Schubert, Wagner, Mahler, R. Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Ravel, Shostakovich, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Handel, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Chopin, Liszt, Dvorak, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Bartok, Respighi. 

And then a lot more...


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## OldFashionedGirl (Jul 21, 2013)

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaachhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Top favorites for the past few years:

Scheidemann
Weckmann
Froberger
Buxtehude
Bach
Handel
Mozart
Haydn
Schubert
Schumann
Chopin
Dvorak
Myaskovsky
Scriabin
Shostakovich
Stravinsky
Zemlinsky
Weinberg
Ravel
Mahler
Bruckner
Bridge
Vaughan Williams


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

-JSB 
-Beethoven
-Rachmaninov
-Mendelssohn. Friendzone buddies
-Debussy maybe? Or Chopin? Wagner? Prokofiev?


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Art Rock said:


> Hors concours:
> Johann Sebastian Bach
> 
> Next:
> ...


My list would be like this.

Most of us like everything from Gregorian Chant to contemporary avant-garde. We can not pick just five or ten or twenty.

My favorite 20th Century American composer whose last name starts with the letter "P" is Vincent Persichetti.


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## Adair (Feb 9, 2016)

Gosh, so many. Monteverdi, Gesualdo, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Hugo Wolf, Brahms, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Zemlinsky, Debussy, Ravel, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Milhaud, Poulenc, Stravinsky, Scriabin, Delius, Varese, Ligetti, Bartok, Lili Boulanger, Messiaen, Jehan Alain, Durfle, Mahler, Respighi, Scarlatti, Puccini, Delibes, Bellini, Boccherini..sigh...Hindemith, Busoni, Honegger, Frank Martin, Jean Francaix, Bruckner...Am I boring you yet? Too many. I just LOVE music!


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Yep. As with many others, you may as well say these are my favorites: Wikipedia List of composers by name


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Bruckner, Wagner, Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Sibelius, Mahler, Schubert, Haydn, Dvorak.


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## Elizabeth de Brito (Feb 10, 2016)

Debussy, Borodin, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Delius and Philip Sparke.


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## Elizabeth de Brito (Feb 10, 2016)

Manxfeeder said:


> That's quite a range. Tchaikovsky has the emotion, Debussy has the dreams, and Haydn has the structure. Beethoven is the most human and Mozart is the Raphalean angel tinged with sadness.
> 
> I don't think I could pin you down into a box with a list like that.


Why would you want to pin people into a box?

If I tell you the vast range of music I listen to, you'd probably short circuit.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

These are the best composers on the planet, all other lists be damned: 

Beethoven 
Mahler
Bruckner
Tchaikovsky 
Pettersson 
Shostakovitch 
Sibelius 
Bach
Schoenberg
I almost forgot Schnittke.


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## dsphipps100 (Jan 10, 2016)

Elizabeth de Brito said:


> If I tell you the vast range of music I listen to, you'd probably short circuit.


Oh Lord, please don't tell us you listen to hip hop.


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## Elizabeth de Brito (Feb 10, 2016)

dsphipps100 said:


> Oh Lord, please don't tell us you listen to hip hop.


Yes, and rock, and soul, and jazz and Italian folk and samba and metal and calypso and cajun music and musicals and scores and pretty much everything else on the planet!


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

dsphipps100 said:


> Oh Lord, please don't tell us you listen to hip hop.


What else am I gonna bump when I be hustlin in these hoods?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

clavichorder said:


> What else am I gonna bump when I be hustlin in these hoods?


Word up, brudda!


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Johann Sebastian Bach
Ludwig van Beethoven
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Franz Peter Schubert
Claude Achille Debussy
Igor Stravinsky
Johannes Brahms
Giuseppe Verdi
Richard Wagner
Béla Bartók 
Josquin des Prez
Claudio Monteverdi
Guillaume Du Fay
Johannes Ockeghem
Orlande de Lassus
Guillaume de Machaut
Tomás Luis de Victoria
György Kurtág 
Anton Webern
Arnold Schönberg 
György Ligeti
Alban Berg
Witold Lutosławski
Igor Stravinsky
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Greif
Jón Leifs
Tōru Takemitsu
Allan Pettersson
Iannis Xenakis
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Morton Feldman
Pierre Boulez
Luigi Nono
Luciano Berio
Gustav Mahler
Harry Partch
Elliott Carter
Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Charles Ives
Michael Hersch
Richard Barrett
Brian Ferneyhough
Michael Finnissy
James Dillon
Helmut Lachenmann
Kaija Saariaho
George Benjamin
Georg Friedrich Haas
Milton Babbitt
Beat Furrer
Giacinto Scelsi
Tristan Murail
Gérard Grisey
Sofia Gubaidulina
Galina Ustvolskaya
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Aribert Reimann
Conlon Nancarrow
Valery Gavrilin
Frédéric Chopin


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## dsphipps100 (Jan 10, 2016)

Morimur, you left out.....hang on a second.....

Couldn't you have put them alphabetical order or something?!?!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Too many.
I wish I had fewer favourites.
If I had to choose only one?
*Verdi *:tiphat:


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## poconoron (Oct 26, 2011)

Mozart
Beethoven
Haydn
Schubert
Handel
Bach
Rossini
Brahms
Dvorak


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Brahms, Schumann, Wagner


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Klassic said:


> These are the best composers on the planet, all other lists be damned:
> 
> Beethoven
> Mahler
> ...


You left out Mendelssohn and Brahms


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