# Who Are Your Top Ten Favorite Composers? (Again)



## S P Summers

Well, it seems like it's time for my annual "top ten favorite composers" thread. I like to post a thread of this nature about once per year- it's interesting to see how everyone's listening preferences have changed, and which composers remain a fixture in daily recreational listening.

My apologies if this has been done recently by someone else.

You don't have to name a full ten if your list happens to be smaller, and I'll allow for up to FIVE "honorable mentions" if you're having trouble narrowing it down. The last time I made a thread like this, people were literally naming 40 or 50 composers as their "top ten" list. Easy to do, I know; but what fun is that?

PLEASE - No more than a top TEN (10) with UP TO five (5) honorable mentions!

*My Top Ten Favorite Composers in History:*

*- Sergei Prokofiev* _(1891 - 1953)_

*- Franz Liszt* _(1811 - 1886)_

*- Franz Xaver Scharwenka* _(1850 - 1924)_

*- Leopold Godowsky* _(1870 - 1938)_

*- York Bowen* _(1884 - 1961)_

*- Ernő Dohnányi* _(1877 - 1960)_

*- Charles-Valentin Alkan* _(1813 - 1888)_

*- Sergei Bortkiewicz* _(1877 - 1952)_

*- Alexander Scriabin* _(1872 - 1915)_

*- Sergei Rachmaninov* _(1873 - 1943)_

*Five Honorable Mentions:*

*- Moritz Moszkowski* _(1854 - 1925)_

*- Joseph Marx* _(1882 - 1964)_

*- Dmitri Shostakovich* _(1906 - 1975)_

*- Kaikhosru Sorabji* _(1892 - 1988)_

*- Ferruccio Busoni* _(1866 - 1924)_

Yes, I'm obsessed with the piano.

There are many more names that deserve an honorable mention, but in keeping with the rules; I'm quite happy with this list.


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## Art Rock

1. Bach, JS
2. Mahler
3. Brahms
4. Schubert
5. Shostakovich
6. Sibelius
7. Wagner
8. Dvorak
9. Bruckner
10. Ravel

Honorable mention: Mozart, Mendelssohn, R Strauss, Debussy, Bax.


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## Allegro Con Brio

1. Bach
2. Brahms
3. Sibelius
4. Mahler
5. Beethoven
6. Schubert
7. Chopin
8. Dvorak
9. Ravel
10. Mozart


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## mahlernerd

1. Mahler
2. Beethoven
3. Shostakovich
4. Prokofiev
5. R. Strauss
6. Tchaikovsky
7. Debussy
8. Respighi
9. Sibelius
10. Brahms

Mahler is my all-time fav, but the others in the list are really in no particular order.

Honorable Mentions: Bartók, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, Messiaen


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## Bulldog

1. Bach
2. Mahler
3. Shostakovich
4. Scriabin
5. Schumann
6. Haydn
7. Handel
8. R. Strauss
9. Mozart
10. Beethoven

Hororable Mention:
Martinu
Dutilleux
Pettersson
Schubert
Schnittke


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## 20centrfuge

Today my top ten are:

1. Prokofiev, Sergei
2. Bartok, Bela 
3. Sibelius, Jean
4. Messiaen, Olivier 
5. Adams, John
7. Chin, Unsuk
8. Elgar, Edward
9. Debussy, Claude
10. Schubert, Franz

Honorable Mentions:
1. Barber, Samuel
2. Fauré, Gabriel
3. Scarlatti, Domenico 
4. Stravinsky, Igor
5. Hindemith, Paul


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## Xisten267

My list tends to change according to the day. Today it is:

1. Ludwig van Beethoven;
2. Richard Wagner;
3. Johann Sebastian Bach;
4. Johannes Brahms;
5. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart;
6. Franz Schubert;
7. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky;
8. Hector Berlioz;
9. Felix Mendelssohn;
10. Sergei Prokofiev.

Honorable Mentions: 

1. Gustav Mahler;
2. Antonio Vivaldi;
3. Claude Debussy;
4. Dmitri Shostakovich;
5. Anton Bruckner.


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## Brahmsian Colors

1) Brahms
2) Mozart and Haydn tied
4) Dvorak, Sibelius and Vaughan Williams tied
7) Debussy and Ravel tied
9) Mendelssohn
10) Mahler


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## Sonata

Brahms
Verdi
Bruckner
Dvorak
Ravel
Mendelssohn
Chopin
M.A. Charpentier
Richard Strauss
Mahler
Mozart

11 instead of 10.. sorry!


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## Fabulin

Pyotr Tchaikovsky
John Williams
Bernard Herrmann
Felix Mendelssohn
Dmitri Shostakovich
Ludwig van Beethoven
Richard Wagner
Anton Bruckner
Howard Shore
Antonin Dvorak

for today


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## Gray Bean

1. Beethoven
2. Brahms
3. J.S. Bach
4. Bruckner
5. Berlioz
6. Haydn
7. Vaughan Williams
8. Elgar
9. Mahler
10. Tchaikovsky

Honorable mention: Shostakovich, Dvorak, Mozart, Barber, Richard Strauss


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## D Smith

Seems like we have one these every month or so.

In alphabetical order

Bach (JS)
Beethoven
Brahms
Bruckner
Debussy 
Ravel
Schumann
Shostakovich
Sibelius
Vivaldi

and many many others.


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## Dimace

Here we go again! My top 10 + 5 Honorable mentions

1.Franz Liszt
2.L.V.Beethoven
3.Frederic Chopin
4.Richard Wagner
5.Richard Strauss
6.P.I.Tschaikowksy
7.Alexander Scriabin
8.Hector Berlioz
9.Anton Bruckner
10. G. Mahler

Honorable:
1.William Wallace
2.S. Rachmaninov
3.S. Thalberg
4.S.Bortkiewicz
5.Robert Schumann


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## WildThing

Richard Wagner
Sergei Prokofiev
Ludwig van Beethoven
Johann Sebastian Bach
Franz Schubert
Béla Bartók
Frédéric Chopin
Anton Bruckner
George Frideric Handel
Jean Sibelius


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## Strange Magic

Order Varies:

Brahms
Prokofiev
Ravel
Bach
Sibelius
Debussy
Mozart 
Beethoven
Rachmaninoff
Bartok

Backups:

Martinu
Hovhaness
Shostakovich
Respighi
Tchaikovsky
Others....


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## AClockworkOrange

My present favourites in no order are:
- Joseph Haydn
- Ludwig Van Beethoven 
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 
- Johannes Brahms
- Richard Strauss
- Erich Wolfgang Korngold
- Giacomo Puccini 
- Camille Saint-Saens 
- Arnold Bax
- Malcolm Arnold

Five honourable mentions:
- Antonin Dvorak 
- Anton Bruckner
- Jean Sibelius 
- Ralph Vaughan Williams 
- Gabriel Fauré

There are quite a few notable absentees here but I just can’t juggle my choices and fit them in.


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## SanAntone

Top Ten
1	Bach
2	Brahms
3	Stravinsky
4	Debussy
5	Beethoven
6	Liszt	
7	Durufle
8	Ravel	
9	Poulenc
10	Machaut

Honorable mentions
11	Bernstein
12	Gershwin	
13	Satie
14	Golijov
15	Weill


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## Rambler

I'm busy cataloguing my recordings and so far I have dealt with composers A through to Gluck. On the basis of recordings count in my collection - but only A to G I get the following.

1 JS Bach
2 Beethoven
3 Britten
4 Brahms
5 Berlioz
6 Bartok
7 Elgar
8 Dvorak
9 Bruckner
10 Debussy

Come back in a year and I might be able to cover A - Z!


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## Guest002

My personal top ten, pretty invariant over the years I think:

1. Benjamin Britten
2. Johann Sebastian Bach
3. Ralph Vaughan Williams
4. Jean Sibelius
5. Dmitri Shostakovich
6. Leoš Janáček
7. Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber
8. Ottorino Respighi
9. Gustav Mahler
10. Claudio Monteverdi

Honorable mentions

11. Jean-Philippe Rameau
12. Giuseppe Verdi
13. Michael Tippet
14. Reinhard Keiser
15. Marc-Antoine Charpentier


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## ORigel

1. Beethoven. Especially Late Beethoven, but Middle Beethoven alone would be in my top five.
2. J.S. Bach. For his choral works, late contrapunctal music, Brandenburg Concertos, Partitas for Harpsichord, and cello suites.
3. Brahms. For consistent quality in orchestral and chamber music.
4. Joseph Haydn. For The Creation, cello concertos, symphonies, late string quartets, and late piano sonatas.
5. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Operas, piano concertos, Dissonance Quartet, string quintets, and last four symphonies. Goes further than Haydn in his best works, but Haydn is more consistent, IMO.
6. Schubert: Mostly for his chamber music. 
7. Bruckner: Symphonies 5, 7, 8, 9
8. Mahler: Symphonies 1, 3, 9, and Das Lied Von Der Erde
9. Bartok: String Quartets, Concerto for Orchestra, Cantata Profana most of all
10. Monteverdi: L'Orfeo, L'incoronazione di Poppea, Vespers, Mass, Madrigals 

Honorable mentions:
Stravinsky (The Rite of Spring, neoclassical works, Septet)

Handel (Oratorios)

Felix Mendelssohn (Octet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Symphonies 3-5, String Quartet No. 2, Elijah)

Schoenberg (Moses und Aron, chamber symphonies, Piano Concerto, Five Pieces for Orchestra)


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## Simplicissimus

Always shifting within the top 20, but quite stable in the top ten:

1. Johann Sebastian Bach
2. Paul Hindemith
3. Bela Bartók
4. Richard Strauss
5. Ralph Vaughan Williams
6. Georg Philipp Telemann
7. Gustav Mahler
8. Sergei Prokofiev
9. Igor Stravinsky 
10. Johannes Brahms


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## Andante Largo

Recently, my top 10 composers are:

1. Sibelius, Jean (1865 - 1957)
2. Respighi, Ottorino (1879 - 1936)
3. Brahms, Johannes (1833 - 1897)
4. Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Mario (1895 - 1968)
5. Delius, Frederick (1862 - 1934)
6. Rheinberger, Joseph (1839 - 1901)
7. Peterson-Berger, Wilhelm (1867 - 1942)
8. Howells, Herbert (1892 - 1983)
9. Karłowicz, Mieczysław (1876 - 1909)
10. Röntgen, Julius (1855 - 1932)

Honorable mentions:

Stenhammar, Wilhelm (1871 - 1927)
Noskowski, Zygmunt (1846 - 1909)
Dobrzyński, Ignacy Feliks (1807 - 1867)
Żeleński, Władysław (1837 - 1921)
Reger, Max (1873 -1916)


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## Coach G

1. I'm a big fan of symphonies so most of my favorites are among the great composers of symphonies, starting with *Beethoven*; but then again, almost everything Beethoven composed was great. More than any other composer, Beethoven serves to remind me even in the darkest times that there is still beauty in the world, and despite Beethoven's penchant for struggle and heroism, he's also quite calm and relaxed at times.

2-5. *Tchaikovsky*, *Rachmaninoff*, *Shostakovich*, and *Sibelius* comprise my own brand of winter weather composers as each seems to bring forth a pecularly northern sound for me. I'm one of those strange people that likes winter time and where I live we often get a good dose of it, and I really enjoy the above composers when the snow covers the ground. Each one is also a great symphonist, even if Rachmaninoff only composed one worth hearing. Then again, Rachmaninoff makes up for it with his wonderful _Vespers/All Night Vigil_.

6-7. No one who likes lush, long and noisy symphonies can be without *Mahler* and *Bruckner*, although I concede that not every Mahler or Bruckner symphony speaks to me. _Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde_ and Bruckner's _Symphony # 8 _and _#9 _are my favorites from these two.

8. *Berlioz* makes the list just for the wonderful _Requiem_, a full-blown musical hurricane where the composer unleashes all the forces of the apocalypse; though _Harold in Italy_ was also an early favorite.

9. The next one is problematic. While I find it really hard to get through a complete opera by *Wagner*, the excerpts sure are great, and _Siegfried Idyll_ is another all time favorite.

10. *Samuel Barber* makes my list just because along with Wagner's _Siegfried Idyll_ and Beethoven's _Symphony # 6 "Pastorale"_, Barber's _Knoxville: Summer of 1915_ is among my three favorite pieces.


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## Owen David

1. Sibelius

2. Tchaikovsky

3. Beethoven

4. Bach 

5. Ravel

6. Borodin

7. Vaughan Williams

8. Elgar 

9. Satie 

10. Puccini


(Subject to change of course). 

You could call it the Tunesmiths' Top Ten.


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## MusicSybarite

It's pretty common to see Bach in each list, and that's fine! I do respect him as a composer, but his music rarely moves me, and if it doesn't happen, I can't feel him as a favorite.

Beethoven
Brahms
Dvorak
Janacek
Martinu
Nielsen
Prokofiev
Shostakovich
Sibelius
Strauss


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## MusicSybarite

Andante Largo said:


> Recently, my top 10 composers are:
> 
> 1. Sibelius, Jean (1865 - 1957)
> 2. Respighi, Ottorino (1879 - 1936)
> 3. Brahms, Johannes (1833 - 1897)
> 4. Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Mario (1895 - 1968)
> 5. Delius, Frederick (1862 - 1934)
> 6. Rheinberger, Joseph (1839 - 1901)
> 7. Peterson-Berger, Wilhelm (1867 - 1942)
> 8. Howells, Herbert (1892 - 1983)
> 9. Karłowicz, Mieczysław (1876 - 1909)
> 10. Röntgen, Julius (1855 - 1932)
> 
> Honorable mentions:
> 
> Stenhammar, Wilhelm (1871 - 1927)
> Noskowski, Zygmunt (1846 - 1909)
> Dobrzyński, Ignacy Feliks (1807 - 1867)
> Żeleński, Władysław (1837 - 1921)
> Reger, Max (1873 -1916)


Good! This is an interesting list, rather original.


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## Open Lane

1) Charles Wuorinen
2) Elliott Carter
3) Scriabin
4) Wolpe
5) Chopin
6) Berg
7) Brahms
8) Liszt
9) Pokofiev
and... 10) Schoenberg


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## consuono

My top 5 doesn't really change very much:
1. J. S. Bach
2. Beethoven
3. Haydn
4. Mozart
5. Handel

Thereafter things change every now and then. In no particular order the next five would probably be Brahms, Mahler, Sibelius, Chopin and Liszt. Or maybe Debussy or Wagner next week.


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## Rogerx

Can we have a poll/game about this?


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## Highwayman

1. *B*rahms
2. *B*ach
3. *B*eethoven
4. Schumann
5. Dvořák
6. Schubert
7. Sibelius
8. Fauré
9. Mahler
10. Mendelssohn

Honorable mentions: Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Medtner, Reger, Messiaen


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## Air

I used to keep a running a list, so it's fun to compare where I am today to where I was back then.

This is my list from 5 years ago.


Bach
Mozart
Schumann
Beethoven
Wagner
Handel
Prokofiev
Bartók
Schubert
R. Strauss
If I were to try to come up with my list today, it would probably look only slightly different:


Bach
Mozart
Schumann
Beethoven
Wagner
Handel
Prokofiev
Brahms
Ravel
R. Strauss
Schubert would probably clock in at #11 and Bartók would still be in my top 15.

Also, I finally let Brahms into my sacred top ten. Are my tastes getting more refined over time or more boring? Probably both.


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## Beebert

My top ten favorites aren't necessarily the same as my top ten greatest. But here are my favorites, kind of in order:

1. Franz Schubert
2. Ludwig van Beethoven
3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
4. Johann Sebastian Bach
5. Robert Schumann
6. Frederic Chopin
7. Johannes Brahms
8. Gustav Mahler
9. Anton Webern
10. Claude Debussy


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## Ethereality

_Message deleted_


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## Bertali

Ludwig van Beethoven
Gustav Mahler
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Richard Wagner
Richard Strauss
Giacomo Puccini
Modest Mussorgsky
Carl Maria von Weber
Robert Schumann
Claudio Monteverdi

Honorable mentions
Jean-Philippe Rameau
George Frideric Handel
Henry Purcell
Antonio Vivaldi
Luigi Rossi


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## Judith

At this time
Brahms
Schumann
Beethoven 
Tchaikovsky
Mozart
Mahler
Bruckner
Kabalevsky
Shostakovich
Sibelius

All different but do like variety. 
Love many others also but these spring to mind


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## Boltzmann Brain

Top 10 in no particular order:
- Johann Sebastian Bach
- Johannes Brahms
- Ludwig van Beethoven
- Claude Debussy
- Dmitri Shostakovich
- Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky
- Frederic Chopin
- Antonin Dvorak
- Sergei Prokofiev
- Bela Bartok

Honorable Mentions:
- Krszystoff Penderecki
- Igor Stravinsky
- György Ligeti
- Hector Berlioz
- Felix Mendelssohn


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## SixFootScowl

Not in any particular order:

Beethoven
Mahler
Rachmaninoff
Mendelssohn
Donizetti

I don't know who else I would put in the list.


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## Caesura

My defined list:

1. George Frederic Handel
2. Ludwig van Beethoven
3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
4. Johann Sebastian Bach

Other baroque and classical era (with the odd romantic) composers have honourable mentions, such as:

1. Antonio Vivaldi
2. Jean-Baptiste Lully
3. Franz Joseph Haydn
4. Alessandro & Domenico Scarlatti (tied)
5. Franz Schubert


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## Swosh

Oh I'm sure people's lists change as time goes on!

No order!!

Raff
Beethoven
Chopin
Bach
Brahms
Haydn
Mendelssohn
Wagner
Schubert
Rachmaninoff


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## jim prideaux

today....

Sibelius
Brahms
Nielsen
Schumann
Dvorak
Martinu
Myaskovsky
Beethoven
Schubert
Walton
Shostakovich


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## poconoron

1. Mozart
2. Beethoven
3. Bach
4. Haydn
5. Schubert
6. Brahms
7. Rossini
8. Handel
9. Dvorak
10. Vivaldi


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## EmperorOfIceCream

Beethoven
Debussy
Dutilleux
Berg
Chopin
Mahler
Ligeti
Mendelssohn
Schoenberg
Liszt

Honorable mentions:
Grisey
Rautavaara
Bach
Monteverdi


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## annaw

In no particular order:

Ludwig van Beethoven
Richard Wagner
Gustav Mahler
Anton Bruckner
Dmitri Shostakovich
Robert Schumann
Johannes Brahms
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Johann Sebastian Bach
Richard Strauss


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## flamencosketches

Beebert said:


> My top ten favorites aren't necessarily the same as my top ten greatest. But here are my favorites, kind of in order:
> 
> 1. Franz Schubert
> 2. Ludwig van Beethoven
> 3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
> 4. Johann Sebastian Bach
> 5. Robert Schumann
> 6. Frederic Chopin
> 7. Johannes Brahms
> 8. Gustav Mahler
> 9. Anton Webern
> 10. Claude Debussy


This might be the exact same names I'd put in my top 10 albeit in different order.


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## pianozach

I'll be boring . . . 

1. Mozart 
2. J. S. Bach
3. Haydn
4. Beethoven
5. Chopin 
6. Gershwin
7. Joplin
8. J. Williams
9. Schubert
10. Holst

Honorable Mention:

Tchaikovsky
Copland
Ginastera
Mussorgsky
Brahms


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## Simon Moon

No particular order.

1. Berg
2. Elliott Carter
3. Bela Bartok
4. Charles Wourinen
5. Magnus Lindberg
6. Penderecki
7. Arnold Schoenberg
8. Stefan Wolpe
9. Karl Amedeus Hartmann 
10. Harrison Birtwistle 

Honorable mention 

1. Joan Tower
2 . Stravinsky 
3. Webern
4. Thea Musgrave
5. Joseph Schwantner


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## rice

S P Summers said:


> *- Sergei Prokofiev* _(1891 - 1953)_
> 
> *- Franz Liszt* _(1811 - 1886)_
> 
> *- Franz Xaver Scharwenka* _(1850 - 1924)_
> 
> *- Leopold Godowsky* _(1870 - 1938)_
> 
> *- York Bowen* _(1884 - 1961)_
> 
> *- Ernő Dohnányi* _(1877 - 1960)_
> 
> *- Charles-Valentin Alkan* _(1813 - 1888)_
> 
> *- Sergei Bortkiewicz* _(1877 - 1952)_
> 
> *- Alexander Scriabin* _(1872 - 1915)_
> 
> *- Sergei Rachmaninov* _(1873 - 1943)_


Wow! Nice choice having Scharwenka and Bortkiewicz in your top 10!

I'd put Bortkiewicz in my top 10 too. Need some more listening to Scharwenka though.


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## S P Summers

pianozach said:


> I'll be boring . . .
> 
> 1. Mozart
> 2. J. S. Bach
> 3. Haydn
> 4. Beethoven
> 5. Chopin
> 6. Gershwin
> 7. Joplin
> 8. J. Williams
> 9. Schubert
> 10. Holst
> 
> Honorable Mention:
> 
> Tchaikovsky
> Copland
> Ginastera
> Mussorgsky
> Brahms


Nice to see some love for Ginastera =D

I just listened to two of the piano concerti today, the Barbara Nissman recordings!


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## S P Summers

rice said:


> Wow! Nice choice having Scharwenka and Bortkiewicz in your top 10!
> 
> I'd put Bortkiewicz in my top 10 too. Need some more listening to Scharwenka though.


Xaver Scharwenka is probably in my top 3, I absolutely love his music.

Check out these recordings:

- Piano Concerto #2 in C Minor, Op.56 (Any of the three major recordings, but my favorite is the Markovich/Järvi/Chandos)

- Piano Concerto #1 in Bb Minor, Op.32 (Earl Wild/Leinsdorf/BSO - This recording will never be surpassed)

- Piano Concerto #3 in C# Minor, Op.80 (Markovich/Järvi/Chandos)

- Piano Sonata #1 in C# Minor, Op.6 (Tanyel/Hyperion)

- Piano Concerto #4 in F Minor, Op.82 (Hough/Foster/Hyperion)

- Piano Sonata #2 in Eb Major, Op.36 (Tanyel/Hyperion)

- Symphony in C Minor, Op.60 (Gavle Symphony Orchestra)

- Polonaise in C# Minor, Op.12 (Tanyel/Hyperion)

- Polonaise in F Minor, Op.42 (Tanyel/Hyperion)

- Romanzero, Op.33 (Tanyel/Hyperion)

- Variations for Piano, Op.48 (Tanyel/Hyperion)


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## pianozach

S P Summers said:


> Xaver Scharwenka is probably in my top 3, I absolutely love his music.
> 
> Check out these recordings:
> 
> - Piano Concerto #2 in C Minor, Op.56 (Any of the three major recordings, but my favorite is the Markovich/Järvi/Chandos)
> 
> - Piano Concerto #1 in Bb Minor, Op.32 (Earl Wild/Leinsdorf/BSO - This recording will never be surpassed)
> 
> - Piano Concerto #3 in C# Minor, Op.80 (Markovich/Järvi/Chandos)
> 
> - Piano Sonata #1 in C# Minor, Op.6 (Tanyel/Hyperion)
> 
> - Piano Concerto #4 in F Minor, Op.82 (Hough/Foster/Hyperion)
> 
> - Piano Sonata #2 in Eb Major, Op.36 (Tanyel/Hyperion)
> 
> - Symphony in C Minor, Op.60 (Gavle Symphony Orchestra)
> 
> - Polonaise in C# Minor, Op.12 (Tanyel/Hyperion)
> 
> - Polonaise in F Minor, Op.42 (Tanyel/Hyperion)
> 
> - Romanzero, Op.33 (Tanyel/Hyperion)
> 
> - Variations for Piano, Op.48 (Tanyel/Hyperion)


I may find time to listen to your top picks. That said, I can't say I've ever heard of *Xaver Scharwenka*.

As a pianist, I'm more partial and familiar to piano works, then instrumental works.

As a teen, I saw a lot of rock, pop, classical, broadway, but very little opera.


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## S P Summers

pianozach said:


> I may find time to listen to your top picks. That said, I can't say I've ever heard of *Xaver Scharwenka*.
> 
> As a pianist, I'm more partial and familiar to piano works, then instrumental works.
> 
> As a teen, I saw a lot of rock, pop, classical, broadway, but very little opera.


Pick up the piano concerti. You'll love them, I promise.

https://www.prestomusic.com/classic...certo-no-1-works-by-balakirev-medtner-dalbert

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8038850--scharwenka-piano-concertos-nos-1-4

https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA66790


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## pianozach

S P Summers said:


> Pick up the piano concerti. You'll love them, I promise.
> 
> https://www.prestomusic.com/classic...certo-no-1-works-by-balakirev-medtner-dalbert
> 
> https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8038850--scharwenka-piano-concertos-nos-1-4
> 
> https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA66790


Went to YouTube
Alexander Markovich playing with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. 2013.
Just finished the 1st mvt. of the *PC No. 1*
The vid has an accompanying score so one can follow along.

Very Rachmaninoffy. As though he's trying to out-Rach Rach.

Lots of arpeggiations and stabs and scales. Very busy. Never lets up. Very, very dramatic.

This recording, even though there's a great deal of ambient reverb, both the piano and orchestra are quite crisp-sounding.

Interesting that he chose to have three fast movements.


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## S P Summers

pianozach said:


> Went to YouTube
> Alexander Markovich playing with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. 2013.
> Just finished the 1st mvt. of the *PC No. 1*
> The vid has an accompanying score so one can follow along.
> 
> Very Rachmaninoffy. As though he's trying to out-Rach Rach.
> 
> Lots of arpeggiations and stabs and scales. Very busy. Never lets up. Very, very dramatic.
> 
> This recording, even though there's a great deal of ambient reverb, both the piano and orchestra are quite crisp-sounding.
> 
> Interesting that he chose to have three fast movements.


Keep in mind that concerto was written by Scharwenka in 1874, almost 20 years before Rachmaninov wrote his first piano concerto!

You really should check out Earl Wild's recording of the 1st concerto. Wild studied it with his teacher Selmar Janson, who studied it with the composer directly. It's a legendary recording, one of my most cherished pieces of music in my expansive collection.

That's the recording I always listen to, I have no idea what's available on YouTube however. I buy all of my music from Presto and Hyperion.

For the 2nd and 3rd concerto, I like Markovich. Tanyel's performance of the 3rd leaves something to be desired, although her performance of the 2nd is wonderful. I'd avoid the Michael Ponti recording of the 2nd.

4th concerto has to be the Stephen Hough recording.

I listen almost exclusively to solo piano music, and piano concerti. I'm very attracted to the extroverted, heavily indulgent piano writing of Scharwenka. His concerti really are the pinnacle of late-romantic pianism, in my opinion.


----------



## MatthewWeflen

Beethoven
Sibelius
Mozart
Brahms
R. Strauss
Tchaikovsky
Haydn
Bach
Bruckner
Schubert

Mendelssohn
Schumann
Handel
Rossini
Wagner
Dvorak
J Strauss II
Copland
John Williams
Holst


----------



## Brahmsianhorn

Brahms
Beethoven
Mahler
Bach
Mozart
Bruckner
R. Strauss
Wagner
Schubert
Tchaikovsky


----------



## MatthewWeflen

Brahmsianhorn said:


> Brahms
> Beethoven
> Mahler
> Bach
> Mozart
> Bruckner
> R. Strauss
> Wagner
> Schubert
> Tchaikovsky


Your list is horrible, Bramsianhorn! What a bunch of crap picks. My list is far superior.


----------



## flamencosketches

Let me try this...

1. Franz Schubert
2. Gustav Mahler
3. Anton Webern
4. Robert Schumann
5. Johannes Brahms
6. Ludwig van Beethoven
7. Maurice Ravel
8. Johann Sebastian Bach
9. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
10. Claude Debussy

Might be kind of a boring list, but every entry is well-deserved, informed by a deep and personal connection to the art of the composer in question. It's also subject to change; it's only quite recently that Brahms has edged out Beethoven from the top 5, and it greatly pained me having to omit Sibelius and Chopin from the top 10. I also don't like assigning a first-place choice, but I decided to go with Schubert because his music has been with me quite consistently for several years, before I ever got into classical music on a greater scale.


----------



## kyjo

In some sort of order:

1. Jean Sibelius
2. Kurt Atterberg
3. Antonín Dvořák
4. Sergei Rachmaninoff
5. Sergei Prokofiev
6. Ralph Vaughan Williams
7. Francis Poulenc
8. Carl Nielsen
9. Johannes Brahms
10. Joly Braga Santos


----------



## JonJon

1. Stravinsky
2. Mahler
3. Bruckner
4. Wagner
5. Tchaikovsky
6. Shostakovich
7. R. Strauss
8. Rachmaninov
9. Bartók
10. Hindemith


----------



## aioriacont

Bach
Schubert
Beethoven
Debussy
Bartok
Vivaldi
Dvorak
Monteverdi
Brahms
Mozart


----------



## Rogerx

JonJon said:


> 1. Stravinsky
> 2. Mahler
> 3. Bruckner
> 4. Wagner
> 5. Tchaikovsky
> 6. Shostakovich
> 7. R. Strauss
> 8. Rachmaninov
> 9. Bartók
> 10. Hindemith


That's impressive firs post, welcome.


----------



## aioriacont

Rogerx said:


> That's impressive firs post, welcome.


what's an impressive firs post in your objective eyes?
Just kidding, Rogerx! haha

And welcome JonJon!


----------



## Rogerx

aioriacont said:


> what's an impressive firs post in your objective eyes?
> Just kidding, Rogerx! haha
> 
> And welcome JonJon!


I am so objective, you will not believe it.


----------



## aioriacont

Rogerx said:


> I am so objective, you will not believe it.


haha yeah, same here.

People, I would like to write a second list, by including composers from other genres. My first lists is in the last page. Here it goes:

Bach
Schubert
Yuki Kajiura (composer of many soundtracks, spanning a lot of genres with mastery)
Robert Fripp (lead composer from King Crimson, with an amazing solo career)
Beethoven
Peter Hammill (lead composer from prog rock band Van der Graaf Generator, with an amazing solo career)
John Balance (lead composer from experimental band Coil)
Debussy
Bartok
Michael Gira (lead composer from experimental band Swans)


----------



## Dorsetmike

Henry Purcell
John Stanley
Thomas Tallis
Monteverdi
Vivaldi
Geminiani
Wasseneur
Domenico Scarlatti
Zelenka
Cernohorsky


----------



## Animal the Drummer

Mozart out on his own, then in alphabetical order

Bach
Beethoven
Brahms
Chopin
Handel
Haydn
Rachmaninov
Scarlatti
Schubert


----------



## Neo Romanza

My own list (in no particular order):

Debussy
Ravel
Bartók
Sibelius
Shostakovich
Dvořák
Martinů
Copland
Prokofiev
Villa-Lobos


----------



## allaroundmusicenthusiast

1. Mahler
2. Messiaen
3. Beethoven
4. Schumann
5. Bartók
6. Debussy
7. Mozart
8. Berlioz
9. Brahms
10. Ligeti

Probably, I don't really know


----------



## Xisten267

aioriacont said:


> haha yeah, same here.
> 
> People, I would like to write a second list, by including composers from other genres. My first lists is in the last page. Here it goes:
> 
> Bach
> Schubert
> Yuki Kajiura (composer of many soundtracks, spanning a lot of genres with mastery)
> Robert Fripp (lead composer from King Crimson, with an amazing solo career)
> Beethoven
> Peter Hammill (lead composer from prog rock band Van der Graaf Generator, with an amazing solo career)
> John Balance (lead composer from experimental band Coil)
> Debussy
> Bartok
> Michael Gira (lead composer from experimental band Swans)


Interesting list. Although I wouldn't place Fripp so high in mine, I'm a devoted fan of King Crimson (it's my favorite rock band together with Pink Floyd) and would like to know his solo career works. Could you please share with me which are you top non-KC Fripp albums?


----------



## flamencosketches

Animal the Drummer said:


> Mozart out on his own, then in alphabetical order
> 
> Bach
> Beethoven
> Brahms
> Chopin
> Handel
> Haydn
> Rachmaninov
> Scarlatti
> Schubert


Your alphabetical list raises an interesting point. Why are the names of the great composers of history so heavily weighted toward the letter B...? There's Bach, Beethoven, & Brahms of course, but also Bruckner, Britten, Bartók, Berlioz, Barber, Bellini, Berg, Bizet, Borodin, Buxtehude, Berio, Boulez, Bernstein, Bax... need I go on...?


----------



## Itullian

Ludwig
Wolfgang
Johann S.
Johannes
Franz Joseph
Franz S.
Robert S.
Richard W
Antonio V.
Domenico S.
Luigi B.


----------



## JonJon

Rogerx said:


> That's impressive firs post, welcome.





aioriacont said:


> what's an impressive firs post in your objective eyes?
> Just kidding, Rogerx! haha
> 
> And welcome JonJon!


Thank you, Rogerx. Thank you, aioriacont.


----------



## Bulldog

Itullian said:


> Ludwig
> Wolfgang
> Johann S.
> Johannes
> Franz Joseph
> Franz S.
> Robert S.
> Richard W
> Antonio V.
> Domenico S.
> Luigi B.


Yeah, last names are a drag.


----------



## Highwayman

Itullian said:


> Ludwig
> Wolfgang
> Johann S.
> Johannes
> Franz Joseph
> Franz S.
> Robert S.
> Richard W
> Antonio V.
> Domenico S.
> Luigi B.


I also like Spohr.


----------



## Itullian

Bulldog said:


> Yeah, last names are a drag.


We're on a first name basis now.


----------



## annaw

Highwayman said:


> I also like Spohr.


Spohr was baptised Ludewig though


----------



## Ethereality




----------



## RogerWaters

Bach
Beethoven
Mozart
Brahms
Schumann
Debussy
Ravel
Haydn
Stravinsky?
Shostakovich?
Purcell?


----------



## RogerWaters

flamencosketches said:


> Your alphabetical list raises an interesting point. Why are the names of the great composers of history so heavily weighted toward the letter B...?


One reason. Luck.


----------



## Neo Romanza

flamencosketches said:


> Your alphabetical list raises an interesting point. Why are the names of the great composers of history so heavily weighted toward the letter B...? There's Bach, Beethoven, & Brahms of course, but also Bruckner, Britten, Bartók, Berlioz, Barber, Bellini, Berg, Bizet, Borodin, Buxtehude, Berio, Boulez, Bernstein, Bax... need I go on...?


I don't know but the S's are rather numerous as well: Schubert, Schumann, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Stravinsky, R. Strauss, Schoenberg, Scriabin, Szymanowski, Schnittke, etc.


----------



## annaw

flamencosketches said:


> Your alphabetical list raises an interesting point. Why are the names of the great composers of history so heavily weighted toward the letter B...? There's Bach, Beethoven, & Brahms of course, but also Bruckner, Britten, Bartók, Berlioz, Barber, Bellini, Berg, Bizet, Borodin, Buxtehude, Berio, Boulez, Bernstein, Bax... *need I go on...?*


It would get entirely out of hands if we started including all those other Bachs as well :lol:.

B seems to be rather popular indeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_composers_by_name


----------



## flamencosketches

As a fellow B-name-bearer myself, I can only take pride in the fact that all these greats have done good by our letter.


----------



## dennisdeems

Alban Berg
Benjamin Britten
Arnold Schoenberg
William Schuman
Anton Webern
Irving Fine
Luigi Dallapiccola
Vincent Persichetti
Aaron Copland
Walter Piston

Runners-up:
Guillaume Dufay
Gilles Binchois
Carlo Gesualdo
John Dowland


----------



## danj

1. Handel
2. Beethoven
3. Vivaldi
4. Verdi
5. Rossini
6. Bach
7. Mozart
8. Purcell
9. Monteverdi
10. Corelli

I'm a tad of a baroque-fan.


----------



## Guest002

flamencosketches said:


> Your alphabetical list raises an interesting point. Why are the names of the great composers of history so heavily weighted toward the letter B...? There's Bach, Beethoven, & Brahms of course, but also Bruckner, Britten, Bartók, Berlioz, Barber, Bellini, Berg, Bizet, Borodin, Buxtehude, Berio, Boulez, Bernstein, Bax... need I go on...?


Only because you're doing it wrong 

Johannes Brahms, Johann Sebastian Bach, Benjamin Britten, Béla Bartók, Samuel Barber, Vincenzo Bellini, Alban Berg, Georges Bizet, Alexander Borodin, Diderik Buxtehude, Leonard Bernstein, Arnold Bax... suddenly, if you address them by their correct names, the Bs are nowhere near as prominent!

Though the relief is short-lived... as the number of Js goes through the roof with this scheme:









(and there are lots more Johns that follow on with a deep down-scroll!)


----------



## hammeredklavier

Ethereality said:


>


this is ironic because in reality, Wolfgang is the one with a wig and Ludwig is the one "dehumanized" into a canine.


----------



## StevenOBrien

1. Mozart
2. J.S. Bach
3. Chopin
4. Schubert
5. Beethoven

6. Handel
7. Haydn
8. Sibelius
9. Brahms
10. Vivaldi

(6 to 10 would vary a lot from day to day. I only really care about the top 5 in that order, but then there's another 20-30 good composers I'd have a lot of trouble ranking)


----------



## aioriacont

Allerius said:


> Interesting list. Although I wouldn't place Fripp so high in mine, I'm a devoted fan of King Crimson (it's my favorite rock band together with Pink Floyd) and would like to know his solo career works. Could you please share with me which are you top non-KC Fripp albums?


hey, good to meet another KC fan here! I'm also a long time PF fan, and their live bootlegs are whole new universe too (as KC's ones are). Those two bands live recordings can't be ignored. 
Answering to your question, Fripp is fascinating in variety! I'm a huge a fan of ambient music and soundscapes, and Fripp's approaches always interest me. That said, keep in mind that his solo stuff rely mostly on those styles, and are very different from KC's output.

I really recommend the following:

Equatorial Stars - 2004
Evening Star - 1973 (with Brian Eno)

for something really menacing, check The Gates of Paradise from 1997.

for a more varied approach in the usage of guitar, with literally a guitar orchestra, be sure to check:
Show Of Hands - 1991
The League Of Crafty Guitarists Live - 1986

I really do not like his most famous release, Exposure. But I recommend it anyway since a lot of people enjoy it, but i really don't see anything too impressive in it. IMO it does not flow well as an album. I do love the Hammill sung tracks, though, especially Disengage.


----------



## HolstThePhone

1. JS Bach
2. Chopin
3. Mozart
4. Beethoven
5. Shostakovitch
6. Mendelssohn
7. Handel
8. Mahler
9. Schoenberg
10. Tchaikovsky


----------



## ThaNotoriousNIC

To spice this up a little bit I am going to give a rank and I am also going to give my favorite piece by each composer on my list:

1. Johann Sebastian Bach: Was not a fan of Bach for the longest time outside of the Brandenburg Concertos but then I heard the St. Matthews Passion. After that, I was caught hook and sinker and I delved into Bach's Mass in B Minor and other cantatas. There is still much for me to listen to and it is going to be a great ride.

Favorite Piece: St. Matthew's Passion

2. Richard Wagner: I think I might be a bit of a Wagnerite. The majority of Wagner's operas are among my favorites with Die Walkure being my favorite of them all. I recently listened to his other major operas less Das Liebesverbot and Rienzi. A lot of great musical gems.

Favorite Piece: Die Walkure 

3. Ludwig van Beethoven:The symphonies are among my favorites of all pieces I have ever listened to and I have a lot of appreciation for his sonatas and concertos. I always find Beethoven's music to be very intriguing.

Favorite Piece: Pastoral Symphony 

4. George Frideric Handel: Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks, and his organ concertos definitely have a special place in my heart. I really need to start listening to his operas ASAP (the only one I've listened to is Theodora). Have a lot of work to do with Handel in the near future.

Favorite Piece: Water Music No. 1

5. Johannes Brahms: Like Beethoven, there is something about Brahms' music that really catches my interest. I also had the pleasure of playing Brahms in the past in my high school orchestra (Tragic Overture and Academic Festival Overture) and I really enjoyed it. There is definitely a lot of his work I still haven't gotten to yet.

Favorite Piece: Symphony No. 3

6.Giuseppe Verdi: The other side of the coin of opera for me from Wagner. I have greatly enjoyed the Verdi operas I've listened to and while I am more emotionally moved by Wagner's music, I can't help but find myself putting on tracks from Rigoletto and Il Trovatore all the time.

Favorite Piece: Aida 

7. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: I have a big soft spot for this composer. Scheherazade and Cappricio Espagnol are two of my favorite pieces that I have ever listened to/performed. I have also listened to some of his operas and I was equally enthralled. He used to be in my top three for a long time along with Brahms, but he has gone down the list a bit as I've come to listen to more Bach and Wagner.

Favorite Piece: Scheherazade

8. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: I began to listen to more of Tchakovsky's work last year (all of the symphonies, some of the operas) and I am seeing why people love Tchakovsky besides his ballets. The symphonies in particular are among my favorites and I was surprised how much I enjoyed them.

Favorite Piece: Symphony No. 6 (Pathetique)/Sleeping Beauty 

9. Jean Sibelius: I find myself incredibly moved by Sibelius' pieces. Sibelius' Violin Concerto in D Minor was the first piece of music I ever heard live that moved me to tears. That alone ranks him high for me, but there is of course a bunch of other works he made that are equally as impressive. I have also played Finlandia before in concert and it was a lot of fun.

Favorite Piece: Violin Concerto in D Minor

10. Edvard Grieg: I am not much of a fan of piano works, but I do enjoy a lot of the works by Grieg. I had a lot of fun listening to his Lyric Pieces and his orchestral works. Still a lot more to listen to with Grieg.

Favorite Piece: Lyric Pieces, Book 8 VI: Wedding Day at Troldhaugen

Honorable Mentions: Richard Strauss (Horn Concerto No. 1), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Don Giovanni), Igor Stravinsky (Firebird), Gaetano Donizetti (Lucia di Lammermoor), Modest Mussorgsky (Pictures at an Exhibition)


----------



## Ethereality

Here's a consensus list that takes *TalkClassical's Member Recommendations* with the *Production Popularity* of each composer. _Production Popularity_ shows how musicians throughout history are ranked, with the Classical composers in the lead due to the most money spent on performing their music. If you have questions on how this list was derived from public data, feel free to ask.

1. Bach
2. Mozart
3. Beethoven
4. Brahms
5. Schubert
6. Haydn
7. Tchaikovsky
8. Wagner
9. Dvořák
10. Debussy
11. Handel
12. Schumann
13. Shostakovich
14. Mendelssohn
15. Mahler
16. Prokofiev
17. Ravel
18. Strauss, R
19. Verdi
20. Sibelius
21. Stravinsky
22. Chopin
23. Saint-Saëns
24. Rachmaninoff
25. Liszt


----------



## Dick Johnson

*Top Ten*

1. Handel
2. Rossini
3. Verdi
4. Mozart
5. Puccini
6. Mahler
7. Beethoven
8. Shubert
9. Faure
10. Rachmaninov


----------



## Bulldog

Ethereality said:


> I tend to agree nowadays with this list that takes *TalkClassical's Member Recommendations* with the *Production Popularity* of each composer. I find it to be pretty accurate. If you have questions on how this list was derived from public data, feel free to ask.


I don't question anyone's list or how it was developed.


----------



## Fabulin

Ethereality said:


> I tend to agree nowadays with this list that takes *TalkClassical's Member Recommendations* with the *Production Popularity* of each composer. I find it to be pretty accurate. If you have questions on how this list was derived from public data, feel free to ask.
> 
> 1. Bach
> 2. Mozart
> 3. Beethoven
> 4. Brahms
> 5. Schubert
> 6. Haydn
> 7. Tchaikovsky
> 8. Wagner
> 9. Dvořák
> 10. Debussy
> 11. Handel
> 12. Schumann
> 13. Shostakovich
> 14. Mendelssohn
> 15. Mahler
> 16. Prokofiev
> 17. Ravel
> 18. Strauss, R
> 19. Verdi
> 20. Sibelius
> 21. Stravinsky
> 22. Chopin
> 23. Saint-Saëns
> 24. Rachmaninoff
> 25. Liszt


A much better one indeed... what changed?


----------



## Xisten267

Ethereality said:


> I tend to agree nowadays with this list that takes *TalkClassical's Member Recommendations* with the *Production Popularity* of each composer. I find it to be pretty accurate. If you have questions on how this list was derived from public data, feel free to ask.


I prefer the one ordered by the appearance of the composers in the said list without taking into account the _production popularity_, a criterion that favours the prolific composers and that doesn't matter much for me anyway. If two or more composers appear at the same time, my tiebreaker is who appears first again; composers with more works in a single tier have an advantage over those with less works:

1. Beethoven;
2. Bach;
3. Wagner;
4. Brahms;
5. Mozart;
6. Mahler;
7. Dvořák;
8. Stravinsky;
9. Schubert;
10. Ravel*;
11. Fauré;
12. Mussorgsky*;
13. Debussy;
14. Tchaikovsky;
15. Sibelius;
16. Berlioz;
17. Shostakovich;
18. Rachmaninoff;
19. Mendelssohn;
20. Rimsky-Korsakov;
21. Vivaldi;
22. Berg;
23. Bartók;
24. Haydn;
25. Handel.

*I'm considering _The Pictures at an Exhibition_ a work by both Mussorgsky and Ravel.


----------



## Ethereality

Fabulin said:


> A much better one indeed... what changed?


Hey. I started with a big list of objective indicators, ie. different numerical comparisons between the composers, equations for overratedness, different community lists, and the big one, the *Production Popularity*. Production Popularity shows how musicians throughout history are ranked, with the Classical composers in the lead, due to the most money spent on performing their music. That's what this number estimates. Some of these indicators I still had to retrieve more data on, so I posted the last list but I wasn't happy with it. Finally I found the indicators that seem the most correct!

Also here is *TalkClassical's Member Recommendation List* to compare to the now-added Production Popularity.

I'm glad people are participating in finding objective-like lists they agree with. It makes for an interesting exercise, although it shouldn't replace people's unique favorites.


----------



## Ethereality

Bulldog said:


> I don't question anyone's list or how it was developed.


Well, I know pre-Romantic composers like Bach and Mozart sought after some theoretical idea of 'objective correctness' in composing compared to later composers who put themselves at the forefront of their music. Nowadays I've been utterly enthralled at these standards and how the selfless idea of composing art for the public has bled into some later composers' standards. Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, and even the film composer John Williams, rigorously put an agreed standard of music before the self. You're correct that real musical standards are subjective, but this is what historical Production Popularity calculates anyway. I couldn't help but notice how much nowadays I agree with this list, so, nothing to question I guess.


----------



## Fabulin

Ethereality said:


> Hey. I started with a big list of objective indicators, ie. different numerical comparisons between the composers, equations for overratedness, different community lists, and the big one, the *Production Popularity*. Production Popularity shows how musicians throughout history are ranked, with the Classical composers in the lead, due to the most money spent on performing their music. That's what this number estimates. Some of these indicators I still had to retrieve more data on, so I posted the last list but I wasn't happy with it. Finally I found the indicators that seem the most correct!
> 
> Here is *TalkClassical's Member Recommendation List* to compare to the now-added Production Popularity.
> 
> I'm glad people are participating in finding objective-like lists they agree with. It makes for an interesting exercise, although it shouldn't replace people's unique favorites.


Well, if you can find a parameter that will keep everything stable, but improve the standings of Mozart and Shostakovich slightly, and Mendelssohn greatly, I think I will agree with this list (sans the absence of Williams).


----------



## SanAntone

This week's list:

Bach
Brahms
Stravinsky
Debussy
Liszt	
Durufle
Schumann	
Poulenc
Bernstein
Schoeck


----------



## jegreenwood

Kind of in order

Bach
Mozart
Brahms
Beethoven
Schubert
Haydn
Debussy
Mahler
Dvorak
D. Scarlatti


----------



## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> I prefer the one ordered by the appearance of the composers in the said list without taking into account the _production popularity_, a criterion that favours the prolific composers and that doesn't matter much for me anyway.


I'm not even sure if you and Ethereality are talking about the same thing. By "production popularity", Ethereality is talking about degrees to which classical music composers are commercialized or popularized for profit today, which doesn't quite depend on how prolific they were. (for example, compare the popularity and size of output of Telemann with those of Rachmaninoff)

By using the term "production popularity", you seem to just mean how prolific a composer is. In that case, it doesn't matter much to me either. You sound like enthusiasts of prolific composers are a bunch of thoughtless people who simply like prolific composers for the fact that they just wrote a lot of music. But in this regard, it doesn't really matter to me if a composer wrote 1000 works, or 100 works or just 10 works. What's important to me is if he has what I consider as the "essence". In some cases, 10 works of a "composer of 1000 works" can do this better than the entire works of a "composer of 10 works".

From the things you said in the post, I'm reminded of a favorite argument put forth by Beethoven enthusiasts to devalue other composers, while glorifying Beethoven in the process. But I think the logic "he wrote too much" can apply to Beethoven as much as it can to the more prolific composers. 
For example, a huge number of Beethoven's works around age 30 and prior (except a few, like the Pathetique sonata, Romance in F, spring violin sonata, and the first symphony and concerto, some quartets and piano quintet Op.16) just aren't that remarkable or memorable. Usually they're pieces of small string ensembles or violin+piano, but mostly they're made up of plain passages without much memorable presentation of melodic angularity or expressive dissonance. I ask, where is the vaunted "individuality"? I heard _Andante Favori_, but it doesn't make me want to come back to it. And there are other similar problems in his certain later works, to me.


----------



## consuono

hammeredklavier said:


> Usually they're pieces of small string ensembles or violin+piano, but mostly they're made up of plain passages without much memorable presentation of melodic angularity or expressive dissonance. I ask, where is the vaunted "individuality"? I heard Andante Favori, but it doesn't make me want to come back to it. And there are other similar problems in his certain later works, to me.


Those early Beethoven works were written in the vein of Haydn and Mozart. The "vaunted individuality" came when Beethoven began to break away from those exemplars. Nobody before Beethoven had written as he did in the third symphony and the piano sonatas starting probably with Op. 53; and certainly absolutely nobody, not even Bach, had written as he did in the finale of Op. 106. Not a judgement of quality, but overall character. Overall though I think there is more unevenness in Beethoven's entire body of work than there is in Bach and Mozart, and maybe even Haydn. Still, I'd personally rate Beethoven second to Bach.


----------



## hammeredklavier

consuono said:


> Those early Beethoven works were written in the vein of Haydn and Mozart. The "vaunted individuality" came when Beethoven began to break away from those exemplars. Nobody before Beethoven had written as he did in the piano sonatas starting probably with Op. 53; and certainly absolutely nobody, not even Bach, had written as he did in the finale of Op. 106. Not a judgement of quality, but overall character. Overall though I think there is more unevenness in Beethoven's entire body of work than there is in Bach and Mozart, and maybe even Haydn. Still, I'd personally rate Beethoven second to Bach.


I think there's too much exaggeration about the things (in Mozart and Haydn) Beethoven was able to "imitate" compared to the things he wasn't able to. People like you always like to describe with expressions like "absolutely nobody did the things Beethoven did", but we can say this just about any composer we consider great. I always wonder why only Beethoven always gets this much "special treatment". 
Beethoven's missa solemnis for example, is written like his Op.86. To me, both of them are about being conciliatory and convincing the audience there exists no "place of suffering" in afterlife. It just can't replace the likes of Haydn's Missa in Angustiis or the beginning chorus of Bach's St. John Passion _in terms of both character and expression_. Look at the use of accidentals in the _Et incarnatus est_ (the part where he tries to imitate the Renaissance style). But then again, everything Beethoven has to be considered to have been written with "artist spirit", and so it's sacrilegious to question the uniqueness, variety and depth of his output. (whereas with other composers, it's not.) But it's just bizzare to me. There's no doubt Beethoven wrote a lot of great music, but he doesn't need any of the "special treatment" you're giving him. Why does the ending of Chopin's A minor Fugue be considered just "badly-written" whereas that of Beethoven's Op.109 be considered "absolutely stunning with _Beethovenian depth_".



hammeredklavier said:


> [ Compare these sections of off-beat syncopations: Op.26 , Op.57 , Op.109
> and sections of melodies with accompanied figures: Op.26 , Op.57 , Op.109 ]


----------



## consuono

hammeredklavier said:


> People like you always like to describe with expressions like "absolutely nobody did the things Beethoven did", but I always wonder why Beethoven always needs this much "special treatment".


It's not "special treatment" to point out what should be obvious. You asked for an example of "vaunted individuality" and you got it.


> Why does the ending of Chopin's A minor Fugue be considered just "badly-written" whereas that of Beethoven's Op.109 be considered "absolutely stunning with Beethovenian depth".


I guess it's because that's the opinion of many people. *shrug*


----------



## aioriacont

honorable mention to Nightwish's composer, Tuomas Holopainen, the metal Beethoven!


----------



## hammeredklavier

consuono said:


> I guess it's because that's the opinion of many people. *shrug*


Sure, it's still a good piece (don't get me wrong, my purpose here isn't to denigrate Beethoven). But what I don't get about Beethoven enthusiasts sometimes is the extreme gap between their assessments of similar-styled pieces of Beethoven. For example, the Arietta of Op.111 and Fantasie Op.77 are in the similar idiom and style, written by the same composer, (albeit the Arietta has a more expressive quality in terms of trill/tremolo figurations and use of contrast). 
I think it would be reasonable to assess them as { Arietta Op.111 = "good" | Fantasie Op.77 = "average" }. 
But many Beethoven-enthusiasts seem to think that { Arietta Op.111 = "cosmic, one of the pinnacles of humanity" | Fantasie Op.77 = "below average" }. 
It baffles me sometimes. It is as if there were "two Beethovens" (a bad Beethoven & a good Beethoven) within the one composer figure "Beethoven". As if one of them was writing "bad stuff" all the time, while the other was creating the most "sublime pinnacle of music". This sort of image just doesn't make sense to me.

The other thing is that, composers tend to write a lot of "prototypical" works before writing their more "major" works, and this is especially true of composers who struggled a little in the process of composing, like Beethoven. But Beethoven enthusiasts seem to believe Beethoven is somehow "different".
For example, I think that the funeral march from Eroica feels like a prototypical movement for the 5th. Choral Fantasie has the character of three other works of Beethoven (Ruins of Athens, the 5th piano concerto, and the 9th symphony finale). 
It all depends on how you look at it. 













also look at the way Beethoven builds melody in:








and


----------



## aioriacont

and this is what differentiates Beethoven to Bach and Schubert.
Beethoven suffered to create a masterpiece.
Bach and Schubert created masterpieces while in the toilet (or whatever they used for that at the time)


----------



## Ethereality

Mozart's horizontal skills are very believable while Beethoven's vertical skills are very believable. The defining factor is that, among their "opposite weaknesses," which is a joke btw, Mozart doesn't really have much of one. In some ways, Beethoven was lucky to carry on Mozart's work and territory who died at age 35 (but only because Beethoven's the only possible one worthy of the task.)

His most popular and effortful pieces are a different subject of comparison though. Beethoven performances typically aren't supported more than Mozart's, but things like his symphonies were a superior evolution. With Eroica for one, after some public failings, you can tell he purposefully worked exhaustively for a couple years to outdo Mozart with a classic symphony 3. Most of this was _work_. Not all immediate genius, but years of effort.

Besides these monumental, timeless inventions for concert, he didn't quite achieve as much of the Monopoly board as Mozart. But he got boardwalk. Nobody else got boardwalk, but this well-deserved love of his upper tier is why he's often overrated in his other works. People are hearing the style of Classical they want to hear, *because they've adapted to Beethoven* first with his major works. I love them too, but there's a bigger picture in the peripheral, even a slightly different way to interpret the music of Mozart.

Beethoven I'd also consider a superb melodist, while Mozart was this, but much more a better theme-builder. Ode to Joy is a reference to a brief Mozart sketch.

Here's an interesting post on the favorite composers of famous composers.


----------



## consuono

By the way,


hammeredklavier said:


> People like you always like to describe with expressions like "absolutely nobody did the things Beethoven did", but we can say this just about any composer we consider great.


Right, which is why these *individual* composers are considered great. Nobody's saying Beethoven was the *only* "individual" composer.


----------



## Fabulin

Ethereality said:


> Mozart's horizontal skills are very believable while Beethoven's vertical skills are very believable. The defining factor is that, among their "opposite weaknesses," which is a joke btw, Mozart doesn't really have much of one. In some ways, Beethoven was lucky to carry on Mozart's work and territory who died at age 35 (but only because Beethoven's the only possible one worthy of the task.)
> 
> His most popular and effortful pieces are a different subject of comparison though. Beethoven performances typically aren't supported more than Mozart's, but things like his symphonies were a superior evolution. With Eroica for one, after some public failings, you can tell he purposefully worked exhaustively for a couple years to outdo Mozart with a classic symphony 3. Most of this was _work_. Not all immediate genius, but years of effort.
> 
> Besides these monumental, timeless inventions for concert, he didn't quite achieve as much of the Monopoly board as Mozart. But he got boardwalk. Nobody else got boardwalk, but this well-deserved love of his upper tier is why he's often overrated in his other works. People are hearing the style of Classical they want to hear, *because they've adapted to Beethoven* first with his major works. I love them too, but there's a bigger picture in the peripheral, even a slightly different way to interpret the music of Mozart.
> 
> Beethoven I'd also consider a superb melodist, while Mozart was this, but much more a better theme-builder. Ode to Joy is a reference to a brief Mozart sketch.
> 
> Here's an interesting post on the favorite composers of famous composers.


Considering Beethoven's father tried to make a second Mozart out of him, I can't help but see Beethoven as a tryhard who tried everything to outrun Mozart's shadow. While Eroica is a comment on the revolutionary times he lived in (hence a need for revolutionary music), and the 6th symphony is arguably more about Beethoven trying to outdo contemporary romantic poets and painters, the 9th is a clearly desperate last ditch effort. Beethoven was absent for years, planning the last attempt at a coup by preparing an apocalyptic arsenal of the powerful d minor, ominous bass, intimidating fugal writing, lots of octave doubling, and beating the listener with each important tone.

He did everything to outdo Mozart, and yet probably realized something, and decided to pay an homage instead, and with the string paraphrase, arias, turkish march, and a choral apotheosis of human brotherhood, it would seem he accepted that Mozart was the better one and there was nothing to be ashamed of in being one step behind him.



> 'I have always counted myself amongst the greatest admirers of Mozart and shall remain so until my last breath'


The key thing to remember is that had Mozart lived to the ripe old age of _50_(another 15 years!), Beethoven would have never escaped the shadow, not only because of the likely immense wealth of additional exploration and progress Mozart would have done on his own, but because for at least a couple years Mozart would be creatively reacting to his music.

As for Händel, considering what volumes of his music were available to Beethoven as compared to J.S. Bach's, it does not surprise me that Haendel was a revelation to him, being possibly the closest in skill to Mozart across a wide variety of genres Beethoven has ever seen, and having the advantage of coming before even those Mozart regarded as mentor generation (CPE, the two Haydns), so in other words having the advantage of seeming like a genius who had to do more on his own.


----------



## tdc

Ethereality said:


> I tend to agree nowadays with this list that takes *TalkClassical's Member Recommendations* with the *Production Popularity* of each composer. I find it to be pretty accurate. _Production Popularity_ shows how musicians throughout history are ranked, with the Classical composers in the lead due to the most money spent on performing their music. If you have questions on how this list was derived from public data, feel free to ask.
> 
> 1. Bach
> 2. Mozart
> 3. Beethoven
> 4. Brahms
> 5. Schubert
> 6. Haydn
> 7. Tchaikovsky
> 8. Wagner
> 9. Dvořák
> 10. Debussy
> 11. Handel
> 12. Schumann
> 13. Shostakovich
> 14. Mendelssohn
> 15. Mahler
> 16. Prokofiev
> 17. Ravel
> 18. Strauss, R
> 19. Verdi
> 20. Sibelius
> 21. Stravinsky
> 22. Chopin
> 23. Saint-Saëns
> 24. Rachmaninoff
> 25. Liszt





Allerius said:


> I prefer the one ordered by the appearance of the composers in the said list without taking into account the _production popularity_, a criterion that favours the prolific composers and that doesn't matter much for me anyway. If two or more composers appear at the same time, my tiebreaker is who appears first again; composers with more works in a single tier have an advantage over those with less works:
> 
> 1. Beethoven;
> 2. Bach;
> 3. Wagner;
> 4. Brahms;
> 5. Mozart;
> 6. Mahler;
> 7. Dvořák;
> 8. Stravinsky;
> 9. Schubert;
> 10. Ravel*;
> 11. Fauré;
> 12. Mussorgsky*;
> 13. Debussy;
> 14. Tchaikovsky;
> 15. Sibelius;
> 16. Berlioz;
> 17. Shostakovich;
> 18. Rachmaninoff;
> 19. Mendelssohn;
> 20. Rimsky-Korsakov;
> 21. Vivaldi;
> 22. Berg;
> 23. Bartók;
> 24. Haydn;
> 25. Handel.
> 
> *I'm considering _The Pictures at an Exhibition_ a work by both Mussorgsky and Ravel.


Dvořák sure seems high to me in these lists. In Ethereality's he is ahead of Debussy, Mahler, Ravel, Stavinsky, Prokofiev, Chopin etc. In Allerius list he is even higher at no. 7(!) And Schumann isn't even on the latter list.


----------



## juliante

jegreenwood said:


> Kind of in order
> 
> Bach
> Mozart
> Brahms
> Beethoven
> Schubert
> Haydn
> Debussy
> Mahler
> Dvorak
> D. Scarlatti


Interested to see Scarlatti creep into your top 10 amongst much bigger hitters. I have still not got round to exploring him - what do you like about him?


----------



## jegreenwood

juliante said:


> Interested to see Scarlatti creep into your top 10 amongst much bigger hitters. I have still not got round to exploring him - what do you like about him?


He just replaced Chopin - that was my edit. Just wonderful miniatures - often playful, sometimes touching. He provides me with as much simple pleasure as any other composer. I have recordings on harpsichord, piano, guitar and harp [!].


----------



## consuono

Another "by the way", btw:


hammeredklavier said:


> But many Beethoven-enthusiasts seem to think that { Arietta Op.111 = "cosmic, one of the pinnacles of humanity" | Fantasie Op.77 = "below average" }.


 It isn't the musical quality of the Arietta theme that makes the second and last movement of the Op. 111 sonata so great and (to me and many others, anyway) profound. The theme itself is pretty simple and almost nondescript. As so often in Beethoven, _it's what he does with that theme that is important_. That movement to me is one of the most deeply moving in all of music.


----------



## Animal the Drummer

juliante said:


> Interested to see Scarlatti creep into your top 10 amongst much bigger hitters. I have still not got round to exploring him - what do you like about him?


"Much bigger hitters" by what yardstick? More than one of the great pianist-composers, even the notoriously picky Chopin, rated his music extremely highly, and that corpus of well over 500 sonatas represents a quite remarkable combination of consistent quality and sparkling variety.


----------



## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm not even sure if you and Ethereality are talking about the same thing. By "production popularity", Ethereality is talking about degrees to which classical music composers are commercialized or popularized for profit today, which doesn't quite depend on how prolific they were.


I've misread. By "production popularity" I thought that member Etherelity was considering the number of works of each composer in _The Talk Classical Community's Favorite and Most Highly Works_.



Ethereality said:


> Mozart's horizontal skills are very believable while Beethoven's vertical skills are very believable. The defining factor is that, among their "opposite weaknesses," which is a joke btw, Mozart doesn't really have much of one. In some ways, Beethoven was lucky to carry on Mozart's work and territory who died at age 35 (but only because Beethoven's the only possible one worthy of the task.)
> 
> His most popular and effortful pieces are a different subject of comparison though. Beethoven performances typically aren't supported more than Mozart's, but things like his symphonies were a superior evolution. With Eroica for one, after some public failings, you can tell he purposefully worked exhaustively for a couple years to outdo Mozart with a classic symphony 3. Most of this was _work_. Not all immediate genius, but years of effort.
> 
> Besides these monumental, timeless inventions for concert, he didn't quite achieve as much of the Monopoly board as Mozart. But he got boardwalk. Nobody else got boardwalk, but this well-deserved love of his upper tier is why he's often overrated in his other works. People are hearing the style of Classical they want to hear, because they've adapted to Beethoven first with his major works. I love them too, but there's a bigger picture in the peripheral, even a slightly different way to interpret the music of Mozart.
> 
> Beethoven I'd also consider a superb melodist, while Mozart was this, but much more a better theme-builder. Ode to Joy is a reference to a brief Mozart sketch.
> 
> Here's an interesting post on the favorite composers of famous composers.


Being frank and direct: Beethoven uses more contrasts than Mozart, develops his themes more, I think that he has more variation of style and that he puts more weight, emotional intensity in his music, and that's why I have ever preferred him and think that he is the better composer of the two. A matter of perspective I guess.


----------



## Ethereality

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm not even sure if you and Ethereality are talking about the same thing. By "production popularity", Ethereality is talking about degrees to which classical music composers are commercialized or popularized for profit today, which doesn't quite depend on how prolific they were. (for example, compare the popularity and size of output of Telemann with those of Rachmaninoff)





Allerius said:


> I've misread. By "production popularity" I thought that member Etherelity was considering the number of works of each composer in the _Talkclassical's Member Recommendation List_.


Just to be clear, neither of those are quite correct. Hammeredklavier is close though with 'profitability today.' PP is a number which ends up ranking Classical composers higher than any other musicians, with the top 3 musicians of all time being Mozart > Bach > Beethoven, by estimating how much money is spent across decades to perform music, and it does this because certain works take much more money and resources to want to produce, such as _Wagner's The Ring,_ while lots of people can put out a Bach keyboard performance and produce a bunch of them. Hammeredklavier is quite correct that it's not a measure of prolificacy, since prolific composers don't make the top of this list: popular works are what get performed over a hundred of times more than others.



tdc said:


> Dvořák sure seems high to me in these lists. In Ethereality's he is ahead of Debussy, Mahler, Ravel, Stavinsky, Prokofiev, Chopin etc. In Allerius list he is even higher at no. 7(!) And Schumann isn't even on the latter list.


It's okay if you disagree  Dvorak and Debussy are two of the most favorite composers on this forum and two of the most supported and backed for performance. That particular combination I find produces an accurate ranking result. Your favorite composers are Bach, Ravel, Mozart... Where would you rank Dvorak?


----------



## Xisten267

tdc said:


> Dvořák sure seems high to me in these lists. In Ethereality's he is ahead of Debussy, Mahler, Ravel, Stavinsky, Prokofiev, Chopin etc. In Allerius list he is even higher at no. 7(!) And Schumann isn't even on the latter list.


Perhaps Schumann is being underrated in *The Talk Classical Community's Favorite and Most Highly Works*. His name only appears for the first time in that list in the 12th tier, and his most recommended work there at the moment is the Piano Concerto.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> Being frank and direct: Beethoven uses more contrasts than Mozart, develops his themes much more, has more variation of style and puts more weight, emotional intensity in his music, that's why I have ever preferred him and think that he is the better composer of the two.


We talked about this before. How Beethoven often "drags out" his material.











hammeredklavier said:


> It depends what work we're talking about, (sonata for four hands K497 has a development section {not including 'secondary development' or 'false recapitulation'} as extensive as typical Beethoven), and it depends on how you look at it (perception). I once talked about the series of dragged-out "beeping sounds" in Beethoven's 5th symphony 1st movement and Tempest piano sonata, and the "quasi-minimalist" figures of his 6th symphony 1st movement. There are also piano sonatas like the 19th, 20th, 25th, or 26th that contain developments that definitely aren't the best stuff Beethoven ever wrote. The development of Op.111 1st movement, with its trills in the bass and motivic working on the 3-note fragment, strikes me as an attempt by Beethoven to write something similar to Mozart K546.
> I think the working of the dotted-rhythmic motif in the voice-leading structure of Confitibor tibi domine of Mozart Vesperae de dominica K321 or the chromaticism in the development of string quartet K421 1st movement or Fantasie K608 (where the initial fugue turns into an epic double fugue in the ending, creating a strong sense of 'operatic drama'), for example, have just as much 'substance', if not more, in terms of development, as the Beethoven works I cited above. There is an elaborate coda in string quintet K515 1st movement as well.


Again, with Mozart, you can actually feel the a drastic change in character when he "paints chromaticism on the white canvas of diatonicism", I don't think I ever feel this in Beethoven, who is better at being "bangy or tinkly", in my view. Even the "pianist" Alfred Brendel admitted. 
"I know of no other composer as fundamentally transformed while writing in minor keys, and none except Gesualdo and Wagner, who made such unforgettable use of chromaticism. (For Wagner himself, Mozart was 'the great Chromatiker'.)"



hammeredklavier said:


> spatzenmesse K220 ( 2:40 , 6:00 )
> credomesse K.257 ( 7:18 ~ 10:00 )
> missa trinitatis K.167 ( 4:29 , 9:47 )
> spaurmesse K.258 ( 2:30 , 6:00 )
> missa longa K.262 ( 4:53, 11:21 )
> kronungsmesse K.317 ( 4:30 , 9:25 )
> missa aulica K.337 ( 7:16 )





hammeredklavier said:


> It consists of 9 movements, but there are elements of contrast and connections between them:
> _"hostia sancta"_ (9:24), which comes after the dark, solemn _"verbum caro factum"_ (8:03) feels brighter by contrast, but it also has its dark elements of contrast constantly injecting a sense of tension, within itself:
> [10:55]: _"stupendum supra omina miracula"_,
> as if "darkness" wasn't yet fully achieved, it naturally leads through a transition to the darkest movement of the work,
> [13:45]: _"tremendum ac vivificum"_.
> [21:48]: the diminished 7th that concludes _"dulcissimum convivium"_ leads to the diminished 7th that opens the 'otherworldly' _"viaticum in domini morientum"_.
> [24:04]: _"pignus futurae gloriae"_, a large double fugue styled distinctively unique from the Baroque tradition.
> [34:25]: _"miserere nobis"_ (the final movement) quotes _"kyrie eleison"_ (the first movement) and develops on the theme.





hammeredklavier said:


> *3:00 ~ 3:24
> 5:39 ~ 6:41
> 7:12 ~ 7:20
> 7:30 ~ 7:50
> 13:13 ~ 15:27*


"I always find Beethoven's C Minor concerto (the Third Piano Concerto) much smaller and weaker than Mozart's. . . . I realize that Beethoven's new personality and his new vision, which people recognized in his works, made him the greater composer in their minds. But after fifty years, our views need more perspective. One must be able to distinguish between the charm that comes from newness and the value that is intrinsic to a work. I admit that Beethoven's concerto is more modern, but not more significant! I also realize that Beethoven's First Symphony made a strong impression on people. That's the nature of a new vision. But the last three Mozart symphonies are far more significant. . . . Yes, the Rasumovsky quartets, the later symphonies-these inhabit a significant new world, one already hinted at in his Second Symphony. But what is much weaker in Beethoven compared to Mozart, and especially compared to Sebastian Bach, is the use of dissonance. Dissonance, true dissonance as Mozart used it, is not to be found in Beethoven. Look at Idomeneo. Not only is it a marvel, but as Mozart was still quite young and brash when he wrote it, it was a completely new thing. What marvelous dissonance! What harmony! You couldn't commission great music from Beethoven since he created only lesser works on commission-his more conventional pieces, his variations and the like. When Haydn or Mozart wrote on commission, it was the same as their other works." 
-Brahms, 1896
PA134
PA135


----------



## hammeredklavier

Fabulin said:


> the 6th symphony is arguably more about Beethoven trying to outdo contemporary romantic poets and painters,


The 6th symphony is about Beethoven trying to outdo Knecht. Even Knecht's symphony is "cyclic", whereas Beethoven's is not. As I pointed out in <Cyclic form in classical works>. (the thing that some Beethoven enthusiasts have been so obsessed with, while denigrating other composers' middle and last movements as "fillers") 
Why do some Beethoven enthusiasts always need to come up with strange logic to justify their favoritism for Beethoven? They often talk like "if you prefer a composer who wasn't just prolific, but actually wrote with substance, you would prefer Beethoven. Quality over quantity". Why can't they just say they like Beethoven's way to create drama more than other composers.



Allerius said:


> a criterion that favours the prolific composers and that doesn't matter much for me anyway.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

1 Mozart
2 Bach
3 Schubert
4 Denisov
5 Albeniz
6 Villa-Lobos
7 Britten
8 Dowland
9 Schumann
10 Lassus
...ok...I don't like to leave so many composers that I love out of top 10...The ones on my list are not the ones I listen the most to these days. I love the variety of everything!
Even forgot Shostakovich


----------



## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> I've misread. By "production popularity" I thought that member Etherelity was considering the number of works of each composer in The Talk Classical Community's Favorite and Most Highly Works.


_The Talk Classical Community's Favorite and Most Highly Works_ currently has
118 works by Bach, 
45 works by Handel,
101 works by Mozart,
108 works by Beethoven,
82 works by Schubert,
83 works by Brahms

it still doesn't explain your comment "a criterion that favours the prolific composers and that doesn't matter much for me anyway." How does it favour the prolific composers over Beethoven?


----------



## consuono

hammeredklavier said:


> The 6th symphony is about Beethoven trying to outdo Knecht.


If so, Beethoven obviously succeeded.


----------



## Radames

1. Tchaikovsky
2. Sibelius
3. Rachmaninoff
4. Verdi
5. Mahler
6. Rimsky Korsakov
7. Dvorak
8. Beethoven
9. Schumann
10. Brahms


----------



## Ethereality

.


----------



## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> We talked about this before. *How Beethoven often "drags out" his material.*
> 
> It depends what work we're talking about, (sonata for four hands K497 has a development section {not including 'secondary development' or 'false recapitulation'} as extensive as typical Beethoven), and it depends on how you look at it (perception). I once talked about the series of dragged-out "beeping sounds" in Beethoven's 5th symphony 1st movement and Tempest piano sonata, and the "quasi-minimalist" figures of his 6th symphony 1st movement. There are also piano sonatas like the 19th, 20th, 25th, or 26th that contain developments that definitely aren't the best stuff Beethoven ever wrote. The development of Op.111 1st movement, with its trills in the bass and motivic working on the 3-note fragment, strikes me as an attempt by Beethoven to write something similar to Mozart K546.
> I think the working of the dotted-rhythmic motif in the voice-leading structure of Confitibor tibi domine of Mozart Vesperae de dominica K321 or the chromaticism in the development of string quartet K421 1st movement or Fantasie K608 (where the initial fugue turns into an epic double fugue in the ending, creating a strong sense of 'operatic drama'), for example, have just as much 'substance', if not more, in terms of development, as the Beethoven works I cited above. There is an elaborate coda in string quintet K515 1st movement as well.


Mozart also does. What's your point?

Yes, we talked before. I remember telling you to find in Mozart some development section as lengthy as the Eroica symphony's first movement if I'm not mistaken.

Your negativism is tiresome. Every thread in TC has the potential to become a _Mozart vs Beethoven_ due to you interference with off-topic discourses. This thread is about "top" ten composer lists. It's easy to criticize those that were made by others, but where is yours?


----------



## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> _The Talk Classical Community's Favorite and Most Highly Works_ currently has
> 118 works by Bach,
> 45 works by Handel,
> 101 works by Mozart,
> 108 works by Beethoven,
> 82 works by Schubert,
> 83 works by Brahms
> 
> it still doesn't explain your comment "a criterion that favours the prolific composers and that doesn't matter much for me anyway." How does it favour the prolific composers over Beethoven?


I didn't bother to count the works of each composer in the list, and assumed that the most prolific great composers such as Mozart were better represented.


----------



## consuono

Allerius said:


> ...
> This thread is about "top" ten composer lists. It's easy to criticize those that were made by others, but where is yours?


I think hammeredklavier's would be something like

1. Mozart
2. Mozart
3. Mozart
4. Mozart
5. Mozart
6. Mozart
7. Mozart
8. Mozart
9. Mozart
10. Mozart
10.5 Bach, but Mozart


----------



## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> Your negativism is tiresome.


I apologize if you find my rants annoying, overreactive, nitpicky. I'll try to keep them to a minimum. It's just that I read a lot of old threads of this kind on this forum, (I always click on them out of curiosity), and I see there's a continual pattern in the way other people talk (which causes nausea in me). But deep down, I admit there is no "right answer" in music. I respect your view why you consider Beethoven's way to create drama more effective than other major composers'.


----------



## Bulldog

hammeredklavier said:


> I apologize if you find my rants annoying, overreactive, nitpicky. I'll try to keep them to a minimum. It's just that I read a lot of old threads of this kind on this forum, (I always click on them out of curiosity), and I see there's a continual pattern in the way other people talk (which causes nausea in me).


Carry a bucket. :wave:


----------



## Ethereality

Ethereality said:


> My Top 4 ordering right there.


No, I had it before like this.
1. Mozart
2. Beethoven
3. Schubert
4. Bach
That's better.


----------



## Fabulin

You may consider this list mine:



Fabulin said:


> I put together a chart of opinions of various composers concerning whom they considered admirable masters, idols, heroes, and favorites, and tried to reason *an order* for each of the composers, based on said opinions. The lists were usually very short and definitely, repeat, definitely not exhaustive in the context of the sum of music the composers in question were aware of, but I wanted to try anyway, and compile lists of whom did they single out from the crowd in their correspondence, criticism, and interviews.
> 
> The composers, _whose opinions were compiled_, were:
> Bach,	Haydn,	Mozart,	Beethoven,	von Weber,	Rossini,	Schubert,	Berlioz,	Chopin,	Mendelssohn,	Schumann,	Wagner,	Liszt,	Bruckner,	Brahms,	Saint-Saens,	Grieg,	Tchaikovsky,	Rimsky,	Janacek,	Mahler,	Debussy,	Sibelius,	Ravel,	Puccini,	R. Strauss,	Glazunov,	Schönberg, Vaughan Williams,	Bartok,	Stravinsky,	Prokofiev,	Shostakovich,	Britten,	Ligeti,	Messiaen,	Williams, Deutscher (A.)
> 
> The results are not very kind to anyone outside the common practice period, but I've got to say I kind of love the resulting top 10.
> 
> I used the following function to make the result consider the number of votes a bit, and make sure that Bach doesn't vote Buxtehude into the top 10 on his own :lol: =(1/AveragePosition[SUP]2[/SUP])*NumberOfVotes
> 
> Results:
> 
> PositionNameVotesAverage Position1Mozart331,792Bach282,573Beethoven283,114Haydn153,85Schubert93,446Wagner124,427Tchaikovsky114,728Mendelssohn105,89Debussy4410Haendel54,6





Fabulin said:


> So far I find it more reliable than any list I've seen on TalkClassical. A similar number of people voting to a poll in here, but each of them a very talented composer in their own right. Sadly, beyond the top 8 things become more tricky, because each candidate has only a few "letters of recommendation". I will try to find more sources to expand both the existing lists, and the number of composers whose opinions are taken into account.
> 
> The key thing is, these are not mere performers or random consumers, but people who actually had to sit down and write this sort of music themselves.


----------



## Ethereality

Edit: I think it's a _great_ list! It looks like Bach should be in the top 3 there indeed. I think I'll stick with mine. The choices of who's opinion you recognize in that list, 'the top composers' ie. those who were interviewed/documented, are also chosen because they're peoples' favorites. It's definitely more objective though, I'm glad you found a list you like!

One could consider also drawing 'equally weighted opinions' from just the composers with the most polarized fangroups, to get a more balanced survey. See most-polarizing fanbases in this thread.

A another option is to start from the ground up. Forget an idea of 'popular composer opinions' and begin with the earliest prolific composers who have a documented opinion on their contemporaries. Then follow their favorite contemporaries and students, onforth, until there's a chain of advancement in music history that is independent from the opinions of 'popular composers.' This has the potential of turning out esoteric, for example, who was Haydn's favorite contemporary composer in his old age? If we had this information, more than likely it would give a more accurate tally of composers' favorite composers, whom we don't just arbitrarily choose for their opinions because they're popular.

And yet again, we're equally open to the other side. You could take the composers with the most Production Popularity and weigh their opinions to their amount of PP. I had quickly estimated the top PPs as:
Mozart	10 / 10
Bach	7.89 / 10
Beethoven	6.57 / 10
Verdi	5.34 / 10
Tchaikovsky	4.71 / 10
Handel	4.56 / 10
Wagner	4.39 / 10
Brahms	4.18 / 10
Puccini	3.26 / 10
Schubert	3.07 / 10



Allerius said:


> Yes, we talked before. I remember telling you to find in Mozart some development section as lengthy as the Eroica symphony's first movement if I'm not mistaken.


I think Beethoven pushed greater bounds for his era, but not nearly as consistently. He could have, I suppose. ie. why do we love Romantic composers? Because even after the greats, there were more great bounds to push.


----------



## Fabulin

Ethereality said:


> Ooh that's a superb list I think if you get rid of bias of older composers (not being able to vote for newer composers):
> 
> Mozart
> Beethoven
> Schubert
> Bach
> Tchaikovsky
> Wagner
> Haydn
> Mendelssohn
> Debussy
> 
> Though it's also a limited tabulation from these composers giving just a few favorites. I think Dvorak, Mahler and Brahms are pretty great too.
> 
> I might expect Dvorak, Mahler and Brahms also on this list?


I'm also wondering how to tackle the bias based on unavailability of some vote choices. But I suppose this is not that big of a problem when the most time-tested masters are most firmly at the top. It's like an unbiased musical invention olympics --- in the sense that those who achieved something greatly listenable without the possibility to learn it from others are greatly rewarded.

In fact, a worse problem is a bias of contemporaries being overrepresented in criticism. For example Beethoven having Clementi very high on his list. I ironed such things out by ignoring composers who only received one vote from compiled lists.

A problem I did not mention is that I assign numbers to the opinions known and do not assume the unknown. For example, I do not assume that Puccini thought Beethoven was one of the very greatest, because I have no such data. It would be silly and a modern bias to assume it. One never knows. Instead, I have data on his high admiration for Debussy and Wagner, so they get top positions on "his" list.

Anyway, right now the list looks like this (I found more quotes):

1. Mozart (firmly)
2. Bach (firmly)
3. Beethoven (firmly)
4. Haydn
5. Wagner
6. Schubert
7. Tchaikovsky
8. Debussy
9. Händel
10. Mendelssohn
11. Brahms
12. CPE Bach
13. Hummel
14./15. Verdi and Mahler perfectly tied.
16. Schumann
17. Puccini
18. Berlioz
19. von Weber
20. Gluck
21./22. Chopin and Liszt perfectly tied.
23./24. R. Strauss and Korngold perfectly tied.
25. Palestrina
26. Shostakovich
27. Dvorak
28. Williams
29. Stravinsky
30. Rimsky
31. Prokofiev
32. Mussorgsky
33. Rossini
34. Bruckner
35. Bartok
36. Glazunov
37. Grieg


----------



## Dulova Harps On

1)Bach
2)Mozart
3)Handel
4)Chopin
5)Tchaikovsky
6)Schubert
7)Faure
8)Rimsky-Korsakov
9)Shostakovich
10)Arensky


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## Mifek

1. Chopin
2. Bach
3. Beethoven
4. Tchaikovsky
5. Prokofiev
6. Mozart
7. Schubert
8. Brahms
9. Shostakovich
10. Vivaldi


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## umbrellockre

Top 10:
1. Mozart
2. Bach
(huge gap)
3. Messiaen
4. Schubert
5. Brahms
6. Haydn
7. Handel
8. Debussy
9. Vierne
10. Mendelssohn

Least honorable mentions:
Beethoven
Ligeti
Wagner
Reich
Gershwin


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## Josquin13

--The 10 composers whose music I listen to most often, or in some cases keep for only special occasions--so that their music will always remain fresh and interesting to me & I'll never tire of listening to it, since I treasure this music so much. That's why I don't listen to Sibelius on a regular basis anymore, for instance:

1. J.S. Bach
2. Josquin Desprez
3. George Frideric Handel
4. Guillaume Dufay
5. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
6. Ludwig Van Beethoven
7. Franz Josef Haydn
8. Claude Debussy
9. Maurice Ravel
10. Jean Sibelius

--13 Honorable mentions: composers that I also listen to with some regularity:

Antonio Vivaldi
Johannes Ockeghem
Serge Prokofiev
Johannes Brahms
Franz Schubert
Robert Schumann
William Byrd
Thomas Tallis
Guillaume Machaut
Philippe De Vitry
Johannes Ciconia
Gustav Mahler
Orlando Lassus, or di Lasso

(In addition, I listen to Wagner, Bruckner, Faure, Chopin, Koechlin, Liszt, Palestrina, R. Strauss, Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky, Obrecht, Caron, Ludford, Isaac, Busnois, Binchois, Roussel, Magnard, and Monteverdi fairly often, too, and many others...)

--10 composers whose music I esteem, but frustratingly, not many recordings exist of their works, either due to neglect or lost manuscripts, etc., so I was hesitant to name them above:

John Dunstable, or Dunstaple
Guillaume Faugues
Jean Richafort
Antoine Brumel
Philippe Rogier
William Mundy
Marbrianus de Orto
Matthaeus Pipelare
Loyset Compere
Eustache du Caurroy

I also listen to a lot of modern and contemporary music, too, and presently find myself particularly drawn to Scandinavian composers (though not exclusively)--such as Vagn Holmboe, Jonas Kokkonen, Magnus Lindberg, Anders Hillborg, Fartein Valen, Per Nørgård, Ib Nørholm, Erkki Melartin, Allan Pettersson, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Paavo Heininen, Einar Englund, Aarre Merikanto, Bent Sørensen, Anders Eliasson, Hans Abrahamsen, etc.


----------



## Cristian Lee

1. Jean Sibelius
2. Kurt Atterberg
3. Vasili Kalinnikov
4. Johannes Brahms
5. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
6. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
7. Felix Weingartner
8. Anton Bruckner
9. Reinhold Glière
10. Alexander Glazunov

Honorable mention:

11. Nikolai Myaskovsky
12. Granville Bantock
13. Joly Braga Santos
14. Max Bruch
15. Joseph Marx


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## Dimace

Greatest composers and Favorite composers are two different things. Here we are free to write out of the box... So:

F. Liszt
F. Chopin
L.W. Beethoven
A. Bruckner
R. Wagner
P.I. Tschaikowsky
William Wallace
Manolis Kalomiris
Manos Hadjidakis
S. Bortkiewicz
H. Berlioz

And 5 more names I also like a lot and I could easily add to the 1st 10:

Nikos Skalkottas
Vaughan - Williams
H. Hanson
G. Mahler
C.H. Parry


----------



## Skakner

1-3 very easy, 4-8 easy, 9-10 I just can't choose between the rest...

1. *Bach*
2. *Beethoven*
3. *Brahms*
----------------
4. Bruckner
5. Shostakovich
6. Stravinsky
7. Chopin
8. Liszt
----------------
9. ? ?
10. ? ?

_Debussy
Prokofiev
Rachmaninov
Tchaikovsky
Wagner_


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## Axter

Beethoven
Mahler
Bruckner
Mozart
Tchaikovsky
Schumann
Brahms
Schubert
Mendelssohn
Prokofiev

Honourable Mention:
Wagner
Stravinksy
Sibelius
Shostakovic
Vaughn Williams


----------



## Lusvig

1. Mahler
2. Beethoven
3. Stravinsky
4. Messiaen
5. Brahms
6. Shostakovich
7. Korngold
8. Ginastera
9. Ravel
- Huge gap -
10. Rachmaninov

Honourable mentions: Glass, Borodin, Scriabin, Chopin, Richard Strauss, Bach, Prokofiev, Glazunov, Schubert


----------



## jacobbler

There’s just so much great music out there! I’ve been building my “listening repertoire” for 10 years or so, but keep discovering more 

1. Brahms 
(symphonies, concertos, requiem, Hungarian dances, chamber)
2. Beethoven 
(symphonies, piano sonatas, concertos, chamber)
3. Bach (well tempered clavier, mass in b minor, organ fugues, concertos)
4. Tchaikovsky 
(symphonies, concertos, ballets)
5. Dvorak 
(Symphonies, concertos, Slavonic dances, chamber)
6. Mahler & Bruckner
(symphonies)
8. Prokofiev 
(concertos, symphonies, movies, ballets)
9. Chopin (solo piano, concertos)
10. Rachmaninov 
(concertos, solo piano, symphonies)

Honorable Mentions
1. Mendelssohn
(Songs without words, symphonies, concertos, chamber)
2. Berlioz
(Symphonie fantastique, requiem, overtures)
3. Vaughan-Williams
(Symphonies, folk/hymn arrangements)
4. Carl Nielsen
(Symphonies, orchestral)
5. Shostakovich 
(Symphonies, concertos, 24 preludes and fugues)


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## HenryPenfold

This week:

1. Beethoven
2. Wagner
3. Bruckner
4. Mahler
5. Shostakovich
6. Messiaen
7. Sibelius
8. Britten
8. Tchaikovsky
9. Debussy
9. Ravel
10. Arnold


----------



## janxharris

HenryPenfold said:


> This week:
> 
> 1. Beethoven
> 2. Wagner
> 3. Bruckner
> 4. Mahler
> 5. Shostakovich
> 6. Messiaen
> 7. Sibelius
> 8. Britten
> 8. Tchaikovsky
> 9. Debussy
> 9. Ravel
> 10. Arnold


I'm curious HP, wasn't it your good self that posted how you disliked (hated) everything by Sibelius? I must have remembered incorrectly.


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## Livly_Station

1. Bach, JS
2. Beethoven
3. Scriabin
4. Liszt
5. Ravel

My opinions of the rest are too volatile, so I'm not sure where to place them...


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

1. Mozart
2. Bach
3. Brahms
4. Beethoven
5. Schumann

Don't know after that.


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## Coach G

Coach G said:


> 1. I'm a big fan of symphonies so most of my favorites are among the great composers of symphonies, starting with *Beethoven*; but then again, almost everything Beethoven composed was great. More than any other composer, Beethoven serves to remind me even in the darkest times that there is still beauty in the world, and despite Beethoven's penchant for struggle and heroism, he's also quite calm and relaxed at times.
> 
> 2-5. *Tchaikovsky*, *Rachmaninoff*, *Shostakovich*, and *Sibelius* comprise my own brand of winter weather composers as each seems to bring forth a pecularly northern sound for me. I'm one of those strange people that likes winter time and where I live we often get a good dose of it, and I really enjoy the above composers when the snow covers the ground. Each one is also a great symphonist, even if Rachmaninoff only composed one worth hearing. Then again, Rachmaninoff makes up for it with his wonderful _Vespers/All Night Vigil_.
> 
> 6-7. No one who likes lush, long and noisy symphonies can be without *Mahler* and *Bruckner*, although I concede that not every Mahler or Bruckner symphony speaks to me. _Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde_ and Bruckner's _Symphony # 8 _and _#9 _are my favorites from these two.
> 
> 8. *Berlioz* makes the list just for the wonderful _Requiem_, a full-blown musical hurricane where the composer unleashes all the forces of the apocalypse; though _Harold in Italy_ was also an early favorite.
> 
> 9. The next one is problematic. While I find it really hard to get through a complete opera by *Wagner*, the excerpts sure are great, and _Siegfried Idyll_ is another all time favorite.
> 
> 10. *Samuel Barber* makes my list just because along with Wagner's _Siegfried Idyll_ and Beethoven's _Symphony # 6 "Pastorale"_, Barber's _Knoxville: Summer of 1915_ is among my three favorite pieces.


I found my old list from more than a year ago. It's interesting to see how much my opinion has changed regarding my "top ten". Without taking a thing away from the above luminaries; I'm surprised at how much *Mozart* (who didn't even make last year's top ten with me) has taken center stage during the past year. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that Mozart has become my new favorite. In this year of COVID, global warming, and with me now well into my 50s and the throws of middle age; I've come to find Mozart's sense of fine seamless craftsmanship, balance, beauty, and serenity; to be a ray of hope in this weary world.

I'm also struck by the absence of *Brahms*, as I've really warmed up to the old guy. What I once found to be thick and tangled I now see as very warm and Romantic, once one manages to hear it under Brahms' many layers of fine German craftsmanship.

*Bach* is one that I go back and forth on. While I liked Bach's orchestral music from the start (The _Brandenburg Concertos_, _Orchestral Suites_, etc.), the religious works apart from _Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring_ and _Ein Feste Burge_, eluded me for a long, long, time. Somewhere in my 40s I came around to Bach's religious works, during middle age when people often experience existential angst and become more religious. While I couldn't adhere to a literal interpretation of scripture or a very orthodox mode of religious worship, I did find much comfort and inspiration in Bach's musical (and religious) vision; and I still do. So I'm wondering why I didn't include Bach on the day I made my list.

I guess whoever our "favorites" are, often depends upon which "me" shows up on that particular day.


----------



## science

Brahms
Ockeghem 
Nono
Biber 
Beethoven 
Handel 
Mozart 
Schubert 
Janacek 
Byrd 

Hon. mentions: 
Verdi 
Henze 
Kodaly 
Enescu 
Reich


----------



## SanAntone

SanAntone said:


> This week's list:
> 
> Bach
> Brahms
> Stravinsky
> Debussy
> Liszt
> Durufle
> Schumann
> Poulenc
> Bernstein
> Schoeck


That was my list from June 2020. Here's today's list:

Bach
Stravinsky
Debussy
Duruflé

After that things get hazy.


----------



## Andante Largo

1. Sibelius 
2. Respighi
3. Brahms
4. Karłowicz
5. Reinecke
6. Perosi
7. Castelnuovo-Tedesco
8. Wieniawski
9. Rheinberger
10. Chopin


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

1. Debussy
2. Webern
3. Boulez
4. Ligeti
5. Feldman
6. Kurtag
7. Bach
8. Beethoven
9. Wagner
10. Takemitsu


----------



## Brahmsian Colors

1) Brahms
2) Mozart
3) Sibelius
4) Dvorak
5) Vaughan Williams
6) Debussy and Ravel TIED
8) Haydn
9) Mendelssohn and Schubert TIED


----------



## Kreisler jr

Beethoven
Bach, Haydn, Mozart
Brahms, Schubert, Schumann
Handel, Mahler, Bartok but it gets already rather fuzzy around here. Next or equal or replacing them would be Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Chopin, Purcell, Bruckner... it does not really make sense for me to even try something like an ordering.


----------



## Heck148

This AM's list [could change by this afternoon :lol:]

Beethoven
Mahler

Stravinsky
Shostakovich
Bach
Mozart
Haydn
Brahms
Sibelius

Ravel, Prokofiev, Wagner, Bruckner, Bartok, R. Strauss


----------



## Lisztian

Not sure about the order, but...

Strauss
Stravinsky
Berlioz
Liszt
Sibelius
Schumann
Prokofiev
Beethoven
Chopin
Debussy


----------



## AClockworkOrange

My favourite Composers can vary depending on a range of factors such as mood and preference of form (e.g Lieder, Opera, Chamber, Orchestral, etc).

That said, certain Composers are ever present. These would be:
- Ludwig Van Beethoven 
- Franz Joseph Haydn 

The remaining entries vary. At present I would say the following, in particular order:
- CPE Bach
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Johannes Brahms
- Giuseppe Verdi 
- Giacomo Puccini 
- Sir Malcolm Arnold 
- Sir Edward Elgar 
- Richard Strauss


----------



## EnescuCvartet

Schubert
Beethoven
Bach, J.S.
Enescu
Scriabin
Chopin
Brahms
Wolf
Mozart
Vivaldi or Webern


----------



## MusicSybarite

Today's list is:

*Arnold
Brahms
Holmboe
Nielsen
Janacek
Respighi
Shostakovich
Sibelius
Strauss
Vaughan Williams*


----------



## HenryPenfold

janxharris said:


> I'm curious HP, wasn't it your good self that posted how you disliked (hated) everything by Sibelius? I must have remembered incorrectly.


Not me, I've loved Sibelius since the dawn of time!


----------



## haziz

Tchaikovsky
Beethoven
Dvorak



Rimsky-Korsakov
Grieg
Borodin
Kalinnikov
Brahms
Sibelius
Mendelssohn


----------



## Malx

98 - Liszt
99 - Liszt
100 - Liszt

As you will see I'm no fan of Liszts


----------



## Neo Romanza

SanAntone said:


> That was my list from June 2020. Here's today's list:
> 
> Bach
> Stravinsky
> Debussy
> Duruflé
> 
> After that things get hazy.


I would most definitely think Bernstein would remain in your 'Top 10' given your enthusiasm for his _Mass_ for example (amongst other works). I love his music, too, and the more I think about it, I would definitely rate him much higher nowadays than I did say 13 years ago.


----------



## Bill Cooke

Martinu
Dutilleux
Bartok
Shostakovich
Prokofiev
Tubin
Vaughan Williams
Stravinsky
Ligeti
Herrmann


----------



## tdc

My top ten is now slightly different from before:

J.S. Bach
Mozart
Stravinsky
Ravel
Debussy
Brahms
Bartok
Monteverdi
Prokofiev
Takemitsu


----------



## SanAntone

Alphabetically:

Bernstein
Duruflé
Mozart (operas)
Schoeck
Shostakovich
Stravinsky
Verdi
Wagner
Weinberg
Weill


----------



## Ethereality

What are your top ten favorite Compu-czars? ut:


----------



## Sumantra

Beethoven
Mozart
Bach
Hayden
Tchaikovsky
Prokofiev
Shostakovich
Brahms
Vivaldi
Saint Saens


----------



## Barbebleu

Mahler
Wagner
Schubert
Shostakovich
Strauss R.
Britten
Haydn J.
Puccini
Brahms
Schönberg


----------



## zyerf

Johann Sebastian Bach
Iannis Xenakis
Erik Satie
Charles-Valentin Alkan
Einojuhani Rautavaara
Franz Liszt
Kaikhosru Sorabji
Alfred Schnittke
Alexander Scriabin
Steve Reich

Honorable Mentions: Antonio Vivaldi, Gustav Holst, Leo Ornstein, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ludwig van Beethoven

(Not certain on this list.)


----------



## Brahmsian Colors

Current favorites:

Brahms
Mozart
Sibelius
Debussy
Haydn
Vaughan Williams
Schubert
Dvorak
Ravel
Mendelssohn


----------



## Sumantra

Sumantra said:


> Beethoven
> Mozart
> Bach
> Hayden
> Tchaikovsky
> Prokofiev
> Shostakovich
> Brahms
> Vivaldi
> Saint Saens


After 2 weeks I see a change

Beethoven
Mozart
Bach
Tchaikovsky
Prokofiev
Shostakovich
Villa Lobos 
Brahms
Hayden
Saint Saens


----------



## Xisten267

Today (ties ordered alphabetically):

1. Beethoven;
2. Bach and Wagner;
3. Mozart;
4. Brahms and Schubert;
5. Bruckner and Tchaikovsky;
6. Berlioz; 
7. Mendelssohn and Prokofiev;
8. Debussy, Mahler, Sibelius and Verdi;
9. Shostakovich and Vivaldi;
10. Chopin, Dvořák, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Ravel and Schumann.


----------



## Agamenon

Again!:

1. Bach.
2. Debussy.
3. Wagner.
4. Shostakovich.
5. Desprez.
6. Monteverdi.
7. Brahms.
8. Mozart.
9. Chopin.
10.Schoenberg.


----------



## EnescuCvartet

Owen David said:


> You could call it the Tunesmiths' Top Ten.


Not without Schubert, you couldn't!


----------

