# The Greatest?



## gurthbruins

Does anyone here regard Joseph Haydn as the greatest composer, greater than Bach, Mozart or Beethoven? I do.
Here's one reason why:


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## Ethereality

Lots of people do. I've noticed it's usually those who are a lot more obsessed with classical than your average listener.

So not everybody, but I don't think Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are the 3 greatest either.


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## Enthusiast

Haydn was among the greatest but isn't it a little silly to try to elevate one above another? They were each doing different things and the only slightly direct comparison with Haydn would be Mozart and personally I would probably choose Mozart over Haydn because of the operas. But really I love Haydn as much as any composer.


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## vtpoet

No, Haydn is not greater than Bach or Mozart, and here's one reason why:






Good luck not falling into a coma for the first four minutes.


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## Ras

vtpoet said:


> No, Haydn is not greater than Bach or Mozart, and here's one reason why:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Good luck not falling into a coma for the first four minutes.


Hey, that's not fair  You could have posted one of the London Symphonies or The Creation or a string quartet: Divertimenties like those trios with baryton were common in Haydn's time - unambitious music meant to entertain. Mozart wrote a lot of light music too - even Beethoven wrote some light music.

But still I think you are right vtpoet: Haydn isn't the greatest composer ever.

My top 4 greatest ever would look like this:

1. Bach
2/3. Tie between between Mozart and Beethoven
4. Joseph Haydn.


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## DaveM

Haydn the greatest? Anybody here listening to his 60+ piano sonatas or instrumental concertos on a regular basis? There was a lot of output, but only a limited fraction compares to what came later from the likes of Mozart and Beethoven. IMHO Haydn’s greatest contribution was his influence on composers who followed.


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## Woodduck

There are better and worse composers, but no greatest.


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## vtpoet

Woodduck said:


> There are better and worse composers, but no greatest.


With the exclusion of Bach, who is the greatest. :devil:


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## SONNET CLV

gurthbruins said:


> Does anyone here regard Joseph Haydn as the greatest composer, greater than Bach, Mozart or Beethoven? I do.


Well, it is true that nobody wrote Haydn's music better than Haydn himself. But then again, nobody wrote _________'s music better than did _________ himself.


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## SONNET CLV

Woodduck said:


> There are better and worse composers, but no greatest.


Then, for better or worse, who is the greatest?


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## Dimace

Enthusiast said:


> Haydn was among the greatest but isn't it a little silly to try to elevate one above another? They were each doing different things and the only slightly direct comparison with Haydn would be Mozart and personally I would probably choose Mozart over Haydn because of the operas. But really I love Haydn as much as any composer.


I regard Haydn as a good composer. Great, for me, is ONLY the L.W Beethoven. All the other big names (Mozart, Bach, Liszt, Chopin, Bruckner, Mahler, Tschaikowsky, etc) are Great- like the condition of CDs or LPs. :lol: Of course, Haydn has composed GREAT works. But this is something else.


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## vtpoet

The trouble with Haydn is that he never wrote a slow movement in the entirety of his corpus, just slow allegros. /troll But seriously.


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## Woodduck

SONNET CLV said:


> Then, for better or worse, who is the greatest?


Ummm...Muhammad Ali?


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## Woodduck

vtpoet said:


> The trouble with Haydn is that he never wrote a slow movement in the entirety of his corpus, just slow allegros. /troll But seriously.


That bothers you too, does it? Of course, they do play those andantes faster than they used to.


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## vtpoet

Woodduck said:


> That bothers you too, does it? Of course, they do play those andantes faster than they used to.


Andantes in name only.


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## Woodduck

vtpoet said:


> Andantes in name only.


Andante Alleghieri.


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## MarkW

Woodduck said:


> Ummm...Muhammad Ali?


Beat me to it!


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## SONNET CLV

Woodduck said:


> There are better and worse composers, but no greatest.





SONNET CLV said:


> Then, for better or worse, who is the greatest?





Woodduck said:


> Ummm...Muhammad Ali?


And wasn't Ali's slogan something like "Hum like a butterfly; sing like a bee"?

When he scored a rhythmic punch he often left one B♭.


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## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> Andante Alleghieri.


Al Dente Pasta.


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## Woodduck

fluteman said:


> Al Dente Pasta.
> View attachment 128526
> 
> View attachment 128527


And down the punny hole we go.


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## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> And down the punny hole we go.


Go ahead, give me your best Schott. I ain't Haydn.


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## Becca

SONNET CLV said:


> Then, for better or worse, who is the greatest?


The idea that there is a greatest is absurd and illogical ... different people, different times, different environments, different goals ... and on it goes.


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## Woodduck

fluteman said:


> Go ahead, give me your best Schott. I ain't Haydn.


So you ain't the greatest? I knew that.


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## DaveM

Those who opine that there is no such thing as the greatest composer might have been right if there had not been the Violin Concerto, the Symphony#6, the Piano Concerto#4, the Archduke Piano Trio, the Quartet op131 and the Piano Sonata #32, but there was and is...


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## Ethereality

Anyone who wrote Symphony 6 Pastoral in F would automatically be the greatest.


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## Woodduck

DaveM said:


> Those who opine that there is no such thing as the greatest composer might have been right if there had not been the Violin Concerto, the Symphony#6, the Piano Concerto#4, the Archduke Piano Trio, the Quartet op131 and the Piano Sonata #32, but there was...


It's hard to avoid agreeing with you, given that there are also the Symphonies #3, 5, 7 and 9, the Missa Solemnis, the string quartets Op. 127, 130, 132 and 135, the Grosse Fuge, the "Ghost" Trio, the piano sonatas Op. 13, 27, 53, 57, 81, 101, 106, 109 and 110, the cello sonatas Op. 69 and 102, the violin sonatas Op. 24, 47 and 90... So many stunning works that stand with any, in some cases preeminent among all, others of their genre. But wait! Someone will draw up a similar list for another composer (or two or three).


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## Haydn man

There are ‘greats’ and I would include Haydn in that list, but ‘Greatest’ is purely personal


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## Lilijana

It's absurd to reduce any composer down to the ridiculously simplistic notion of being 'the greatest'. Who is the authority to determine what's 'great' about any composer, or even, dare I say, what makes composers 'better' or 'worse' from one another? I'd be shocked if anyone could have that kind of power. Musicologists certainly have better things to do than this.

But when we consider that Pierre Boulez's music exists, I guess we have found our answer to who the greatest composer of all time is and that completely blows my prior theory out of the water!


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## hammeredklavier

Ras said:


> Mozart wrote a lot of light music too - even Beethoven wrote some light music.


You sound like Beethoven wrote less "flops" than Mozart and Haydn, but if you go through Beethoven's lesser known Opuses, WoOs, Hesses, you'll realize Beethoven also did write as many "flops" as they did. Why do you think Beethoven turned away from operas and resorted to writing series of incidental music? As shown by the amount of time and effort he put into writing Fidelio, writing operas was too much of a chore for him, but he still "had to make a living". Beethoven had to "protect his share of the market", against Rossini's dominance. 
Egmont Overture is excellent though - one of rare instances where Beethoven actually writes 'proper' melodies.  But I still prefer Mozart's Thamos, King of Egypt over any of Beethoven's incidental music. 
If you're going to resort to the convenient argument "X composer never wanted to publish his Y works or juvenilia or flops or trivialities or whatever", (like how this person does) let me remind you Mozart and Haydn didn't want to publish all their works either. 
Mozart's Missa Brevis in D major K194 (1774) was published posthumously in 1793.


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## mikeh375

composer jess said:


> It's absurd to reduce any composer down to the ridiculously simplistic notion of being 'the greatest'. Who is the authority to determine what's 'great' about any composer, or even, dare I say, what makes composers 'better' or 'worse' from one another? I'd be shocked if anyone could have that kind of power. Musicologists certainly have better things to do than this.
> 
> But when we consider that Pierre Boulez's music exists, I guess we have found our answer to who the greatest composer of all time is and that completely blows my prior theory out of the water!


At last, a 20thC contender. The only "authority" who's judgement re 'greatness' is something one could even entertain as pertinent to this threads title (in a fun sort of way that is as it can't be serious imv) would be one who realised that music is still to this day being composed by great composers. Unless of course there is a conflation of greatness with popularity and period....oh yeah, of course there is. Some will view it differently.


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## hammeredklavier

DaveM said:


> Haydn the greatest? Anybody here listening to his 60+ piano sonatas or instrumental concertos on a regular basis? There was a lot of output, but only a limited fraction compares to what came later from the likes of Mozart and Beethoven. IMHO Haydn's greatest contribution was his influence on composers who followed.


I still find him slightly underrated compared to Mozart and Beethoven:
Op.76, Op.77 string quartets, 
Seven Last Words of Christ Op.51 for string quartet, 
the late masses, Theresienmesse, Missa in Angustiis, Harmoniemesse,
Not all the 100+ symphonies are good, but there are like 20 amazing ones. Again, not everything Mozart, Beethoven wrote was amazing. I don't think anyone considers every one of Bach's 200+ cantatas a Widerstehe doch der Sünde.


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## Ethereality

I have a list of who the forum finds the most underrated compared to the mainstream. Haydn is certainly the most underrated of the greatest.


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## Jacck

No, I don't. Since the classical period is the least favorite for me among the musical eras, that might be the reason. Much of the music from that era sounds same to me, so does much of Haydn. Also, he wrote just too much of everything, too many symphonies and too many string quartets and nothing really stands out for me. If I should name the work of Haydn that stands out the most for me, it would be something like the Creation (Die Schöpfung) or the Seasons (Die Jahreszeiten)


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## mrdoc

It took me years to really appreciate Handle, a founding member of our music group would really ram Handel into our heads but eventually something clicked and I was hooked, I now absolutely love his music and will be forever grateful to my friend who recently passed away. Thank you my friend...….


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## vtpoet

Jacck said:


> No, I don't. Since the classical period is the least favorite for me among the musical eras, that might be the reason. Much of the music from that era sounds same to me, so does much of Haydn...


Yeah, I have a similar reaction. I do like the classical era but mostly listen to Mozart or Haydn. The rest, as you say, begin to sound too formulaic and musically ingratiating. After the baroque, I much prefer the rococo period, CPE Bach, WF and the incredible composers surrounding King Frederick, like the Bendas and Quantz. You never quite know what to expect from them.


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## robin4

"Does anyone here regard Joseph Haydn as the greatest composer, greater than Bach, Mozart or Beethoven? I do."

I don't play two games: the comparison game, and the "let's make a list" game.

That said, I really like Haydn.


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## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> It's hard to avoid agreeing with you, given that there are also the Symphonies #3, 5, 7 and 9, the Missa Solemnis, the string quartets Op. 127, 130, 132 and 135, the Grosse Fuge, the "Ghost" Trio, the piano sonatas Op. 13, 27, 53, 57, 81, 101, 106, 109 and 110, the cello sonatas Op. 69 and 102, the violin sonatas Op. 24, 47 and 90... So many stunning works that stand with any, in some cases preeminent among all, others of their genre. But wait! Someone will draw up a similar list for another composer (or two or three).


Not only am I constrained to agree with all of that, I think that anyone who plays in a (decent) orchestra learns sooner rather than later that there is Beethoven, and there is everyone else.


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## 1996D

Are you promoting your quartet?


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## DaveM

composer jess said:


> It's absurd to reduce any composer down to the ridiculously simplistic notion of being 'the greatest'. Who is the authority to determine what's 'great' about any composer, or even, dare I say, what makes composers 'better' or 'worse' from one another? I'd be shocked if anyone could have that kind of power. Musicologists certainly have better things to do than this.
> 
> But when we consider that Pierre Boulez's music exists, I guess we have found our answer to who the greatest composer of all time is and that completely blows my prior theory out of the water!


In that particular case, it is indeed '_absurd to reduce any composer down to the ridiculously simplistic notion of being 'the greatest'.'_


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## Enthusiast

fluteman said:


> Not only am I constrained to agree with all of that, I think that anyone who plays in a (decent) orchestra learns sooner rather than later that there is Beethoven, and there is everyone else.


So you were agreeing with Woodduck that



> Someone will draw up a similar list for another composer (or two or three).


?

I read that as saying that opinions like yours about Beethoven are merely as valid as the OP's or a choice of Mozart or Bach - absolute greats, all of them - so your agreement with Woodduck includes an acknowledgement that there is no right choice between our gods (if I have read Woodduck correctly, that is)?


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## SONNET CLV

Haydn man said:


> There are 'greats' and I would include Haydn in that list, but 'Greatest' is purely personal


I would propose that it is actually more complicated than that. Than being "purely personal". The measure of greatness depends much upon one's definition for greatness. If the greatest runner is the fastest over a short distance, then the fastest marathon runner wouldn't qualify as the greatest if he could not beat the sprinter in a 100m run, which is quite probable. Yet, one could flip the definition to suggest that the greatest runner is the one who can cover the longest distance in the shortest time. Goodbye sprinter.

If the greatest symphonist can be measured by a single work (say, the _Pastoral_ Symphony No.6 in F) then one cannot be the greatest symphonist by producing a tall measure of great symphonies, such as has Mozart and Haydn and Bruckner and Shostakovich and Mahler, none of whom are slouches.

I don't believe the measure of "greatest" is purely personal at all. I do believe that the measure of "favorite" is. Anyone may talk about their favorite composer and deserve no criticism. If Philip Glass is your favorite composer, so be it. But to assert that Phil Glass or Beethoven or anyone else is "the greatest" according to your purely personal definition of what is meant by "greatest" remains a contestable assertion, and is actually little better than assigning a "favorite", since your definition of "greatest" is defined by your favorite definition for the word. Your favorite may not necessarily be my favorite, nor is mine necessarily yours. But in some sense we both agree that "the greatest" must be defined by more objective criteria.

So, if one were to lay down some parameters about what is meant by "greatest" in composers, perhaps we can move on. Without such an objective set of guidelines the question of this thread remains hopelessly unanswerable. (And even with an objective set of guidelines, it will only answer the question to the limits of those guidelines, and we're back to the sprinter v. the marathon runner.)


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## fluteman

Enthusiast said:


> So you were agreeing with Woodduck that
> 
> ?
> 
> I read that as saying that opinions like yours about Beethoven are merely as valid as the OP's or a choice of Mozart or Bach - absolute greats, all of them - so your agreement with Woodduck includes an acknowledgement that there is no right choice between our gods (if I have read Woodduck correctly, that is)?


Yes. I'm not really proclaiming Beethoven as "the greatest". I do think Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven stand above the rest in the classical era in many ways. But bringing out the greatness from Haydn and especially Mozart takes a high level of skill and sensitivity from the players and conductor. It's very easy to fall back into ordinary and mediocre playing. Whereas the energy and momentum of Beethoven simply grab you and sweep you along, even in the slow movements, so long as you have the technique to play his notes and a good sense of rhythm. On the other hand, Beethoven's piano and violin sonatas and concertos, and string quartets, especially the late ones, often require true virtuoso technique. That's easy to forget, as virtuoso technique is so commonly heard these days.


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## Phil loves classical

I'd agree that Haydn is as good as anyone, but better is a bit hard to define.


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## Perittos

I really love Haydn and he maybe better than Beethoven and Bach but Mozart has a special place for me.


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## DaveM

I see a number of rather bland, sometimes non-committal statements above. 

Here’s another perspective. Is there a Violin Concerto greater than the Beethoven? I would place the Brahms as an equal, but not greater. Is there a Symphony greater than the #6? Maybe, arguably some equals, but greater? No. Is there a Piano Concerto greater than the #4? Maybe the Mozart #20 or Brahms #1 are equals, but greater? No. Is there a Piano Trio greater than the Archduke or a Quartet greater than the op.131? No. And is there a Piano Sonata greater than or the equal of the #32? No.

All these unsurpassed works by one composer and yet, representing only a fraction of his other great works. What other conclusion other than greatest can one draw from this? Just askin’.


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## Lilijana

DaveM said:


> I see a number of rather bland, sometimes non-committal statements above.
> 
> Here's another perspective. Is there a Violin Concerto greater than the Beethoven? I would place the Brahms as an equal, but not greater. Is there a Symphony greater than the #6? Maybe, arguably some equals, but greater? No. Is there a Piano Concerto greater than the #4? Maybe the Mozart #20 or Brahms #1 are equals, but greater? No. Is there a Piano Trio greater than the Archduke or a Quartet greater than the op.131? No. And is there a Piano Sonata greater than or the equal of the #32? No.
> 
> All these unsurpassed works by one composer and yet, representing only a fraction of his other great works. What other conclusion other than greatest can one draw from this? Just askin'.


I could say in total seriousness and with utter belief in my claims 'yes' to all of these questions and I'd be just as correct as you.


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## DavidA

It's pretty ridiculous pontificating who is the greatest. It's usually who I'm listening to at the time out of Bach, Mozart or Beethoven. But then there are other works of great genius. You mention Haydn. The Creation is so sublime. Or Handel in his many-faceted forms. Schubert song cycles. There are so many riches. I just get down to enjoying them.


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## DaveM

composer jess said:


> I could say in total seriousness and with utter belief in my claims 'yes' to all of these questions and I'd be just as correct as you.


You could say it in all seriousness and with utter belief, but would you have anything else to back it up?


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## DaveM

DavidA said:


> It's pretty ridiculous pontificating who is the greatest. It's usually who I'm listening to at the time out of Bach, Mozart or Beethoven. But then there are other works of great genius. You mention Haydn. The Creation is so sublime. Or Handel in his many-faceted forms. Schubert song cycles. There are so many riches. I just get down to enjoying them.


'Ridiculous pontificating'. Hmm. Of course there are other great works (Humperdinck's Hansel & Gretel has some great music.) That's beside the point.


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## Lilijana

DaveM said:


> You could say it in all seriousness and with utter belief, but would you have anything else to back it up?


Only exactly as much as you have.


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## fluteman

DavidA said:


> It's pretty ridiculous pontificating who is the greatest. It's usually who I'm listening to at the time out of Bach, Mozart or Beethoven. But then there are other works of great genius. You mention Haydn. The Creation is so sublime. Or Handel in his many-faceted forms. Schubert song cycles. There are so many riches. I just get down to enjoying them.


Right. I keep saying, music is not tennis, where somebody is no. 1, and somebody else is no. 7, or no. 38, and so forth, and there really isn't much to debate about, even if you have some minor quibbles about the ranking formula. It's decided on the court, where one player wins and the other loses. Music can't be ranked so simply. You mention Schubert song cycles. You can spend a lifetime listening to them and still discover new things. There is nothing quite like them by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, or any other composer, though there are great song cycles by Schumann, Mahler, Berlioz and Ravel, among others.

That's the glorious thing about art. It can't be ranked, compartmentalized, summarized, or quantified. At least not completely.


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## Blancrocher

DaveM said:


> Haydn the greatest? Anybody here listening to his 60+ piano sonatas or instrumental concertos on a regular basis?


Yeah, God help me...guilty as charged.


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## Bulldog

DaveM said:


> You could say it in all seriousness and with utter belief, but would you have anything else to back it up?


But you have not backed up your Beethoven preferences at all.


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## DaveM

Bulldog said:


> But you have not backed up your Beethoven preferences at all.


Well I have several times in the past, but you must have missed it. And apparently others here are throwing out dismissive one-liners as if this is the first time the subject has come up. I'll forgive one poster who seems relatively new here (maybe?).


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## Lilijana

Here's a wonderful piece for violin and orchestra which I think is particularly great. Of course, this style is pretty incomparable to Beethoven, but the impact this music has on me, and certainly for others who also love it as much as I do, is 'greater' than the Beethoven example.

But, in giving this example, I would like to stress that it's impossible to come to any conclusive, absolutist evidence that Beethoven's Violin Concerto is any greater than Pintscher's _en sourdine_ and vice versa. There's nothing inherent in the music itself that can provide us with that.


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## Lilijana

btw, Frank Peter Zimmermann also plays the Beethoven concerto, so there's certainly no reason to assume that a musician of his calibre would deem one concerto or the other as not great enough to let the world hear:






P.S. not even a musician of his calibre even _has_ any absolute authority on what is greater than what, anyway.


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## Phil loves classical

composer jess said:


> Here's a wonderful piece for violin and orchestra which I think is particularly great. Of course, this style is pretty incomparable to Beethoven, but the impact this music has on me, and certainly for others who also love it as much as I do, is 'greater' than the Beethoven example.
> 
> But, in giving this example, I would like to stress that it's impossible to come to any conclusive, absolutist evidence that Beethoven's Violin Concerto is any greater than Pintscher's _en sourdine_ and vice versa. There's nothing inherent in the music itself that can provide us with that.


I wouldn't say that Zimmermann may not necessarily know which is 'greater', only that he knows which works have a good enough violin part to show off his skill. I think a criteria that could come into play when comparing, is how special a work is, as in how many others like it there are. To my ears, the Beethoven concerto stands out among any era, the mastery of form is exemplary.

The Pintscher, how does it compare with Ades' or Carter's? How reproducible is it by a skilled composer? These are the questions running in my mind.


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## Lilijana

Phil loves classical said:


> I wouldn't say that Zimmermann may not necessarily know which is 'greater', only that he knows which works have a good enough violin part to show off his skill. I think a criteria that could come into play when comparing, is how special a work is, as in how many others like it there are. To my ears, the Beethoven concerto stands out among any era, the mastery of form is exemplary.
> 
> The Pintscher, how does it compare with Ades' or Carter's? How reproducible is it by a skilled composer? These are the questions running in my mind.


Yes, this is pretty much how I would view it. However, comparisons between music of different eras and locations where the culture, aesthetics and economics of music and the music industry were totally different (or at least have notable differences between them) are near impossible if we want to come to any judgement about certain music being 'greater' or 'lesser'.

Something I tend to do when reviewing the new music I often listen to is to try to at least learn a little more about the musicians for whom the work was composed, other pieces they are known for performing, the context of its premiere and aesthetic/performance issues the composer/performers tend to think about the creative process of composing or performing the piece in question. It helps me to have a clearer view of the culture within which the music thrives. There's always _some_ kind of interaction between composers, performers, audiences (and also the composers' relationships to other music they may be influenced by) so having an understanding of how that dialogue works would show contextual similarities and differences between the concertos by Pintscher, Adès and Carter. Taking into consideration the question of 'who listens to and likes this music?' is, to some degree, important in understanding what makes any piece of music special.

A few more questions come to mind when you say:


> I think a criteria that could come into play when comparing, is how special a work is, as in how many others like it there are.


If a piece is unique in that there are pretty much no other pieces like it, does that make it special? Or is a piece particularly special if it's had a large influence on music that followed it? Personally I think both are true, but they're interesting questions to think about. There's nothing really like Beethoven's Große Fuge (and his other late quartets, I guess) and it seems to be a good example of a piece of music where there's nothing else like it, but Beethoven's symphonies have had a very long lasting impact and influence on composers of younger generations. Both are cornerstones of specific repertoires that exist and thrive in their own musical cultures: classical chamber music and concert hall orchestral works.


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## gurthbruins

How about Michael Schumacher?


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## Rogerx

gurthbruins said:


> How about Michael Schumacher?


So not funny.


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## hammeredklavier

DaveM said:


> You could say it in all seriousness and with utter belief, but would you have anything else to back it up?


You're judging Haydn from a Beethoven-centric view. 
(While I still acknowledge Beethoven's work in expanding the sonata form), there was a time I used to believe Beethoven was "undisputed god of motivic development" (as people would often say), who went beyond his classical predecessors in all aspects of the craft, but nowadays I'm seeing a bit more "weaknesses" in him and more "strengths" in his predecessors. 
To me, his developments feel dragged-out and padded out (perhaps to compromise with his melodic prowess). This section in the first movement of the 5th symphony, (sounding somewhat like a section of the Tempest piano sonata), for example, strikes me as:

_"beep~ beep~ beep~ beep~"_

[3:34]










Beethoven rarely strikes me as compact and (at the same time), powerful as the first movements of Haydn 45th and 83th symphonies, for example. The sheer mastery of monothematicism is notable. In certain moments, I'm inclined to think Haydn was "Beethoven before the real Beethoven".
I find that Beethoven has a greater range of dynamics and its markings, "right-in-your-face" kind of stuff, but seems to lack certain kind of subtleties. Beethoven could be seen as a 'beeping-machine melodist', if you look at him through the lens of Haydn, -- or even Mozart -- look how the dotted-rhythmic motif plays in the development of Confitebor tibi domine from Vesper K321 in its voice-leading structure:

[4:04]










These days when it comes to Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (at least), I don't really think it's meaningful to put one above another. It's more like, they're just different in means to achieve expression.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_C_major_(Beethoven)
_"Beethoven was fully aware of the tradition that Haydn had established and it influenced him strongly in writing the Mass in C major. Beethoven confessed in a letter to the prince: "may I just say that I will hand the mass over to you with great trepidation, as Your Serene Highness is accustomed to having the *inimitable masterworks of the great Haydn* performed." Lewis Lockwood writes:

On accepting the prince's commission Beethoven had praised Haydn's masses, calling them "inimitable masterpieces." Beethoven meant it. He clearly studied Haydn's masses while composing his own, no doubt for reasons far beyond the fact that the Esterházys had commissioned it, as we see from his sketches for the Gloria. The sketches include two passes copied from the Gloria of Haydn's Schöpfungsmesse ("Creation Mass"), one of four late Haydn masses easily available to Beethoven in published editions."_






https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Last_Words_of_Christ_(Haydn)
_1. Introduzione in D minor - Maestoso ed Adagio
2. Sonata I ("Pater, dimitte illis, quia nesciunt, quid faciunt") in B-flat major - Largo
3. Sonata II ("Hodie mecum eris in paradiso") in C minor, ending in C major - Grave e cantabile
4. Sonata III ("Mulier, ecce filius tuus") in E major - Grave
5. Sonata IV ("Deus meus, Deus meus, utquid dereliquisti me") in F minor - Largo
6. Sonata V ("Sitio") in A major - Adagio
7. Sonata VI ("Consummatum est") in G minor, ending in G major - Lento
8. Sonata VII ("In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum") in E-flat major - Largo
9. Il terremoto (Earthquake) in C minor - Presto e con tutta la forza

Haydn uses an extremely wide range of tonalities for a composition of the time. Musicologist Mark Spitzer observes of this: "In its tonal freedom [it] anticipates [Haydn's] late Masses, particularly the Harmoniemesse ... The only other Classical 'multi-piece' which spreads itself across the entire tonal gamut with this architectural breadth is Beethoven's String Quartet in C♯ minor, op. 131 ... Why, then, is Beethoven given credit for experimental daring when Haydn, once again, gets there first?"_


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## gurthbruins

Thanks to all who have replied to my post. I found all the comments interesting and constructive.
I'd seen other threads trying to rank composers, whereas in fact I do more tend to agree with those who don't like this ranking business. Basically, I thought a slightly provocative approach good to elicit opinions on Haydn.

Basically I recognise that this is mostly a subjective question about personal tastes.
As was pointed out, Haydn would appeal to those who valued the classical period most
Up to a few weeks ago, my 'heroes' were Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, represented by works such as the celebrated 'Chaconne', the Hoffmeister Quartet, the Sonata no 32. Already I was favouring chamber music above opera, symphonic music, concerto or even sonata. This situation was long-standing with me, lasting for years.
But all of a sudden it has been an epiphany for me to realise the quality of Haydn's String Quartets. Mozart's 'Haydn' and 'Prussian' quartets were eclipsed by the sheer astonishment I felt at hearing Haydn's Op 50 quartets, so brilliantly played by the Attacca Quartet. A new world of musical experience lies ahead for me from Haydn's treasury of 80 plus quartets. I don't want symphonies, opera, concertos or sonatas! Not even Haydn's.


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## DaveM

composer jess said:


> btw, Frank Peter Zimmerman also plays the Beethoven concerto, so there's certainly no reason to assume that a musician of his calibre would deem one concerto or the other as not great enough to let the world hear:
> 
> P.S. not even a musician of his calibre even _has_ any absolute authority on what is greater than what, anyway.


If you had been following Zimmermann's career, you would know that over the last several years, the Beethoven VC is one of his signature works and he has been all over the world playing it: New York, Europe, Singapore etc. Surprisingly, the Pintscher VC has been nowhere to be seen during that time. For some reason, people aren't demanding to hear Zimmermann play it...anywhere.


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## DaveM

The subject of the OP is whether Haydn might be considered to be the greatest composer so it again raises the question as to whether a classical music 'greatest composer' exists.

I'll never understand why some people have such a problem with the term 'greatest'. People use superlatives including the term 'greatest' all the time for all sorts of things: Greatest world leader, greatest explorer, greatest scientist, greatest artist. To read some here, you would think it was some sort of heresy to apply it to a composer.

So here's a thought: in the case of Beethoven, rather than 'greatest', why not consider the term 'unsurpassed' or 'unequaled' or the equivalent as I did above for individual works and then look at the total of these unsurpassed or unequaled works?

The Late Quartets (from the Wiki):
_'These six works are Beethoven's last major completed compositions. Although dismissed by musicians and audiences of Beethoven's day, they are now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time,[1][2][3] and they have inspired many later composers.'_

The Violin Concerto:
Does anyone know of a violin concerto more recorded? Is this not perhaps the most frequently played violin concerto by all the major orchestras? Perhaps it has been equaled, but can anyone convincingly say it has been surpassed?

Archduke Piano Trio:
When you do a search of the top piano trios, the Archduke is virtually always mentioned. You'll see quotes such as _'The most frequently performed of the Beethoven Trios are the D major trio Op. 70 "Ghost" and E-flat major trio Op. 97 "Archduke." Many admire the latter as the greatest piano trio of all time.'_

Symphonies:
When you do a search of the all time top 10-20 symphonies, inevitably, one or more of the 6th, 7th or 9th are on the list.

Piano Concertos:
Similar to the experience with the symphonies, when you do a search of the all time top 10-20 piano concertos, one or more of the 3rd, 4th or 5th will be on the list.

And so on.

Contrary to what it may seem, I am not some flag-waving Beethoven fan based on the limited experience of a relatively few years of CM listening. My main Beethoven listening occurred a long time ago and although I return to some of his works periodically, my listening in latter years has involved the music of countless number of other composers. During that time I have come across some wonderful works some of them rising to the level of those by Beethoven, but haven't come across any one composer that has surpassed him in all the various CM categories. (Mozart gets close.)

When you have years of listening under your belt, you inevitably do a lot of reading about these works. The thing about Beethoven is that you find that you aren't alone in the superlatives that are written about him. The aura of greatness is in almost anything written about him. While other composers reached the heights in some of the various types of CM works, Mozart in Concertos, Symphonies and Operas, Chopin in solo piano, Brahms in the magnificent concertos and symphonies, Wagner in opera etc., Beethoven excelled in all of these areas except perhaps opera. (Fidelio is no minor opera, but Beethoven was not an opera composer.)

So people can reject the concept of the greatest composer, but when you have the number of works by Beethoven in almost all categories that are perhaps equaled, but rarely surpassed by other composers who even then are only able to 'compete' in only a few of those categories, then IMO, it's hard to escape applying the label of 'greatest' to Beethoven. And by the same token, getting back to the OP, it becomes easier to reject the label applied to Haydn.


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Last_Words_of_Christ_(Haydn)
> _1. Introduzione in D minor - Maestoso ed Adagio
> 2. Sonata I ("Pater, dimitte illis, quia nesciunt, quid faciunt") in B-flat major - Largo
> 3. Sonata II ("Hodie mecum eris in paradiso") in C minor, ending in C major - Grave e cantabile
> 4. Sonata III ("Mulier, ecce filius tuus") in E major - Grave
> 5. Sonata IV ("Deus meus, Deus meus, utquid dereliquisti me") in F minor - Largo
> 6. Sonata V ("Sitio") in A major - Adagio
> 7. Sonata VI ("Consummatum est") in G minor, ending in G major - Lento
> 8. Sonata VII ("In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum") in E-flat major - Largo
> 9. Il terremoto (Earthquake) in C minor - Presto e con tutta la forza
> 
> Haydn uses an extremely wide range of tonalities for a composition of the time. Musicologist Mark Spitzer observes of this: "In its tonal freedom [it] anticipates [Haydn's] late Masses, particularly the Harmoniemesse ... *The only other Classical 'multi-piece' which spreads itself across the entire tonal gamut with this architectural breadth is Beethoven's String Quartet in C♯ minor, op. 131 ... Why, then, is Beethoven given credit for experimental daring when Haydn, once again, gets there first?"*_


That is a bizarre comparison. The two works have virtually nothing in common. What does "spreads itself across the entire tonal gamut with this architectural breadth" mean? Whatever it means, "architectural breadth" is not something I'd attribute to Haydn's series of adagios. It's a series of adagios. Punkt.

I'll go out on a limb and opine that Haydn's "Seven Last Words" comes nowhere near Beethoven's Op.131 by any measure of greatness I can think of. How can you even ask "Why, then, is Beethoven given credit for experimental daring when Haydn, once again, gets there first?" There is nothing in Beethoven's astonishing quartet that Haydn "got to first" - or ever.

Greatness can't be proved, but it can sure as hell be heard.


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## Lilijana

DaveM said:


> If you had been following Zimmermann's career, you would know that over the last several years, the Beethoven VC is one of his signature works and he has been all over the world playing it: New York, Europe, Singapore etc. Surprisingly, the Pintscher VC has been nowhere to be seen during that time. For some reason, people aren't demanding to hear Zimmermann play it...anywhere.


I am very aware as to the reason of how concert programmes of this nature work.

I'm curious to see what you make of my most recent post in this thread where I proposed that different kinds of repertoire find their audience in different settings or different kinds of 'cultures' (I guess i really mean different types of classical 'subcultures'). It'd be astounding if Beethoven's violin concerto was performed with regularity by, say, Ensemble InterContemporain, Klangforum Wien or Ensemble MusikFabrik with Irvine Arditti or Carolin Widmann as soloist, for similar reasons. Not to mention, of course, in New Music there's much less of an effort to create any kind of 'canon' of repertoire to regurgitate every year. There are much different financial and artistic goals at play.


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## DaveM

composer jess said:


> I am very aware as to the reason of how concert programmes of this nature work.


If so, why make some value judgment about the Pintscher VC vs. the Beethoven based on the fact that Zimmermann recorded both of them when it was the Beethoven and not the Pintscher Zimmermann was playing all over the world. Concert programs tend to be based on what people want to hear and are willing to pay money, sometimes a lot of money, to hear it.



> I'm curious to see what you make of my most recent post in this thread where I proposed that different kinds of repertoire find their audience in different settings or different kinds of 'cultures' (I guess i really mean different types of classical 'subcultures'). It'd be astounding if Beethoven's violin concerto was performed with regularity by, say, Ensemble InterContemporain, Klangforum Wien or Ensemble MusikFabrik with Irvine Arditti or Carolin Widmann as soloist, for similar reasons. Not to mention, of course, in New Music there's much less of an effort to create any kind of 'canon' of repertoire to regurgitate every year. There are much different financial and artistic goals at play.


Well, Beethoven or any other 19th century composer is unlikely to be performed by ensembles that emphasize the 'new music'. I'm not sure what that has to do with the premise that the Beethoven VC may have been equaled, but has not been surpassed.


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## DaveM

Woodduck said:


> Greatness can't be proved, but it can sure as hell be heard.


Food for thought!


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## Guest

gurthbruins said:


> As was pointed out, Haydn would appeal to those who valued the classical period most


Haydn 'would appeal' to all kinds of listeners, not just those who who valued the Classical period the most. He appeals to me, and I wouldn't put myself in that category, and I doubt I'm unique in that respect.

Anyway, hang on a few hours and we'll soon know who The Greatest is, once Art Rock publishes the top ten in his 'ranking' thread. :devil:


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## Art Rock

For me Haydn is one of those composers whom I always enjoy listening to, but who lack that bit of extra in any of his works that makes me want to hear it again soon. In terms of ranking, not a top30 composer for me. I have scores of Haydn CDs, but if they were wiped out tomorrow, I'd probably only buy back a handful (mainly the later string quartets and the London symphonies). This is of course purely based on my own taste.


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## Guest

Art Rock said:


> For me Haydn is one of those composers whom I always enjoy listening to, but who lack that bit of extra in any of his works that makes me want to hear it again soon. In terms of ranking, not a top30 composer for me. I have scores of Haydn CDs, but if they were wiped out tomorrow, I'd probably only buy back a handful (mainly the later string quartets and the London symphonies). This is of course purely based on my own taste.


Does appreciation of Haydn suffer slightly from having been so prolific? If you'd want to buy back the London Symphonies, that's three more than by Beethoven and five more than by Sibelius (I know you know this, but just wanted to be explicit about my point).

Regulars know me as chiefly a listener of symphonies. If I was considering which to take to a desert island, I'd take as many Haydn as Sibelius and Beethoven. Surely any composer who has written four of five great symphonies is up there with the best, regardless of how much just good/mediocre/dross they also wrote?


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## Art Rock

I would not even designate the London symphonies as essential to me - speaking of essential symphonies, that would be in the ballpark of 50-100 or so, starting (time-wise) with Beethoven 5 and 6 (yup, Mozart does not make that list either). It's just that within Haydn's oeuvre, I like the mentioned later symphonies and later string quartets the most.


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## Bulldog

DaveM said:


> The Violin Concerto:
> Does anyone know of a violin concerto more recorded?


I raise my hand and say "Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto".


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## janxharris

DaveM said:


> The subject of the OP is whether Haydn might be considered to be the greatest composer so it again raises the question as to whether a classical music 'greatest composer' exists.
> 
> I'll never understand why some people have such a problem with the term 'greatest'. People use superlatives including the term 'greatest' all the time for all sorts of things: Greatest world leader, greatest explorer, greatest scientist, greatest artist. To read some here, you would think it was some sort of heresy to apply it to a composer.
> 
> So here's a thought: in the case of Beethoven, rather than 'greatest', why not consider the term 'unsurpassed' or 'unequaled' or the equivalent as I did above for individual works and then look at the total of these unsurpassed or unequaled works?
> 
> The Late Quartets (from the Wiki):
> _'These six works are Beethoven's last major completed compositions. Although dismissed by musicians and audiences of Beethoven's day, they are now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time,[1][2][3] and they have inspired many later composers.'_
> 
> The Violin Concerto:
> Does anyone know of a violin concerto more recorded? Is this not perhaps the most frequently played violin concerto by all the major orchestras? Perhaps it has been equaled, but can anyone convincing say it has been surpassed?
> 
> Archduke Piano Trio:
> When you do a search of the top piano trios, the Archduke is virtually always mentioned. You'll see quotes such as _'The most frequently performed of the Beethoven Trios are the D major trio Op. 70 "Ghost" and E-flat major trio Op. 97 "Archduke." Many admire the latter as the greatest piano trio of all time.'_
> 
> Symphonies:
> When you do a search of the all time top 10-20 symphonies, inevitably, one or more of the 6th, 7th or 9th are on the list.
> 
> Piano Concertos:
> Similar to the experience with the symphonies, when you do a search of the all time top 10-20 piano concertos, one or more of the 3rd, 4th or 5th will be on the list.
> 
> And so on.
> 
> Contrary to what it may seem, I am not some flag-waving Beethoven fan based on the limited experience of a relatively few years of CM listening. My main Beethoven listening occurred a long time ago and although I return to some of his works periodically, my listening in latter years has involved the music of countless number of other composers. During that time I have come across some wonderful works some of them rising to the level of those by Beethoven, but haven't come across any one composer that has surpassed him in all the various CM categories. (Mozart gets close.)
> 
> When you have years of listening under your belt, you inevitably do a lot of reading about these works. The thing about Beethoven is that you find that you aren't alone in the superlatives that are written about him. The aura of greatness is in almost anything written about him. While other composers reached the heights in some of the various types of CM works, Mozart in Concertos, Symphonies and Operas, Chopin in solo piano, Brahms in the magnificent concertos and symphonies, Wagner in opera etc., Beethoven excelled in all of these areas except perhaps opera. (Fidelio is no minor opera, but Beethoven was not an opera composer.)
> 
> So people can reject the concept of the greatest composer, but when you have the number of works by Beethoven in almost all categories that are perhaps equaled, but rarely surpassed by other composers who even then are only able to 'compete' in only a few of those categories, then IMO, it's hard to escape applying the label of 'greatest' to Beethoven. And by the same token, getting back to the OP, it becomes easier to reject the label applied to Haydn.


I fail to see why this is nothing more than an argumentum ad populum DaveM:

"they are now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time...more recorded...Many admire the latter as the greatest...a search of the all time top 10-20 symphonies..."

I would put Beethoven in my top five but that remains just my subjective opinion - you _seem _to be attempting to impose your view as objective truth.


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## Lilijana

DaveM said:


> If so, why make some value judgment about the Pintscher VC vs. the Beethoven based on the fact that Zimmermann recorded both of them when it was the Beethoven and not the Pintscher Zimmermann was playing all over the world. Concert programs tend to be based on what people want to hear and are willing to pay money, sometimes a lot of money, to hear it.
> 
> Well, Beethoven or any other 19th century composer is unlikely to be performed by ensembles that emphasize the 'new music'. I'm not sure what that has to do with the premise that the Beethoven VC may have been equaled, but has not been surpassed.


You've basically got it. Just as Beethoven or any other 19th century composer is unlikely to be performed by ensembles that emphasise New Music, ensembles that emphasise a different repertoire won't necessarily be likely to play much of the newer stuff anyway. It's down to them being different, though equally valid and-dare I say it-equally great subcultres within classical music producing wonderful music and superb performances and are loved by the audiences that they attract.

I propose that it's difficult to speak of 'greatness' where there are subcultures within classical music where the notion of 'greatness', especially in the sense of an oft-performed canon of repertoire, need not apply. When we apply the word 'great' to a piece of music and then speak of repertoire as being performed very often and being based around what people want to hear and are willing to pay money for, it's only appropriate to ask where the limitations are, where the supposed 'greatness' of a piece of music no longer actually fits, and _why._


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## Enthusiast

DaveM said:


> I'll never understand why some people have such a problem with the term 'greatest'. People use superlatives including the term 'greatest' all the time for all sorts of things: Greatest world leader, greatest explorer, greatest scientist, greatest artist. To read some here, you would think it was some sort of heresy to apply it to a composer.
> 
> So here's a thought: in the case of Beethoven, rather than 'greatest', why not consider the term 'unsurpassed' or 'unequaled' or the equivalent as I did above for individual works and then look at the total of these unsurpassed or unequaled works?
> 
> The Late Quartets (from the Wiki):
> _'These six works are Beethoven's last major completed compositions. Although dismissed by musicians and audiences of Beethoven's day, they are now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time,[1][2][3] and they have inspired many later composers.'_
> 
> The Violin Concerto:
> Does anyone know of a violin concerto more recorded? Is this not perhaps the most frequently played violin concerto by all the major orchestras? Perhaps it has been equaled, but can anyone convincing say it has been surpassed?
> 
> Archduke Piano Trio:
> When you do a search of the top piano trios, the Archduke is virtually always mentioned. You'll see quotes such as _'The most frequently performed of the Beethoven Trios are the D major trio Op. 70 "Ghost" and E-flat major trio Op. 97 "Archduke." Many admire the latter as the greatest piano trio of all time.'_
> 
> Symphonies:
> When you do a search of the all time top 10-20 symphonies, inevitably, one or more of the 6th, 7th or 9th are on the list.
> 
> Piano Concertos:
> Similar to the experience with the symphonies, when you do a search of the all time top 10-20 piano concertos, one or more of the 3rd, 4th or 5th will be on the list.


As you are not getting many takers for this particular game I will have a go at playing. I will also mostly avoid mentioning any music from the last 75 years as I know you don't greatly like the very modern. So, to start with, one reason I don't like the word greatest applied to one person is because I don't experience any composer as being greater than all the others. Then I could probably come up with a list of the ten greatest but I know that others would experience the field differently. Sometimes I feel sure I am right and that my greatest are not just "my favourites" but I have come to recognise that some music is truly great even though I don't actually like it that much.

Your list of (some of) Beethoven's greatest is a good enough list but of course there are other works in each category that seem to be as great (or even greater). So -

The late quartets - I do think Schubert wrote a couple that challenge them (especially if I'm allowed to include the Quintet) and then there is Bartok ... . But I am not too uncomfortable with the idea that Beethoven ruled the quartet world until fairly recently (he and Bartok seem to have inspired many more recent composers to some of their greatest work). I am more or less in agreement that Beethoven surpassed Mozart and Haydn in this genre but the greatness of what they did is not negligible!

The violin concerto - you have mentioned the Brahms (which _seems to me _a greater work, actually) but what about Bartok's 2nd or Berg's? And I don't think it is easy to ignore Bach in this field, either.

Piano trios - Beethoven wrote many but you only name his greatest (the Archduke) - there are the Schuberts for a start ... .

Symphonies - really there are too many that seem as great as Beethoven's astonishingly great symphonies. Brahms (obviously), Schubert (I rate The Great as very great!), Mozart (from 35 onwards at least) and Haydn (some of the London symphonies). It is hard to ignore Schumann, Dvorak, Stravinsky and others but their best are to me perhaps a little less great than Beethoven's.

Piano Concertos - too many by Mozart, Brahms, Schumann, Bartok ... at least.

If I had allowed myself to go further and deeper into more recent and less tonal works I would have had a good few more. And if we had looked at other forms (operas, piano sonatas - why didn't you mentioned them, BTW? - tone poems, sonatas for other instruments, ballets, cantatas, oratorios, etc. etc. etc.). Beethoven was among the greatest and seems to be your absolute favourite. I don't think it possible to go beyond that. Thank God we are blessed with riches!

Finally, your evidence is a measure of popularity which, as you know, does not correlate well with value.


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## Guest

DaveM said:


> I'll never understand why some people have such a problem with the term 'greatest'. People use superlatives including the term 'greatest' all the time for all sorts of things: Greatest world leader, greatest explorer, greatest scientist, greatest artist. To read some here, you would think it was some sort of heresy to apply it to a composer.


When I can find the time, I'll get on to other Forums and dispute the validity of the term as applied to world leaders, explorers, scientist etc.  I'm quite sure there is as much dispute there already. For example...

https://www.theguardian.com/artandd...og/2014/mar/21/the-10-greatest-works-art-ever


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## Dimace

Art Rock said:


> For me Haydn is one of those composers whom I always enjoy listening to, but who lack that bit of extra in any of his works that makes me want to hear it again soon. In terms of ranking, *not a top30 composer for me.* I have scores of Haydn CDs, but if they were wiped out tomorrow, I'd probably only buy back a handful (mainly the later string quartets and the London symphonies). This is of course purely based on my own taste.


I share this opinion too. (maybe he is in the top 30, but in the last 5 places) Of, course, as I have already written, he has composed some GREAT works. But these are very few in comparison with his life time work volume. (Beethoven, really switched off the lights for many composers before him. Without him, maybe Haydn had his place).


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## fluteman

MacLeod said:


> When I can find the time, I'll get on to other Forums and dispute the validity of the term as applied to world leaders, explorers, scientist etc.  I'm quite sure there is as much dispute there already. For example...
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/artandd...og/2014/mar/21/the-10-greatest-works-art-ever


Perhaps some dismissed my post above about tennis as silly. But I think the main reason spectator sports are so popular, and not just in our culture and our time, is that they free us from the ambiguities and gray areas of real life and give us true, unambiguous champions, i.e., the greatest, or at least, a convincing illusion of the greatest. If one peeks behind the curtain, or backstage, or in the clubhouse, or in the lawyers' and agents' offices and conference rooms, one may find that there is more illusion and less reality in sports than would be ideal. All art and entertainment present us with myths and illusions. But sports in particular give us the myth and illusion of the unambiguous, absolute greatest. Music does not.


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## vtpoet

Just to throw a wrench into all this, I personally would consider CPE Bach to be a greater composer than Haydn---if in limited respects. Haydn can't touch CPE's Keyboard Concertos or CPE's solo keyboard works. CPEs chamber music, with the exception of Haydn's String Quartets and later piano trios, exceeds Haydn's production. Haydn wrote far, far more symphonies than CPE, but none of them (allowing for the time in which they were written) exceed CPE's in originality or force.


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## SONNET CLV

vtpoet said:


> Just to throw a wrench into all this, I personally would consider CPE Bach to be a greater composer than Haydn---if in limited respects. Haydn can't touch CPE's Keyboard Concertos or CPE's solo keyboard works. CPEs chamber music, with the exception of Haydn's String Quartets and later piano trios, exceeds Haydn's production. Haydn wrote far, far more symphonies than CPE, but none of them (allowing for the time in which they were written) exceed CPE's in originality or force.


I'm not much for wrench throwing. I value my own hand tools and treat them with respect. But I also respect Haydn's work enough to posit that his final symphony, Symphony No. 104 in D major, outranks any of CPE's, in my opinion. As to "originality or force": how do we define or measure such determiners? I'll contend that "originality" seems, at least at first glance, more likely to fit to objective standards than does "force." Help me out here. What is "force" in terms of either a Haydn or a CPE Bach symphony? Or any piece of music? And, as I think more and more about "originality", I realize I do not want to be the one who necessarily lays down the definition of this.


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## DaveM

janxharris said:


> I fail to see why this is nothing more than an argumentum ad populum DaveM:
> 
> "they are now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time...more recorded...Many admire the latter as the greatest...a search of the all time top 10-20 symphonies..."
> 
> I would put Beethoven in my top five but that remains just my subjective opinion - you _seem _to be attempting to impose your view as objective truth.


I presented a number of quotes, facts and I asked questions that you or anyone else can respond to and took considerable time to make a case from a point of view different than has been used before. Since when is that an attempt to impose one's view. Instead of dismissing something that took considerable time and thought, you could have at least responded to some of the points I was making rather than the pithy 'argumentum ad populum' comment.

And by the way, '_"they are now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time'_ is a statement of compositional quality compared to others and thus, not an 'argumentum ad populum'.


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## Becca

"they are now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time" is not a statement of compositional quality, not can it be as *there are no quantifiable criteria* other than the opinion of many (not all!) of those who know and value western European art music. It is also one more example of how we are taking the works of a subset of the population from a relatively small period of time and somehow extrapolating the opinions to "all time."


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## Guest

fluteman said:


> Perhaps some dismissed my post above about tennis as silly. But I think the main reason spectator sports are so popular, and not just in our culture and our time, is that they free us from the ambiguities and gray areas of real life and give us true, unambiguous champions, i.e., the greatest, or at least, a convincing illusion of the greatest. If one peeks behind the curtain, or backstage, or in the clubhouse, or in the lawyers' and agents' offices and conference rooms, one may find that there is more illusion and less reality in sports than would be ideal. All art and entertainment present us with myths and illusions. But sports in particular give us the myth and illusion of the unambiguous, absolute greatest. Music does not.


Nor does sport. Which footballer is/was the greatest? There is as much argument - and some consensus - about the contenders for that crown as there are for music. The illusion is that there can be an agreed set of valid criteria on which to base a judgement, in both fields...and in the others (politicians, scientists, explorers...)


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## DaveM

Becca said:


> "they are now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time" is not a statement of compositional quality, not can it be as *there are no quantifiable criteria* other than the opinion of many (not all!) of those who know and value western European art music. It is also one more example of how we are taking the works of a subset of the population from a relatively small period of time and somehow extrapolating the opinions to "all time."


As hard as it seems for you and others to believe, there are humans who have accomplished things that nobody else has. The composition of classical music requires skills that some have and some haven't which means that it is not impossible that someone has excelled at it better than anyone else.

Your premise that there is no quantifiable criteria with which to distinguish the quality of the works of one composer over another and the dismissal of the importance of opinions on the subject by experts and longtime listeners will come as a surprise to musicologists and those listeners.

And what does the subset of the population from a relatively small period of time have to do with anything? We're talking about classical music which has been prevalent in a subset of the population during a relatively short period of time relative to the existence of modern man. What does that have to do with the premise that someone may have done an overall better job at it than anyone else?


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## Becca

As hard as it seems for you to believe, nobody has denied that there are composers who have excelled at it and deserve to be considered as exceptional. That, however, is a totally different thing from saying that one person is undeniably greater than anyone else.

As to your second paragraph, show me where anyone has established a list of compositional criteria which can be objectively measured and, therefore, quantified, and I will retract my statement, meanwhile your experts and longtime listeners are only expressing an opinion. For each of your experts with one opinion, there will be others with contrary opinions, all equally valid.

On the third paragraph, apparently you missed the part about "of all time." Once again, "the premise that someone may have done an overall better job at it than anyone else" is a subjective opinion. You do understand the difference between opinion and immutable fact?


----------



## DaveM

Enthusiast said:


> As you are not getting many takers for this particular game I will have a go at playing. I will also mostly avoid mentioning any music from the last 75 years as I know you don't greatly like the very modern. So, to start with, one reason I don't like the word greatest applied to one person is because I don't experience any composer as being greater than all the others. Then I could probably come up with a list of the ten greatest but I know that others would experience the field differently. Sometimes I feel sure I am right and that my greatest are not just "my favourites" but I have come to recognise that some music is truly great even though I don't actually like it that much.
> 
> Your list of (some of) Beethoven's greatest is a good enough list but of course there are other works in each category that seem to be as great (or even greater). So -
> 
> The late quartets - I do think Schubert wrote a couple that challenge them (especially if I'm allowed to include the Quintet) and then there is Bartok ... . But I am not too uncomfortable with the idea that Beethoven ruled the quartet world until fairly recently (he and Bartok seem to have inspired many more recent composers to some of their greatest work). I am more or less in agreement that Beethoven surpassed Mozart and Haydn in this genre but the greatness of what they did is not negligible!
> 
> The violin concerto - you have mentioned the Brahms (which _seems to me _a greater work, actually) but what about Bartok's 2nd or Berg's? And I don't think it is easy to ignore Bach in this field, either.
> 
> Piano trios - Beethoven wrote many but you only name his greatest (the Archduke) - there are the Schuberts for a start ... .
> 
> Symphonies - really there are too many that seem as great as Beethoven's astonishingly great symphonies. Brahms (obviously), Schubert (I rate The Great as very great!), Mozart (from 35 onwards at least) and Haydn (some of the London symphonies). It is hard to ignore Schumann, Dvorak, Stravinsky and others but their best are to me perhaps a little less great than Beethoven's.
> 
> Piano Concertos - too many by Mozart, Brahms, Schumann, Bartok ... at least.
> 
> If I had allowed myself to go further and deeper into more recent and less tonal works I would have had a good few more. And if we had looked at other forms (operas, piano sonatas - why didn't you mentioned them, BTW? - tone poems, sonatas for other instruments, ballets, cantatas, oratorios, etc. etc. etc.). Beethoven was among the greatest and seems to be your absolute favourite. I don't think it possible to go beyond that. Thank God we are blessed with riches!
> 
> Finally, your evidence is a measure of popularity which, as you know, does not correlate well with value.


While I appreciate your responding at length, you apparently missed my main point:



DaveM said:


> ...So people can reject the concept of the greatest composer, but when you have the number of works by Beethoven in almost all categories that are perhaps equaled, but rarely surpassed by other composers who even then are only able to 'compete' in only a few of those categories, then IMO, it's hard to escape applying the label of 'greatest' to Beethoven.


So yes, in a given category you can come up with a work that might have been matched or arguably surpassed by another composer (I too go back and forth as to whether the Brahms VC is better), but is there any single composer who matched LvB in all or most categories. I don't know of any.

As to my evidence being a 'measure of popularity', that is just another version of 'everything is subjective'. Can anybody deny that classical music composition is a skill? And if it is, then isn't it likely that some are more skilled at it than others. Is it then not possible that someone is at or near the top in being skilled at it?

At least you agreed that Beethoven was 'among the greatest'. Perhaps I'll settle for that given the fact that a number here reject any concept of 'greatest'. Btw, as I tried to emphasize in my post, this is not about LvB being my favorite. These days I have many favorite works not by him, lately the Bruckner symphonies. My support for LvB perhaps being the greatest is based on objective information. And I will continue to be dismayed at those who don't think the latter exists.


----------



## Janspe

DaveM said:


> So yes, in a given category you can come up with a work that might have been matched or arguably surpassed by another composer (I too go back and forth as to whether the Brahms VC is better), but is there any single composer who matched LvB in all or most categories. I don't know of any.


I find it interesting that you choose the genres that Beethoven happened to compose in to be the framework in which the comparison to all other composers is made. What if I chose some other composer and imposed their preferred genres into the evaluation of Beethoven? Nocturnes, études, ballades, waltzes, polonaises, preludes .. aha! Chopin is the greater composer since Beethoven didn't surpass him in those genres!

I love Beethoven to bits, he really is one of my favourite composers, but there are a lot of genres in which I consider other composers to be of more significance. I'd choose the Mozart piano concerti any day of the week over Beethoven's, for example. Obviously there's the quantity question, but it works both ways. Had Chopin written 32 piano sonatas I wouldn't be sure at all if I'd obviously choose Beethoven's, and if Bartók or Schoenberg had written 16 string quartes... I dare not even to think, such a mouth-watering prospect! Just because someone wrote _more_ of good stuff doesn't mean that they are automatically greater, in my opinion. To me, Webern, Berg and Dutilleux are composers of supreme genius and they are at the very top tier of my "hall-of-fame" - even if their outputs are _tiny_ in comparison to many other composers.

For me, Beethoven is one of the greatest but not in any way _the_ greatest. Top tier, among many others. I think the better way to think about these things is to observe the total output of a composer, and experience the impact of their artistic work as a whole.


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## DaveM

Becca said:


> As hard as it seems for you to believe, nobody has denied that there are composers who have excelled at it and deserve to be considered as exceptional. That, however, is a totally different thing from saying that one person is undeniably greater than anyone else.


I've never used the word 'undeniably'. I have put forth an argument that Beethoven more likely deserves the title of greatest given that the OP suggested that Haydn might have that title. Instead of responding to the points that I made, you and others dismissed it with the catch-all subjectivity response.



> As to your second paragraph, show me where anyone has established a list of compositional criteria which can be objectively measured and, therefore, quantified, and I will retract my statement, meanwhile your experts and longtime listeners are only expressing an opinion. For each of your experts with one opinion, there will be others with contrary opinions, all equally valid.


Okay, so musicology as an _'academic subject, the scholarly research into music'_ after all these years has no criteria with which to compare compositional skill. And no I'm not going to spend my time researching something that you'll blow off anyway. Perhaps you might prove to me that no criteria exist. As to expert opinions: they are not all equally valid. Whatever gave you the idea that they were? Some experts are not more expert than others?



> On the third paragraph, apparently you missed the part about "of all time." Once again, "the premise that someone may have done an overall better job at it than anyone else" is a subjective opinion. You do understand the difference between opinion and immutable fact?


The 'of all time' was a quote from someone else provided to show that there are those who apparently think so. Finally, you do understand that there are facts that are more objective than opinion and I provided some of them even though apparently you choose not to decipher the difference?


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## KenOC

DaveM said:


> As hard as it seems for you and others to believe, there are humans who have accomplished things that nobody else has. The composition of classical music requires skills that some have and some haven't which means that it is not impossible that someone has excelled at it better than anyone else...


Speaking of that long era when musical values were determined not by the church or established nobility but by the upper and middle commercial classes - an era from which we are, for better or worse, now emerging - the title of "greatest composer" belongs easily to Ludwig van Beethoven. Over a span of just a decade he created the center of the musical cannon that remains our beloved property today, over two hundred years later. And then he spent the rest of his live blazing paths that inspire awe but that no subsequent composer could hope to follow.

A subjective opinion perhaps, but there's little evidence that can be marshaled to deny its status as objective fact.


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## DaveM

Janspe said:


> I find it interesting that you choose the genres that Beethoven happened to compose in to be the framework in which the comparison to all other composers is made. What if I chose some other composer and imposed their preferred genres into the evaluation of Beethoven? Nocturnes, études, ballades, waltzes, polonaises, preludes .. aha! Chopin is the greater composer since Beethoven didn't surpass him in those genres!


Those are not the major genres of classical music (which is what I chose). They fall under the category of solo piano works other than sonatas.


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## Becca

Quantifiable, measurable, not subject to personal opinion, something that, given the criteria, anyone can measure and get the same result. 
Now tell me, who is apparently choosing to not decipher the difference?


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## hammeredklavier

vtpoet said:


> Just to throw a wrench into all this, I personally would consider CPE Bach to be a greater composer than Haydn---if in limited respects. Haydn can't touch CPE's Keyboard Concertos or CPE's solo keyboard works. CPEs chamber music, with the exception of Haydn's String Quartets and later piano trios, exceeds Haydn's production. Haydn wrote far, far more symphonies than CPE, but none of them (allowing for the time in which they were written) exceed CPE's in originality or force.


I agree with you that Carl Phillipp Emmanuel's concertos are underrated, he has some magnificent moments in them. I've listened to some of Quantz flute concertos as well, but Emmanuel's are one of a kind. {btw, in addressing your another comment - I think Johann Adolph Hasse (1699~1783) is another 18th century composer whose vocal works deserve more attention, and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice is a fine work as well.}
But at times Emmanuel is too focused, leans too much into that kind of aesthetics, (I'm not sure how to put it properly), he sometimes feels like "Tchiakovsky of the 18th century" to me.
To be honest, I'm not totally impressed by his transitions or structuring of sections or layout of movements.

I find that there's certain "awkwardness" in this piece leading from the end of the Allegro to the beginning of the slow movement:

[ 2:30 ~ 2:50 ]










I also once wrote that: [ _"CPE Bach's Magnificat contains wonderful music, but there's a massive fugue (that's obviously modeled after his father's) included so that:
[movement A] - [main body] - [movement A modified] - [fugue].
The whole structure feels rather "awkward" to me.
It feels like either the [fugue] or [movement A modified] could be removed and the whole structure could still work perfectly fine. I appreciate CPE Bach's WQ67 Fantasie for the improvisatory nature but not the sense of structure and transition, (unlike Mozart K475). Although I keep emphasizing I admire him, I don't think he had what it takes to be good at large-scale stuff like opera."_ ]

I think you're underestimating Haydn's uniqueness and variety in symphonies. Emmanuel did not write anything like Haydn's La Passione, for example. (Not even Mozart, Beethoven did)


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## vtpoet

SONNET CLV said:


> I'm not much for wrench throwing. I value my own hand tools and treat them with respect.


Meh. If you haven't thrown a wrench, then you probably don't use tools for a living.



SONNET CLV said:


> But I also respect Haydn's work enough to posit that his final symphony, Symphony No. 104 in D major, outranks any of CPE's, in my opinion.


I understand why you'd say that, but it's like comparing Beethoven's last symphony to Haydn's. For it's time, CPE Bach's best symphonies were in a league of their own, like Haydn's. "Originality" can be measured and determined by music theory, by comparing the thematic and harmonic originality of a given piece to others of its time. As for force... I personally would define that as a composer's willingness to step outside the norms of his own day. I personally find CPE and Beethoven to be the most striking in that regard.


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## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> ...But at times Emmanuel is too focused, leans too much into that kind of aesthetics, (I'm not sure how to put it properly), he sometimes feels like "Tchiakovsky of the 18th century" to me.
> To be honest, I'm not totally impressed by his transitions and structuring of sections or layout of movements.


Yeah, when I first started listening to CPE I had the same impression, but you and I and Haydn have/had the advantage of Sonata Form. CPE Bach didn't. He was actively developing new formal structures inherited from the Baroque. And his expressive medium didn't always sit easily in those structures.

But I have to be careful here. I don't want to be disputing every opinion that elevates Haydn over CPE. 

If I had to choose between Haydn's Symphonies or CPE's, then I would choose Haydn's for my desert island. That said, I would also choose Haydn's over Mozart's. Though Mozart's last three symphonies are unmatched by Haydn, Haydn's total output is more interesting than Mozart's.


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## fluteman

MacLeod said:


> Nor does sport. Which footballer is/was the greatest? There is as much argument - and some consensus - about the contenders for that crown as there are for music. The illusion is that there can be an agreed set of valid criteria on which to base a judgement, in both fields...and in the others (politicians, scientists, explorers...)


Yes, the "greatest" is an illusion in sport, but the main purpose of sport is to entertain us with that very illusion. In football, (I assume you mean the European kind), one team wins, another loses. Each year one team, and one team only, wins the Premier League, the Champions League, and every four years, the World Cup. That team is the greatest team that year. Or that is the illusion created for us. In individual sports like tennis or boxing, an individual is regularly crowned the greatest single athlete of that sport.

I used to think that the main myth or illusion of spectator sport was the myth of Hercules or Superman, i.e., the myth of the athlete with astounding superhuman strength, speed and athletic abilities. I still think that matters for many sports, but it isn't the main thing, otherwise there wouldn't be televised poker tournaments. No, it is the myth of the victor, the champion, the greatest, that is the main thing spectator sport gives us, filling what is obviously a basic human need.

Art is an entirely different thing, and serves very different human needs.


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## DaveM

KenOC said:


> Speaking of that long era when musical values were determined not by the church or established nobility but by the upper and middle commercial classes - an era from which we are, for better or worse, now emerging - the title of "greatest composer" belongs easily to Ludwig van Beethoven. Over a span of just a decade he created the center of the musical cannon that remains our beloved property today, over two hundred years later. And then he spent the rest of his live blazing paths that inspire awe but that no subsequent composer could hope to follow.
> 
> A subjective opinion perhaps, but there's little evidence that can be marshaled to deny its status as objective fact.


And yet, the premise of objective fact on the subject seems to be an impossibility to a number here. I had to read your post twice to be sure I was reading it correctly, wondering if there was yet another zinger in there. And there wasn't.

You have put it so eloquently that it looks as if it has escaped everybody's attention or understanding...so far. Good work.


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## hammeredklavier

KenOC said:


> the musical cannon


Tchaikovsky wrote better for the musical cannon:


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## DaveM

hammeredklavier said:


> Tchaikovsky wrote better for the musical cannon:


I think Beethoven had the better cannon and I do mean 'cannon'.


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## janxharris

KenOC said:


> Speaking of that long era when musical values were determined not by the church or established nobility but by the upper and middle commercial classes - an era from which we are, for better or worse, now emerging - the title of "greatest composer" belongs easily to Ludwig van Beethoven. Over a span of just a decade he created the center of the musical cannon that remains our beloved property today, over two hundred years later. And then he spent the rest of his live blazing paths that inspire awe but that no subsequent composer could hope to follow.
> 
> A subjective opinion perhaps, but there's little evidence that can be marshaled to deny its status as objective fact.


I don't see any objective evidence here that would substantiate your claim - but, yes, that Beethoven has remained _*popular *_for 200 plus years isn't deniable.

Again, for me, he is in my top five or even three - but why the need to elevate one's opinion KenOC?


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## Guest

DaveM said:


> Those are not the major genres of classical music (which is what I chose). They fall under the category of solo piano works other than sonatas.


Tradition and convention may have established what the "major genres" are, but tradition and convention are not immutable laws.



fluteman said:


> Yes, the "greatest" is an illusion in sport, but the main purpose of sport is to entertain us with that very illusion. In football, (I assume you mean the European kind), one team wins, another loses. Each year one team, and one team only, wins the Premier League, the Champions League, and every four years, the World Cup. That team is the greatest team that year. Or that is the illusion created for us. In individual sports like tennis or boxing, an individual is regularly crowned the greatest single athlete of that sport.
> 
> I used to think that the main myth or illusion of spectator sport was the myth of Hercules or Superman, i.e., the myth of the athlete with astounding superhuman strength, speed and athletic abilities. I still think that matters for many sports, but it isn't the main thing, otherwise there wouldn't be televised poker tournaments. No, it is the myth of the victor, the champion, the greatest, that is the main thing spectator sport gives us, filling what is obviously a basic human need.
> 
> Art is an entirely different thing, and serves very different human needs.


First, sport entertains people in very different ways...as does art. Art is not _entirely _different from sport. Second, sport is not all about the illusion of being the greatest. Elite sport, perhaps, but for those of us who have supported a football team from the lower leagues for the past 50 years, there's something else going on besides winning. One of these is belonging to a tribe.

Perhaps you'd not noticed the tribalism in music? 



KenOC said:


> Speaking of that long era when musical values were determined not by the church or established nobility but by the upper and middle commercial classes - an era from which we are, for better or worse, now emerging - the title of "greatest composer" belongs easily to Ludwig van Beethoven. Over a span of just a decade he created the center of the musical cannon that remains our beloved property today, over two hundred years later. And then he spent the rest of his live blazing paths that inspire awe but that no subsequent composer could hope to follow.
> 
> A subjective opinion perhaps, but there's little evidence that can be marshaled to deny its status as objective fact.


So you too acknowledge that musical values are not immutable laws, but determined by one group's pre-eminence in authority? The title "bestowed" on Beethoven is still just a title bestowed by opinion, not by objective fact.

As for "little evidence", none needs to be marshalled against what is just rhetoric:

"Blazing paths"
"Beloved property"
"inspire awe"


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## DaveM

MacLeod said:


> Tradition and convention may have established what the "major genres" are, but tradition and convention are not immutable laws.


I'm not sure what the point of mentioning the above is. Anyway, did someone change the "major genres" of symphonies, concertos, sonatas etc. and not notify me? And if they have changed without my knowing, has it resulted in a whole new set of genres ushering in a new prosperous era of classical music?

Theoretically (since I've never heard this stated before as a truism) tradition and convention may not be immutable laws, but they apparently have had amazing staying power in the case of classical music. Of course, any comments I have been making refer to the 250+ years these genres have been prevalent and not the more recent descent into random non-genre works masquerading as CM.


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## Guest

DaveM said:


> I'm not sure what the point of mentioning the above is.


I was responding to your post that mentioned them first.



DaveM said:


> Those are not the major genres of classical music (which is what I chose). They fall under the category of solo piano works other than sonatas.


I inferred that you were pointing out to janspe that no composer can claim to be "the greatest" unless they composed works in major genres. If my inference was wrong, please put me right.



DaveM said:


> Anyway, did someone change the "major genres" of symphonies, concertos, sonatas etc. and not notify me? And if they have changed without my knowing, has it resulted in a whole new set of genres ushering in a new prosperous era of classical music?


Not to my knowledge, no, though many modern pieces do not conform to any of the established forms. But then, even the established genres such as the symphony have not remained unchanged over the years.



DaveM said:


> Theoretically (since I've never heard this stated before as a truism) tradition and convention may not be immutable laws, but they apparently have had amazing staying power in the case of classical music.


I was of course referring to KenOCs suggestion that first the Church and nobility, then the upper and middle classes determined what counted as legitimate music - it was their conventions which were accepted as "authority", but he clearly agrees that such authority has changed. In other words, those traditions and conventions are not immutable.

The claim that Beethoven (or anyone else for that matter) is the greatest composer can only be shown with reference to his works, and not with reference to the authorities that simply bestow a title. Neither you nor Ken have made any clinching arguments of this type.


----------



## DaveM

MacLeod said:


> The claim that Beethoven (or anyone else for that matter) is the greatest composer can only be shown with reference to his works, and not with reference to the authorities that simply bestow a title. Neither you nor Ken have made any clinching arguments of this type.


Practically every post I've made on the subject has referenced his works, every which way, forwards, backwards, right side up, upside down and from every conceivable viewpoint. Too many people here have already decided on their responses before carefully reading the posts they're responding to.

Still, assuming the authorities you're talking about are educated on the subject, their opinions on the matter do have value unless you think education is useless. My experience is that 'authorities' don't just bestow titles in a vacuum.


----------



## Guest

DaveM said:


> Practically every post I've made on the subject has referenced his works, every which way, forwards, backwards, right side up, upside down and from every conceivable viewpoint. Too many people here have already decided on their responses before carefully reading the posts they're responding to.
> 
> Still, assuming the authorities you're talking about are educated on the subject, their opinions on the matter do have value unless you think education is useless.


Ask Ken - he's the authority on these authorities. It's not me talking about them.


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## DaveM

MacLeod said:


> Ask Ken - he's the authority on these authorities. It's not me talking about them.


Don't mess with Ken. For the moment, I consider him an expert on the subject.


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## Guest

DaveM said:


> Don't mess with Ken. For the moment, I consider him an expert on the subject.


Just as long as he doesn't mess with me!


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## Enthusiast

DaveM said:


> So yes, in a given category you can come up with a work that might have been matched or arguably surpassed by another composer (I too go back and forth as to whether the Brahms VC is better), but is there any single composer who matched LvB in all or most categories. I don't know of any.


But that is part of the point. The genres you use were selected to demonstrate the preeminence of Beethoven! Your categories never really dominated the field except during the Classical period so you automatically exclude Baroque music and everything that came before as well as several very great Romantic composers and most who came after them. As we know, the forms that music was written in diversified widely during the Romantic and at the same time composers tended to become more specialised - but surely you would not want to say that this meant they became less great as a result?

Even then I think Mozart, Haydn, Brahms and Schubert can give your Beethoven works a run for your money in the forms you list and if you chose to include oratorios, masses and operas Beethoven might even sink down the list (despite the greatness of Fidelio and the Missa Solemnis)!



DaveM said:


> As to my evidence being a 'measure of popularity', that is just another version of 'everything is subjective'. Can anybody deny that classical music composition is a skill? And if it is, then isn't it likely that some are more skilled at it than others. Is it then not possible that someone is at or near the top in being skilled at it?
> 
> At least you agreed that Beethoven was 'among the greatest'. Perhaps I'll settle for that given the fact that a number here reject any concept of 'greatest'. Btw, as I tried to emphasize in my post, this is not about LvB being my favorite. These days I have many favorite works not by him, lately the Bruckner symphonies. My support for LvB perhaps being the greatest is based on objective information. And I will continue to be dismayed at those who don't think the latter exists.


The only reason popularity seems to work for your purpose is that, say, Beyonce would not come up if you googled "greatest symphony" or "greatest piano trio". But even then do Beethoven's symphonies really trump Mahler's or Brahms's? If a quick google says they do then that merely illustrates how popularity gives unreliable results when measuring greatness (or maybe Google is choosing works for you that fit with your internet history?).

Yes, I feel sure that there are a group of composers (perhaps four or five) who I would lump together as the greatest and another group (larger but still leaving out many who I enjoy greatly) who I would call very great. I don't call those categories subjective because their content would not be a perfect match for my own preferences. I believe I am recognising something objective rather than my own preference and I do think experienced listeners can recognise (seemingly objective) greatness when they get to know it. But I am not sure I am equipped to describe how this is done or to even begin to define what greatness is. I suspect that there is a critical consensus about greatness among experts, though. And, BTW, I also think the experts do sometimes get it wrong ... even if far more often I think they get it right.


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## fluteman

MacLeod said:


> First, sport entertains people in very different ways...as does art. Art is not _entirely _different from sport. Second, sport is not all about the illusion of being the greatest. Elite sport, perhaps, but for those of us who have supported a football team from the lower leagues for the past 50 years, there's something else going on besides winning. One of these is belonging to a tribe.
> 
> Perhaps you'd not noticed the tribalism in music?


Popular music, yes. Classical music, no. And you may have found the best way to describe the difference.


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## hammeredklavier

DaveM said:


> As to my evidence being a 'measure of popularity', that is just another version of 'everything is subjective'. Can anybody deny that classical music composition is a skill? And if it is, then isn't it likely that some are more skilled at it than others. Is it then not possible that someone is at or near the top in being skilled at it?
> 
> At least you agreed that Beethoven was 'among the greatest'. Perhaps I'll settle for that given the fact that a number here reject any concept of 'greatest'. Btw, as I tried to emphasize in my post, this is not about LvB being my favorite. These days I have many favorite works not by him, lately the Bruckner symphonies. My support for LvB perhaps being the greatest is based on *objective information.* And I will continue to be dismayed at those who don't think the latter exists.


Here's some "objective information" about Beethoven :lol::lol::lol:






_"He was not a great melodist. What he was interested in was seeds, motives, things out of which he could breed melodies. This is one of the most unremarkable melodies ever written, but the most famous, but you couldn't call it a melody, could you? [Plays main 7th theme.] So far, what have we got? One note. There's no aspect of Beethoven in which you can say: Beethoven is great, as a melodist, a harmonist, contrapuntist, a tone painter, his orchestration. You'll find fault with all of them. If you take any one of these elements, separately, you find nobody. There's nothing there. He spent his whole life trying to write a good fugue. And he himself admitted he never succeeded. And as far as his orchestration is concerned, you could have it. I mean, it is bad, it has trumpets sticking out, the same not drowning everybody else."_


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## EdwardBast

hammeredklavier said:


> I find that there's certain "awkwardness" in this piece leading from the end of the Allegro to the beginning of the slow movement:
> 
> [ 2:30 ~ 2:50 ]


Whooosh! (That's the sound of CPE Bach's musical thought sailing over your head.) Had you looked at a score or known the symphony before you decided to critique it, you might have realized that the low B-flat beginning the slow movement is supposed to follow without pause from the last note of the Allegro. The only awkwardness in your example is the decision by the performers to insert an unauthorized pause and in your decision to quote a performance that gets it so wrong. The transition, or, more correctly, the lack thereof, is genius. The whole point is to cut off the upbeat, forceful Allegro with a sudden, grim stroke. Moreover, if you read the bass line at the beginning of the slow movement, you might notice that that B-flat is the initial of a musical monogram - Bb-A-C-B, that is, in German nomenclature, B-A-C-H. This recurring figure makes the movement's bleak expression deeply personal and the fatal stroke that cuts off the Allegro uniquely dark and moving.


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## DaveM

Enthusiast said:


> The only reason popularity seems to work for your purpose is that, say, Beyonce would not come up if you googled "greatest symphony" or "greatest piano trio". But even then do Beethoven's symphonies really trump Mahler's or Brahms's? If a quick google says they do then that merely illustrates how popularity gives unreliable results when measuring greatness (or maybe Google is choosing works for you that fit with your internet history?).
> 
> _*Yes, I feel sure that there are a group of composers (perhaps four or five) who I would lump together as the greatest and another group (larger but still leaving out many who I enjoy greatly) who I would call very great. I don't call those categories subjective because their content would not be a perfect match for my own preferences. I believe I am recognising something objective rather than my own preference and I do think experienced listeners can recognise (seemingly objective) greatness when they get to know it. But I am not sure I am equipped to describe how this is done or to even begin to define what greatness is. I suspect that there is a critical consensus about greatness among experts, though. And, BTW, I also think the experts do sometimes get it wrong ... even if far more often I think they get it right.*_


So in short, you know how to create an objective list of the greatest and the very great because your parameters don't necessarily match your preferences and I don't. Well aren't you special!

In my main post, I used the major categories of traditional classical music and examples by LvB that are often the most mentioned with superlatives in those categories. My preferences had nothing to do with it. You can tear down my method all you want, but that doesn't make the method you use to create your categories superior. I used objectivity just as much as you did..

In any event, it's interesting that you admit that it is possible to create an objective list of the greatest and/or the very great and that experts are far more often right than wrong when it comes to a critical consensus about greatness. But particularly you agree that '_I do think experienced listeners can recognise (seemingly objective) greatness when they get to know it.'_

You wrote so much that was good above. Why the need to do it at my expense?


----------



## Guest

Enthusiast said:


> I don't call those categories subjective because their content would not be a perfect match for my own preferences. I believe I am recognising something objective rather than my own preference and I do think experienced listeners can recognise (seemingly objective) greatness when they get to know it.


If I'm reading this right, what you're suggesting is that if it's not your own opinion, but someone else's, then it confers some kind of objectivity.

The point about objectivity is it's nobody's opinion.


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## Guest

hammeredklavier said:


> Here's some "objective information" about Beethoven :lol::lol::lol:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _"There's no aspect of Beethoven in which you can say: Beethoven is great, as a melodist, a harmonist, contrapuntist, a tone painter, his orchestration. You'll find fault with all of them."_


How, then, did he end up top of the latest TC poll???

I'll take my ears over Bernstein's 'facts' anyday.


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## Janspe

Enthusiast said:


> But that is part of the point. The genres you use were selected to demonstrate the preeminence of Beethoven! Your categories never really dominated the field except during the Classical period so you automatically exclude Baroque music and everything that came before as well as several very great Romantic composers and most who came after them. As we know, the forms that music was written in diversified widely during the Romantic and at the same time composers tended to become more specialised - but surely you would not want to say that this meant they became less great as a result?


Amen to this - something I sort of tried to express in my earlier post but was apparently unable to do so. Thank you!


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## AeolianStrains

SONNET CLV said:


> Well, it is true that nobody wrote Haydn's music better than Haydn himself. But then again, nobody wrote _________'s music better than did _________ himself.


Beethoven did Diabelli better than the latter did himself.


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## KenOC

MacLeod said:


> How, then, did he end up top of the latest TC poll???
> 
> I'll take my ears over Bernstein's 'facts' anyday.


Bernstein liked to have his fun. But in a more serious vein, he spoke of Beethoven's music this way: "It has a purity and directness of communication that never becomes banal. It is accessible without being ordinary. This is the magic that no amount of talk can explain."

And this: "Many, many composers have been able to write heavenly tunes and respectable fugues. Some composers can orchestrate the C-major scale so that it sounds like a masterpiece, or fool with notes so that a harmonic novelty is achieved. But this is all mere dust- nothing compared to the magic ingredient sought by them all: _the inexplicable ability to know what the next note has to be_. Beethoven had this gift in a degree that leaves them all panting in the rear guard."

And this: "Rightness- that's the word! When you get the feeling that whatever note succeeds that last is is the only possible note that can rightly happen at that instant, in that context, then chances are you're listening to Beethoven. Melodies, fugues, rhythms- leave them to the Chaikovskys and the Hindemiths and Ravels. Our boy has the real goods, the stuff from Heaven, the power to make you feel at the finish: _Something is right in the world. There is something that checks throughout, that follows its own law consistently: something we can trust, that will never let us down_."


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## Bigbang

I looked up CPE Bach works on Hoopla/Freegal to see what free streaming is available. Very little to be exact and Haydn works are very well represented where I can sample/play virtually any of his output. This has to be driven by demand and same goes for Beethoven and other composers. No matter how well a composer is praised if his work is not "out" there for public consumption then it will be hard to determine the merits of one vs the other. I only know of CPE Bach by radio...now I could use Youtube and hear some of his works but I cannot get anywhere close to hearing CPE Bach compared to Haydn. Of course I could buy Cds but I have limits now to purchase only what I come across and CPE Bach is very rare as the public does not know about him as the more well known composers.


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## KenOC

MacLeod said:


> As for "little evidence", none needs to be marshalled against what is just rhetoric:
> 
> "Blazing paths"
> "Beloved property"
> "inspire awe"


If one can listen to great music without passion being aroused, one might as well spend one's days listening to the clacking of sewing machines or, perhaps, the endless circumlocutions of Bach fugues.

Now 'scuse me while I spin up the "Wedge."


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> If one can listen to great music without passion being aroused, one might as well spend one's days listening to the clacking of sewing machines or, perhaps, the endless circumlocutions of Bach fugues.
> 
> Now 'scuse me while I spin up the "Wedge."


Passion being aroused is dependent on the audience response. So, how good is his work when we know of many not moved?


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## soni

If this is true, then how is it that listening to Beethoven does not arouse passion in me? Surely this is bordering into the realms of subjectivity. My thinking is that the greatness of a classical composition should be measured mainly on its construction, lest we run the risk of labelling Philip Glass as a "great composer".

EDIT: sorry MacLeod, you got in just before me


----------



## hammeredklavier

KenOC said:


> one might as well spend one's days listening to the clacking of sewing machines or, perhaps, the endless circumlocutions of Bach fugues.
> 
> Now 'scuse me while I spin up the "Wedge."


or might as well spend one's days listening to the clacking of banging/beeping machines or, perhaps, the endless circumlocutions of Beethoven's "gross" fugues.

Now 'scuse me while I spin up the "Hammers." 






(sorry, I'm just enjoying being sarcastic in this thread :lol


----------



## DaveM

soni said:


> If this is true, then how is it that listening to Beethoven does not arouse passion in me? Surely this is bordering into the realms of subjectivity. My thinking is that the greatness of a classical composition should be measured mainly on its construction...


Interesting reasoning: An artist isn't great unless adored by everybody.


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## Lilijana

DaveM said:


> Interesting reasoning. An artist isn't great unless adored by everybody.


that means no artist is great. It's impossible for anyone to be universally adored.


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## DaveM

composer jess said:


> that means no artist is great. It's impossible for anyone to be universally adored.


You missed the point completely. (I was being facetious.)


----------



## violadude

This thread is exactly why I think of musical greatness and ranking in terms of tier groups rather than one to one comparisons


----------



## EdwardBast

Bigbang said:


> I looked up CPE Bach works on Hoopla/Freegal to see what free streaming is available. Very little to be exact and Haydn works are very well represented where I can sample/play virtually any of his output. This has to be driven by demand and same goes for Beethoven and other composers. No matter how well a composer is praised if his work is not "out" there for public consumption then it will be hard to determine the merits of one vs the other. I only know of CPE Bach by radio...now I could use Youtube and hear some of his works but I cannot get anywhere close to hearing CPE Bach compared to Haydn. Of course I could buy Cds but I have limits now to purchase only what I come across and CPE Bach is very rare as the public does not know about him as the more well known composers.


If you can't find the works of CPE Bach on youtube you aren't trying very hard. In addition, his complete symphonies, concertos and sonatas are readily available on CD.


----------



## fluteman

MacLeod said:


> If I'm reading this right, what you're suggesting is that if it's not your own opinion, but someone else's, then it confers some kind of objectivity.
> 
> The point about objectivity is it's nobody's opinion.


Yet, in an earlier thread, when I and a very few others attempted to introduce some objectivity into this "greatest" debate, admittedly in a somewhat crude and simplistic way, especially in my case (Whaddaya want? This is just an online chat group), it floated like a lead balloon. It's funny how some people argue endlessly that their idea of "the greatest" is so much more than mere subjective opinion, but when presented with methods and criteria which, though admittedly imperfect, are truly objective, they have no interest.


----------



## KenOC

EdwardBast said:


> If you can't find the works of CPE Bach on youtube you aren't trying very hard. In addition, his complete symphonies, concertos and sonatas are readily available on CD.


CPE Bach has always seemed to me the third most enjoyable composer in the 18th century following the times of Bach and Handel. In his day (and later) he was known as both a composer and an innovator of keyboard technique. But he doesn't seem to have stayed in fashion.

Here's an excerpt from a 1799 review of some early Beethoven piano sonatas: "The emotional basis has some similarity to the character expressed in Phil. Em. Bach's works, if one disregards the peculiar mannerisms of the day-which means evading Bach's chopped style to a great degree."

And from an 1802 review of the Moonlight Sonata (not then so named of course): "B. understands the piano like hardly any other composer for the instrument, and understands how to handle the actual piano as well as Ph. Em. Bach did."

Beethoven himself writing in 1809: "Of Emanuel Bach's clavier works I have only a few, yet they must be not only a real delight to every true artist, but also serve him for study purposes; and it is for me a great pleasure to play works that I have never seen, or seldom see, for real art lovers."


----------



## hammeredklavier

KenOC said:


> Here's an excerpt from a 1799 review of some early Beethoven piano sonatas: "The emotional basis has some similarity to the character expressed in Phil. Em. Bach's works, if one disregards the peculiar mannerisms of the day-which means evading Bach's chopped style to a great degree."


Although it is unclear whether Mozart and Beethoven met, Beethoven actually did see Mozart playing, and commented that Mozart "had a fine, but choppy way of playing". Clementi (whom Mozart thought "had a dry way of playing") was the biggest pioneer and advocate of legato playing. I believe it was Clementi who inspired Beethoven to follow the newer tradition of legato playing while abandoning the old school "harpsichord style" of the other 18th century masters.


----------



## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> Although it is unclear whether Mozart and Beethoven met, Beethoven actually did see Mozart playing, and commented that Mozart "had a fine, but choppy way of playing". Clementi (whom Mozart thought "had a dry way of playing") was the biggest pioneer and advocate of legato playing. I believe it was Clementi who inspired Beethoven to follow the newer tradition of legato playing while abandoning the old school "harpsichord style" of the other 18th century masters.


Reading this, I can only wonder what these people's playing sounded like, whether I would like it at all, and what they would think of the way we play their music now with Liszt, Rachmaninoff and the rest of Romanticism behind us. It really brings home the limitations of so-called historically informed performance practice.


----------



## Guest

fluteman said:


> Yet, in an earlier thread, when I and a very few others attempted to introduce some objectivity into this "greatest" debate, admittedly in a somewhat crude and simplistic way, especially in my case (Whaddaya want? This is just an online chat group), it floated like a lead balloon. It's funny how some people argue endlessly that their idea of "the greatest" is so much more than mere subjective opinion, but when presented with methods and criteria which, though admittedly imperfect, are truly objective, they have no interest.


Exactly so. A long time ago (probably in a galaxy far, far away) I offered some criteria for just such an argument - and I received the same response.

Those who want to do nothing more than assert that their preferred genius is the greatest don't _want _criteria, so it's hardly surprising that a proportion of the audience for our offerings were less than enthusiastic.

I _am _interested, but concede that the most likely solution will be something along the lines of a forensic examination of what Art Rock has achieved. That is to say, to extract from the _fact _of Beethoven's pre-eminence in that poll, some underlying reasons for the aggregated opinion that he is the most preferred among those who expressed a preference. (Note that not all 56 submitted a ranked list, nor a list of 30, so we have to be a little careful about the conclusions drawn).

I think too that if there is any usefulness (to us, not to the greatest) in being able to point to a 'greatest', it will inevitably contain both an audience-dependent element and a historical taste element. That is, any greatest we identify now can only be for now, as tastes have changed, and will likely change again (see discussion about 'harpisichord v legato' above); and greatest might be different between a popular audience and a specialist audience. So, purely to exemplify, Bach might continue to come top of the poll of composers (see the recent BBC Music magazine poll) who recognise something in his work that is generally overlooked by a wider audience; while Beethoven might come top of a wider audience poll, simply because of his ubiquity in non-musical culture (eg _those _four notes as a symbol of freedom).


----------



## Guest

DaveM said:


> Interesting reasoning: An artist isn't great unless adored by everybody.


I can't speak for soni, but their point is the same as mine, and it isn't that any 'greatest' has to be adored by everybody, but that audience-dependent criteria (such as the capacity to move the audience) are less important than composition-dependent criteria (eg that it's well-constructed and not, as Bernstein would have it, for example, 'flawed' in orchestration.)

Besides, how are we to assess audience response? I am moved by Haydn, but if I'm alone in that, can it be disregarded? What is the threshold for audience reaction - that is, how many must report being moved beofre the threshold for greatness is reached? And if it's impractical to measure it, how then can we compare the greats (unless we buy Ken's oft-advertised 'greatness-o-meter' and set it to measure 'passion'!)


----------



## Enthusiast

DaveM said:


> So in short, you know how to create an objective list of the greatest and the very great because your parameters don't necessarily match your preferences and I don't. Well aren't you special!
> 
> In my main post, I used the major categories of traditional classical music and examples by LvB that are often the most mentioned with superlatives in those categories. My preferences had nothing to do with it. You can tear down my method all you want, but that doesn't make the method you use to create your categories superior. I used objectivity just as much as you did..
> 
> In any event, it's interesting that you admit that it is possible to create an objective list of the greatest and/or the very great and that experts are far more often right than wrong when it comes to a critical consensus about greatness. But particularly you agree that '_I do think experienced listeners can recognise (seemingly objective) greatness when they get to know it.'_
> 
> You wrote so much that was good above. Why the need to do it at my expense?


I don't think I said that I have an ability that you lack although I did think your elevation of Beethoven as the greatest of all went too far (I feel there are a few who are as great) and was based on your using criteria that seemed designed to arrive at your conclusion.

I'm sorry if you feel I am arguing at your expense. On there being a measure of objectivity possible in assigning value to composers I thought I was discussing with you rather than arguing against you! Anyway, we have probably gone as far as we can with this discussion?


----------



## Enthusiast

Janspe said:


> Amen to this - something I sort of tried to express in my earlier post but was apparently unable to do so. Thank you!


You did and I did notice! I wanted to credit you as saying something similar but in the event was too lazy to check through the posts to see who it was!


----------



## PlaySalieri

hammeredklavier said:


> Although it is unclear whether Mozart and Beethoven met, Beethoven actually did see Mozart playing, and commented that Mozart "had a fine, but choppy way of playing". Clementi *(whom Mozart thought "had a dry way of playing"*) was the biggest pioneer and advocate of legato playing. I believe it was Clementi who inspired Beethoven to follow the newer tradition of legato playing while abandoning the old school "harpsichord style" of the other 18th century masters.


I wouldnt take that too seriously. One remark. We also dont know what Mozart played that day or how much Beethoven heard him play.

Mozart favoured a gentle quiet style at the piano - judging from comments he made to his sister.


----------



## vtpoet

Bigbang said:


> I looked up CPE Bach works on Hoopla/Freegal to see what free streaming is available. Very little to be exact and Haydn works are very well represented where I can sample/play virtually any of his output. This has to be driven by demand and same goes for Beethoven and other composers. No matter how well a composer is praised if his work is not "out" there for public consumption then it will be hard to determine the merits of one vs the other. I only know of CPE Bach by radio...now I could use Youtube and hear some of his works but I cannot get anywhere close to hearing CPE Bach compared to Haydn. Of course I could buy Cds but I have limits now to purchase only what I come across and CPE Bach is very rare as the public does not know about him as the more well known composers.


New recordings of CPE Bach's works are being released every day, including a new box set of his piano concertos (Rische) played on the modern piano. His keyboard concertos are extraordinary, each one of them different, and are the greatest of the 18th century after Mozart and his father. His only rival was his elder brother, WF Bach.

If you're on Spotify, you can find CPE's complete solo piano works (recently recorded) as readily as any other composer's works. And as EdwardBast wrote, if you can't find CPE on youtube, then you're not trying.

All that said, it's absolutely true that Haydn has had a head start in the recording industry and that his works are initially more accessible, but I can tell you, having worked as a commercial Classical Music Buyer during the CD's heyday, that I sold more CPE Bach than Haydn when I played the two side by side.

I would call CPE the equal to Haydn. Haydn's Symphonies are to CPE's as CPE's piano concertos are to Haydn's. Haydn's String Quartets are matched by CPE's Solo Keyboard works.

IMHO.


----------



## fluteman

MacLeod said:


> Exactly so. A long time ago (probably in a galaxy far, far away) I offered some criteria for just such an argument - and I received the same response.
> 
> Those who want to do nothing more than assert that their preferred genius is the greatest don't _want _criteria, so it's hardly surprising that a proportion of the audience for our offerings were less than enthusiastic.
> 
> I _am _interested, but concede that the most likely solution will be something along the lines of a forensic examination of what Art Rock has achieved. That is to say, to extract from the _fact _of Beethoven's pre-eminence in that poll, some underlying reasons for the aggregated opinion that he is the most preferred among those who expressed a preference. (Note that not all 56 submitted a ranked list, nor a list of 30, so we have to be a little careful about the conclusions drawn).
> 
> I think too that if there is any usefulness (to us, not to the greatest) in being able to point to a 'greatest', it will inevitably contain both an audience-dependent element and a historical taste element. That is, any greatest we identify now can only be for now, as tastes have changed, and will likely change again (see discussion about 'harpisichord v legato' above); and greatest might be different between a popular audience and a specialist audience. So, purely to exemplify, Bach might continue to come top of the poll of composers (see the recent BBC Music magazine poll) who recognise something in his work that is generally overlooked by a wider audience; while Beethoven might come top of a wider audience poll, simply because of his ubiquity in non-musical culture (eg _those _four notes as a symbol of freedom).


Good points. Moreover, in the world of objective, or reasonably close to objective, data and statistics, poll data is among the least reliable type. The biggest challenge with the polling method is choosing a truly representative (and large enough) sample of participants, i.e., one with no sample or selection bias. It always amuses me how people think polls here at TC have any real significance other than amusement value, when the TC members who choose to participate in these polls are far from a representative sample of music listeners as a whole. Then there are major issues in how to design and administer the poll.

The benefit of my idea of using market data, i.e., number of in-print recordings, number of sales of CDs or hits or downloads on iTunes, Spotify and Youtube, number of concerts or performances and ticket sales (to the extent that data is available), etc., is that it largely bypasses sample bias and other poll issues, though not entirely (for example, people who still get their classical music from broadcast radio can't be evaluated solely with market data, at least not precisely). And for those who argue mere popularity in the market doesn't equate to greatness, one can limit the music considered to works over 50 (or 60 or 70) years old.

Market data has its shortcomings too, of course, but one needn't look far into threads like this one to see its advantages..


----------



## soni

fluteman said:


> Good points. Moreover, in the world of objective, or reasonably close to objective, data and statistics, poll data is among the least reliable type. The biggest challenge with the polling method is choosing a truly representative (and large enough) sample of participants, i.e., one with no sample or selection bias. It always amuses me how people think polls here at TC have any real significance other than amusement value, when the TC members who choose to participate in these polls are far from a representative sample of music listeners as a whole. Then there are major issues in how to design and administer the poll.
> 
> The benefit of my idea of using market data, i.e., number of in-print recordings, number of sales of CDs or hits or downloads on iTunes, Spotify and Youtube, number of concerts or performances and ticket sales (to the extent that data is available), etc., is that it largely bypasses sample bias and other poll issues, though not entirely (for example, people who still get their classical music from broadcast radio can't be evaluated solely with market data, at least not precisely). And for those who argue mere popularity in the market doesn't equate to greatness, one can limit the music considered to works over 50 (or 60 or 70) years old.
> 
> Market data has its shortcomings too, of course, but one needn't look far into threads like this one to see its advantages..


Even so, market data can provide only circumstantial evidence. It may give hints as to which composers are considered greatest, but it won't give the reasons why they are considered great, and it is biased against composers who have written in an "unpopular" style (e.g. the composers of the Second Viennese School are considered by many, and in my view rightly, to be among the greatest classical music has to offer, but this will never show up in market data...)
In my view, what is needed is to have a reasoned debate on the actual content and aesthetic features of the music of composers who are candidates for "greatness" - given the topic of this thread, the place to start would be with the music of Haydn and Beethoven.


----------



## fluteman

soni said:


> Even so, market data can provide only circumstantial evidence. It may give hints as to which composers are considered greatest, but it won't give the reasons why they are considered great, and it is biased against composers who have written in an "unpopular" style (e.g. the composers of the Second Viennese School are considered by many, and in my view rightly, to be among the greatest classical music has to offer, but this will never show up in market data...)
> In my view, what is needed is to have a reasoned debate on the actual content and aesthetic features of the music of composers who are candidates for "greatness" - given the topic of this thread, the place to start would be with the music of Haydn and Beethoven.


"Reasoned debate" between whom? The members here at TC? You and me? Who gave us the anointed status to makes these determinations? And who said the style of the Second Viennese School is "unpopular"? Arnold Schoenberg ranked pretty high on my list, based roughly on number of in-print recordings of major commercial labels for sale on Arkivmusic.com. As I noted at the time, the most obvious major bias with my method was against less prolific composers, or composers of lengthy works that are expensive and difficult to record and not amendable to "highlights" or excerpt recordings. And even there, being prolific, as were Bach and Mozart, might be considered part of what goes into a determination of greatness.

As for reasons for greatness, one could point to Bach's skill with counterpoint, or Mozart's with harmony, or Beethoven's with creating rhythmic energy, or Wagner's or Tchaikovsky's with creating dramatic excitement, but in the end there is no way to accurately and objectively quantify such criteria, nor can comparisons usefully be made between composers of different eras or of materially different styles in that way.

And why is the place to start Haydn and Beethoven? In short I can't agree with any of your points. The type of debate and discussion you want to have may well be fun and even enlightening, but let's not pretend it can result in any definitive rankings of who is greater than whom.


----------



## soni

fluteman said:


> "Reasoned debate" between whom? The members here at TC? You and me? Who gave us the anointed status to makes these determinations? And who said the style of the Second Viennese School is "unpopular"? Arnold Schoenberg ranked pretty high on my list, based roughly on number of in-print recordings of major commercial labels for sale on Arkivmusic.com. As I noted at the time, the most obvious major bias with my method was against less prolific composers, or composers of lengthy works that are expensive and difficult to record and not amendable to "highlights" or excerpt recordings. And even there, being prolific, as were Bach and Mozart, might be considered part of what goes into a determination of greatness.
> 
> As for reasons for greatness, one could point to Bach's skill with counterpoint, or Mozart's with harmony, or Beethoven's with creating rhythmic energy, or Wagner's or Tchaikovsky's with creating dramatic excitement, but in the end there is no way to accurately and objectively quantify such criteria, nor can comparisons usefully be made between composers of different eras or of materially different styles in that way.
> 
> And why is the place to start Haydn and Beethoven? In short I can't agree with any of your points. The type of debate and discussion you want to have may well be fun and even enlightening, but let's not pretend it can result in any definitive rankings of who is greater than whom.


1. My point is that the people making the claims should be able to back it up, not that that then becomes authoritative. I don't think market data has any sort of authority either - it certainly won't influence many people's listening habits. This also links to the reason why I stated that Haydn and Beethoven should be discussed first - because people in this thread have been discussing whether Haydn deserves the same status as Beethoven as a great composer. Remember what OP said: "Does anyone here regard Joseph Haydn as the greatest composer, greater than Bach, Mozart or Beethoven?"

2. The reasons you brought up for the greatness of those composer are absolutely valid, and I think they are relevant to discuss. You'll find the people claiming it's objective earlier in this thread - I was simply trying to encourage them to provide more substance to their views. The difficulty of comparing composers accross different eras and styles is a more important point though, and I think it's good that you brought this up. I think that it is more meaningful to talk about the greatest composers regarding a certain feature. Both Bach and Wagner composed melodies - a discussion could be had about which composer composed stronger melodies. This specific example is a bit poor, but I'm simply trying to point out that there are meaningful ways to discuss this topic, even if it might not lead to a conclusive outcome.


----------



## fluteman

soni said:


> 1. My point is that the people making the claims should be able to back it up, not that that then becomes authoritative.


Fair enough, as was the rest of your post. Where these threads wander off track is where people start saying, or implying, that they are talking about something other than their own personal preferences. It is certainly worthwhile to explain the basis for one's personal preferences, i.e., "back it up", but even then they remain nothing more than one's personal preferences.

As for Haydn, his innovations with the string quartet, which he all but invented, culminating with the great Op. 76 and 77, but with many other brilliant highlights before those, alone would qualify him as a great composer. The great string quartets of Mozart and Beethoven wouldn't exist without them, not to mention those of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Dvorak, Debussy, Ravel, Schoenberg, Bartok and Shostakovich. And it's amazing how many great composers from all eras name Haydn's music as one of their most important influences and models. Prokofiev's Classical Symphony is in large part an homage to Haydn.

One price of being so innovative and influential is that one's ideas are developed much further by succeeding generations. Mozart and Beethoven certainly did that with Haydn's music.


----------



## Bigbang

EdwardBast said:


> If you can't find the works of CPE Bach on youtube you aren't trying very hard. In addition, his complete symphonies, concertos and sonatas are readily available on CD.


I did not say I could not find CPE Bach on Youtube. I was making a point that when it comes to "free" from libraries sources CPE Bach is not represented compared to other composers in spite of claims of his stature. I will certainly seek him out and get better acquainted with this composer.


----------



## Bigbang

vtpoet said:


> New recordings of CPE Bach's works are being released every day, including a new box set of his piano concertos (Rische) played on the modern piano. His keyboard concertos are extraordinary, each one of them different, and are the greatest of the 18th century after Mozart and his father. His only rival was his elder brother, WF Bach.
> 
> If you're on Spotify, you can find CPE's complete solo piano works (recently recorded) as readily as any other composer's works. And as EdwardBast wrote, if you can't find CPE on youtube, then you're not trying.
> 
> All that said, it's absolutely true that Haydn has had a head start in the recording industry and that his works are initially more accessible, but I can tell you, having worked as a commercial Classical Music Buyer during the CD's heyday, that I sold more CPE Bach than Haydn when I played the two side by side.
> 
> I would call CPE the equal to Haydn. Haydn's Symphonies are to CPE's as CPE's piano concertos are to Haydn's. Haydn's String Quartets are matched by CPE's Solo Keyboard works.
> 
> IMHO.


It seems to me that Haydn had performers play/record his music and they are well known. CPE Bach? Obscure performers and what choices to make when deciding what to invest in. Certainly worth the time to invest time hearing his works rather than by chance on the radio.


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## Enthusiast

There are many recordings of star performers playing CPE Bach. Bylsma, Staier, Pahud, Pinnock, Leonhardt etc. etc. As for the obscure ... (obscure to the general music-loving public?) ... I don't know if you include Miklos Spanyi, who has recorded all the keyboard works for BIS, as "obscure"? But if so "obscure" doesn't always mean "of limited talent or insight". It is true that the last 10-15 years have seen a growth in our recognition of the greatness of CPE Bach but he wasn't exactly ignored before that.


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## EdwardBast

Bigbang said:


> I did not say I could not find CPE Bach on Youtube. I was making a point that when it comes to "free" from libraries sources CPE Bach is not represented compared to other composers in spite of claims of his stature. I will certainly seek him out and get better acquainted with this composer.





Bigbang said:


> It seems to me that Haydn had performers play/record his music and they are well known. CPE Bach? Obscure performers and what choices to make when deciding what to invest in. Certainly worth the time to invest time hearing his works rather than by chance on the radio.


The reputation and popularity of CPE Bach has grown over the last several decades, recently enough that libraries might not have caught up. No doubt this resurgence is tied to the number of fine ensembles and soloists specializing in "early" music that have recorded his work in this period. The performers are not obscure, they are specialists; CPE, is a generation (or two) earlier than Haydn and Mozart which effectively puts him on the other side of the border between the province of modern performers/instruments and orchestras and historical performance specialists.


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## fluteman

EdwardBast said:


> The reputation and popularity of CPE Bach has grown over the last several decades, recently enough that libraries might not have caught up. No doubt this resurgence is tied to the number of fine ensembles and soloists specializing in "early" music that have recorded his work in this period. The performers are not obscure, they are specialists; CPE, is a generation (or two) earlier than Haydn and Mozart which effectively puts him on the other side of the border between the province of modern performers/instruments and orchestras and historical performance specialists.


Yes, and moreover C.P.E. Bach is not "obscure" in the sense that many consider him the most significant composer of J.S. Bach's sons, and his music was highly respected even in his own time, including by Mozart. If you want to talk about obscure, how about the English composer and organist John Stanley (1712-1786), a nearly exact contemporary of C.P.E. Bach (1714-1788)? His music has long interested me.


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## hammeredklavier

PlaySalieri said:


> I wouldnt take that too seriously. One remark. We also dont know what Mozart played that day or how much Beethoven heard him play.


"Choppy" doesn't imply a negative connotation in this case. There were variants of fortepianos all over Europe at the time; - I read somewhere that there were also "French and English fortepianos" (that were different in design from the Viennese ones), Beethoven probably grew up in his hometown of Bonn, with a kind of fortepiano different from the Viennese-action type Mozart had. Like other 18th century masters, Mozart had a 'mezzo-staccato' feel to his fortepiano music. So it's possible that Beethoven might have found the Viennese-action piano and its playing style somewhat "alien" to his taste at first when he came to Vienna in 1787. Clementi was probably more aware of the mechanism of different pianos since he was a piano-manufacturer himself.








https://books.google.ca/books?id=ezo-ANbhdxEC&pg=PA14

There's a lot of 18th century pieces that have 8th notes written plainly on score like these. And they sound really weird if you play them legato.








(Bach BWV944)

Watch this lecture video about the fortepiano:







PlaySalieri said:


> Mozart favoured a gentle quiet style at the piano - judging from comments he made to his sister.


I'm not sure what you mean by "gentle, quiet style", but one piece he specifically mentions in a letter to his sister with a paragraph is K394 (20 April 1782).






I think the Fantasie anticipates dramatic passages of Beethoven piano sonata Op.53 first movement, and the Fugue is interesting for its dissonant harmony of major seconds.

_"...I enclose a prelude and a three-part fugue. The reason that I did not write to you before was not being able to finish the music sooner, owing to the great trouble of writing out such small notes. It is awkwardly done, for the prelude ought to come first and the fugue to follow; the cause being that I composed the fugue first, and while writing it out I devised the prelude. I only hope you may be able to read it, as it is written so very small, but above all that it may please you..."_


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## chu42

The greatest for me are still Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, with Handel, Brahms, Schubert and Haydn not too far behind. 

But my favorite is Schumann. So what does it matter if he's not the greatest?


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## chu42

And for why Haydn would be one of the greatest:






The finest cello concerti ever written up until the 20th century. That's quite a feat.


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## KenOC

chu42 said:


> And for why Haydn would be one of the greatest: The finest cello concerti ever written up until the 20th century. That's quite a feat.


Dvorak might be inclined to differ. And Beethoven too, although he filed his cello concerto in the wrong drawer and they're still looking for it... :lol:


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## Woodduck

chu42 said:


> And for why Haydn would be one of the greatest:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The finest cello concerti ever written up until the 20th century. That's quite a feat.


Even if Haydn did write the best (and I won't argue with you, disliking ranking things as I do), it wasn't so much of a feat considering that the likeliest competitors - most of the greatest pre-20th-century composers, including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms and Tchaikovsky, all of whom wrote superb concertante works - didn't write cello concertos. Dvorak did, and his is probably the best-loved of all works in the genre; it caused Brahms to remark that had he realized how good a cello concerto could be he might have written one himself. I would guess that Mozart would have gotten around to one had he lived longer, and would have given Haydn a run for his money. Schubert didn't seem interested in concertos, but he too might have done something striking eventually. I'd also like to have heard the romantic melodies Weber and Chopin might have come up with. Too many early deaths!


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## DaveM

The Beethoven Triple Concerto and Brahms Double Concerto give us some idea what their Cello concertos might have been like.


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## Rogerx

DaveM said:


> T_he Beethoven Triple Concerto and Brahms Double Concerto give us some idea what their Cello concertos might have been like_.







Very wise words. :cheers:


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## Bulldog

chu42 said:


> And for why Haydn would be one of the greatest:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The finest cello concerti ever written up until the 20th century. That's quite a feat.


I don't know about finest, but Haydn's C major is my favorite of any time period.


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## KenOC

Bulldog said:


> I don't know about finest, but Haydn's C major is my favorite of any time period.


Interesting that this cello concerto was lost and not discovered umtil 1961.


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## hammeredklavier




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## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> Even if Haydn did write the best (and I won't argue with you, disliking ranking things as I do)


You didn't think I was going to let that pass, did you? Here are the cello concerto rankings, roughly based on number of in-print recordings:
1. Dvorak, B min.
2. Tchaikovsky, Variations on a Roccoco Theme
3. Schumann
4. Haydn, C maj.
5. Elgar
6. Haydn, D min.
7. Saint-Saens, A min.
8. Shostakovich, Eb maj.
9. Bloch, Schelomo
10. Shostakovich, G maj.
10. C.P.E. Bach, A maj.
12. Lalo
13. Tchaikovsky, Andante Cantabile
14. Boccherini, Bb maj.
15. Vivaldi, G maj.
16. Vivaldi, B min.


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## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> CPE's Cello Concerti


Yeah, I love Haydn's Cello Concerti, but I'd be hard-pressed to decide whether to take his or CPE Bach's to my desert isle (if I had to choose). Haydn's are genial, tuneful and suave, offending no one and meant to ingratiate, but CPEs are by turns searching, vigorous, playful, troubled and passionate. Once the gun comes out, I'd have to sail off with CPE Bach. There's just more "more" in these concerti than Haydn's.

Though you wouldn't guess it by listening to many of Haydn's concertos, he himself stated that he didn't like the form and didn't like writing concertos. I'm guessing that, unlike Mozart, CPE, or JS, he didn't have that vanity and ego that goes along with being a soloist. He was more of an "ensemblist" and that, in my opinion, comes out in his genius for the symphony and string quartet. Whenever I listen to a Haydn concerto, it always sounds to me like the soloist is almost embarrassed, and doing their best not to stand out too much.


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## Guest

gurthbruins said:


> Does anyone here regard Joseph Haydn as the greatest composer, greater than Bach, Mozart or Beethoven? *I do.
> Here's one reason why:*


A good question, or, more pertinently, a good answer.

I was reflecting on the recent 'Ranking' thread, and also reading the 'Favourite and Recommended Works' thread and wondered at the correlation between the best ranked composers and the best ranked compositions. What I was looking for was some recommendations of works to listen to by Schumann, as he was ranked 9th, and I felt I should get to know him. Curiously, his compositions actually rank quite poorly when compared with, for example, Debussy who was ranked 10th, but whose compositions seem to come higher.

Let me hasten to point out that I'm not complaining about either list. I realise that methodologies are different, and that those who contributed to the recommended compositions are, almost certainly, not exactly the same as contributed to the ranked composers, but it set me wondering about the basis on which composers were included in members' lists. It prompted this question: to what extent are some composers considered among the greats on the strength of just a few compositions?


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## Strange Magic

If Sibelius had written a cello concerto, I do believe it would be very high on most lists.


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## DaveM

MacLeod said:


> A good question, or, more pertinently, a good answer.
> 
> I was reflecting on the recent 'Ranking' thread, and also reading the 'Favourite and Recommended Works' thread and wondered at the correlation between the best ranked composers and the best ranked compositions. What I was looking for was some recommendations of works to listen to by Schumann, as he was ranked 9th, and I felt I should get to know him. Curiously, his compositions actually rank quite poorly when compared with, for example, Debussy who was ranked 10th, but whose compositions seem to come higher.
> 
> Let me hasten to point out that I'm not complaining about either list. I realise that methodologies are different, and that those who contributed to the recommended compositions are, almost certainly, not exactly the same as contributed to the ranked composers, but it set me wondering about the basis on which composers were included in members' lists. It prompted this question: to what extent are some composers considered among the greats on the strength of just a few compositions?


Or on the strength of composing in only one or two categories/genres.


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## fluteman

MacLeod said:


> A good question, or, more pertinently, a good answer.
> 
> I was reflecting on the recent 'Ranking' thread, and also reading the 'Favourite and Recommended Works' thread and wondered at the correlation between the best ranked composers and the best ranked compositions. What I was looking for was some recommendations of works to listen to by Schumann, as he was ranked 9th, and I felt I should get to know him. Curiously, his compositions actually rank quite poorly when compared with, for example, Debussy who was ranked 10th, but whose compositions seem to come higher.
> 
> Let me hasten to point out that I'm not complaining about either list. I realise that methodologies are different, and that those who contributed to the recommended compositions are, almost certainly, not exactly the same as contributed to the ranked composers, but it set me wondering about the basis on which composers were included in members' lists. It prompted this question: to what extent are some composers considered among the greats on the strength of just a few compositions?


To a pretty great extent, I'd say. The reputation of Georges Bizet is based mainly on his opera Carmen. Of course, he only lived to 36. Giovanni Pergolesi managed to write a fair amount of music considering he only lived to 26, though more of it may be determined incorrectly attributed to him over time. His reputation is largely based on his Stabat Mater and a comic opera, La serva pedrona. In more modern times, I count only 14 surviving completed works by Edgard Varèse, though a significant amount of his work was either accidentally or intentionally lost or destroyed, and only 18 by Carl Ruggles, who is known to have worked very slowly. Much early English music, such as that of John Dunstable (or Dunstaple) was lost in the Reformation, except where copies existed elsewhere in Europe. Wikipedia says 50 of his works survive, but his reputation probably rests on a small fraction of those.


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## Bulldog

DaveM said:


> Or on the strength of composing in only one or two categories/genres.


Not placing much weight on composers who wrote in may genres, I don't have any problem with the above. Wagner and Chopin are prime examples.


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## Woodduck

Bulldog said:


> Not placing much weight on composers who wrote in may genres, I don't have any problem with the above. Wagner and Chopin are prime examples.


i agree with that point of view. Many of what we categorize as genres have more to do with the instrumental or vocal forces utilized than with significant differences in form or compositional technique. The difference between a sonata and a symphony, or a symphony and a concerto, may be largely a matter of scoring. The difference between an opera and an oratorio may be largely a matter of how much choral work is involved. Any number of works were first planned for one genre but ended up as another. On the other hand, an opera may contain a great variety of musical forms and require the ability to write convincingly for a wide variety of vocal and instrumental forces. The operas of Mozart probably exhibit most of the techniques of which he was a master, and there may be a greater variety of sound and expression in the Wagner operas than in the entire output of Schumann.

If we're playing the "greatest" game, the ablity to turn out a few game-changing blockbusters in a single genre can outweigh, for me, a large number of fine but more conventional accomplishments in multiple genres. If Beethoven had written only the symphonies - or the quartets, or the sonatas - I suspect we would still consider him one of the greatest composers.


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## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> The operas of Mozart probably exhibit most of the techniques of which he was a master,


Hmm. I can't agree with that. The overtures at their best are as good as any of his other orchestral work, or anyone else's, for that matter. The spectacular arias are reminiscent of the solo work in the violin concertos and sonatas, not surprisingly, as Mozart sang with his violin, and his sacred music is distinctly operatic. But the string trios, quartets and quintets? The clarinet quintet? The piano concertos, especially the last nine, and the piano sonatas? No. For there is the dramatic Mozart, whether comic or tragic, and the introspective, intellectual Mozart. There is the Mozart of the endlessly intricate, delicate and subtle detail that wouldn't come across as well on the opera stage. The scope of Mozart's art, and that of Beethoven, is an important part of what makes them stand alone, and lies behind their use of a broad array of instrumental and vocal combinations. I suspect had Schubert lived and worked a few more years, we might be able to say something similar about him.


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## Guest

Woodduck said:


> The operas of Mozart probably exhibit most of the techniques of which he was a master, and there may be a greater variety of sound and expression in the Wagner operas than in the entire output of Schumann.
> 
> If we're playing the "greatest" game, the ablity to turn out a few game-changing blockbusters in a single genre can outweigh, for me, a large number of fine but more conventional accomplishments in multiple genres. If Beethoven had written only the symphonies - or the quartets, or the sonatas - I suspect we would still consider him one of the greatest composers.


I agree. Since the question in the 'Ranking' thread was not "Who is the greatest?", but "Who are your personal preferences?", it was very easy to choose a composer on the basis of only one or two works. (Irony here - I actually forgot to include Berlioz at first and had to add him in - but I only know _Symphonie Fantastique_!)

So, in the case of Schumann, what is it that members are enjoying that I should be listening to?


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## DaveM

MacLeod said:


> I agree. Since the question in the 'Ranking' thread was not "Who is the greatest?", but "Who are your personal preferences?", it was very easy to choose a composer on the basis of only one or two works. (Irony here - I actually forgot to include Berlioz at first and had to add him in - but I only know _Symphonie Fantastique_!)
> 
> So, in the case of Schumann, what is it that members are enjoying that I should be listening to?






-------------


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## janxharris

Sounds like Schumann is quoting Schubert at the end.


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## Bulldog

MacLeod said:


> So, in the case of Schumann, what is it that members are enjoying that I should be listening to?


In order of preference:

Davidsbundlertanze
Kreisleriana
Symphonic Etudes
Humoreske
Kinderszenen
Carnaval
Piano Concerto
Piano Quintet


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## Ethereality

I count 56 Schumann pieces on _TC's Favorite and Most Highly Recommended Works_ (upkept by user:Science):

1. Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 54 [1845] 
2. Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-flat, op. 44 [1842] 
3. Schumann: Kinderszenen, op. 15 [1838] 
4. Schumann: Kreisleriana, op. 16
5. Schumann: Symphony #3 in E-flat, op. 97 "Rhenish" [1850]
6/7. Schumann: Symphony #1 in B-flat, op. 38 "Spring" [1841] 
6/7. Schumann: Symphony #4 in D minor, op. 120 [1841, rev. 1851] 
8. Schumann: Fantasie in C, op. 17 
9. Schumann: Dichterliebe, op. 48
10. Schumann: Cello Concerto in A minor, op. 129

Comparatively, I count 87 Haydn pieces and 13 Wagner pieces. Length is obviously a major factor.


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## fluteman

Bulldog said:


> In order of preference:
> 
> Davidsbundlertanze
> Kreisleriana
> Symphonic Etudes
> Humoreske
> Kinderszenen
> Carnaval
> Piano Concerto
> Piano Quintet


Good list, Bulldog. I might add the song cycle Dichterliebe, the cello concerto, and the Three Romances for oboe and piano.


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## chu42

MacLeod said:


> So, in the case of Schumann, what is it that members are enjoying that I should be listening to?


My personal favorites:
Fantasiestucke Op.12
Fantasie Op.17
Symphonic Etudes 
8 Novelletten
Carnaval
Kreisleriana
Piano Quintet
Symphonies


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## vtpoet

chu42 said:


> My personal favorites:
> Fantasiestucke Op.12
> Fantasie Op.17
> Symphonic Etudes
> 8 Novelletten
> Carnaval
> Kreisleriana
> Piano Quintet
> Symphonies


Just a wild guess here, but I'm thinking you might, somewhat, like Schumann. Have you heard the new Gardiner recording and, if so, what do you think of it?


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## chu42

vtpoet said:


> Just a wild guess here, but I'm thinking you might, somewhat, like Schumann. Have you heard the new Gardiner recording and, if so, what do you think of it?


I actually haven't listened to them yet but I will get to it. My favorite symphonies recording are Sawallisch and alternatively Karajan


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## Xisten267

Woodduck said:


> There are better and worse composers, but no greatest.





violadude said:


> This thread is exactly why I think of musical greatness and ranking in terms of tier groups rather than one to one comparisons


My opinion about this topic is summarized by these two quotes.


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## KenOC

On comparing composers, Beethoven said this in his usual modest fashion: "Kunst ist kein Wettlauf, bei dem ein Künstler gewinnt und ein anderer verliert. Trotzdem würde ich Mozart in jedem Wettbewerb vernichten."


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## Xisten267

KenOC said:


> On comparing composers, Beethoven said this in his usual modest fashion: "Kunst ist kein Wettlauf, bei dem ein Künstler gewinnt und ein anderer verliert. Trotzdem würde ich Mozart in jedem Wettbewerb vernichten."


I'm tempted to agree with this as I idolize Beethoven, but this would be quite unfair to Mozart, wouldn't it? I don't think that there's a way of objectively proving that Beethoven is the greatest composer, even if so many beethovenians in this thread tried so hard. I believe that this kind of discussion tends to baffle people that are enthusiast of other composers, and we don't need more Beethoven haters in the world, do we?


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## KenOC

Allerius said:


> I'm tempted to agree with this as I idolize Beethoven, but this would be quite unfair to Mozart, wouldn't it? I don't think that there's a way of objectively proving that Beethoven is the greatest composer, even if so many beethovenians in this thread tried so hard. I believe that this kind of discussion tends to baffle people that are enthusiast of other composers, and we don't need more Beethoven haters in the world, do we?


And of course Beethoven would never have said it, as he totally idolized Mozart. Just having a little chuckle... :lol:


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## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> Ummm...Muhammad Ali?


They say that Liston was older than the young Ali and therefore stronger, and in better shape in the 2nd fight, but he had to take a dive due to death threats.

...reminiscent of the Beethoven versus Mozart


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## Guest

Allerius said:


> I believe that this kind of discussion tends to baffle people


Especially the parts in German.


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## mrdoc

MacLeod said:


> Especially the parts in German.


Yes and even English seems to be a problem to some posters, note for moderators (just to be clear this is meant a bit of humor)


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