# Why do you overrate or underrate composers?



## mmsbls

There have been several threads about underrated composers, and other threads have suggested that certain composers are overrated. I thought it would be interesting to have a slightly different focus. The question I'd like to ask is: Why do _you_ think that you like or dislike certain composers more than other people do?

Obviously it's hard to know whether one overrates or underrates composers without a standard rating. Since there really is no such thing, I thought I'd simply average several ratings that are readily available so everyone could compare themselves to some list that attempts to average classical musical taste. The list below is an average of 4 lists: Goulding's 50 Greatest Composers, The DDD composer list, the top 500 composers from the Western Kentucky site, and a list averaging TC members' picks. The top 30 composers averaged from these lists are shown below.

1	Bach
2	Mozart
3	Beethoven
4	Wagner
5	Brahms
6	Schubert
7	Haydn
8	Tchaikovsky
9	Handel 
10	Chopin 
11	Schumann
12	Stravinsky
13	Mendelssohm
14	Debussy
15	Dvorak
16	Liszt
17	Mahler
18	Verdi
19	R. Strauss
20	Prokofiev
21	Shostakovich
22	Berlioz
23	Puccini
24	Ravel
25	Vivaldi
26	Sibelius
27	Bartok
28	Rossini
29	Bruckner
30	Rachmaninov

Could you pick one composer that you significantly "overrate" and one composer that you significantly "underrate" compared to this "average" list and try to say why your tastes differ?


----------



## mmsbls

Incidentally, the two most underrated composers on TC (based on the Top 25 composer thread) are Liszt with Schumann a close second. The two recent threads that ask why these composers are so underrated on TC are correct that TC members seem to place these composers lower than other rankings do.


----------



## Crudblud

You mean from that list?

Overrate: Ravel

Underrate: Mozart

I think my tastes probably differ because I came to classical music through Zappa, which means I was initially exposed to modern and contemporary classical music, the various musical languages of which seemed to just naturally appeal to my mind.


----------



## violadude

According to that list I way way way underrate Mendelssohn. Sometimes I even forget about him honestly...I don't know why, I find his pieces really good, but lacking something that would make me really love them. The only composers on the list up there I would put below Mendelssohn (on my personal list) are Vivaldi and Rossini...

Hmm Overrate...looks like Mahler  and I think Berlioz should be higher...considering he was pretty much the father of the so called "Progressive Romantics."


----------



## Lisztian

As much as I simply love Chopin...I don't think he should be in front of Schumann and Liszt. I don't know where i'd put the three though.

Other than that...I would overrate Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Berlioz and Liszt. Like violadude, I'd probably underrate Mendelssohn.


----------



## poconoron

IMHO, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven cannot possibly be over-rated............ their influence, fluency in all musical composition types and public following offer all the proof one could possibly want testifying to their greatness.

On the other hand I believe that Wagner is somewhat over-rated on that list since he was basically a one-trick pony - Opera. However he was so powerful in the Opera genre that he probably still belongs in the Top 10.

And Chopin is also a bit too high - come on, the guy could only compose for the piano. Chopin himself said it better than anyone:

_"Mozart encompasses the entire domain of musical creation, but I've got only the keyboard in my poor head."_

The Top 10 is fairly solid except that Chopin's limitations should drop him out of it just a bit.


----------



## science

I love Debussy and early Stravinsky, so they'd move up. Their harmonies and rhythms are, to me, as fresh and wonderful as ever.

I don't get Wagner. A disgusting man who wrote pretentious, long, mediocre operas. As far as I can tell, anyway. The Tristan chord is great, but it doesn't get a guy up to #4 on my list. Maybe a top 30 composer for me. Maybe not. Obviously a lot of people who I respect disagree and I should listen to them, but so far I haven't heard what they hear.

I like Tchaikovsky, but some of his emotions don't appeal to me, so I'd rank him lower.

Handel is not even my 9th favorite baroque composer. Bach, Vivaldi, D. Scarlatti, Allegri, Biber, Purcell, Schutz, Corelli, F. Couperin, Rameau (Now that's what I call opera!), Albinoni, Lully, Buxtehude, Abel all beat him. To me, the _Messiah_ is ok, but it's no _Story of Christmas_. I haven't heard much of his other choral music, but so far nothing to make me push aside Rameau or Purcell. To fans of "Water Music" or "Fireworks" I usually want to say, "Seriously?" I guess this is another way of saying that I don't get Handel's music either. I'm sure I'll grow into it.

I might move up Verdi a bit. I _love_ his operas.

R. Strauss moves down. I only like his operas - and, I guess, his chamber music. The tone poems don't do anything for me.

Five years ago I'd have moved Shostakovich way up based on his chamber music. I still love that. Maybe I should rekindle that flame. Just now I don't feel it though, and I'd leave him where he is.

So scratch Bruckner, Berlioz, Strauss, Wagner. Make room for Monteverdi, Purcell, Elgar, Rameau.


----------



## tdc

Inspired by one of Air's old posts, I'll try a similar system: 

0 = I'm fine w/ placement 
+ = I feel they should placed higher 
- = I feel they should be placed lower 


Before I start I'd like to add that I think there are several baroque and modern composers not on the list that are as good or better than many on it. The list seems kind of outdated. (For example Monteverdi not being on this list decreases its credibility imo)

1 Bach - 0
2 Mozart - 0
3 Beethoven - 0
4 Wagner: -
5 Brahms: -
6 Schubert: - 0
7 Haydn: -
8 Tchaikovsky: -
9 Handel: 0
10 Chopin: -
11 Schumann: -
12 Stravinsky: 0
13 Mendelssohn: 0 
14 Debussy: +
15 Dvorak: -
16 Liszt: -
17 Mahler: +
18 Verdi: -
19 R. Strauss: 0
20 Prokofiev: 0
21 Shostakovich: -
22 Berlioz: 0
23 Puccini: -
24 Ravel: +
25 Vivaldi: 0
26 Sibelius: +
27 Bartok: +
28 Rossini: -
29 Bruckner: 0
30 Rachmaninov: 0


----------



## Lisztian

^I might just do the same.

1 Bach: 0
2 Mozart: -
3 Beethoven: +
4 Wagner: 0
5 Brahms: 0
6 Schubert: 0
7 Haydn: -
8 Tchaikovsky: -
9 Handel: 0
10 Chopin: -
11 Schumann: 0
12 Stravinsky: 0
13 Mendelssohn: -
14 Debussy: 0
15 Dvorak: -
16 Liszt: +
17 Mahler: +
18 Verdi: -
19 R. Strauss: -
20 Prokofiev: +
21 Shostakovich: 0
22 Berlioz: +
23 Puccini: 0
24 Ravel: +
25 Vivaldi: 0
26 Sibelius: 0
27 Bartok: 0
28 Rossini: 0
29 Bruckner: +
30 Rachmaninov: +


----------



## mmsbls

One can include a composer who is not on the list above. If you like that composer very much, perhaps _that_ is the composer you "overrate" the most.

For me the most underrated composer is Stravinsky. Over the past year I have come to enjoy more of his music, but for me there were no works that I loved. The Rite of Spring is such a dominant work in the eyes of many, but for me it has always been a work that is at best "nice". I did just listen to it again today when I determined that Stravinsky was probably my most underrated composer, and I found it much more interesting and enjoyable than before. Perhaps my initial reaction to Stravinsky was muted and I did not give him as much of a chance as other modern composers such as Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Bartok. I also recently revisited his Symphony of Psalms because of the TC choral list. On my first few hearings, that symphony did not strongly affect me either way (good or bad). Recently, I found the work beautiful in many places. Again perhaps I simply did not give Stravinsky's works enough of a chance so my feelings were lukewarm at best. Maybe in another year he will grow enough that I no longer significantly underrate him.

My most overrated composer is Saint-Saens with Dvorak not far behind. I love Saint-Saens concertos and much of his chamber work is lovely. It is my understanding that others view his concertos as showy works without enough substance, but I adore the second piano concerto, all his works for cello and orchestra, and several of his works for violin and orchestra.


----------



## Crudblud

Following tdc and Lisztian's examples, only with repeated markings to show the degree I think they should be raised lowered. They're not exact; 1 '-' does not equal being lowered by one position.

1 Bach ---
2 Mozart -----
3 Beethoven --
4 Wagner --
5 Brahms --
6 Schubert -
7 Haydn -
8 Tchaikovsky 0
9 Handel --
10 Chopin -
11 Schumann --
12 Stravinsky -
13 Mendelssohm -----
14 Debussy --
15 Dvorak 0
16 Liszt 0
17 Mahler +++
18 Verdi ++
19 R. Strauss +
20 Prokofiev +
21 Shostakovich -
22 Berlioz 0
23 Puccini +
24 Ravel +++++
25 Vivaldi --
26 Sibelius +++
27 Bartok +++
28 Rossini -
29 Bruckner +++
30 Rachmaninov -

New top 10

1 Zappa
2 Ravel
3 Messiaen
4 Mahler
5 Vliet
6 Scriabin
7 Xenakis
8 Varèse
9 Tchaikovsky
10 Satie

Notes

11th and 12th places go to Bartók and D. Scarlatti respectively.

I do not hate Mozart, but I'd have a hard time working him in to a top 30 list for anything. However, Don Giovanni could conceivably make the list for opera.

Bach and Beethoven are both top 30, Bach maybe top 20.

I love Wagner's instrumental music, but aside from the Ring (which itself has many problems, especially in Götterdämmerung) and Meistersinger I generally don't enjoy sitting through his operas.


----------



## brianwalker

science said:


> I don't get Wagner. A disgusting man who wrote pretentious, long, mediocre operas. As far as I can tell, anyway. The Tristan chord is great, but it doesn't get a guy up to #4 on my list. Maybe a top 30 composer for me. Maybe not. Obviously a lot of people who I respect disagree and I should listen to them, but so far I haven't heard what they hear.
> 
> I like Tchaikovsky, but some of his emotions don't appeal to me, so I'd rank him lower.
> 
> Handel is not even my 9th favorite baroque composer. Bach, Vivaldi, D. Scarlatti, Allegri, Biber, Purcell, Schutz, Corelli, F. Couperin, Rameau (Now that's what I call opera!), Albinoni, Lully, Buxtehude, Abel all beat him. To me, the _Messiah_ is ok, but it's no _Story of Christmas_. I haven't heard much of his other choral music, but so far nothing to make me push aside Rameau or Purcell. To fans of "Water Music" or "Fireworks" I usually want to say, "Seriously?" I guess this is another way of saying that I don't get Handel's music either. I'm sure I'll grow into it.
> 
> I might move up Verdi a bit. I _love_ his operas.
> 
> R. Strauss moves down. I only like his operas - and, I guess, his chamber music. The tone poems don't do anything for me.


1. Have you listened to Handel's Grosse Concerti? 
2. Have you listened to Parsifal (both Debussy and Stravinsky were enthusiastic about it, thought it was Wagner's best work, as do I)


----------



## Art Rock

From that top 30, the highest ranked composer that would not make my personal top 100 (based on personal taste only) is Handel. In general I don't particularly like baroque (with the huge exception of JS Bach), and Handel's works simply don't strike me personally as brilliant (I have the concerto grosso's, water music, fireworks, harp concertos and organ concertos on CD).

From that top 30, the composer that would make the biggest jump is Mahler, from 17 to my #2. I have his complete works, in many cases in several versions. His emotions in music appeal to me. Suffice it to say that after 25 years of listening to classical music with a CD collection of 4000+ ranging from gregorian to contemporary, two Mahler compositions (Das Lied von der Erde, Kindertotenlieder) would definitely make my top10, with two others (Symphonies 4 and 9) strong candidates as well.

A composer not listed that would be high on my list is Samuel Barber. I have not heard anything by him that I did not like/love. If you only know his Adagio for strings, please give him a try.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

1	Bach: +
2	Mozart: -
3	Beethoven: -
4	Wagner: -
5	Brahms: -
6	Schubert: -
7	Haydn: -
8	Tchaikovsky: -
9	Handel: -
10	Chopin: -
11	Schumann: -
12	Stravinsky: 0
13	Mendelssohn: -
14	Debussy: -
15	Dvorak: -
16	Liszt: -
17	Mahler: -
18	Verdi: -
19	R. Strauss: -
20	Prokofiev: +
21	Shostakovich: +
22	Berlioz: -
23	Puccini: -
24	Ravel: -
25	Vivaldi: -
26	Sibelius: -
27	Bartok: 0
28	Rossini: -
29	Bruckner: -
30	Rachmaninov: -


----------



## Conor71

I think the DDD list is pretty good - I would personally rate Sibelius and Shostakovich a bit higher but the rest seems pretty sound!


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

Nice to see Handel in the top 10 of that list. I would however push Handel over Tchaikovsky and Brahms, moving him more towards the no.5 or no.6 mark. Tchaikovsky, a fine composer, was a gifted melodist with his catchy tunes. He is quite appealing especially to new listeners. Brahms wrote very decent music of course, but he just was not as expansive as Handel was, perhaps surprisingly as Romanticism was "all about" the emotions. The subtlety and elegance of the best of Handel move me way more than the often brute catchy styles of Tchaikovsky and the occasional darker moods of Brahms' heavy emotional baggage.


----------



## Very Senior Member

According to my calculations, Mozart, Beethoven and Bach were in joint first position, Wagner in 4th, and Brahms and Schubert in joint 5th place, based on the average results from the four lists mentioned in the OP. That's based on a simple averaging of the ranks accorded to each composer.

The composer most under-rated by TC members compared with the other three lists would seem to be Verdi, with Liszt, Puccini and Schumann following up close behind. 

The most over-rated composers by TC members compared with the average of the other three lists would seem to be Sibelius, Rachmaninov, and Mahler. I don't know whether it's true for Rachmaninov but from my observations there would seem to be a very strong support for Mahler and Sibelius on T-C compared with what I have seen elsewhere, so this result figures. 

As far as I'm concerned, I think the "average list" is generally about right, except that I would swap Handel for Wagner. I am not that that keen on Stravinsky and I might move Ravel up to swap places.


----------



## Eviticus

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> *1	Bach: +*
> 2	Mozart: -
> 3	Beethoven: -
> 4	Wagner: -
> 5	Brahms: -
> 6	Schubert: -
> 7	Haydn: -
> 8	Tchaikovsky: -
> 9	Handel: -
> 10	Chopin: -


Not sure you really gasped this concept Advantgarde - You can't get better than No.1. 

Great thread and was looking forward to the answers since there have been very strong opinions on overrated threads.

I don't really like to label anyone "overrated" and think the top 10 is pretty perfect. In my view the greatest composers are usually the ones that have established masterpieces in most major genres (an exception being Wagner). On this principle i'd probably move Chopin out of the top 10. Maybe replace him with Dvorak but i could be persuaded otherwise as Dvorak is more a 'favourite'.

Personally, I've never really understood why Brahms and Schubert are frequently rated above Tchaikovsky but there you go.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Eviticus said:


> Not sure you really gasped this concept Advantgarde - You can't get better than No.1.
> 
> Great thread and was looking forward to the answers since there have been very strong opinions on overrated threads.
> 
> I don't really like to label anyone "overrated" and think the top 10 is pretty perfect. In my view the greatest composers are usually the ones that have established masterpieces in most major genres (an exception being Wagner). On this principle i'd probably move Chopin out of the top 10. Maybe replace him with Dvorak but i could be persuaded otherwise as Dvorak is more a 'favourite'.
> 
> Personally, I've never really understood why Brahms and Schubert are frequently rated above Tchaikovsky but there you go.


I think Bach is too underrated to be at no. 1.


----------



## science

Eviticus said:


> Not sure you really gasped this concept Advantgarde - You can't get better than No.1.


I was wondering if people should have the same number of + as - votes.


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

mmsbls said:


> I thought I'd simply average several ratings that are readily available so everyone could compare themselves to some list that attempts to average classical musical taste. The list below is an average of 4 lists: Goulding's 50 Greatest Composers, The DDD composer list, the top 500 composers from the Western Kentucky site, and a list averaging TC members' picks. The top 30 composers averaged from these lists are shown below.
> 
> 1	Bach
> 2	Mozart
> 3	Beethoven
> 4	Wagner
> 5	Brahms
> 6	Schubert
> 7	Haydn
> 8	Tchaikovsky
> 9	Handel
> 10	Chopin
> 11	Schumann
> 12	Stravinsky
> 13	Mendelssohm
> 14	Debussy
> 15	Dvorak
> 16	Liszt
> 17	Mahler
> 18	Verdi
> 19	R. Strauss
> 20	Prokofiev
> 21	Shostakovich
> 22	Berlioz
> 23	Puccini
> 24	Ravel
> 25	Vivaldi
> 26	Sibelius
> 27	Bartok
> 28	Rossini
> 29	Bruckner
> 30	Rachmaninov


Thanks for your effort!


mmsbls said:


> Could you pick one composer that you significantly "overrate" and one composer that you significantly "underrate" compared to this "average" list and try to say why your tastes differ?


Substitute the phrase "viewpoint differs" for "tastes differ" and I might be able to make a more interesting response.

According to this list, the composer that I most significantly "overrate" is Mahler. Leaving my personal enjoyment of Mahler's music aside (because really, what does that matter in the context of this thorough ranking?), I'd say that Mahler is Classical Music's most significant symphonist, post-Beethoven... and that merits a ranking higher than the high-teens.

It's more challenging still for me to address the "underrate" issue. This, I believe, is due to the fact that I'm self-effacing enough to consider that if I don't appreciate more fully some of the higher-rung composers, that's almost exclusively a comment on ME, and not the worth of the list(s). In other words, I'm sure I _under-value_, composers, all the time... but it seems less frequent that I _under-rate_ them.

There are some names I'd tweak down the list a little... Bach (whom I'd put behind Beethoven & Mozart). Brahms. Chopin. The adjustments would be VERY minor. If forced to pick one I'd set back more than a couple of slots, it would be Stravinsky. I say this with some hesitation... since it's not like I don't like his works. I just don't see him as a '"top-dozen-of-all-time" composer- not anymore, anyway. Not looking to 'bash' him- but there are just a few I'd place a bit ahead of him...


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Eviticus said:


> ..............Advantgarde..............


Now that's one I haven't seen yet. So far we've had, ComposerOfAvantGarde, Composer, COAG, CoAG etc. but I don't think we've had that one yet. Well done on being the first.


----------



## Eviticus

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Now that's one I haven't seen yet. So far we've had, ComposerOfAvantGarde, Composer, COAG, CoAG etc. but I don't think we've had that one yet. Well done on being the first.


Take it as proof you can be innovative AND lazy. :tiphat:


----------



## Aramis

poconoron said:


> And Chopin is also a bit too high - come on, the guy could only compose for the piano. Chopin himself said it better than anyone:
> 
> _"Mozart encompasses the entire domain of musical creation, but I've got only the keyboard in my poor head."_


No, Debussy himself said it better than anyone:

_Chopin is the greatest of all_, Debussy said, _for with the piano alone he discovered everything._


----------



## DavidMahler

1	Bach
2	Mozart
3	Beethoven
4	Wagner
5	Brahms
6	Schubert
7	Haydn
8	Tchaikovsky
9	Handel 
10	Chopin 
11	Schumann
12	Stravinsky
13	Mendelssohm
14	Debussy
15	Dvorak
16	Liszt
17	Mahler
18	Verdi
19	R. Strauss
20	Prokofiev
21	Shostakovich
22	Berlioz
23	Puccini
24	Ravel
25	Vivaldi
26	Sibelius
27	Bartok
28	Rossini
29	Bruckner
30	Rachmaninov

From this list, it would seem I severely underrate Puccini, who to me belongs on this list less than P Diddy

And I probably overrate Mahler just because he's clearly the pinnacle of western music y'all


----------



## Very Senior Member

In the light of several comments, may I re-iterate the point I made in my post number 17 that Bach, Mozart, Beethoven are *equal first*, not first, second and third respectively as set out in the OP.

This is based on a simple weighting of the ranks achieved by each in the four polls. I'm waiting for mmsbls to respond to this point.


----------



## clavichorder

I have several favorite composers that never seem to make these lists. Due to my love for them, I can't look at lists like this without getting annoyed. I'm just not there with the rest of you guys.


----------



## mmsbls

Very Senior Member said:


> In the light of several comments, may I re-iterate the point I made in my post number 17 that Bach, Mozart, Beethoven are *equal first*, not first, second and third respectively as set out in the OP.
> 
> This is based on a simple weighting of the ranks achieved by each in the four polls. I'm waiting for mmsbls to respond to this point.


Yes, you are correct. There are several ties including Liszt and Mahler at 16. I felt it did not matter to distinguish such ties because I was looking for large examples of overrating (overvaluing) or underrating (undervaluing). If someone feels that Mozart is No.1, as I do, she is not overrating since that's only a step or two.

I was really more interested in cases where someone values a composer significantly differently than the "average".


----------



## larifari

Let's get reasonable. A list of 30, which may or may not include the most overrated or underrated composers is far too big to start.

Let's do what they do in professional sports. Drop half, and then drop half, again, and again until we have a winner.


----------



## mmsbls

There have been two whole threads on why TC members undervalue Liszt and Schumann so maybe those issues have been discussed enough. From looking at TC members ratings, it appears TC members highly "overvalue" Sibelius and Mahler. (Monteverdi and Bruckner are also highly overvalued, but that is primarily due to the WKU score alone). Obviously the statistics I used are somewhat small (I think there were roughly 30 people or so whose ratings were averaged in the TC top composer thread), but clearly many people here view these composers higher than other collective estimates.

*What is it about Mahler's and Sibelius' music that makes "us" value then higher than other people?*


----------



## clavichorder

mmsbls said:


> I was really more interested in cases where someone values a composer significantly differently than the "average".


First the more obvious deviations: I would rate Tchaikovsky number 4. I would rate Bartok significantly higher. I think that my way of rating is less apt to take into account who was more revolutionary than who, as I find that a less significant part of the actual music itself, than it is often painted out to be. This will perhaps explain why I make mention of Medtner and Taneyev, and why I value Russian romanticism so much. I value Medtner greatly. I'll allow that much of this is in part due to my fascination with sonata form, piano, and extended harmonies, all to be found in this composer in a balance that I've found suits me. Another composer that I would rate very highly who does not appear on this list is Sergei Taneyev. I value his chamber music very highly, there isn't music quite like that.

All the same, I don't think I could or would make a straightforward and intelligent case for why they, overall as composers should make this list. I can plainly see that Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich wrote more music all around, were more versatile than these composers. But I prefer the musical minds of Medtner and Taneyev, who are more rewarding to me than either of those Russian composers.


----------



## Very Senior Member

mmsbls said:


> Yes, you are correct. There are several ties including Liszt and Mahler at 16. I felt it did not matter to distinguish such ties because I was looking for large examples of overrating (overvaluing) or underrating (undervaluing). If someone feels that Mozart is No.1, as I do, she is not overrating since that's only a step or two.
> 
> I was really more interested in cases where someone values a composer significantly differently than the "average".


Thanks for confirming the various ties, especially the tie for the first three positions.

As I said previously, I think that the poll of polls gives a good result overall. But there again I'm not sure that they are fully independent of each other, as I rather suspect that one has fed off the other to some extent.

The list which is perhaps a bit different from the others is the Kentucky one. It's not a poll as such but one guy's opinion, albeit admittedly based on a lot of desk research. I have known about the Kentucky site for about 5 years now. It was flagged up as a source of reference during DDD's deliberations on the "greatest composers" in 2006/7. The Kentucky site is a very useful one but mostly for other reasons in terms of providing lots of useful information on classical music generally: genres, main works, geographical lists, who influenced who. I have often found it to be a useful reference point.


----------



## pjang23

mmsbls said:


> *What is it about Mahler's and Sibelius' music that makes "us" value then higher than other people?*


My guess is simply because symphonies are more popular here. Top 7 look good to me (Mozart & Beethoven tied for 2nd). Debussy, Mahler, and especially Ravel look too low. I would make room for Fauré, Palestrina, and Monteverdi.

1 Bach 0
2 Mozart 0
3 Beethoven 0
4 Wagner 0
5 Brahms 0
6 Schubert 0
7 Haydn 0
8 Tchaikovsky -
9 Handel -
10 Chopin -
11 Schumann 0
12 Stravinsky +
13 Mendelssohn +
14 Debussy ++
15 Dvorak +
16 Liszt -
17 Mahler ++
18 Verdi +
19 R. Strauss +
20 Prokofiev +
21 Shostakovich +
22 Berlioz 0
23 Puccini +
24 Ravel +++
25 Vivaldi 0
26 Sibelius +
27 Bartok +
28 Rossini -
29 Bruckner 0
30 Rachmaninov 0


----------



## Very Senior Member

mmsbls said:


> *What is it about Mahler's and Sibelius' music that makes "us" value then higher than other people?*


 I don't think it's the whole explanation but it could be partly a personality issue in that if you get a fairly dominant character on a Board who is apparently very knowledgeable about, engrossed with and keen on promoting a particular composer that kind of thing tends to influence some other people who might otherwise have voted for other composers.


----------



## DavidMahler

Great composers like Josquin, Machaut, Palestrina, Ockeghem, Dufay, Obrecht, Victoria, De Lassus, Byrd ..... don't even get a mention anymore, but all those can be listed in the top 30 without any need to justify them. 

In my opinion, both Josquin and Palestrina belong in the top 10 in terms of innovation and influence.

I feel Messiaen probably belongs in the top 30, certainly more than Vivaldi, Rossini, Rachmaninov and Puccini

I don't understand Mendeslssohn's placement on these lists, he's a fair composer. Great melodist I suppose, but he's merely pleasant, he didn't frontier anything and he's not one of the 10 great symphonists. Even as a concerto composer, he is very limited. One great concerto, and more popular than great.

Tchaikovsky is placed too high on all lists, but I can understand why. Switch Tchaikovsky and Mahler I think. Mahler's music shows a real evolution and is infinitely brilliant from symphony 1 to the final symphony. I would switch Strauss and Berlioz too, Berlioz is a much more important composer.


----------



## violadude

mmsbls said:


> *What is it about Mahler's and Sibelius' music that makes "us" value then higher than other people?*


Obviously it's because we're just a bit more awesome than your average group of classical music listeners.


----------



## DavidMahler

Mahler's entire oeuvre gets played in the concert hall regularly. Theres no other composer that can claim that. And even tho he doesn't seem as prolific, there's actually as many pages of music in Mahler as there is in Brahms practically.

Everything from Songs of a Wayfarer to Symphony 10 can pop up on a concert program at any time.


----------



## jalex

Based on how much I like them, I've commented on everyone I would change significantly:

6	Schubert -- (never really reached me in the way he seems to for everyone else, though I do like him. Definitely a very good composer, but a truly great one? Not for me at this moment in time)
8	Tchaikovsky -- (ditto, though as with Schubert his talent is self-evident)
9	Handel -- (undoubtedly great but I agree with Schoenberg's criticisms of his overuse of sequences as padding and his over-reliance on the big tune which becomes less interesting on repeated hearings. And all those da capo arias!  )
10	Chopin -- (just too high for what he produced)
12	Stravinsky +++ (best of the C20 for me, one of my favourites of all time)
13	Mendelssohn --- (too much anodyne music, not enough good stuff)
14	Debussy ++ (the harmonies and colour in his music are amazing)
17	Mahler +++ (same as everyone else: exactly what is one of the two symphonic titans doing down here?)
21	Shostakovich ++ (like him in a very personal way, and he is I think a lot less inconsistent than is often claimed)
23	Puccini --- (yuck)
25	Vivaldi -- (I find him bland compared to the other Baroque masters)
26	Sibelius ++ (7 great symphonies - can't argue with that. Not to mention everything else)
27	Bartok +++ (another C20 favourite, his music is so harmonically interesting and the folk element gives it a really fresh, otherworldly flavour)
30	Rachmaninov -- (yuck)

Nice to see Berlioz rated so highly - maybe a tiny bit too highly  But it's miles better than his relative obscurity not so long ago.


----------



## Couchie

1 Bach -
2 Mozart -
3 Beethoven -
4 Wagner +++
5 Brahms --
6 Schubert --
7 Haydn ---
8 Tchaikovsky ---
9 Handel +
10 Chopin ---
11 Schumann --
12 Stravinsky -
13 Mendelssohn ---
14 Debussy +++
15 Dvorak --
16 Liszt --
17 Mahler ---
18 Verdi -
19 R. Strauss -
20 Prokofiev -
21 Shostakovich --
22 Berlioz +
23 Puccini -
24 Ravel +
25 Vivaldi ---
26 Sibelius +
27 Bartok 0
28 Rossini ---
29 Bruckner ---
30 Rachmaninov ---


----------



## jalex

^ :lol: How were you planning to fill the rest?


----------



## DavidMahler

1	Bach (--)
2	Mozart (--)
3	Beethoven (-)
4	Wagner (--)
5	Brahms (++)
6	Schubert (++)
7	Haydn (--)
8	Tchaikovsky (-)
9	Handel (--)
10	Chopin (0)
11	Schumann (+)
12	Stravinsky (--)
13	Mendelssohn (---)
14	Debussy (++)
15	Dvorak (+)
16	Liszt (0)
17	Mahler (+++++++)
18	Verdi (--)
19	R. Strauss (-)
20	Prokofiev (+)
21	Shostakovich (+)
22	Berlioz (+)
23	Puccini (----------------------)
24	Ravel (+++)
25	Vivaldi (---)
26	Sibelius (+++)
27	Bartok (++)
28	Rossini (---)
29	Bruckner (++)
30	Rachmaninov (+)


----------



## mmsbls

I do find the posts interesting, but I'd remind everyone that the questions in the OP were:

*Why do you think that you like or dislike certain composers more than other people do?*

*Could you pick one composer that you significantly "overrate" and one composer that you significantly "underrate" compared to this "average" list and try to say why your tastes differ?*

I'd love to hear more about why people think _their particular tastes differ from the apparent majority_?


----------



## Air

*My tastes are my tastes. I mean no offense to those whose tastes may differ from my own.*

1 Bach - _Yes._
2 Mozart - _Yes._
3 Beethoven - _Yes._
4 Wagner - _Generally, yes. At times, a spot or two too high._
5 Brahms - _Arguably just a spot or two too high._
6 Schubert - _About right._
7 Haydn - _About right, based on the merit of his choral, piano, and chamber music, not his symphonies._
8 Tchaikovsky - _Too high._
9 Handel - _Too low._
10 Chopin - _Slightly too high. Comparatively, should at least be lower than Schumann._
11 Schumann - _Slightly too low._ 
12 Stravinsky - _About right._
13 Mendelssohn - _Not a great composer by a long shot, though he did write some beautiful music. Too high._
14 Debussy - _Too low. As influential as Stravinsky, and put together some of the most wonderful sounds known to mankind._
15 Dvorak - _About right._
16 Liszt - _Based on the better part of his output, about right. Overall, a few spots too high._
17 Mahler - _A few spots too low, though I don't believe, like many others here, that he deserves to be in the top 10._
18 Verdi - _Slightly too low, as well, for one of the greatest composers of opera._
19 R. Strauss - _Perhaps a spot or two too high, but he is one of my favorites and I am fine seeing him in the top 20._
20 Prokofiev - _About right. Also one of my favorites but arguably, the quality of his music can be found wanting at times._
21 Shostakovich - _I might argue, slightly too high._
22 Berlioz - _About right._
23 Puccini - _An opera great, but not as great as Verdi. Too high._
24 Ravel - _Only because I love his music, slightly too low. An understandable placement though that I probably wouldn't argue with._
25 Vivaldi - _A spot or two too low._
26 Sibelius - _About right._
27 Bartok - _Far too low. Arguably one of the towering figures of the 20th century._
28 Rossini - _Rossini who? I like both Donizetti and Bellini better. Way too high._
29 Bruckner - _Perhaps a spot or two too high._
30 Rachmaninoff - _A few spots too high._

*A few composers* (excluding Medtner ) *that I'd rather see crack the top 30 than some of those listed above:*

Des Prez
Palestrina
Monteverdi
Telemann
Rameau
D. Scarlatti
Villa-Lobos (if only at 30th)
Janáček
Varèse
Schoenberg
Messiaen
Ligeti

*Don't get me wrong, I love the Romantic era, but when a full 60% of the composers on a top 30 list have written within this idiom, then you know that something is seriously, seriously wrong.*


----------



## Eviticus

mmsbls said:


> I do find the posts interesting, but I'd remind everyone that the questions in the OP were:
> 
> *Why do you think that you like or dislike certain composers more than other people do?*
> 
> *Could you pick one composer that you significantly "overrate" and one composer that you significantly "underrate" compared to this "average" list and try to say why your tastes differ?*
> 
> I'd love to hear more about why people think _their particular tastes differ from the apparent majority_?


Perhaps this should be first directed to the many posters who rate Mahler much higher than the average listing where he usually just edges in to the top 20?

Does a body of work that only encompasses 10 solid symphonies and several okay song cycles really deserve to be top 10? I would say that would be "overrating" him.


----------



## jalex

Eviticus said:


> Does a body of work that only encompasses 10 solid symphonies and several okay song cycles really deserve to be top 10? I would say that would be "overrating" him.


Each of his ten symphonies are among the best ever written, and alone they'd still be enough to place him highly in my list. The song cycles are better described as 'incredible'. His small output covers as much musical ground as many of the other greats cover in hundreds of works, and more than most composers could hope to cover no matter how much they wrote.


----------



## Eviticus

jalex said:


> Each of his ten symphonies are among the best ever written, and alone they'd still be enough to place him highly in my list. The song cycles are better described as 'incredible'. His small output covers as much musical ground as many of the other greats cover in hundreds of works, and more than most composers could hope to cover no matter how much they wrote.


It's far easier to master one genre than to master many...


----------



## Lisztian

Eviticus said:


> It's far easier to master one genre than to master many...


I think it's different with Mahler. His works seem to encompass everything, they are beyond symphonies, beyond songs. They encompass superb orchestration, the huge climaxes contrasted with chamber music like sections, along with tremendous vocal writing. His symphones are not just conventional symphonies, they encompass many genres in one.


----------



## Eviticus

Lisztian said:


> I think it's different with Mahler. His works seems to encompass everything, they are beyond symphonies, beyond songs. They encompass superb orchestration, the huge climaxes contrasted with chamber music like sections, along with tremendous vocal writing. His symphones are not just convential symphonies, they encompass many genres in one.


I don't doubt their brilliance for a moment - but if Beethoven had only put out 9 symphonies he would most definitely be rated far lower despite his set being far more influential. I just feel what really separates then men from the boys (top 10's) is the ability to produce masterworks in all the major genres as it show's incredible flexibility, diversity and balls!


----------



## brianwalker

Eviticus said:


> I don't doubt their brilliance for a moment - but if Beethoven had only put out 9 symphonies he would most definitely be rated far lower despite his set being far more influential. I just feel what really separates then men from the boys (top 10's) is the ability to produce masterworks in all the major genres as it show's incredible flexibility, diversity and balls!


Wagner only wrote operas (music dramas), so did Verdi, Tommasini put Verdi and Wagner in his top ten composers list.


----------



## clavichorder

Lets give this ranking business a try, utilizing the system we've adopted, in a non controversial way, not based on what I like most personally, but a hybrid of my own assessments and popular assessment. Here we go:

1	Bach(-)
2	Mozart(+)
3	Beethoven(0)
4	Wagner(---)
5	Brahms(0)
6	Schubert(+)
7	Haydn(0)
8	Tchaikovsky(++)
9	Handel(0) 
10	Chopin(--) 
11	Schumann(+)
12	Stravinsky(-)
13	Mendelssohm(-)
14	Debussy(+++)
15	Dvorak(0)
16	Liszt(0)
17	Mahler(0)
18	Verdi(-)
19	R. Strauss(-)
20	Prokofiev(++)
21	Shostakovich(0)
22	Berlioz(+++)
23	Puccini(-----)
24	Ravel(+)
25	Vivaldi(++)
26	Sibelius(0)
27	Bartok(+++)
28	Rossini(--)
29	Bruckner(+)
30	Rachmaninov(+)

I'm not going to argue who should be on this list though.

But you can plainly see that there are those on this list I don't care for at all, Puccini, Verdi, and Wagner I don't care much for due to their focus on opera, though Verdi I can enjoy, the other two, I could care less.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

Personally, I find this list to be pretty accurate... which shouldn't be surprising considering the manner in which it was compiled. The top three are virtually a given.

*1. Bach
2. Mozart
3. Beethoven

4. Wagner*

Wagner is the first I see as really open to debate... although I personally can't see him placing much lower.

*5. Brahms*

Brahms is perhaps placed a bit too high... and depending upon my mood I might place Schubert, Haydn, or Handel before him... but then again... the man is damn good.

*6. Schubert*

I think its the sense of what "might have been" considering all that Schubert had achieved in such a short span of time that leads me to feel that even at no. 6 Schubert is underrated.

*7. Haydn*

The problem with Haydn is that he was just so f-in' prolific. Beethoven has 9 symphonies... 5 of which are clearly major works. Mozart has a handful of great symphonies. Brahms but 4. Haydn has 12 great symphonic works if we only count the "London" symphonies... and there are dozens of others. The same "problem" confronts us with his string quartets, his piano sonatas, and even his masses. We are confronted with such a wealth of music that we might be fooled into assuming that there are no works that really stand out... when in fact there are almost too many!

*8. Tchaikovsky*

Unlike others here, I don't feel Tchaikovsky is overrated here. His symphonic oeuvre is rich, his ballets among the finest, his violin and piano concertos are virtuoso showpieces of the finest order in spite of being overplayed. And then we have his songs, his choral works, and his operas which are grossly unknown to most audiences outside of Russia.

*9. Handel *

If anyone is truly underrated here among the "top ten", it is Handel. I could easily flip him and Brahms around. The wealth of his vocal music is staggering: the brilliant Italian cantatas, 40+ operas, 20+ oratorios, and numerous other works so rich in invention and exquisite music that I am stunned. And still there are his "minor works"... his concerti grossi, his keyboard suites, his Water Music and Royal Fireworks, etc...

*10. Chopin 
11. Schumann
12. Stravinsky
13. Mendelssohn
14. Debussy
15. Dvorak
16. Liszt
17. Mahler
18. Verdi
19. R. Strauss
20. Prokofiev
21. Shostakovich
22. Berlioz
23. Puccini
24. Ravel
25. Vivaldi
26. Sibelius
27. Bartok
28. Rossini
29. Bruckner
30. Rachmaninov*

From this point on, things get "murky". Chopin, Stravinsky, Mendelssohn... and much as I love him, Puccini are all probably rated too highly. Surely Debussy's oeuvre for piano alone trumps Chopin... and then he also has his orchestral works, a wealth of exquisite songs, and his opera. Stravinsky always seems to be placed as high as he is upon the reputation of his early Modernist masterpieces... especially the Rite. But after that? Personally I find much of the work less convincing... mannered. Concerning Mendelssohn, I agree with the majority view that there are not enough masterworks in his oeuvre to earn such a high position. The same criticism could probably be fairly leveled against Puccini.

Schumann, Dvorak, Liszt, Mahler... I'd probably move them all up to no.s 11-14... the order being open to discussion. No. 10? Richard Strauss. He is the greatest operatic composer since Wagner. His _Salome_ and _Elektra_ rival Stravinsky's _Rite_ in terms of shock and awe... and Modernist innovation. He then has another half-dozen operas nearly as good. Pad these out with the tone poems and other orchestral works, and the songs... especially The _Last Four Songs_.

I question Rossini... although I suspect many here question the ranking of nearly any opera composer. Indeed, I suspect that the majority of those who complain about Vivaldi's rank have never really explored his choral works and operas.

Others worthy of consideration? Certainly Monteverdi... a gross oversight. The composer was almost certainly the greatest composer of the Renaissance, and the man truly responsible for the shift toward the Baroque as well as for the invention of opera as we know it. And then there are all those madrigals and the Vespers! And what of Biber? Buxtehude? Rameau? Josquin des Prez, Guillaume Dufay, Palestrina, Hildegard of Bingen, Carlo Gesualdo? Johannes Ockeghem, Alfonso el Sabio, Alessandro Scarlatti, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Bellini and Donizetti? What of Faure with his exquisite songs and chamber works, his nocturnes, as well as his Requiem? What of Benjamin Britten? Ralph Vaughan Williams, Delius, or Alban Berg?


----------



## TrazomGangflow

Overrate: Haydn
Underrate: Debussy


----------



## Romantic Geek

DavidMahler said:


> Great composers like Josquin, Machaut, Palestrina, Ockeghem, Dufay, Obrecht, Victoria, De Lassus, Byrd ..... don't even get a mention anymore, but all those can be listed in the top 30 without any need to justify them.
> 
> In my opinion, both Josquin and Palestrina belong in the top 10 in terms of innovation and influence.
> 
> I feel Messiaen probably belongs in the top 30, certainly more than Vivaldi, Rossini, Rachmaninov and Puccini
> 
> I don't understand Mendeslssohn's placement on these lists, he's a fair composer. Great melodist I suppose, but he's merely pleasant, he didn't frontier anything and he's not one of the 10 great symphonists. Even as a concerto composer, he is very limited. One great concerto, and more popular than great.
> 
> Tchaikovsky is placed too high on all lists, but I can understand why. Switch Tchaikovsky and Mahler I think. Mahler's music shows a real evolution and is infinitely brilliant from symphony 1 to the final symphony. I would switch Strauss and Berlioz too, Berlioz is a much more important composer.


Josquin, Machaut, Palestrina, Dufay, Victoria, De Lassus - yes. I agree.

As far as Mendelssohn, he's probably generally overrated, but you have to realize that his early works were the works of a genius. Unfortunately, I do not think he panned out like he could have, stuck in the old style. One day, we may regard his works as masterpieces when we finally remove labels of the eras and compare music for the sake of music. I think Mendelssohn wrote fantastic music, but when compared with Schubert and Schumann versus Beethoven, he'll lose.

Now about Berlioz...why is he on this list again (much like the one poster said about Puccini?)

And as far as why we say there are underrated composers - because they are. Now granted, I don't get this debate with Schumann and Liszt being underrated. Everyone knows these composers. A true underrated composer is one who wrote fantastic works and people might not have heard any music by this composer, let alone the composer's name. Those are underrated composers. Leo Ornstein I think is incredibly underrated, for instance. But who's heard of him anyway...


----------



## Romantic Geek

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Others worthy of consideration? Certainly Monteverdi... a gross oversight. The composer was almost certainly the greatest composer of the Renaissance, and the man truly responsible for the shift toward the Baroque as well as for the invention of opera as we know it. And then there are all those madrigals and the Vespers! And what of Biber? Buxtehude? Rameau? Josquin des Prez, Guillaume Dufay, Palestrina, Hildegard of Bingen, Carlo Gesualdo? Johannes Ockeghem, Alfonso el Sabio, Alessandro Scarlatti, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Bellini and Donizetti? What of Faure with his exquisite songs and chamber works, his nocturnes, as well as his Requiem? What of Benjamin Britten? Ralph Vaughan Williams, Delius, or Alban Berg?


Oh come now, Rameau? The music theorist here will say that Rameau was a damn fine music theorist, but let's just forget he was a composer


----------



## Sid James

mmsbls said:


> ...The question I'd like to ask is: Why do _you_ think that you like or dislike certain composers more than other people do?...


Well it depends on the composer or piece at hand.

With the "big names" I have not had anything to complain about. Recently have been getting again into J.S. Bach, esp. his solo instrumental things, and I've found out that if he can offer me something of value/engagement/enjoyment, etc. then probably any composer can to some degree.

It's that degree that makes the difference. Not how I rate a composer, I don't like lists much, but in terms of how often I listen to them and me wanting to read and find out more about them, or hear their works played live, etc.



mmsbls said:


> ...
> *What is it about Mahler's and Sibelius' music that makes "us" value then higher than other people?*


It may be that people like their darkness and angst. These are no walks in the park. Their symphonies often have ambigious messages. They are, as a result, composers I seldom listen to. They go very deep, cut very close to the bone at times, the "big" issues.

My favourite works by them are atypically more bright or at least not outright bleak, Mahler's _Sym.#4_ and Sibelius' _Lemminkainen Suite_.

In contrast to them, I like composers who more often than not give me a boost at the end, light at the end of the tunnel, etc. Beethoven and Brahms are two of those, also Mendelssohn & Weber, Rossini, etc., in terms of 19th century composers.

Of course Mahler was moving towards modernism and it can be argue already there by the end of his career, Sibelius is undoubtedly a modern style composer in many ways. So again, that means their music will almost automatically not have the certainties of the past, or the certainties we sometimes attach to musics of the past.

The list you posted in your OP is fine. I agree with chi-town pilly on that.

Except Wagner. This opinion by science (below) is more scathing than I'd put it, but it's not far from people on the ground I talk to here. Wagner is highly controversial and hated outright by as many as those who idolise him. I'm in between with him in some ways, don't hate him totally. If he'd written more chamber things like _Siegfried Idyll _I wouldn't complain.

What I hear about Wagner when talking about him to listeners I know is that he's too heavy or too long, like a 10 or 20 course meal is how somebody described him to me. Over the top, writing things with a ten tonne crayon, etc...



science said:


> ...
> I don't get Wagner. A disgusting man who wrote pretentious, long, mediocre operas. As far as I can tell, anyway. The Tristan chord is great, but it doesn't get a guy up to #4 on my list. Maybe a top 30 composer for me. Maybe not. Obviously a lot of people who I respect disagree and I should listen to them, but so far I haven't heard what they hear.
> 
> ...


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

Interesting thread.

I'm pleased to see my own views about Handel and Brahms mirrored by our newly appointed moderator, member Air, and also mirrored by esteemed member StlukesguildOhio. (While not yet expressing her opinion, I too have confidence with our other newly appointed moderator's views on Handel's music, member mamascarlatti). I guess the true believers amongst us have ears that set us apart from the rest of the herd. 

And now the rest of you may consult. It doesn't really matter anymore.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

^Handel is good.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> ^Handel is good.


Bless you, young lady CoAG. You will go a long way being a composer. (Beethoven sure did, and he admired Handel's music).


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Particularly his oratorios. Never get bored listening to them. And his operas are marvellous! "Giulio Cesare in Egitto" was the first opera I ever saw.


----------



## Sid James

..........................................


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

............Ignore this..........


----------



## Itullian

i really like Gluck's operas a lot. i think he must have influenced many composers.
Minkowski's recordings are fantastic.


----------



## Very Senior Member

> Very Senior Member said:
> 
> 
> 
> In the light of several comments, may I re-iterate the point I made in my post number 17 that Bach, Mozart, Beethoven are *equal first*, not first, second and third respectively as set out in the OP.
> 
> This is based on a simple weighting of the ranks achieved by each in the four polls. I'm waiting for mmsbls to respond to this point.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> mmsbls said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, you are correct. There are several ties including Liszt and Mahler at 16. I felt it did not matter to distinguish such ties because I was looking for large examples of overrating (overvaluing) or underrating (undervaluing). If someone feels that Mozart is No.1, as I do, she is not overrating since that's only a step or two.
> 
> I was really more interested in cases where someone values a composer significantly differently than the "average".
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...

According to my calculations - and as you have agreed in some cases - the tied positions are:

 Mozart, Beethoven, Bach in joint 1st place (ie *NOT* as shown in the OP)
Brahms and Schubert in joint 5th place (ie *NOT* as shown in the OP)
Liszt, Mahler in joint 16th place
Shostakovich, Sibelius, Ravel in joint 21st position.
I'm not sure I understand your reason for concealing these ties, and can't see that it serves any useful purpose. I would have thought it far more useful actually to bring out these ties faithfully according to the results rather than arbitrarily split them in the way you have done, as your list appears still to be generating nugatory comment and confusion in some quarters, especially among the top 6 positions. 

The tie between Mozart, Beethoven, Bach is particularly worthy of comment given all the tedious threads one sees where people argue about which of Mozart and Beethoven is the superior composer, with snide comments froms some that Bach's ability transcends both of them. 

Another noteworthy result is the consistently high rank across the four lists given to Wagner. This result is so firmly established that I wonder why some people still bother to to make derisory comments about this composer. Possibly it's because they that hope or vainly expect that other people may change their mind in the light of their "comments", but in reality there's no chance of that happening. One day they'll possibly appreciate why Wagner is so highly esteemed and look back on their previous comments with some regret.


----------



## emiellucifuge

Im surprised at what has been written about Wagner.

There is no other opera composer who explored further into the psyche of his characters and reflected this in the music. His groundbreaking influence aside, his music is, simply put, an emotional force and his operas so powerful on so many levels. Credit for writing the libretti himself is due.

He deserves a ranking higher than number 4, but Bach, Beethoven and Mozart deserve it more.


----------



## Sid James

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Shostakovich the Australopithecus, and then there was Stravinsky who lived with the dinosaurs....


Forget about what I said. I think it might ignite certain tired old debates. I've gotten rid of it...


----------



## Sid James

Very Senior Member said:


> ...
> 
> Another noteworthy result is the consistently high rank across the four lists given to Wagner. This result is so firmly established that I wonder why some people still bother to to make derisory comments about this composer. Possibly it's because they that hope or vainly expect that other people may change their mind in the light of their "comments", but in reality there's no chance of that happening. One day they'll possibly appreciate why Wagner is so highly esteemed and look back on their previous comments with some regret.


It's not noteworthy, it's just skewed to Wagnerites voting in these things online. On the ground here, amongst those I know, some do like Wagner, but I know no Wagnerites (eg. Wagner fanatics).

Comparison to what I see as the reality on the ground across decades of talking to people about classical is not derision. Most people, if you mention classical and the conversation is reasonably long, they will spontaneously give an opinion on Wagner, whether it's solicited by you or not. & as I said, in these conversations, I've never met anyone in the flesh who would agree that Wagner belongs in the "top 10" of "greatest" composers or whatever.

As for chances of me converting to total Wagnerism, it's buckley's or none. Unless they maybe discover some works of his that aren't operas.


----------



## Sid James

emiellucifuge said:


> Im surprised at what has been written about Wagner.
> 
> There is no other opera composer who explored further into the psyche of his characters and reflected this in the music. His groundbreaking influence aside, his music is, simply put, an emotional force and his operas so powerful on so many levels. Credit for writing the libretti himself is due.
> 
> He deserves a ranking higher than number 4, but Bach, Beethoven and Mozart deserve it more.


PUccini's the one who deserves a higher ranking. Probably the most popular opera composer on the planet, since his time. & a pretty good one in terms of the quality of his music as well. He was the master of modulations in his time, and musicians will tell you he was no hack of a composer. It's just the perception of his operas being in some ways cheap and for the great unwashed masses that sullies his reputation - eg. with some basis, it's obvious - of his operas being three hankie weepies and how he liked to "sex up" violence - eg. killing off the servant girl Liu in Turandot when it wasn't in the original story, stuff like this. But on the whole he's one of the best late romantic or romantic modern composers around. Even how it's hard to classify him talks to how he moved with the times, and adapted to new trends, eg. his knowledge of heaps from of course Verdi, to Debussy, to even admiring Wozzeck late in his life. He was a man for all seasons, and simply gave us excellent music.

Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if the derisory comments of Puccini come from fans (online mainly?) of you-know-who...


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

Sid James said:


> It's not noteworthy, it's just skewed to Wagnerites voting in these things online. On the ground here, amongst those I know, some do like Wagner, but I know no Wagnerites (eg. Wagner fanatics).


Say *what?!?!*


couchie said:


> *Talk Classical Members and Their Composers* [excerpt]
> Aksel	-	Wagner
> AmericanGesamtkunstwerk	-	Wagner
> amfortas	-	Wagner
> Chi_townPhilly -	Wagner
> Couchie	-	Wagner
> FragendeFrau	-	Wagner
> Igneous01 -	Wagner
> Itulian	-	Wagner
> jflatter	-	Wagner
> MAuer -	Wagner
> NightHawk	-	Wagner
> ooopera	-	Wagner
> Sieglinde	-	Wagner
> superhorn	-	Wagner
> waldvogel -	Wagner


----------



## Romantic Geek

emiellucifuge said:


> Im surprised at what has been written about Wagner.
> 
> There is no other opera composer who explored further into the psyche of his characters and reflected this in the music. His groundbreaking influence aside, his music is, simply put, an emotional force and his operas so powerful on so many levels. Credit for writing the libretti himself is due.
> 
> He deserves a ranking higher than number 4, but Bach, Beethoven and Mozart deserve it more.


So you think a one trick composer should be ranked higher than a composer who mastered many genres? That's why I think 4 is a little high. Yes, Wagner was an incredible opera composer, but that's all he did.


----------



## Very Senior Member

Sid James said:


> It's not noteworthy, it's just skewed to Wagnerites voting in these things online. On the ground here, amongst those I know, some do like Wagner, but I know no Wagnerites (eg. Wagner fanatics).
> 
> Comparison to what I see as the reality on the ground across decades of talking to people about classical is not derision. Most people, if you mention classical and the conversation is reasonably long, they will spontaneously give an opinion on Wagner, whether it's solicited by you or not. & as I said, in these conversations, I've never met anyone in the flesh who would agree that Wagner belongs in the "top 10" of "greatest" composers or whatever.
> 
> As for chances of me converting to total Wagnerism, it's buckley's or none. Unless they maybe discover some works of his that aren't operas.


I am not clear about the main point you are seeking to make here. Are you suggesting that when it comes to online polls/lists of the greatest composers that fans of Wagner are able somehow to muscle out the fans of other composers, so that a skewed result obtains in favour of Wagner? If you are, may I request that you please provide documentary evidence to support this conjecture based on the four lists used in the OP.

I realise that the Kentucky and Goulding lists are not polls as such, so it would be difficult to provide hard evidence along the lines I have requested. But if you have anything, anecdotal or otherwise, to suugest that either or both of these lists are deliberately biased in favour of Wagner then I would be very pleased to hear about it.

In the case of the DDD and TC Top 25 lists, this should in principle be a simpler task for you for you because they are based on a poll in one case (TC) and a mixture of poll/desk reserach in the other (DDD). Looking at the TC poll I must admit that I can't see any clear pro-Wagner bias but you may know otherwise. In the case of DDD's list I do appreciate that all of the supporting detail on how they arrived at their conclusions is no longer available, but if you are stuck may I suggest that you contact one of the Administrators of DDD and ask if you can be given accces to all the deliberations that took place in 2006/7 on "greatest composers", as you believe the result for Wagner was a fixed result and you would like to elaborate the details here on TC. I'm not sure of the result but it may be worth a try.

Meanwhile, I am somewhat reluctant to offer advice to someone like you who says he has spent "decades" reseaching classical music, but you still dislike Wagner. That is a great pity. If I may do so I would like to say that when I was learning the "game" I found it most useful to focus on the top 20-30 composers and seek out their most highly regarded works. Obviously Wagner was among these top composers. I didn't worry too much that some of them didn't immediately appeal but at least I developed a pretty good knowledge of the classical music canon rather than any old rag-bag of assorted material that seems to find its way into some people's stock of classical music. This way, incidentally, by delving into several composers' works, I was able to avoid the pitfall that one unfortunate character (as reported elsewhere on TC recently) has found himself in as regards getting fed up with Beethoven after virtually a non-stop diet of little else for over a year. What do they expect?


----------



## emiellucifuge

I wouldnt call writing operas a single trick. Its probably the most ambitious genre we have.
Also I think his operatic music sufficiently displays his mastery of all the skills of composition, plus a little extra.


----------



## Eviticus

brianwalker said:


> Wagner only wrote operas (music dramas), so did Verdi, Tommasini put Verdi and Wagner in his top ten composers list.


Wagner is the oddity in the top 10. I am not saying he should be there or not be there. If you went off my previous post then it probably implies he shouldn't be although I am sure the reason he is there is because his innovations and influence are simply staggering. There are strong arguments that suggest 3 composers literally changed the direction of modern music; Bach, Beethoven and Wagner. On that basis maybe Wagner really does deserve to be top 10 but i can't really make my mind up. One one hand you have a guy who wrote for one genre (a genre that a large proportion of classical music fans don't even like) and on the other you have the fact that his output changed the way modern composers looked at music.

The only thing that seems certain is that his innovations and influence far surpass that of Mahler and Verdi (despite the fact i definitely prefer to the latter two).


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

Romantic Geek said:


> So you think a one trick composer should be ranked higher than a composer who mastered many genres? That's why I think 4 is a little high. Yes, Wagner was an incredible opera composer, but that's all he did.


This observation reminded me of a quote from football legend Paul Brown (a name which should be familiar to you, in light of your current residence). Anyway, the topic turned to another football legend, Jim Brown. Anyway, some gadfly mused that Jim Brown was not a particularly good pass-receiver, or blocker... basically, all he could do was run, it was said. To which Paul Brown replied "Yeah, and all Picasso can do is paint."*

Returning to a more general point concerning "underrating," I think that in at times, there's a feeling of "underrating" if we don't discuss a composer more frequently than might be optimal. "Composer 'X' in underrated!" is the lament, when really, it would be more accurate to day "I wish we _discussed_ Composer 'X' more often."

To personalize it a little bit, I've probably discussed Ravel more oftern than Mozart. I've certainly discussed Bruckner more often than Bach. I've probably talked about Puccini no less often than Haydn. However, in no instance do I consider the first artist in these pairings to be greater than the second one. Part of my choice is interest, part of my choice is taste... but really, the decisive factor is "do I think I have anything of interest and/or significance to say about the composer in question?"

*(As a former Chicagoan, _of course_ I know that Picasso did some famous scuplture, too- but you get my point...)


----------



## mmsbls

Very Senior Member said:


> According to my calculations - and as you have agreed in some cases - the tied positions are:
> Mozart, Beethoven, Bach in joint 1st place
> Brahms and Schubert in joint 5 place
> Liszt, Mahler in joint 16 place
> Shostakovich, Sibelius, Ravel in joint 21 position.
> 
> I'm not sure I understand your reason for concealing these ties, and can't see that it serves any useful purpose. I would have thought it far more useful actually to bring out these ties faithfully according to the results rather than arbitrarily split them in the way you have done, as your list appears still to be generating nugatory comment and confusion in some quarters, especially among the top 6 positions.


I agree that 1st, 5th, and 16th places are tied as you state above. I did not get a tie anywhere else. Perhaps I entered some data incorrectly in my spreadsheet or maybe we used a different TC list (I used the first compilation from that thread and ignored other ones). I don't believe these lists are precise measurements of the general classical audience's tastes, but rather they give a reasonable indication of those tastes. I certainly did not try to conceal these ties. I just ordered the list in the manner that my spreadsheet sorted the data. I don't feel it's significant that Tchaikovsky is listed ahead of Handel because they are too close. I do feel that there probably is a real difference between Mahler's and Handel's positions.

I am interested in why some people view Mahler much higher than "the average" but not why some view Mozart ahead of Beethoven.



Very Senior Member said:


> Another noteworthy result is the consistently high rank across the four lists given to Wagner. This result is so firmly established that I wonder why some people still bother to to make derisory comments about this composer. Possibly it's because they that hope or vainly expect that other people may change their mind in the light of their "comments", but in reality there's no chance of that happening. One day they'll possibly appreciate why Wagner is so highly esteemed and look back on their previous comments with some regret.


Based on what I have read, it appears that a significant combination of "experts" and general listeners clearly believe that Wagner is _roughly_ viewed just below the Big Three as a composer. Those who differ significantly with this assessment appear to be outliers in their view. I wanted to know why they felt their view was so different. I personally place Wagner 6th, but I view my assessment as similar to most others even though it's 2 places different.


----------



## Xaltotun

Compared to the OP's list, I greatly "overrate" Bruckner... no other composer can make my mind generate the kinds of thoughts and emotions that his music does. I totally underrate Bach... I _still_ don't get him.


----------



## Vaneyes

I like the 500 Composers idea for a list, although I think 300 would've sufficed. Anyway, I think large numbers are needed in a discussion of this sort. Top 30 cuts it way too fine. 

Each can find discrepancies in lists. Some obvious, some not so obvious. The ones I spotted in the 500 list were as follows. All, I thought, should be rated higher. Not many bones to pick with the 1 to 92 and 275 to 500 rankings. In "top tier", I'm not as concerned with ranking, as much as I'm concerned with grouping.

274. Dutilleux 259. Gubaidulina 248. Mompou 227. Kabalevsky 220. Bridge 206. Tedesco-Castelnuovo 189. Roussel 186. Krenek 
177. Lalo 167. Chausson 159. Tartini 158. Turina 157. Enescu 156. Clementi 155. Arnold 154. Martin 153. Sarasate 147. Penderecki 146. Hovhaness 144. Schnittke 135. Albinoni 130. Szymanowski 129. Frescobaldi 126. Takemitsu 125. Lutoslawski 124. Boulez 
123. Khachaturian 120. Ginastera 118. Honegger 114. Respighi 113. Berio 110. Carter 109. Granados 108. Couperin (Francois) 107. Rodrigo 95. Ligeti 94. Corelli 93. Martinu.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Vaneyes said:


> I like the 500 Composers idea for a list, although I think 300 would've sufficed. Anyway, I think large numbers are needed in a discussion of this sort. Top 30 cuts it way too fine.
> 
> Each can find discrepancies in lists. Some obvious, some not so obvious. The ones I spotted in the 500 list were as follows. All, I thought, should be rated higher. Not many bones to pick with the 1 to 92 and 275 to 500 rankings. In "top tier", I'm not as concerned with ranking, as much as I'm concerned with grouping.
> 
> 274. Dutilleux 259. Gubaidulina 248. Mompou 227. Kabalevsky 220. Bridge 206. Tedesco-Castelnuovo 189. Roussel 186. Krenek
> 177. Lalo 167. Chausson 159. Tartini 158. Turina 157. Enescu 156. Clementi 155. Arnold 154. Martin 153. Sarasate 147. Penderecki 146. Hovhaness 144. Schnittke 135. Albinoni 130. Szymanowski 129. Frescobaldi 126. Takemitsu 125. Lutoslawski 124. Boulez
> 123. Khachaturian 120. Ginastera 118. Honegger 114. Respighi 113. Berio 110. Carter 109. Granados 108. Couperin (Francois) 107. Rodrigo 95. Ligeti 94. Corelli 93. Martinu.


*Ligeti* deserves to be higher than _that!_


----------



## Sid James

Very Senior Member said:


> I am not clear about the main point you are seeking to make here. Are you suggesting that when it comes to online polls/lists of the greatest composers that fans of Wagner are able somehow to muscle out the fans of other composers, so that a skewed result obtains in favour of Wagner? If you are, may I request that you please provide documentary evidence to support this conjecture based on the four lists used in the OP.
> ...


I meant what I said, it was not hard evidence by anecdotal "evidence" or more likely just my personal experience. I actually talk to people in real life about classical. I have come across people who like classical to some degree over the decades. Some more into it than others. Among most of these, Wagner is controversial. I have only met one person who was big time into Wagner. Others I have met, somewhat into him, but I'd doubt they'd put him so high.

So I'm just talking from experience of here, on the ground. Meeting one Wagnerite - or "almost" Wagnerite - in 20 or so years of coming across quite a few listeners of classical music, well that's not really reflective of this website with a number of Wagnerites or whatever you'd call them. Or at least people who listen to him regularly.

If you are doubting what I'm saying, watch the recent film_ Wagner and Me_, done by a Wagnerite Stephen Fry, who goes through some of the controversies associated with Wagner. One thing about "real life" Wagnerites, including the guy I could describe as that, they don't claim their idol to be universal as some online do. I concede that J.S. Bach is as universally loved, respected as a classical composer can get (even though I'm no huge fan of him), but c'mon, Wagner? Give me a break, it does not fit my real experience, that's what I'm saying.



> ...
> ...I developed a pretty good knowledge of the classical music canon rather than any old rag-bag of assorted material that seems to find its way into some people's stock of classical music...


Quite judgemental comment there, a lot of hubris in it, and I won't elaborate.



> ...
> This way, incidentally, by delving into several composers' works, I was able to avoid the pitfall that one unfortunate character (as reported elsewhere on TC recently) has found himself in as regards getting fed up with Beethoven after virtually a non-stop diet of little else for over a year. What do they expect?[/SIZE][/FONT]


What about a Wagnerite on this forum who says he listened to virtually nothing else but Wagner's music for like a year, or something like several months. In other words an extended period. I think it was actually just one opera of Wagner's, not even all his operas.

Again, we can judge "fanboys" of any composer, but with Wagner it's fine, as he is GOD (to some, but not others)...


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

Interesting and predictable debate about Richard Wagner. It seems discussions about top tier composers inevitably result in long debates about Wagner that are almost as long as all his operas put together.

My personal top 5 composers (Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Haydn, Mozart) don't include Wagner, but my top 10 or 15 definitely includes him. Ranking gets a bit tricky beyond the top 5 or so. But that's besides the point. Wagner's operas offer strong characterisation of the characters in the opera - that's the first and utmost importance in writing strong operatic music; it's not just a collection of pretty arias that make a great opera. Opera aficionados that I know in the real world and online tend to consistently place 5 or 6 opera composers that did consistently that - composed operas that showed strong characterisation of the characters and plot - namely Handel, Mozart, Wagner, Verdi, Puccini; all of whom wrote vocal lines that were truely vocal in idiom and were passionate opera composers by vocation (in the case of Mozart, opera was clearly one of his very dear genres despite writing a lot of instrumental music). The next tier that often get a mention include Donizetti, Rossini, Bellini and Tchaikovsky, with admiration of Beethoven's single example of the genre (whose vocal lines tended to be more instrumental in idiom than truely vocal).


----------



## emiellucifuge

Sid, I could also provide some anecdotal evidence and the playing field would be exactly level.


----------



## Manok

My problem with rating composers at all, is the ones that top my lists are the ones im listening to at the moment. Only the top 3 never change. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms.


----------



## peeyaj

Eviticus said:


> Not sure you really gasped this concept Advantgarde - You can't get better than No.1.
> 
> Personally, I've never really understood why *Brahms and Schubert are frequently rated above Tchaikovsky* but there you go.


Is this guy out of his mind??


----------



## gmubandgeek

I've always found it very interesting that in these so called "Top _" composers list, not one American Composer makes the list. I've yet to attend a performance of Barber's "Adagio for Strings" and see a dry eye in the room. The Star Wars Franchise wouldn't be what it was without the wonderful music of John Williams. Who can forget Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" or Bernstein's "West Side Store"? And I personally have an affinity for Eric Whitacre (I mean c'mon his hair is gorgeous lol).

Don't get me wrong: my favorite composer is Haydn (who is well known but always seems to lurk in the shadows of Mozart and Beethoven). However, when it comes to underrated composers, it definitely seems as if the American Composers get the short end of the stick. And the worst thing is, that many Americans could care less.


----------



## Romantic Geek

emiellucifuge said:


> I wouldnt call writing operas a single trick. Its probably the most ambitious genre we have.
> Also I think his operatic music sufficiently displays his mastery of all the skills of composition, plus a little extra.


I would have loved to see Wagner try writing for reduced ensembles. Maybe a piano solo piece, or string quartets. Writing opera is a huge endeavor, but sometimes people are really good at writing large works. The trick is, can you write works for large ensembles and small ensembles. Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart mastered both the large and small ensembles in their period. In fact, this is why I think Haydn should be placed above Wagner, easily. Brahms too.

And in the same vain, Mahler is overrated.

Writing operas is a single trick. Wagner was really good at that complicated style, but maybe there's a reason he didn't write (much) small ensemble works.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

Now about Berlioz...why is he on this list again

Berlioz, like Vivaldi (and to a lesser extent Handel... think _Water Music_ and _Royal Fireworks_) is one of those composers whose reputation is almost undermined as the result of his most popular achievement (Symphony Fantastique) which for better of worse has been overplayed to the exception of his other works over the years. Why is Berlioz considered among the great composers?:

*Nuits d'Ete*- Possibly the first... and surely one of the most exquisite orchestral song cycles. Worthy of standing alongside Mahler's _Lied von der Erde_ and Strauss _Four Last Songs_. I can't believe I only "discovered" the work myself last summer.

*Les Troyens*- A magnificent opera. You might note just how highly it rated on TC's own list of essential operas. A good many have compared it to Wagner's achievements. While I am not familiar enough to make such a comparison, I certainly acknowledge it's merits and recognize that Wagner himself was inspired by Berlioz' operatic work.

*Roméo et Juliette*- A choral dramatic symphony... a sort of hybrid between opera, oratorio, and symphony and one of Berlioz finest achievements.

*La damnation de Faust*- Called by the composer a _légende dramatique_, we again have a unique hybrid of symphony, oratorio, and opera... a musical drama for the symphonic orchestra as opposed to the theater. As much of a masterpiece as the text it is based upon.

*L'Enfance du Christ*- A dramatic sacred oratorio and one of Berlioz less extreme of grandiose compositions. Immediately admired for its exquisite gentle nature.

*Grande Messe Des Morts* (Requiem) and *Te Deum*- Two of the most grandiose and innovative choral works of the Romantic era

These works alone would place Berlioz upon the list of great composers IMO.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

I would have loved to see Wagner try writing for reduced ensembles. Maybe a piano solo piece, or string quartets. Writing opera is a huge endeavor, but sometimes people are really good at writing large works. The trick is, can you write works for large ensembles and small ensembles. Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart mastered both the large and small ensembles in their period. In fact, this is why I think Haydn should be placed above Wagner, easily. Brahms too.

And in the same vain, Mahler is overrated.

Michelangelo never applied his hand to miniatures... yet he clearly stands far above almost any other artist in Western history. Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, etc... are the towering figures they are as a result of their epic achievements. A mastery of variety is great. We cannot help but admire Mozart's ability to write an exquisite quintet for clarinet and then turn around and turn out a major opera like _Le Nozze di Figaro_ but Mozart would quite likely have been even more imposing had he spent less time composing divertimentos and chamber music and spent more time upon the operas and the choral works.

J.L. Borges raises a similar question with regard to literature... asking why a perfect gem-like sonnet or two should not be recognized as equal to the epic. By way of example he takes Cervantes' _Don Quixote_ a masterpiece which Borges acknowledges is "flawed" as a result of the inclusion of Cervantes' horrible poetry. Why, he asks, shouldn't a single perfect sonnet (or two) be acknowledged as every bit the equal (if not superior) to this epic worked which he acknowledges is flawed? The obvious answer is because the epic achievement is so much more rare. Almost any poet of any merit at all will achieve that one perfect small poem... but how many can pull off the longer or more ambitious work? And then it should be recognized that within the epic work there are repeated passages which taken alone equal the smaller works.

An opera by Wagner is not a work written for massed forces from start to finish. There are symphonic passages, there are passages written for small groupings of soloists and instruments, there are choral passages, etc... There are moments that may be taken out of an opera by Wagner... or Mozart or Gluck, etc... which show the composers' abilities in writing small, perfect gems... and yet they are able to pull these diverse elements together into something greater... just as Schubert's song cycles, such as _Winterreise_ impress as an epic undertaking constructed of a collection of smaller lieder.


----------



## brianwalker

Sid James said:


> So I'm just talking from experience of here, on the ground. Meeting one Wagnerite - or "almost" Wagnerite - in 20 or so years of coming across quite a few listeners of classical music, well that's not really reflective of this website with a number of Wagnerites or whatever you'd call them. Or at least people who listen to him regularly.
> 
> If you are doubting what I'm saying, watch the recent film_ Wagner and Me_, done by a Wagnerite Stephen Fry, who goes through some of the controversies associated with Wagner. One thing about "real life" Wagnerites, including the guy I could describe as that, they don't claim their idol to be universal as some online do. I concede that J.S. Bach is as universally loved, respected as a classical composer can get (even though I'm no huge fan of him), but c'mon, Wagner? Give me a break, it does not fit my real experience, that's what I'm saying.
> 
> What about a Wagnerite on this forum who says he listened to virtually nothing else but Wagner's music for like a year, or something like several months. In other words an extended period. I think it was actually just one opera of Wagner's, not even all his operas.


I don't think Bach is universally loved, but given the aggregate of the respective preferences he almost always comes out on top.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_impossibility_theorem

There are many members of this forum who professes no love for Bach, and though I am young I have met a devoted Wagnerian. When he asked who my favorite composer was and I answered Bach, he smirked and told me Bach was boring.

I think that Wagner is, in public at least, yes, I'm going to say this, slightly under-rated because of his character. Tommasini put Verdi above Wagner, and his justification? Wagner had poor character!

I don't think that public figures and their presentations of things are straight-jacketed by the standards and iron rules of their day. For example, in Europe the most grotesque pornography is legal but Holocaust denial isn't. Just an example. In "I am a strange loop" Hofstadter said that he privately believes that musical taste is a measure of "consciousness" but he said that he finds the position "indefensible" and would into extrapolate because it would get him into "murky waters".

I agree that Wagnerites can seem "insular" at times, but I think Wagner's operas are so complex it's easy to "drown" in them. They withstand repeated listens very well, and given the lengths of his operas....

I find Wagner fans no more insular than "Italian Opera" people, in fact, probably less insular.

I guess there is a danger of Wagner taking up all of your time, but I don't know Couchie's listening habits.


----------



## brianwalker

Why is Wagner such the subject of controversy?

I question the sincerity of Romantic Geek's argument that mastery of different genres is the a criterion for greatness. Would he have us put *Shostakovich and Prokofiev * above *Verdi?*

For some reason we're debating the merits of whether Wagner deserves his no.4 slot, but there's zero brouhaha over the fact that Ravel is far below Liszt and Dvorak... I mean... I can't even begin...

In one TC poll Bartok beat Stravinsky marginally, yet *Stravinsky is no. 12 and Bartok no. 27, and nothing!*

The better question is, where is all this Wagner hate coming from? His popularity seems to be bimodal.

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-mathematics-of-beauty/

If Brahms is Kirsten Bell, Wagner is Megan Fox, metaphorically speaking. I hate Megan Fox so let's replace with an example I find more compelling, Keira Knightley. Keira Knightley is considered by her fans (I count myself as one) as the most beautiful woman alive. Others dismiss her as a poor actress with the body of "an 8 year old boy", "man-jaw", "ugly feet", "flat", "***-less", etc.

Brahms beat Wagner in a vs. polls consistently, yet in these rankings Wagner somehow manages to come out on top almost all of the time.









Ultimately, it boils down to preferences as arbitrary as whether one finds Keira Knightley attractive or not.

Unlike literature music and human beauty has very little empirical representational content.

This is why T.S. Eliot and F.R. Leavis toppled Milton from his throne for 40 years with their critique, but Nietzsche's polemic against Wagner is a paltry, ineffectual thing.

*Number one reason: We spend most of our attention on the apex, top 5, top 10, etc, 11-20 is invisible for most people.*

No one will bat an eye if Keira Knightley is ranked the no. 2 most beautiful British, but if she's ranked no.1, I guarantee it, all hell will break loose in the comment section of whichever magazine published that ranking...


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

Wagner is the oddity in the top 10. I am not saying he should be there or not be there. If you went off my previous post then it probably implies he shouldn't be although I am sure the reason he is there is because his innovations and influence are simply staggering. There are strong arguments that suggest 3 composers literally changed the direction of modern music; Bach, Beethoven and Wagner. On that basis maybe Wagner really does deserve to be top 10 but i can't really make my mind up. *One one hand you have a guy who wrote for one genre (a genre that a large proportion of classical music fans don't even like*)...

This last line pretty much seals up the main objection to Wagner... as well as to any number of other composers. Indeed, I would suggest that vocal music as a whole is problematic to many fans of classical music and the cause of many of their opinions. We have those who underestimate Handel whose greatest achievements are essentially all vocal: the cantatas, the operas, the oratorios, and the other vocal works. We have Vivaldi continually being dismissed on the basis of his concertos alone... while his vocal music is ignored. Indeed, one might suspect that the reason most music before Bach is ignored by so many is that it is predominantly vocal as opposed to instrumental or symphonic. We have those who dismiss Mozart as a powerpuff bewigged lightweight while ignoring his slew of brilliant operas. And then we have Donizetti, Bellini, Rossini, and Gluck who almost never get any recognition within discussions of the "greatest" composers for the simple reason that their achievements were almost wholly focused upon opera. And can anyone truly offer an intelligent opinion as to the merits of Schubert, Schumann, Berlioz, Faure, Debussy, Rimsky-Korsakov, verdi, Puccini, Richard Strauss, or Benjamin Britten... let alone Wagner... without having considered their operatic and other vocal achievements... or worse yet... without an appreciation for vocal music in general?


----------



## brianwalker

Writing operas is a single trick.


It's far easier to master one genre than to master many...


What I hear about Wagner when talking about him to listeners I know is that he's too heavy or too long, like a 10 or 20 course meal is how somebody described him to me. Over the top, writing things with a ten tonne crayon, etc...

Does a body of work that only encompasses 10 solid symphonies and several okay song cycles really deserve to be top 10? I would say that would be "overrating" him.

I don't get Wagner. A disgusting man who wrote pretentious, long, mediocre operas. As far as I can tell, anyway. 

To me this equivalent to the perennial plaint that Keira has a man-jaw, no ***, the torso of an eight year old boy, etc. Sound and Fury, signifying nothing.

Likewise, all those arguments on how Mahler's symphonies and Wagner's operas have "psychological depth" is equivalent to me saying that Keira Knightley looks "angelic".

*What's at stake in these debates? *

"I have to admit that I have always intuitively felt there was another and quite different yardstick for measuring consciousness, although a most blurry and controversial one: musical taste. I certainly cannot explain or defend my own musical taste, and I know I would be getting myself into very deep, hot, and murky waters if I were to try, so I won't even begin. I will, however, have to reveal a little bit of my musical taste in order to talk about Albert Schweitzer and his musical profundity." - Douglas Hofstader.

There was a moment of humility and honesty, when, in a thread I started on 4chan's music board to promote classical music, a poster said that he "envied" those who could appreciate classical music, and said that they're probably smarter than he is. He based on on the fact that his grandfather was the smartest person he knew, and his grandpa always listened to classical, finding the music he listened to "atrociously boring".

In the end the question "who's more awesome", "who has a more noble soul", etc, is all that's left in these arguments and questions.

That is NOT to say that great art is just a currency of rank and status, but that inevitably arguments over taste boils down to this.

I could go on and refute the individual arguments latent in the quotes above, the metaphors within (that crayon metaphor is deadly!), but ultimately it would contribute very little his appreciation of the music, and would only add incrementally to Wagner's rank as a composer.










I wonder if there is a correlation between finding Keira Knightley ugly and disliking Wagner?


----------



## brianwalker

This last line pretty much seals up the main objection to Wagner... as well as to any number of other composers. Indeed, I would suggest that vocal music as a whole is problematic to many fans of classical music and the cause of many of their opinions. 

This is why I think among opera composers Wagner usually comes out on top when most of the participants in the discussion are not opera fans. If you were to rank opera composers by the non-vocal elements of their scores, Wagner usually comes out on top, with his overtures and preludes.

I'm curious as to the appraisal of Wagner's non-vocal segments by DavidMahler and other non-fans.

Here are some of Wagner's greatest segments with no singing.

Gotterdammerung.











Parsifal










 (ok this has some singing)

How are these pieces less "psychologically probing" and "intimate" than Mahler's finest pieces? If vocals automatically disqualify a work of art, is DLvdE also worthless then?

I think this thread can be more productive if we jump from Wagner to other things.

The unfortunate exclusion of Monteverdi, etc, has already been mentioned.

Rachmaninoff is no. 30. I'd like to nominate a few composers who I'd put above Rachmaninoff.

Alban Berg 
Rimsky-Korsakov 
Scriabin

Not bashing on Rachmaninoff, but ranking is again, a zero sum game, and I think Alban Berg deserves a spot.


----------



## brianwalker

Sir James said:


> Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if the derisory comments of Puccini come from fans (online mainly?) of you-know-who...


I think this is just jockeying for status. Rankings are inherently a zero sum game, a a leg up for Puccini might mean a leg down for Wagner. I would think of it more as the praise of Wagner as the expense of Puccini, rather than putting down Puccini intrinsically.

I definitely agree about Puccini's silly stories dragging down the reputation of his music. I think this is why Parsifal is so underrated, many audience members are put off by the religiosity and its treatment of women. (Yes I know Parsifal has had a good afterlife, enjoyed many great recordings, etc, but it's easily my favorite opera so ... it will always be underrated for me)


----------



## Very Senior Member

brianwalker said:


> Not bashing on Rachmaninoff, but ranking is again, a *zero sum game*, and I think Alban Berg deserves a spot.


 That's right. I rather tend to cringe when I see an opinion that a particular composer is under or over rated, since if we added up all such opinions across a sufficiently large random selection of people interested in classical music we would only finish up with a revised set of ranks set which was very close or identical to the one that is being implicitly criticised by a single individual. All it shows is that opinions differ, but we know that already. Some people however seem to think that their particular favourite should be higher on the wider list, and by saying so this will somehow make this happen. It won't and thats' for sure, so why bother? Some people do it with such a passion that it's almost laughable. The trouble seems to be that a lot of people don't appear to understand the fundamental zero-sum nature of their comments as applied to ranks when taken together.

In the same spirit, returning to the core issue that the OP has raised for discussion - i.e. asking each TC member to select a composer that he/she significantly "overrates" and one composer that he/she significantly "underrates" compared to the 4-poll "average" list - I'm not sure that this actually is a constructive process, with all due respect to the OP.

The reason is that it's not possible to explain why these differences in ranks exist between the TC poll and the other three as a group simply by asking the same TC members to re-state what the differences are as they see them individually. This is because we're just going to finish up with the same set of composer ranks as has already been identified from the earlier T-C Top 25 Composer poll, assuming of course that the present membership of TC has broadly similar attributes as the one that voted previously. None of these individual viewpoints will explain what accounts for the big differences in rankings of composers like Liszt, Schumann, Verdi, Puccini, Mahler, Sibelius as between the TC poll and the average of the other three lists.

Perhaps mmsbls could explain his thinking further on this matter. For me, for the reason explained above, the exercise seems essentially to be a waste of time and most unlikely to generate any relevant answers. For a proper explanation it's necessary to look for more structurally important differences, e.g. in terms of age structures, or possible geographical differences in tastes.


----------



## Romantic Geek

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I would have loved to see Wagner try writing for reduced ensembles. Maybe a piano solo piece, or string quartets. Writing opera is a huge endeavor, but sometimes people are really good at writing large works. The trick is, can you write works for large ensembles and small ensembles. Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart mastered both the large and small ensembles in their period. In fact, this is why I think Haydn should be placed above Wagner, easily. Brahms too.
> 
> And in the same vain, Mahler is overrated.
> 
> Michelangelo never applied his hand to miniatures... yet he clearly stands far above almost any other artist in Western history. Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, etc... are the towering figures they are as a result of their epic achievements. A mastery of variety is great. We cannot help but admire Mozart's ability to write an exquisite quintet for clarinet and then turn around and turn out a major opera like _Le Nozze di Figaro_ but Mozart would quite likely have been even more imposing had he spent less time composing divertimentos and chamber music and spent more time upon the operas and the choral works.
> 
> J.L. Borges raises a similar question with regard to literature... asking why a perfect gem-like sonnet or two should not be recognized as equal to the epic. By way of example he takes Cervantes' _Don Quixote_ a masterpiece which Borges acknowledges is "flawed" as a result of the inclusion of Cervantes' horrible poetry. Why, he asks, shouldn't a single perfect sonnet (or two) be acknowledged as every bit the equal (if not superior) to this epic worked which he acknowledges is flawed? The obvious answer is because the epic achievement is so much more rare. Almost any poet of any merit at all will achieve that one perfect small poem... but how many can pull off the longer or more ambitious work? And then it should be recognized that within the epic work there are repeated passages which taken alone equal the smaller works.
> 
> An opera by Wagner is not a work written for massed forces from start to finish. There are symphonic passages, there are passages written for small groupings of soloists and instruments, there are choral passages, etc... There are moments that may be taken out of an opera by Wagner... or Mozart or Gluck, etc... which show the composers' abilities in writing small, perfect gems... and yet they are able to pull these diverse elements together into something greater... just as Schubert's song cycles, such as _Winterreise_ impress as an epic undertaking constructed of a collection of smaller lieder.


I understand completely that opera contains ensemble moments, choral moments, etc. but that does not justify against my point. I don't take a single song from any Schubert song cycle and hold it on a pedestal over the rest. When considering one Schubert song from a song cycle, you have to inherently account for the whole song cycle.

Thus, while Wolfram's aria is a little gem in a large Wagnerian opera, you cannot appreciate it ever on its own. Sometimes, the best composers are those who wrote the shortest gems and did not need the context of a larger work to express his or her musical idea. There is an art to brevity. Something that I think Webern mastered above all other composers and something I think that Wagner was completely unable to comprehend.


----------



## Romantic Geek

brianwalker said:


> Why is Wagner such the subject of controversy?
> 
> I question the sincerity of Romantic Geek's argument that mastery of different genres is the a criterion for greatness. Would he have us put *Shostakovich and Prokofiev * above *Verdi?*
> 
> For some reason we're debating the merits of whether Wagner deserves his no.4 slot, but there's zero brouhaha over the fact that Ravel is far below Liszt and Dvorak... I mean... I can't even begin...
> 
> In one TC poll Bartok beat Stravinsky marginally, yet *Stravinsky is no. 12 and Bartok no. 27, and nothing!*
> 
> The better question is, where is all this Wagner hate coming from? His popularity seems to be bimodal.
> 
> http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-mathematics-of-beauty/
> 
> If Brahms is Kirsten Bell, Wagner is Megan Fox, metaphorically speaking. I hate Megan Fox so let's replace with an example I find more compelling, Keira Knightley. Keira Knightley is considered by her fans (I count myself as one) as the most beautiful woman alive. Others dismiss her as a poor actress with the body of "an 8 year old boy", "man-jaw", "ugly feet", "flat", "***-less", etc.
> 
> Brahms beat Wagner in a vs. polls consistently, yet in these rankings Wagner somehow manages to come out on top almost all of the time.


Now even though I despise Shostakovich and Prokofiev, I wouldn't ever question their place above Verdi. And to whoever wrote later that we have a problem with ranking vocal composers, yes, it does appear there is a problem. Yet, I must argue that _generally_ vocal composer's music suffers from not being absolute art. Now this becomes a huge debate on aesthetics. Here are my two cents: vocal composer's had to produce a lot of music in a very short time. At times, their music is dry and unsophisticated. I'm not saying that _all_ of Donizetti's and Verdi's and Puccini's music is unsophisticated-but an enormous chunk of their work is.

Wagner, compared to those others, does not suffer from that plight, partially because he took such an incredible amount of time to write each one of his operas. Wagner, I think, is definitely deserving of a top 10 spot. I just have a problem with him at #4 when composers like Haydn and Brahms are below Wagner. Objectively put, Haydn and Brahms both produced an immense amount of high quality art in a _variety_ of genres. To me, that gives them an edge.

On a side note, I agree with you. Sad to see Ravel below Liszt and Dvorak.


----------



## mmsbls

Very Senior Member said:


> That's right. I rather tend to cringe when I see an opinion that a particular composer is under or over rated, since if we added up all such opinions across a sufficiently large random selection of people interested in classical music we would only finish up with a revised set of ranks set which was very close or identical to the one that is being implicitly criticised by a single individual.


I agree completely. When people make a passionate case that a composer (or work) is underrated or overrated, they are essentially saying that their tastes/opinion/appreciation differs from the average listener. The interesting question is, "Why might that be?"



Very Senior Member said:


> In the same spirit, returning to the core issue that the OP has raised for discussion - i.e. asking each TC member to select a composer that he/she significantly "overrates" and one composer that he/she significantly "underrates" compared to the 4-poll "average" list - I'm not sure that this actually is a constructive process, with all due respect to the OP.
> 
> The reason is that it's not possible to explain why these differences in ranks exist between the TC poll and the other three as a group simply by asking the same TC members to re-state what the differences are as they see them individually. This is because we're just going to finish up with the same set of composer ranks as has already been identified from the earlier T-C Top 25 Composer poll, assuming of course that the present membership of TC has broadly similar attributes as the one that voted previously. None of these individual viewpoints will explain what accounts for the big differences in rankings of composers like Liszt, Schumann, Verdi, Puccini, Mahler, Sibelius as between the TC poll and the average of the other three lists.


I'm less interested in why the TC average differs from the other polls than why particular individuals think their tastes/assessment differs from average listeners. However, if one knew why all the individual TC members' views differed, then one would certainly understand why the TC average differed as well. I'm more interested in someone who does not like Mozart (or Wagner, Stravinsky, Haydn, etc.) and why they feel Mozart does not appeal to them even though they presumably know that Mozart is considered one of the greatest composers. When so many others, who also love classical music, adore or value Mozart, what do they feel causes them to be an outlier in this respect? Do they prefer more complex music? Have they grown tired of music they've heard _too_ much? Do they understand what others see in Mozart but have a distinctly different response? Most people might not think about why they differ from others so much in that particular respect.

Yes, we all know people differ in their tastes. I'm interested in knowing why that would be. And yes, at a deep level that's a _very_ difficult question to understand, but if I can get a sense of the kinds of reasons and which reasons seem prominent, I'd be happy.


----------



## Klavierspieler

Blegh! Never mind.


----------



## Vaneyes

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> *Ligeti* deserves to be higher than _that!_


And *144. Schnittke* is a travesty of the first order.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Vaneyes said:


> And *144. Schnittke* is a travesty of the first order.


*Ligeti* first, then Schnittke.


----------



## Vaneyes

During a cyber coin toss, I won.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Vaneyes said:


> During a cyber coin toss, I won.


Well I wasn't there to witness it. I think *Ligeti* should be at no. 1 and Schnittke at no. 11


----------



## Vaneyes

A mediator has intervened. You again lost.

View attachment 2885


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Vaneyes said:


> A mediator has intervened. You again lost.
> 
> View attachment 2885


You little..... :scold:


----------



## brianwalker

mmsbls said:


> I agree completely. When people make a passionate case that a composer (or work) is underrated or overrated, they are essentially saying that their tastes/opinion/appreciation differs from the average listener. The interesting question is, "Why might that be?"


Possible answers. 
1. ''My taste is more awesome.'' 
2. ''They (those who disagree with me) haven't given said music enough effort, and will see the light once they listen to.''

Both are problematic, but I would venture to say that no.2 is more problematic than no.1, because life is short and literature, film, painting, life, work, etc, all makes demands on us.

I'm sure Liszt's later works aren't medicore, and that a lot of Elliot Carter is imminently tolerable, listenable, etc, but I have other demands. I haven't watched the Girl with the dragon tattoo yet, I have a giant backlog of film I want to watch, emails from friends, and perhaps, just perhaps, take a walk in the park doing absolutely nothing.

And then there's all the Wagner and Verdi and Puccini I haven't listened to, or given repeated listens, or repeated listens to different performances.

At a certain point for all of us it's not judging whether music is "tolerable" but deciding which lacunae to have in your life-experiences.

For example I would consider never-having-read-Stendhal or never-having-watched-Resnais a much bigger sin than never having listened to anything by Alkan, even though Alkan is a composer I cherish far more than the modernists, John Adams, Reich, etc.

The purpose of these "ranks" is to determine which films/music/literature should be watched/listened to/read FIRST. Canon building gives the young direction, for without the canon the generations after us would be utterly and totally lost.

For every Fellini there are hundreds of terrible Italian directors.

Without rankings (and don't kid yourself, word of mouth is essentially the same thing) I would have to wade through a hundred terrible films before I get to Le Dolce Vita? That's absurd.

So my answer to the modernists isn't that Varese or whoever sucks, but that you should finish all of Wagner, or at least half of Wagner, first, and then after that it's best that you move onto some good literature or cinema.

Many champions of modernist music keep reiterate over and over that modern music isn't "that bad", but not being "that bad" isn't the problem, it's whether it's "good enough".

If someone told me they loved Bach's cello suite no. 4 and no. 6 and violin partita no. 2, I would direct them towards Mozart's last symphonies, then Beethoven's late quartets, then Tristan and Meistersinger. If he tells me he loves all of those things the next recommendation I give to him would not be music related.

I'm personally more interested in how people rank Wagner's individual operas, heck, individual Wagner segments. I think the "what's your least favorite Mahler symphony" is a fantastic thread, and I really enjoy the poll.

I care about John Adams less than I care about Eugenides. I'd be surprised if anyone else on this forum has read "the marriage plot". I know this is a music forum, but that doesn't mean our lives have to be 100 percent devoted to music.


----------



## moody

poconoron said:


> IMHO, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven cannot possibly be over-rated............ their influence, fluency in all musical composition types and public following offer all the proof one could possibly want testifying to their greatness.
> 
> On the other hand I believe that Wagner is somewhat over-rated on that list since he was basically a one-trick pony - Opera. However he was so powerful in the Opera genre that he probably still belongs in the Top 10.
> 
> And Chopin is also a bit too high - come on, the guy could only compose for the piano. Chopin himself said it better than anyone:
> 
> _"Mozart encompasses the entire domain of musical creation, but I've got only the keyboard in my poor head."_
> 
> The Top 10 is fairly solid except that Chopin's limitations should drop him out of it just a bit.


A one trick pony? I've never heard such a decription ..You mean like Verdi, Rossini, Puccini, Chopin, Where on earth did you get this preposterous idea that composers were supposed to be some sorts of Jack Of All Trades?


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if the derisory comments of Puccini come from fans (online mainly?) of you-know-who...

I think this is just jockeying for status. Rankings are inherently a zero sum game, a a leg up for Puccini might mean a leg down for Wagner. I would think of it more as the praise of Wagner as the expense of Puccini, rather than putting down Puccini intrinsically.

I'm not certain why fans of Wagner would need to be derisive of Puccini... or any other composer. Just because I love Wagner (and Bach and Mozart) doesn't mean that I hate Puccini (and Brahms and Debussy). Puccini, IMO, simply does not rise to the level of achievement of Wagner. If one is extremely generous we can attribute perhaps six great operas to him: _Manon Lascaut, La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La rondine, Turandot, Il trittico_ and this is being very generous, indeed (and I say this as a fan... I have more recordings of Puccini than I do of Verdi!) Going further, I don't see that criticizing Puccini's sources has much to do with his pulp fiction sources or his "sexing up" of the dramas. One might do well to remember that Verdi and his followers were just as quick to deride Puccini's notorious bad taste when it came to literature. Still, just as Schubert sets a mediocre cycle of poems and raises them to a level of unmatched brilliance in the _Winterreise_, Puccini is able to take some dubious narratives and produce musical dramas of the first order out of them... as one immediately recognizing upon listening to Maria Callas performing _Mme. Butterfly_ or _Tosca_. But is Puccini really as innovative, as influential, and as consistently great as Wagner? In spite of the fact that I love Puccini... I must admit he falls well short of Wagner's achievements.


----------



## moody

Romantic Geek said:


> Now even though I despise Shostakovich and Prokofiev, I wouldn't ever question their place above Verdi. And to whoever wrote later that we have a problem with ranking vocal composers, yes, it does appear there is a problem. Yet, I must argue that _generally_ vocal composer's music suffers from not being absolute art. Now this becomes a huge debate on aesthetics. Here are my two cents: vocal composer's had to produce a lot of music in a very short time. At times, their music is dry and unsophisticated. I'm not saying that _all_ of Donizetti's and Verdi's and Puccini's music is unsophisticated-but an enormous chunk of their work is.
> 
> Wagner, compared to those others, does not suffer from that plight, partially because he took such an incredible amount of time to write each one of his operas. Wagner, I think, is definitely deserving of a top 10 spot. I just have a problem with him at #4 when composers like Haydn and Brahms are below Wagner. Objectively put, Haydn and Brahms both produced an immense amount of high quality art in a _variety_ of genres. To me, that gives them an edge.
> 
> On a side note, I agree with you. Sad to see Ravel below Liszt and Dvorak.


Please don't put Verdi and Donizetti alongside Mantovani Puccini. As for being dry and unsophisticated I must step outside for a moment to roll about with laughter. Yes there is little interest in vocal music on TC look at the figures for the forums, but it doesn't help when I have to read very unsophisticated stuff like yours. As for Wagner, wit h a few exceptions he does not do much for me, but I do not use terms like despise, you can put whatever case you may have without this type of language. All you will do is alienate the Teutonic Knights and there are a lot of them about.


----------



## Romantic Geek

moody said:


> A one trick pony? I've never heard such a decription ..You mean like Verdi, Rossini, Puccini, Chopin, Where on earth did you get this preposterous idea that composers were supposed to be some sorts of Jack Of All Trades?


Maybe not a jack of all trades, but if they were a true master of musical composition, they would be able to successfully write for more than one genre. Let's be honest, Chopin's piano music >>>>>>>>>>>> Chopin's non piano music.


----------



## Romantic Geek

moody said:


> Please don't put Verdi and Donizetti alongside Mantovani Puccini. As for being dry and unsophisticated I must step outside for a moment to roll about with laughter. Yes there is little interest in vocal music on TC look at the figures for the forums, but it doesn't help when I have to read very unsophisticated stuff like yours. As for Wagner, wit h a few exceptions he does not do much for me, but I do not use terms like despise, you can put whatever case you may have without this type of language. All you will do is alienate the Teutonic Knights and there are a lot of them about.


I can find you Verdi arias that are entirely I-V-I. Yes...that, my friend, is dry and unsophisticated.

And if you want sophistication in my claim of unsophisticated, I could start just rambling music theory blabber, but I also realize that the general TC community doesn't want that at all.


----------



## Eviticus

brianwalker said:


> Possible answers.
> 1. ''My taste is more awesome.''
> 2. ''They (those who disagree with me) haven't given said music enough effort, and will see the light once they listen to.''


You may have covered this with point 2, but another possible answer is that people do not feel others judging understand the what the composer did or the impact he composer had. For example: many people do not like opera and therefore judge Wagner on the merit he composed mainly opera (albeit one of the most diverse of genres), when in actual fact his innovations and influence far exceeded opera and transcended across all music so to call him overrated is a stretch (as it is with all composers in the top 15-20).

Gustav Mahler was a truly brilliant, gifted conductor and composer. He is also rarely rated amongst the top 10 (unlike Wagner). My love for many of his works aside, i agree with his average ranking. However, many posters here do not and believe he should be rated over many other greats. The interesting question is: which of the possible answers above is the reason they disagree with the majority?


----------



## brianwalker

I'm not certain why fans of Wagner would need to be derisive of Puccini... 

"Derisive" is relative. If Romantic Rock and I were more explicit we would say that Liszt and Dvorak do not "rise to the level" of Ravel in achievement (Ravel is my Handel, I guess), but I'm sure Lisztian would take that as a serious put down.

Perhaps it's because I haven't been here long enough, but I have not seen couchie or any other Wagnerite seriously denigrate Puccini.

The most serious slight comes from DavidMahler, saying something alone the lines that he can't take Puccini seriously, but he is indifferent to opera in general.


----------



## brianwalker

Romantic Geek said:


> I can find you Verdi arias that are entirely I-V-I. Yes...that, my friend, is dry and unsophisticated.
> 
> And if you want sophistication in my claim of unsophisticated, I could start just rambling music theory blabber, but I also realize that the general TC community doesn't want that at all.


I'm interested in how you square Stravinsky's admiration of Verdi.

Since I am not a fan of Tchaikovsky I interpret Stravinsky's admiration of Tchaikovsky as stemming from 1. the fact that Tchaikovsky is Russian and the most compositionally sound Russian composer prior to Stravinsky himself and 2. something to throw in the face of the modernists.


----------



## brianwalker

Eviticus said:


> Gustav Mahler was a truly brilliant, gifted conductor and composer. He is also rarely rated amongst the top 10 (unlike Wagner). My love for many of his works aside, i agree with his average ranking. However, many posters here do not and believe he should be rated over many other greats. The interesting question is: which of the possible answers above is the reason they disagree with the majority?


I'm not sure what you're referring to, is there an aggregate TC Top 25 composers thread that I missed?

There are a few Mahler champions, well, there's DavidMahler, and a few people in this thread have stated that they overrate Mahler, but I don't see it as an indication of this forum as a whole. There are many people on this forum who reject Mahler outright, I doubt that Mahler's rank as a top ten composer is representative of the forum as a whole.

I know someone's going to dig up that old post of mine where I ranked Mahler as no. 9. I have since changed my mind. I think Mahler gets much more justice on the DDD list than Ravel, Verdi, or Bartok.

I think this thread would've been better if this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/arts/music/23composers.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Was used as the reference point.


----------



## moody

Romantic Geek said:


> I can find you Verdi arias that are entirely I-V-I. Yes...that, my friend, is dry and unsophisticated.
> 
> And if you want sophistication in my claim of unsophisticated, I could start just rambling music theory blabber, but I also realize that the general TC community doesn't want that at all.


No, blabber is not needed we have other experts at that and another one would hardly be noticed. I on the other hand could bring Philip Hope-Wallace ,Compton MacKenzie, Christopher Stone, Neville Cardus, John Steane and Michael Scott to my aid. You mention music theory--are you still at college then?


----------



## moody

brianwalker said:


> I'm not certain why fans of Wagner would need to be derisive of Puccini...
> 
> "Derisive" is relative. If Romantic Rock and I were more explicit we would say that Liszt and Dvorak do not "rise to the level" of Ravel in achievement (Ravel is my Handel, I guess), but I'm sure Lisztian would take that as a serious put down.
> 
> Perhaps it's because I haven't been here long enough, but I have not seen couchie or any other Wagnerite seriously denigrate Puccini.
> 
> The most serious slight comes from DavidMahler, saying something alone the lines that he can't take Puccini seriously, but he is indifferent to opera in general.


You are quite right Lisztian would be much disturbed and let me tell you that would not be a pretty sight!


----------



## moody

Romantic Geek said:


> Maybe not a jack of all trades, but if they were a true master of musical composition, they would be able to successfully write for more than one genre. Let's be honest, Chopin's piano music >>>>>>>>>>>> Chopin's non piano music.


There is no need to answer you comments at all. But you see from my knowledge (no college) I don't believe that Chopin was interested in other forms apart from a little chamber music and some very good songs. Or are you in possession of some secret information that he tried to compose orchestral works and failed? I am certainly open to correction on this of course.


----------



## Ravellian

This is an example of those lists that are too broad, but I'll play along anyway.

1 Bach: I've heard all of his major compositions and played many of his P&Fs, and I rate Bach very highly.
2 Mozart: I consider Mozart to be the first to bring catchy tunes to instrumental music. 
3 Beethoven: I can't possibly rate Beethoven any higher. 
4 Wagner: Love Wagner, especially Tannhauser, Valkyrie, and Tristan.
5 Brahms: I rate him slightly less than the other Germans here - it's hard to think of him as much more than a Beethoven Expansion Pack.
6 Schubert: Fischer-Diskau/Schubert songs are a combination to die for. Many of the instrumental works are also wonderful.
7 Haydn: My favorite classical-period composer. His piano repertoire is also much deeper than Mozart's.
8 Tchaikovsky: One of my absolute-favorite composers. Cannot rate any higher.
9 Handel: I'm guessing he's rated so high all the time because his operas/oratorios are excellent. Have not heard much outside Messiah/Julius Caesar, so I can't really judge.
10 Chopin: As a pianist, I have always adored Chopin.
11 Schumann: I rate way lower than Chopin, but there are many of his piano works I enjoy a lot.
12 Stravinsky: The ballets are interesting, but I always thought his reverting to classicism was a disappointing.
13 Mendelssohn: Possibly the most overrated composer of all time? I don't understand why his name keeps popping up.
14 Debussy: I enjoy Debussy, though I can't say there is anything by him I really _love_.
15 Dvorak: He is someone I have found to be less consistently excellent than other major composers.
16 Liszt: He did for the piano what Jimi Hendrix did to the guitar. He will always have my respect.
17 Mahler: I love most of his symphonies - all exceptionally gorgeous, when I have time to listen.
18 Verdi: Less profound than Wagner, but no less enjoyable, I think.
19 R. Strauss: Have not heard enough to pass a sound judgement.
20 Prokofiev: Love love Prokofiev - I have really enjoyed all his piano and ballet works.
21 Shostakovich: Some of the most terrifying-but-beautiful works ever written.
22 Berlioz: Haven't heard enough 
23 Puccini: Haven't heard enough
24 Ravel: One of my all-time favorite composers.
25 Vivaldi: Second most overrated composer after Mendelssohn.
26 Sibelius: I absolutely love Sibelius, as I have said here many times.
27 Bartok: Kinda like Stravinsky, I don't find this music very pleasant to listen to.
28 Rossini: Have not heard enough
29 Bruckner: Have not heard enough
30 Rachmaninov: I have always found Rachmaninov enjoyable, especially the concerti.


----------



## Guest

brianwalker said:


> The purpose of these "ranks" is to determine which films/music/literature should be watched/listened to/read FIRST. Canon building gives the young direction, for without the canon the generations after us would be utterly and totally lost.


My experience leads me to disagree with this. I was fascinated by music from birth. I had only Hollywood music to listen to at first, but got some classical at around 9 years old.

I didn't need a canon, I had desire. Some of the things I liked turned out to be canonical (when, later, I started paying attention to such things). Some of them very definitely not. But they were all mine. I was never utterly or totally lost. I was utterly and totally enamoured, utterly and totally involved. Lost? Not a bit of it.



brianwalker said:


> Without rankings (and don't kid yourself, word of mouth is essentially the same thing) I would have to wade through a hundred terrible films before I get to Le Dolce Vita? That's absurd.


Depends on how much you like film. For film buffs, watching films other than _Le Dolce Vita_ is probably fun. Certainly not a wading through. Besides, whatever happened to individual responsibility. You want to rely on someone else to make your decisions for you?



brianwalker said:


> Many champions of modernist music keep reiterate(sic) over and over that modern music isn't "that bad", but not being "that bad" isn't the problem, it's whether it's "good enough".


Who are these "champions"? I would never be so mealy-mouthed. I very much prefer modern music over earlier music, though I still enjoy earlier music quite a lot.



brianwalker said:


> If someone told me they loved Bach's cello suite no. 4 and no. 6 and violin partita no. 2, I would direct them towards Mozart's last symphonies, then Beethoven's late quartets, then Tristan and Meistersinger. If he tells me he loves all of those things the next recommendation I give to him would not be music related.


That's a pity. I would hope that your hypothetical someone would recognize your quirks and your limitations and start ignoring your recommendations as soon as possible. I would recommend that they do so.:lol:


----------



## Vesteralen

I try not to make the mistake of confusing _my favorites _with the _greatest_ composers. I'm willing to concede the greatness argument to at least the Top 15 on the original list (with two or three exceptions only), but that doesn't change the fact that I personally prefer to listen to Barber, Nielsen and Elgar over any other names on this list except Schumann and Brahms. That's my taste, and frankly, when it comes to what I choose to spend my time listening to, that's really all that matters to me.

I'm the same with popular music - I know who I like and don't much care what anybody else thinks of them. Why should I, as long as _enough_ people like them to ensure that their stuff is always available in some format?


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

Romantic Geek- Now even though I despise Shostakovich and Prokofiev, I wouldn't ever question their place above Verdi. And to whoever wrote later that we have a problem with ranking vocal composers, yes, it does appear there is a problem. Yet, I must argue that generally vocal composer's music suffers from not being absolute art. 

What the hell is an "absolute art"? Are you suggesting that an art form that crosses genre is somehow inherently inferior? Perhaps like theater (Shakespeare?) or film or perhaps this miserable failure of "absolute art":














































I mean what could they possibly have been thinking to have employed such an impure mish-mash of art forms: architecture, sculpture, painting, mosaic, gold leaf, stained glass, etc...?

Now this becomes a huge debate on aesthetics. Here are my two cents: vocal composer's had to produce a lot of music in a very short time.

And this was not true of instrumental composers? And even though this was true at times, it seems to me that in a a good many instances this in no way undermined the artist's achievements. I can't think of many bodies of music that could be seen to surpass Bach's cantatas... in spite of the pressures he was under to rapidly compose, rehearse, and perform these weekly. How many works of music can rival Mozart's greatest operas? One might make a strong case for the argument that the years Mahler spent upon a single symphony seem self-indulgent in comparison to the few weeks or months needed for Mozart to compose one of his operas.

At times, their music is dry and unsophisticated. I'm not saying that all of Donizetti's and Verdi's and Puccini's music is unsophisticated-but an enormous chunk of their work is.

Some vocal music is dry and unsophisticated. Undoubtedly even some of Donizetti's, Verdi's, and Puccini's music is dry and unsophisticated... although I'd be hard-pressed to come up with an example from among their major works.

Vocal music accounts for what must be more than half of the entire output of "classical music" from chants to motets to madrigals to masses to requiems to cantatas to oratorios to operas, operettas, lieder, chanson, melodies, romances, etc... In a great many instances vocal music accounts for the greatest achievements by many of the greatest composers: Bach (the Passions, Mass in B-Minor, Magnificat, cantatas), Handel (oratorios, operas, cantatas, etc...), Mozart (operas, masses, concert arias, Requiem), Haydn (The Creation, the masses), Beethoven (Missa Solemnis, 9th Symphony), Brahms (German Requiem), Mahler (a good many of the symphonies, the song cycles), Richard Strauss (the operas, the lieder), Debussy (melodies), Faure (Requiem and melodies), etc...


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

25 Vivaldi: Second most overrated composer after Mendelssohn.

Based upon having heard what?


----------



## brianwalker

Hey Romantic Geek. You said Wagner is a one trick pony, so does this guy. He dissects Brunnhilde's awakening.

http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/music/83341/ring-of-truth/2/

And the Tristan chord.

http://www.firstthings.com/RSS/article/2010/11/why-we-cant-hear-wagnerrsquos-music

Thoughts?

Also, what's your personal thought on why he's so popular? I mean, he's been admired and held in the highest regard by some of the most prominent members of the classical music community since he died. He's not a fad. What gives, in your opinion?


----------



## Romantic Geek

brianwalker said:


> I'm interested in how you square Stravinsky's admiration of Verdi.
> 
> Since I am not a fan of Tchaikovsky I interpret Stravinsky's admiration of Tchaikovsky as stemming from 1. the fact that Tchaikovsky is Russian and the most compositionally sound Russian composer prior to Stravinsky himself and 2. something to throw in the face of the modernists.


Stravinsky what? When did he come into this conversation?


----------



## Romantic Geek

brianwalker said:


> Hey Romantic Geek. You said Wagner is a one trick pony, so does this guy. He dissects Brunnhilde's awakening.
> 
> http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/music/83341/ring-of-truth/2/
> 
> And the Tristan chord.
> 
> http://www.firstthings.com/RSS/article/2010/11/why-we-cant-hear-wagnerrsquos-music
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Also, what's your personal thought on why he's so popular? I mean, he's been admired and held in the highest regard by some of the most prominent members of the classical music community since he died. He's not a fad. What gives, in your opinion?


I understand Wagner's place in music history. There is no denying that. Much like the author of these two articles. Just when it comes to placing him in terms of top composers, I find #4 to be a little high. Schoenberg was influential in the course of music history. Is he close to #4? No. Without Wagner, we have no Strauss, we have no Mahler, and eventually, we have no Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. But I believe people when they consider Wagner also consider his aesthetic when determining his placement as a composer. On the contrary, I think his entire body doesn't merit #4. I'm not questioning top 10...

That is all.


----------



## Eviticus

OK, OK, OK, OK Reluctant as i have been to overrate or underrate a composer i'm finally going to say it! I UNDERRATE SCHUBERT!

Not that i dislike him by any measure - on the contrary I am really fond of him and have been for a long time. The first movement of the "trout" quintet was the first piece of music that got me in to chamber and still has one of my all time favourite passages in it. His last 2 symphonies, last 3 quartets and last 2 piano sonatas are great works (although i've never really like any of the lieder i have heard yet).

All this said - i am still missing something (and it's not my marbles) as to why he is repeatedly ranked SO high on all lists.

Therefore, i feel the strong need to dig deep and dirty my hands with old Franz once again. Could people lead me to any good documentary's, audio analysis of his works or refer me to works of well recognised brilliance by Schubert? I would be most grateful - although please try and avoid recordings by specific conductors as i don't intend to dig too deep in to my wallet!


----------



## Ravellian

StlukesguildOhio said:


> 25 Vivaldi: Second most overrated composer after Mendelssohn.
> 
> Based upon having heard what?


The concerti, like most people. People rate Vivaldi high based off of listening to the Four Seasons, without realizing that all the concerti tend to sound very similar from each other. Listening to Vivaldi gets very stale, very fast.

I'm not familiar with his operas and I doubt many people are. He can't be overrated or underrated based on the operas, because they're not very well-known. They could be wonderful for all I know, but I haven't tried them yet.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

The concerti, like most people. People rate Vivaldi high based off of listening to the Four Seasons, without realizing that all the concerti tend to sound very similar from each other. Listening to Vivaldi gets very stale, very fast.

I'm not familiar with his operas and I doubt many people are. He can't be overrated or underrated based on the operas, because they're not very well-known. They could be wonderful for all I know, but I haven't tried them yet.

I remember when I firs began to delve into the realm of classical music. The music of Handel generally available (and well-known) was largely limited to The Messiah, the Water Music, the Royal Fireworks music, the Concerti Grossi, and perhaps the keyboard suites. Imagine Bach limited to the Brandenburgs, the violin and keyboard concerti. The prejudice against Vivaldi, fueled by Stravinsky's snide comment (no doubt) is largely due to a similar limitation. Honestly, the concerti taken as a whole are certainly repetitive and formulaic. Yet such an assessment might be no less true of many works by any really prolific composer: Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Hovhaness, etc... What matters is the quality of the best works. I don't concern myself with the 50% of Mozart's oeuvre that is mediocre. I only focus on the strongest works. Vivaldi produced many concerti or real merit beyond the Four Seasons. I'm especially fond of the concerti for mandolin:






I might note that prejudice against Vivaldi is not unique. the marvelous mezzo-soprano, Magdalena Kozena admits to an initial reluctance to record an album of Vivaldi's music:






Ultimately, Kozena discovered the wealth of Vivaldi's vocal music:






His operas are now being discovered in a manner similar to how Handel's vocal works were "discovered" over the past 30 years:











***********


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

And beyond Vivaldi's operatic compositions, he also composed a wealth of sacred music:
















Of course I would think to change anyone's opinion. We like what we like. I all am suggesting is that in the case of Vivaldi opinions are quite often made without ever having explored his finest works.


----------



## moody

Eviticus said:


> OK, OK, OK, OK Reluctant as i have been to overrate or underrate a composer i'm finally going to say it! I UNDERRATE SCHUBERT!
> 
> Not that i dislike him by any measure - on the contrary I am really fond of him and have been for a long time. The first movement of the "trout" quintet was the first piece of music that got me in to chamber and still has one of my all time favourite passages in it. His last 2 symphonies, last 3 quartets and last 2 piano sonatas are great works (although i've never really like any of the lieder i have heard yet).
> 
> All this said - i am still missing something (and it's not my marbles) as to why he is repeatedly ranked SO high on all lists.
> 
> Therefore, i feel the strong need to dig deep and dirty my hands with old Franz once again. Could people lead me to any good documentary's, audio analysis of his works or refer me to works of well recognised brilliance by Schubert? I would be most grateful - although please try and avoid recordings by specific conductors as i don't intend to dig too deep in to my wallet!


Schubert's lieder is the essence of the man . I could,and have often, listened for hours and hours way into the night.If you don't get a big jolt when you first hear them you probably will not get one at all. Mind you it really depends on who is performing, in fact that is vital. The great lieder singers include the followig: Hans Hotter, Alexander Kipnis, Karl Erb, Gerard Souzay, Aksel Schiotz. With all the reissues available today it does not cost so much dosh. Have a look at Presto Classical online , but for lieder DO NOT buy any weird unknown singers from Naxos for instance. His chamber music and piano music is wonderful ,surely you like the impromptus,we will avoid talking of his operas I think. When it comes to his symphonies we've just recently had that out. As in the case of Schumann I'm not sure just how important they actually are, although I have umpteen versions of the 9th (chiefly to see how the various conductors handle all the gear changes that are treacherous--not many succeed well). only one of the unfinished--Toscanini--but I think this is probably the superior work. As with any composer , if at first sight you don't like the stuff, you will not in a year's time probably, unless you are very young it does not grow on you. But with Schubert it is worth some effort!!


----------



## moody

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if the derisory comments of Puccini come from fans (online mainly?) of you-know-who...
> 
> I think this is just jockeying for status. Rankings are inherently a zero sum game, a a leg up for Puccini might mean a leg down for Wagner. I would think of it more as the praise of Wagner as the expense of Puccini, rather than putting down Puccini intrinsically.
> 
> I'm not certain why fans of Wagner would need to be derisive of Puccini... or any other composer. Just because I love Wagner (and Bach and Mozart) doesn't mean that I hate Puccini (and Brahms and Debussy). Puccini, IMO, simply does not rise to the level of achievement of Wagner. If one is extremely generous we can attribute perhaps six great operas to him: _Manon Lascaut, La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La rondine, Turandot, Il trittico_ and this is being very generous, indeed (and I say this as a fan... I have more recordings of Puccini than I do of Verdi!) Going further, I don't see that criticizing Puccini's sources has much to do with his pulp fiction sources or his "sexing up" of the dramas. One might do well to remember that Verdi and his followers were just as quick to deride Puccini's notorious bad taste when it came to literature. Still, just as Schubert sets a mediocre cycle of poems and raises them to a level of unmatched brilliance in the _Winterreise_, Puccini is able to take some dubious narratives and produce musical dramas of the first order out of them... as one immediately recognizing upon listening to Maria Callas performing _Mme. Butterfly_ or _Tosca_. But is Puccini really as innovative, as influential, and as consistently great as Wagner? In spite of the fact that I love Puccini... I must admit he falls well short of Wagner's achievements.


Obviusly I am somewhat dense, what does the red print not to mention the green ptint mean?


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

StlukesguildOhio said:


> If one is extremely generous we can attribute perhaps six great operas to him: _Manon Lascaut, La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La rondine, Turandot, Il trittico_ and this is being very generous, indeed...


Well... there is _Fanciulla_...

Thought I'd look back here, to review how we saw it at the time:

8. _La Bohème_
16. _Tosca_, then 
35. _La Fanciulla del West_, ahead of

44. _Turandot_
45. _Madama Butterfly_
70. _Gianni Schicchi_ (part 3 of _Il Trittico_)
85. _La Rondine_
99. _Suor Angelica_ (part 2 of _Il Trittico)_
101. _Manon Lescaut_
141. _Il Tabarro_ (part 1 of _Il Trittico)_.

Of course, I won't contest the placing of Wagner ahead of Puccini... but Puccini is the most significant opera composer since Verdi finished _Falstaff_... and I think that counts for much.

If there was a modern Proscenium Arch at an opera house, and there were six names on it (like there were on the old one at the late Mid-town Met), Puccini _would_ be one of them.


----------



## frankentomato

I'll reorder that list for my tastes...

1. Ravel
2. Liszt
3. Stravinsky
4. Debussy
5. Prokofiev
6. Sibelius
7. Rachmaninoff
8. Brahms
9. Beethoven
10. Chopin
11. Mahler
12. Bach
13. R. Strauss
14. Berlioz
15. Mendelssohn
16. Tchaikovsky
17. Vivaldi
18. Shostakovich
19. Mozart
20. Wagner
21. Schubert
22. Bruckner
23. Dvorak
24. Wagner
25. Verdi
26. Rossini
27. Bartok
28. Handel
29. Schumann
30. Haydn


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

moody said:


> Obviusly I am somewhat dense, what does the red print not to mention the green tint mean?


I should have clarified by denoting the speaker, but I often use a change in color to denote a change in speaker.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

Of course, I won't contest the placing of Wagner ahead of Puccini... but Puccini is the most significant opera composer since Verdi finished Falstaff... and I think that counts for much.

As much as I love Puccini, I think Richard Strauss might lay far greater claim to the position of "the most significant opera composer since Verdi finished Falstaff". I can't place any Puccini opera above _Salome, Elektra_, or _Der Rosenkavalier_... and there are still a half dozen other operas in Strauss' oeuvre nearly as good. In the long run, I also suspect that Britten will be recognized as a greater operatic composer.


----------



## Lisztian

^^^@ frankentomato...I love you, man.


----------



## Guest

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I should have clarified by denoting the speaker, but I often use a change in color to denote a change in speaker.


The "Reply with Quote" button is right next to the "Reply" button. It's neat. Why, I just used myself!


----------



## Eviticus

moody said:


> Schubert's lieder is the essence of the man . I could,and have often, listened for hours and hours way into the night.If you don't get a big jolt when you first hear them you probably will not get one at all. Mind you it really depends on who is performing, in fact that is vital. The great lieder singers include the followig: Hans Hotter, Alexander Kipnis, Karl Erb, Gerard Souzay, Aksel Schiotz. With all the reissues available today it does not cost so much dosh. Have a look at Presto Classical online , but for lieder DO NOT buy any weird unknown singers from Naxos for instance. His chamber music and piano music is wonderful ,surely you like the impromptus,we will avoid talking of his operas I think. When it comes to his symphonies we've just recently had that out. As in the case of Schumann I'm not sure just how important they actually are, although I have umpteen versions of the 9th (chiefly to see how the various conductors handle all the gear changes that are treacherous--not many succeed well). only one of the unfinished--Toscanini--but I think this is probably the superior work. As with any composer , if at first sight you don't like the stuff, you will not in a year's time probably, unless you are very young it does not grow on you. But with Schubert it is worth some effort!!


Thanks Moody. Yes i like the impromtu's but i don't think i'll ever really like his lieder... they are just not for me.


----------



## moody

I certainly overrate Richard Strauss if he is at only no.19 on your list. but the n I cannot understand why that should be.
In 1962 Glenn Gould said: "The greatest musical figure who has lived this century", ( Now I don't care much what Gould said, but it makes a good start). But then again Ravel liked him and he was another big orchestra man.
Strauss and Mahler were the last great romantics and anybody into marvellous sound and descriptive story lines should be collecting Strauss as fast as possible.
His tone poems: Don Quixote, written for Paganini as solo viola. ( where are you Violadude ?). Also sprach Zarathustra with the famous "Sunrise" ("2001") opening. You know there was an LP in America of all the Chicago Symphony conductors since the year dot doing it---only in America!! Ein Heldenleben, Heroic and romantic (very),Till Eulenspiegel, Very quirky, Don Juan, you can imagine, Tod and Verklarung, this might seem a bit heavy at first,Sinfonia Domestica, life with the Strauss family,Ein Alpensinfonie, just the thing if you like mountains and weather.
Two horn concertii, Very good but the second is the one to look at first.
Burleske for piano and orch. Byron Janis first class. Oboe concerto in D Major late work)
"Taillefer". Huge work for sop.,bari.,and tenor,chorus and orch. The story , from a ballad by Ludwig Uhland ,of a Norman juggler and entertainer killed at the Battle of Hastings.Very scarce, I know that the 1944 rec. is available on Preiser ,but there was one by the Dresdners and Michael Plasson.
"Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" music for an adaption of Moliere's play--very amusing.
Peregon to the Symphonia Domestica For piano (left hand) and orch. fiendishly difficult. Strauss along with Ravel and other composers wrote music for Paul Wittgenstein who had lost his right arm in WW1.
Quite extraordinary lieder in cluding "Four Last Songs" --Flagstad made the first recording.
The operas, surely everyone should revel in these: Der Rosenkavalier", "Salome" from Wilde's play--very nasty stuff, I have Maria Ewing doing it and she is suitably disgusting."Elektra","Ariadne auf Naxos
If you are new at Strauss start with " Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Tricks", "Don Juan" or" Le Bourgeoise Hombre". (You see Avant Garde., another gentilhombre !)
Lastly for Strauss please do not go to Naxos and the South East Patagonian Symphony cond. William Havergesse. these guys are not up to it and there are plenty of Strauss people like Reiner, Szell etc, on bargain labels.


----------



## science

Thing is, there are really good arguments for dozens or even hundreds of composers. 

Enescu has been on my mind for a few days, and I wonder how high would an Austrian who wrote his works be ranked? Bartok and Hindemith have always had some hardcore admirers who would rank them really high, and for (IMO) good reason. Martinu? 

One of the fun things about this kind of thing, as long as we don't take it too seriously as something like a dogmatic religious endeavor, is that we reconsider stuff....


----------



## Cygnenoir

1 Bach -
2 Mozart 0
3 Beethoven +
4 Wagner 0
5 Brahms -
6 Schubert 0
7 Haydn 0
8 Tchaikovsky 0
9 Handel -
10 Chopin 0
11 Schumann -
12 Stravinsky +
13 Mendelssohm -
14 Debussy +
15 Dvorak 0
16 Liszt 0
17 Mahler ++
18 Verdi -
19 R. Strauss 0
20 Prokofiev +
21 Shostakovich +
22 Berlioz 0
23 Puccini -
24 Ravel +
25 Vivaldi 0
26 Sibelius +
27 Bartok +
28 Rossini -
29 Bruckner +
30 Rachmaninov +

I would like to remove Rossini, Puccini, Mendelssohn and Händel, and add Grieg, Messiaen, Ligeti and Penderecki.


----------



## moody

science said:


> Thing is, there are really good arguments for dozens or even hundreds of composers.
> 
> Enescu has been on my mind for a few days, and I wonder how high would an Austrian who wrote his works be ranked? Bartok and Hindemith have always had some hardcore admirers who would rank them really high, and for (IMO) good reason. Martinu?
> 
> One of the fun things about this kind of thing, as long as we don't take it too seriously as something like a dogmatic religious endeavor, is that we reconsider stuff....


It is supposed to be who you might have under or overrated and that's what I was posting about. Incidentally, what dies (IMO) signify ?


----------



## Eviticus

moody said:


> It is supposed to be who you might have under or overrated and that's what I was posting about. Incidentally, what dies (IMO) signify ?


In my opinion... You gotta get down with the lingo Moody - PMSL (pee myself laughing).


----------



## moody

Eviticus said:


> In my opinion... You gotta get down with the lingo Moody - PMSL (pee myself laughing).


Well I still don't know what it means.!


----------



## violadude

moody said:


> Well I still don't know what it means.!


IMO means In My Opinion
IMHO means In My Honest (or Humble) Opinion
LOL means Laughing Out Loud
LMAO means Laughing My **** Off
ROFL means Rolling On the Floor Laughing
ROFLMAO means Rolling On the Floor Laughing My **** Off
ROFLMAOPMP means Rolling On the Floor Laughing My **** Off Pissing My Pants

Hope that helps.


----------



## science

moody said:


> It is supposed to be who you might have under or overrated and that's what I was posting about. Incidentally, what dies (IMO) signify ?


I didn't mean my post as a criticism of yours. Sorry about the misunderstanding.


----------



## moody

violadude said:


> IMO means In My Opinion
> IMHO means In My Honest (or Humble) Opinion
> LOL means Laughing Out Loud
> LMAO means Laughing My **** Off
> ROFL means Rolling On the Floor Laughing
> ROFLMAO means Rolling On the Floor Laughing My **** Off
> ROFLMAOPMP means Rolling On the Floor Laughing My **** Off Pissing My Pants
> 
> Hope that helps.


Thanks for that, looks like I need to get with it but this has been my first venture into the world of forums and the like.


----------



## moody

Eviticus said:


> In my opinion... You gotta get down with the lingo Moody - PMSL (pee myself laughing).


Oh yes, I think I'll go to bed!


----------



## mmsbls

I thought I'd bump this thread since the last post was over 10 years ago and there are now many new TC members. You'll have to read the OP to reply properly; otherwise, you'll probably be answering a different question. The question is:

Why do _you_ think that you like or dislike certain composers more than other people do (_as defined by the average ranking listed in the OP_)?

When I started this thread, I had much less experience listening to classical music. I listed my most underrated composer as Stravinsky. Having listened to much more Stravinsky in the past 10 years, I would rank him perhaps slightly lower than 12 (his rank on the averaged list in the OP), but much closer than earlier. Probably, Liszt is now my most underrated composer. I think my most overrated composer would still be Saint-Saens, who is not on the average list. My earlier lack of appreciation of Stravinsky was due partly to my difficulty in appreciating much modern music and partly to the relative dearth of my listening to his works. I'm not fully sure why I place Saint-Saens so much higher than others. I like a wide range of his works especially his concertos and chamber works.


----------



## Art Rock

mmsbls said:


> 1	Bach
> 2	Mozart
> 3	Beethoven
> 4	Wagner
> 5	Brahms
> 6	Schubert
> 7	Haydn
> 8	Tchaikovsky
> 9	Handel
> 10	Chopin
> 11	Schumann
> 12	Stravinsky
> 13	Mendelssohm
> 14	Debussy
> 15	Dvorak
> 16	Liszt
> 17	Mahler
> 18	Verdi
> 19	R. Strauss
> 20	Prokofiev
> 21	Shostakovich
> 22	Berlioz
> 23	Puccini
> 24	Ravel
> 25	Vivaldi
> 26	Sibelius
> 27	Bartok
> 28	Rossini
> 29	Bruckner
> 30	Rachmaninov


I'd say a difference of 15 places or more is very significant. If I compare this list with the latest version of my own top 30, these are the 15+ differences:

Me rating higher than the reference list:

Mahler 2 (ref 17, difference 15)
Moeran 16 (ref >30, difference 15 or more)
Shostakovich 5 (ref 21, difference 16)
Vaughan Williams 15 (ref>30, difference 16 or more)
Bax 13 (ref >30, difference 18 or more)
Bruckner 9 (ref 29, difference 20)
Sibelius 6 (ref 26, difference 20)

Me rating lower than the reference list:

Liszt >30 (ref 16, difference 15+)
Stravinsky 29 (ref 12, difference 17)
Tchaikovsky 25 (ref 8, difference 17)
Schumann >30 (ref 11, difference 20+)
Handel >30 (ref 9, difference 22+)
Haydn >30 (ref 7, difference 24+)
Beethoven 27 (ref 2, difference 25)

Why? Well, I am a bit of an anglophile in music, so that accounts for some of my "overratings". For the rest? Beats me. In general I do not dislike the composers that I "underrate" (with one exception, one that would not be close to my top 100), but they just end up lower. Mind you, I found that even making a top 100 composers means I have to ditch scores of composers whose work I really like.


----------



## Strange Magic

In my case as a staunch supporter of the validity of my own taste, I neither overrate nor underrate any given composer's work..They hold exactly the positions in my estimation that they deserve and have earned. Why and how others can like pieces I loathe, or loathe those that I like, is of course a mystery.


----------



## SanAntone

Strange Magic said:


> In my case as a staunch supporter of the validity of my own taste, I neither overrate nor underrate any given composer's work..They hold exactly the positions in my estimation that they deserve and have earned. Why and how others can like pieces I loathe, or loathe those that I like, is of course a mystery.


Me too. In fact I find it very distasteful to "rate" composers other than according to our personal favorites.


----------



## Kreisler jr

mmsbls said:


> 1	Bach
> 2	Mozart
> 3	Beethoven
> 4	Wagner
> 5	Brahms
> 6	Schubert
> 7	Haydn
> 8	Tchaikovsky
> 9	Handel
> 10	Chopin
> 11	Schumann
> 12	Stravinsky
> 13	Mendelssohn
> 14	Debussy
> 15	Dvorak
> 16	Liszt
> 17	Mahler
> 18	Verdi
> 19	R. Strauss
> 20	Prokofiev
> 21	Shostakovich
> 22	Berlioz
> 23	Puccini
> 24	Ravel
> 25	Vivaldi
> 26	Sibelius
> 27	Bartok
> 28	Rossini
> 29	Bruckner
> 30	Rachmaninov
> 
> Could you pick one composer that you significantly "overrate" and one composer that you significantly "underrate" compared to this "average" list and try to say why your tastes differ?


I'll take a deviation of >5 places as significantly different rating. 
Compared to this list, I personally *underrate*:

Wagner (more between 10 and 20 for me, although I understand the high position on such lists), it's just that I hardly listen to his music nowadays, he used to be higher but never top 5.
Debussy also a bit lower, around 20
Stravinsky (dito)
Tchaikovsky (between 20 and 30)
Liszt wouldn't be in top 20, maybe not top even 30
Puccini and Rossini wouldn't make my top 30, I am not interested enough in opera.
Neither would Rachmaninoff
Not sure about Verdi and Strauss, probably a bit lower as well but both would probably make top 30

*overrate*
Mahler around 10 (gains 5 because of the downvoting of the above and is also before Dvorak and Mendelssohn)
Bruckner around 15 although I have a bit of a love/hate relation...
Bartok around 10 my favorite 20th century composer

Instead of Puccini, Rossini, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Strauss I'd probably include Purcell, Fauré, Berg, Monteverdi, Janacek among top 30, so these would also count as "overrated". But I certainly don't have a clear unfuzzy top 30 list.

edit: But I am actually surprised that with those few exceptions (and there are a few more I'd push around a bit) I mostly agree with "ballpark placements" of that averaged list, i.e "about top 10", "about 20-30".


----------



## Bulldog

Shostakovich at 21? I'd have him at no. 2, just below Bach.

As for Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi, it's a toss-up whether I would even have them in my top 100 (not that I have one).


----------



## Heck148

Strange Magic said:


> In my case as a staunch supporter of the validity of my own taste, I neither overrate nor underrate any given composer's work..They hold exactly the positions in my estimation that they deserve and have earned......


Right, well said....how others rate various composers is not my business...to each his/her own....


----------



## Ethereality

I'm not on board with this thread idea of an objective standard ranking of composers, because there is no verifiable data to prove it would be correct and *not simply somebody quite different*, but I understand the OP question at heart: Why do we each belong to different schools and enjoy different composers more?

As others have answered, why do you overrate and underrate certain composers?_ I don't_. I can answer the first question now, if that's what you'd rather ask.


----------



## Highwayman

mmsbls said:


> 1	Bach
> 2	Mozart
> 3	Beethoven
> 4	Wagner
> 5	Brahms
> 6	Schubert
> 7	Haydn
> 8	Tchaikovsky
> 9	Handel
> 10	Chopin
> 11	Schumann
> 12	Stravinsky
> 13	Mendelssohm
> 14	Debussy
> 15	Dvorak
> 16	Liszt
> 17	Mahler
> 18	Verdi
> 19	R. Strauss
> 20	Prokofiev
> 21	Shostakovich
> 22	Berlioz
> 23	Puccini
> 24	Ravel
> 25	Vivaldi
> 26	Sibelius
> 27	Bartok
> 28	Rossini
> 29	Bruckner
> 30	Rachmaninov


17 of these composers are not in my personal top 30.

The most significant differences are:

-Tchaikovsky, Rossini, Bruckner and probably Berlioz wouldn`t be anywhere near my top 100.
-Schumann and Dvořák have firm spots around my top 5 whereas Fauré, Reger and Messiaen have been lingering around my top 10.


----------



## mmsbls

Ethereality said:


> I'm not on board with this thread idea of an objective 'standard ranking' of composers, because there is no verifiable data to prove it would be correct and *not simply somebody else*, but I understand the OP question at heart: Why do we each belong to different schools and enjoy different composers more?
> 
> As others have answered, why do you overrate and underrate certain composers?_ I don't_. I can answer the first question now, if that's what you'd rather ask.


I certainly don't believe there is an objective standard of ranking, and I think perhaps you do understand the intent of the thread. I was simply trying to find out why people think they enjoy some composers much more or much less than others do. Perhaps the term "rate" was the wrong term to use.

The variation in classical music enjoyment of TC members has always surprised and intrigued me. Mostly I wondered if people had a sense of why their personal enjoyment of some composers varied significantly from a rough average of others' enjoyment.


----------



## EdwardBast

I'm not much interested in ratings for composers. But if I were, the OP list would be unusable for several reasons. Lumping music theater composers like Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, and Rossini in with instrumental or well-rounded composers renders the exercise meaningless for me. There's just no reasonable basis for comparison. The same applies to narrow specialists like those who compose almost exclusively for piano or those known only for large orchestral works.

But addressing the intent of the thread reboot: Opera doesn't interest me much, and 19thc Italian opera interests me less than the rest of it. So I would shorten the list a bit.  A few of the composers on the list I just don't think were very good composers on any level. Bruckner especially.


----------



## hammeredklavier

mmsbls said:


> I was simply trying to find out why people think they enjoy some composers much more or much less than others do.


I think there's a lot of factors (coming into play), which beg questions such as:


hammeredklavier said:


> Let's say there are composers (or works) "A" and "B".
> With A, you didn't see his (its) "merits" at first, but you've had roughly 1000 hours of listening to his music (it), and now you "recognize" them. (At least you think you do.)
> With B, you've had only 10 hours of listening to his music (it). At this point, you treat B the same way you treated A back then when you had only 10 hours of listening to A.
> 1. Would you decide that A is "objectively superior" to B artistically anyway?
> 2. (If you said yes to 1,) wouldn't the decision be "unfair" to B (in comparison to your current treatment of A)?
> 3. How would you know if the following is true or false at this point: 'B also has his (its) merits, its just that you don't recognize them cause you haven't spent enough time with his music (it).'


----------



## Prodromides

mmsbls said:


> The question is:
> Why do _you_ think that you like or dislike certain composers more than other people do (_as defined by the average ranking listed in the OP_)?


I think I am a unique species of listener who possesses different perspectives than those of the majority of typical listeners.
One such perspective is that programmatic music is not inferior to established forms (symphony, sonata, etc.) just as accepted forms of art music (i.e. string quartets) are not superior to music written for stage, cinema or television.
Another perspective = music need not be able to 'stand' on its own to satisfy this listener. If a music library cue has a runtime duration of 29 seconds, then I can still listen to it and enjoy even though the piece may not have any development or continuity.
A disc of archival library music tracks need not serve as an album listening experience in order for me to treasure its contents.

Thus, highly chromatic music and dissonance is my home base ... my 'centre'.

None of the 30 composers on the 'average'd list are contained within _my_ Top 100 favorite composers.
My Top 5 alone has artists as disparate as the note-spinnin' Jolivet alongside Scelsi spinning only _one_ note!


----------



## Ethereality

mmsbls said:


> I certainly don't believe there is an objective standard of ranking, and I think perhaps you do understand the intent of the thread. I was simply trying to find out why people think they enjoy some composers much more or much less than others do. Perhaps the term "rate" was the wrong term to use.
> 
> The variation in classical music enjoyment of TC members has always surprised and intrigued me. Mostly I wondered if people had a sense of why their personal enjoyment of some composers varied significantly from a rough average of others' enjoyment.


I ideally love the large structure of something like Ravel's Rhapsodie Espagnole, because although well-connected in progression, it feels more like an adventure and hero's story, with different silent narratives then building up to big singular moments. It tells a clear story without all the standard flat-sounding Classicism you hear from most composers that just drolls on and on.

However then when it comes to small form, Ravel is totally out the window. His actual 'sound' aspect is a disfavorite, and here I much prefer Mozart and Bach for their catchy contrapuntal themes. To differentiate even more, there are some of their works I prefer over what others do. I love Mozart's symphonies. But the fact that I love music that is both like Ravel's in large form, and Mozart/Bach's in small form, makes me different enough. Do you know any pieces that sound like that? I've explored a lot sort of roughly in-between these two compromises, and I would call it Incidental Classical, where the small scenes spoken about in my first paragraph are like little Classical-era moments, that then start to slowly weave into various reveals. The problem however is that most incidental music isn't as extreme in scenic expression as Ravel's Rhapsodie, and for that I have to give many of them the boot.

To finalize, there are many Romantic composers that try to use big orchestras as a kind of gimmick for epicness, and I think my Ravelian paradigm with more early Classical and ethnic stylings tries to redefine what 'epic' really is, as something more conceptual and subtle. Sorry Bruckner.

So in short, I love large form because it can tell very extreme stories, moments, and even many needed silent moments (music is the silence between the notes), and I love short form because it can be quite catchy and fill in the area well (counterpoint). I hope this answered your question!


----------



## mmsbls

hammeredklavier said:


> I think there's a lot of factors (coming into play), which beg questions such as:


I realize these questions came from another thread, but it seems that you may be asking me them here.

_1. Would you decide that A is "objectively superior" to B artistically anyway?_

No since I don't believe in objective superiority.

_2. (If you said yes to 1,) wouldn't the decision be "unfair" to B (in comparison to your current treatment of A)?_

I replied no, but since this thread is really about one's enjoyment rather than determining objective superiority, I'll answer as though you asked "Would I decide that A is more enjoyable than B?" Since one only has one's present listening experience to go by, if I enjoyed A more than B, I would rank A higher. The situation might be similar to my former situation with Stravinsky. I did not rank Stravinsky high partly due to my lack of exposure. When I had more exposure, I did rank Stravinsky higher. Of course, there are other composers whose rank did not rise nearly as much as Stravinsky's on listening more. My decision would not be unfair to B since it's only about my personal enjoyment.

_3. How would you know if the following is true or false at this point: 'B also has his (its) merits, its just that you don't recognize them cause you haven't spent enough time with his music (it).'_

One would not. In my case it's precisely because others ranked Stravinsky high that I listened much more to his work. I have listened to many composers - some I loved upon modest listening, others I did not love. I have given composers who others have ranked high significantly more listening compared to composers that others have not ranked as high.


----------



## mmsbls

Ethereality said:


> So in short, I love large form because it can tell very extreme stories, moments, and even many needed silent moments (music is the silence between the notes), and I love short form because it can be quite catchy and fill in the area well (counterpoint). I hope this answered your question!


If I understand you, you believe you like Ravel more than others may, you like Mozart as much as others may, and you like Bruckner less than others may for the reasons given (long and short forms). Is that correct?


----------



## mmsbls

Prodromides said:


> I think I am a unique species of listener who possesses different perspectives than those of the majority of typical listeners.
> One such perspective is that programmatic music is not inferior to established forms (symphony, sonata, etc.) just as accepted forms of art music (i.e. string quartets) are not superior to music written for stage, cinema or television.
> Another perspective = music need not be able to 'stand' on its own to satisfy this listener. If a music library cue has a runtime duration of 29 seconds, then I can still listen to it and enjoy even though the piece may not have any development or continuity.
> A disc of archival library music tracks need not serve as an album listening experience in order for me to treasure its contents.
> 
> Thus, highly chromatic music and dissonance is my home base ... my 'centre'.
> 
> None of the 30 composers on the 'average'd list are contained within _my_ Top 100 favorite composers.
> My Top 5 alone has artists as disparate as the note-spinnin' Jolivet alongside Scelsi spinning only _one_ note!


I'm aware of your tastes from your posts. I think I understand your sense of music not needing to "stand on its own", and my enjoyment of modern/contemporary music shares that sense. May I ask how did you come to classical music?


----------



## Strange Magic

I think we have a key and lock situation in music and actually in all the arts. We each individually have an inner template of things that will please us, and the art/music we like is the key that most perfectly fits the lock. The lock--our innate taste or evaluation--does often slowly change and thus the fitting key will change also. i will here NOT raise the issue of subjectivism/objectivisism in esthetic discussion--no I won't though others may secretly wish to.....


----------



## Kreisler jr

While I am not entirely sure how the lists the average list was compiled from were themselves compiled, I am a bit surprised that a GMG list was one of the input lists but apparently the divergence to the final compilation is considerable?
I guess this is the GMG list that was one input
https://www.talkclassical.com/12162-top-25-composers-please-13.html#post140969

Maybe the most interesting point is that several people found Mendelssohn way overrated (at #13) but he was already at #17 (so not far off) in the GMG list. I find Mendelssohn underrated in this forum from anecdotal experience (and to me around #15 seems reasonable) and maybe even in general*, so I am also surprised at both high placements as there must have been some people/lists placing him even higher to get this average with many others saying, not even top 30.

FWIW, I find mmsbls idea of comparing the development of personal appreciation vs. "received opinion" (and such lists are at least decent approximations for the latter) quite interesting. People are too often kidding themselves to be "aesthetic islands" while every man is a part of the continent.

(* debates about this can unfortunately become toxic as there some people will always bring up a certain historical reason why Mendelssohn was maligned in some quarters in some time periods. Which is historically correct but IMO utterly unhelpful for discussing the merits of his music today.)


----------



## dko22

I suppose the starting point here is how you define greatness in a composer. The list here is a sort of averaged out one from common consensus but of course many will have completely different personal definitions. Mine is very simple. The greatest composers are those who who are able to translate the greatest range of human emotions the most succinctly and most profoundly. Key to this is melody -- not in the sense of hummable tunefulness but more simply how a series of tones are put together and what they can express. Naturally harmony and instrumental colour play a major role also.

Although no composer can possibly express everything, the greatest composer for me using this definition is certainly Janáček. Needless to say he's not even on the list. Bruckner is absurdly lowly. Of the top 10, I think Schubert would make it in but Beethoven is borderline. No others. To underrate, I'd certainly kick Liszt out of the top 100 or so. 

It goes without saying that many have totally different criteria for their selections. An admiration for form could easily justify Bach (who leaves me cold except when singing him) or sonata form (many exponents) or indeed completely modern criteria. Naturally, a great composer must have harmony between means and ends but there are many different way of achieving this.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> FWIW, I find mmsbls idea of comparing the development of personal appreciation vs. "received opinion" (and such lists are at least decent approximations for the latter) quite interesting. People are too often kidding themselves to be "aesthetic islands" while every man is a part of the continent.


Care to elaborate more on this?


----------



## Ethereality

Because we have so many composers, there's no real need for one to jack all trades and not aim anywhere very well. That's what makes this exercise so challenging. But agree that Janacek is pretty good, I usually have him in my Top 20, well over composers like Tchaikovsky or Sibelius, but not because he does lots of stuff.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Of course, we've all been indoctrinated under the same education from childhood. Also, I think people simply saying "I like X", "I dislike Y" conveys little meaning (due to the vagueness of the verbal expression), when it comes to various topics.
For example, a person says he "dislikes" Stockhausen and Penderecki and "likes" Brahms, for instance, but he watches films or documentaries of horror/mystery genres in his own time, and wants the soundtrack to be more "modern", to be closer in aesthetics to Stockhausen and Penderecki rather than Brahms —is he being true to his words? Maybe deep down he doesn't really "dislike" the composers he claims to "dislike" at all. He just doesn't want to hear them under certain contexts of life, and uses the word "dislike" to describe the phenomenon vaguely.


----------



## Ethereality

It's so boring. I know, I just wrote how boring it is. Sorry.

We need more of this and this and pretty much everything hammerdklavier does. I enjoy how in my _Recommendation on my Ideal _thread, someone can sort of understand what the initiator likes and post a compromise example that they like, we can analyze why we each differ in our own ways about the compromise work. The forum games are so boring. I need to address that post because I'm not huge about that piece.


----------



## SanAntone

hammeredklavier said:


> Of course, we've been all indoctrinated under the same education from childhood. Also, I think people simply saying "I like X", "I dislike Y" conveys little meaning (due to the vagueness of the verbal expression), when it comes to various topics.
> For example, a person says he "dislikes" Stockhausen and Penderecki and "likes" Brahms, for instance, but he watches films or documentaries of horror/mystery genres in his own time, and wants the soundtrack to be more "modern", to be closer in aesthetics to Stockhausen and Penderecki rather than Brahms -is he being true to his words? Maybe deep down he doesn't really "dislike" the composers he claims to "dislike" at all. He just doesn't want to hear them in certain contexts of life, and uses the word "dislike" to describe the phenomenon vaguely.


Music in a film is secondary to the action being watched and is all part of the scene's suspense. Probably if listened divorced from the film those same listeners would feel the same as they have described their response to Stockhausen and Penderecki. And I believe they would be consistent.

I am just the opposite from the listeners you describe: I enjoy Stockhausen and Penderecki but not horror movie music. Compared to the works of Stockhausen and Penderecki, the average horror flick score sounds trite and clichéd. Only a superficial appraisal would think they are "the same."


----------



## hammeredklavier

Prodromides said:


> chromatic music


Speaking of chromaticism, there is this pattern; when asked what makes Mozart great, some people will say; _"his richness of chromatic harmony and fluidity of vocal writing, which set him apart from all his contemporaries"_ [1]. Other people will say; _"I dunno. Don't ask me difficult questions like that. I just like his music, and who can blame me for it"_ [2]. To me, both of these groups (1, 2) are _suspicious_ of relying on "received wisdom".
For example, look at the style of the "S'altro che lacrime" from Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, and then that of the "Quel ruscelleto" from Haydn's Endimione (or the "Quel viso adorato" from his Andromeda e Perseo) side by side. Isn't it disturbing the former artist is always ranked at around the 1st~3rd places, while the latter artist never appears in any rankings? What if we had been consistently informed from childhood about this "paradox", would things have been the same? -I'm just asking.

How can we prove Mozart's "greatness" is not a result of the amount of his "exposure" to the public? How do we know for sure the kind of chromatic harmony and vocal writing Mozart employs, for instance, proves his music has "depth" intrinsically, compared to his contemporaries? (Isn't it rather something "creamy"?) People will quote the "purple prose writing" the "experts" have written about him in admiration, which doesn't really prove anything except the fact that they're under the influence of "received wisdom" or "personal opinion". I'm not trying to argue any of the artists represented in the rankings in this thread are overrated or underrated. I'm just discussing the inherent limitations of such methods of evaluation.


----------



## Prodromides

mmsbls said:


> I'm aware of your tastes from your posts. I think I understand your sense of music not needing to "stand on its own", and my enjoyment of modern/contemporary music shares that sense. May I ask how did you come to classical music?


My initial exposure to non-popular music was the incidental music I heard as a teenager (in the early '80s) whilst watching re-runs on UHF stations of '60s TV shows like THE OUTER LIMITS, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, etc. During the late '80s, I was ransacking used book stores purchasing vintage soundtrack LPs - especially those by George Duning, Sol Kaplan, Jerry Fielding (guys who wrote for the original STAR TREK), Dominic Frontiere, Jerry Goldsmith, etc.
By the early '90s, I owned soundtracks by _every_ composer who wrote before the '80s (Golden Age men such as Friedhofer, Waxman ... the whole lot).
I'd go as far enough to say that Malcolm Arnold and Andre Previn were some of my 'crossover' composers who've had careers in both cinema and concert music. Sometimes liner notes on the reverse of the LP jackets would indicate some concert works that the composers had written - like the notes on the M-G-M LP of Rosenman's *Edge of the City* stating he had done a violin concerto.
I began to explore the classical annex of Tower Records in search of CDs that may contain the 'absolute' music by the guys who did TV & film. I discovered an entire other world of contemporary classical whilst searching for symphonies by Benjamin Frankel, works by Takemitsu, _anything_ by Marius Constant, etc.

So here I am - into classical music via Charles Koechlin & Aarre Merikanto ... Villa-Lobos & Varese ... but NOT through the 3 "B"s.


----------



## mmsbls

Prodromides said:


> So here I am - into classical music via Charles Koechlin & Aarre Merikanto ... Villa-Lobos & Varese ... but NOT through the 3 "B"s.


I find your path, as well as others who found classical music through non-traditional pathways, rather interesting. Everyone I know personally who likes modern/contemporary classical music, did not enjoy that music at first, including myself. They all had to do a significant amount of listening to become familiar with the new music before they came to enjoy it. They all started with a more conventional path (i.e. common practice tonality of composers such as the 3 Bs, Mozart, Schubert, etc.).

There are a number of people on TC who came to classical music through "alternative" paths. A common one is through progressive rock. Obviously I don't know everyone's preferences and pathways, but the progressive rock entry led some to start with modern/contemporary classical music. In some cases they not only prefer such music but do not enjoy music based on CPT.

We've had many discussions on whether an early introduction to differing musical styles would lead people to enjoy modern/contemporary classical music more easily or even more than CPT. I'm still uncertain, but I'm quite open to that possibility.


----------



## hammeredklavier

SanAntone said:


> Compared to the works of Stockhausen and Penderecki, the average horror flick score sounds trite and clichéd. Only a superficial appraisal would think they are "the same."


I'm not necessarily saying what they wrote is essentially incidental music. But it's just that much of modern musical aesthetic phenomena is an indispensable part of modern culture.
Look at Stockhausen's influence on the Beatles, for example.


----------



## Kreisler jr

hammeredklavier said:


> Care to elaborate more on this?


Just look in this thread and elsewhere how people take pride in being special and not sharing "prejudices", "indoctrinations" etc. They think they are islands but no man is an island and of course we are all a part of centuries and culture of classical music.

Also, the fact that all such lists or disregarding them the actual programs of concerts or competitions, playlists or collections of people are remarkably similar and thus show that many preferences are shared at least to some extent. Still people believe stuff like that everyone has his absolutely personal opininion, untainted by anything else. Which is too obviously wrong to even merit discussion.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> They think they are islands but no man is an island and of course we are all a part of centuries and culture of classical music.


Can you elaborate more on what that is exactly?
[ "A biography of Mozart, read to him (Wagner) when he was only six, had made an undying impression on him. ... The overture to Die Zauberflöte was his earliest musical love: it captured so exactly the note of a fairy tale. He conducted it in Mannheim in 1871 at the concert celebrating the founding of the German Richard Wagner Society. He often reminisced about his childhood impressions when Mozart was played at Wahnfried. He had discovered the C minor Fantasy at his Uncle Adolf's house and had dreamt about it for ages afterwards." (Westernhagen, P. 81~82) ]-
For example, this can be thought of as "indoctrination", depending on how we look at it. To prove the validity of such an "establishment" (ie. "centuries and culture of classical music."), we're essentially relying on historical figures who were also _indoctrinated_ from their youth, as authorities. It also depends on everyone's personal opinion whether or not what they did as "artistic achievements" turned out to be the "best" and "most optimal".



> Also, the fact that all such lists or disregarding them the actual programs of concerts or competitions, playlists or collections of people are remarkably similar and thus show that many preferences are shared at least to some extent.


Sure, but that still doesn't really answer my questions in <"I didn't see the merits of X's music until I had N hours of listening to it">
or Echberg's good points in <Assumption of greatness>. 
You might be underestimating "mere exposure effect" and overestimating how much people in general are eager to explore beyond the "usual favorites" and how many people actually think deeply over this subject. Also, speaking of "general consensus ", European CP music apparently isn't the most interesting music, if we take the general consensus of the entire population of the world today into account.



hammeredklavier said:


> Some things (eg. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven) are of course more popular than other things in classical music. But whether or not X is popular because it has depth, or is superificially appealing, sentimental, over the top, or whatnot belongs in the realm of subjectivity.


----------



## SanAntone

> Sure, but that still doesn't really answer my questions in <"I didn't see the merits of X's music until I had N hours of listening to it"> or Echberg's good points post in <Assumption of greatness>.
> 
> You might be underestimating "mere exposure effect" and overestimating how much people in general are eager to explore beyond the "usual favorites". Also, European classical music apparently isn't the most interesting music, if we take the general consensus of the entire population around the world into account.


Your links don't take me to what you've quoted or referred to. ???

But to address your first point, I think people come to enjoy music in different ways. Sometimes it is because of exposure, sometimes it is immediate, "love at first hearing." I've experienced both ways.

In the case of Mahler it took me decades of revisiting the symphonies before I could say I "liked" the music. But for other composers I still have yet to develop a liking for their music after doing a lot of work trying. But for most of my favorites my response was immediate and positive, effortless.

I also do not buy into the "indoctrination" hypothesis. While beginners with Classical music will often find a list of the 50 Greatest composers, that list has been filtered over hundreds of years and by a variety of scholars/critics. I cannot agree that the music of Bach or Beethoven is only considered great because we have been indoctrinated to accept that judgment, outside of our response to the music itself.

Conversely, as I experienced, no matter how many lists of the greats on which Mahler's name appeared I didn't get it until after many years of trying. He is still not among my favorites, but I can at least enjoy his music from time to time. The same was true for Wagner. Bruckner is still a closed book for me, whereas Brahms and Liszt resonated immediately for me.


----------



## Strange Magic

Kreisler jr said:


> Just look in this thread and elsewhere how people take pride in being special and not sharing "prejudices", "indoctrinations" etc. They think they are islands but no man is an island and of course we are all a part of centuries and culture of classical music.
> 
> Also, the fact that all such lists or disregarding them the actual programs of concerts or competitions, playlists or collections of people are remarkably similar and thus show that many preferences are shared at least to some extent. Still people believe stuff like that everyone has his absolutely personal opininion, untainted by anything else. Which is too obviously wrong to even merit discussion.


I will cheerfully offer myself and my tastes as an example of someone who has an absolute personal opinion. Such a position as mine is not "obviously wrong" but I believe is actually widely shared. It may be that it is universally shared, only often subject to self-denial by some. _Cosi fan tutti!_


----------



## hammeredklavier

SanAntone said:


> Your links don't take me to what you've quoted or referred to. ???


"I didn't see the merits of X's music until I had N hours of listening to it"
Assumption of greatness



> I cannot agree that the music of Bach or Beethoven is only considered great because we have been indoctrinated to accept that judgment, outside of our response to the music itself.


Of course, things can and have qualities to be popular. But "greatness" depends on how each and every one of us views it. We can say things like "Raspberry tastes more like strawberry than banana" as factual statements. But whether or not "it tastes better than banana" depends on whose criteria we're basing on.


----------



## Art Rock

Linking to posts is not as straightforward as it seems - the second link in your post does not work for me. Pleas check here:

Tips, Tricks and Workarounds


----------



## hammeredklavier

Art Rock said:


> Pleas check here:Tips, Tricks and Workarounds


Thanks. I think this works; Assumption of greatness. I'll paste this into my previous posts as well.


----------



## SanAntone

hammeredklavier said:


> Of course, things can and have qualities to be popular. But "greatness" depends on how each and every one of us views it. We can say things like "Raspberry tastes more like strawberry than banana" as a factual statement. But whether or not "it tastes better than banana" depends on whose criteria you're basing on.


Is Beethoven considered a great composer because of a circular tradition of received wisdom? Or can we analyze his music and determine that he was an inspired master craftsman with ingenious command of conceiving and developing motivic themes?


----------



## Ethereality

Both, because they're not mutually exclusive.


----------



## SanAntone

Ethereality said:


> Both, because they're not mutually exclusive.


There was no received wisdom when Beethoven was first considered the greatest composer of his time.


----------



## Ethereality

SanAntone said:


> There was no received wisdom when Beethoven was first considered the greatest composer of his time.


Post hoc ergo propter hoc.


----------



## szabomd

1Bach - 
2 Mozart 0
3 Beethoven 0
4 Wagner - 
5 Brahms 0
6 Schubert - 
7 Haydn - - 
8 Tchaikovsky +
9 Handel - - - 
10 Chopin - - 
11 Schumann - - 
12 Stravinsky 0
13 Mendelssohm 0
14 Debussy - 
15 Dvorak +
16 Liszt 0
17 Mahler ++
18 Verdi 0
19 R. Strauss 0
20 Prokofiev - 
21 Shostakovich ++
22 Berlioz - 
23 Puccini - 
24 Ravel ++
25 Vivaldi +
26 Sibelius +++
27 Bartok ++
28 Rossini 0
29 Bruckner +
30 Rachmaninov 0


----------



## fbjim

SanAntone said:


> There was no received wisdom when Beethoven was first considered the greatest composer of his time.


No, but there certainly was context on how music "ought" to sound in his day, and our day. "an inspired master craftsman with ingenious command of conceiving and developing motivic themes" is a statement that depends on at least some level of received wisdom on what constitutes "great craftsmanship", especially when dealing with abstract forms.


----------



## SanAntone

fbjim said:


> No, but there certainly was context on how music "ought" to sound in his day, and our day. "an inspired master craftsman with ingenious command of conceiving and developing motivic themes" is a statement that depends on at least some level of received wisdom on what constitutes "great craftsmanship", especially when dealing with abstract forms.


I understand your point, but there has been an implication by a few posters that the primary reason we think of Beethoven, or Bach, as great is because of "received wisdom", perpetuated in a "circular fashion". Almost as if we've been brainwashed to believe that these composers were great, not because they were actually greater than their peers, but because of a repeated dogma by historians, musicologists, scholars, critics, and generations oof musicians, to elevate these composers above others for no real reason.


----------



## fbjim

It's circular to an extent, I think, because part of what musicologists look for is the impact of the composer's works on their peers, and the changing nature of music. So - the fact that people consistently say certain composers are great is an important fact in itself, rather than some kind of arbitrary fact of chance. It's sot of mixing up the cause for the effect. 

I think there's a sort of defensive stance that comes from - probably poorly worded - statements that we revere composers nowadays because of contextual factors around their work. Certainly, some people actually do take the blinded view that "you only like Mozart because he's recorded so often, you only like him because everyone says he's a genius, etc etc". Some people take discussions about cultural context as an accusation that listeners are being brainwashed by historians, the concept of the "canon", etc. But it's not that simple. If I say Beethoven, or Debussy, or Wagner, or Schoenberg, or Reich had extraordinary impact and influence on how music changed over the years, I'm making an argument for their music based entirely on contextual factors - certainly this doesn't constitute an argument toward "brainwashing". 

At the end of the day, I think it almost doesn't matter. Even if one wanted to say the fame of certain artists was arbitrary, random, or ideological - they're still part of our musical culture all the same. No one can ever free themselves from context.


----------



## haziz

1Bach ---
2 Mozart --
3 Beethoven +
4 Wagner -----
5 Brahms -
6 Schubert --
7 Haydn --
8 Tchaikovsky +++++
9 Handel --
10 Chopin +
11 Schumann 0
12 Stravinsky -----
13 Mendelssohn +
14 Debussy -
15 Dvorak +++++
16 Liszt 0
17 Mahler -----
18 Verdi ----
19 R. Strauss ---
20 Prokofiev --
21 Shostakovich ++
22 Berlioz -
23 Puccini ---
24 Ravel +
25 Vivaldi +
26 Sibelius ++++
27 Bartok ---
28 Rossini ---
29 Bruckner -----------------
30 Rachmaninov +++


----------



## fluteman

SanAntone said:


> I understand your point, but there has been an implication by a few posters that the primary reason we think of Beethoven, or Bach, as great is because of "received wisdom", perpetuated in a "circular fashion". Almost as if we've been brainwashed to believe that these composers were great, not because they were actually greater than their peers, but because of a repeated dogma by historians, musicologists, scholars, critics, and generations oof musicians, to elevate these composers above others for no real reason.


Yes, but there is no reason to be "brainwashed". Rather, one needs to understand and acknowledge that one's aesthetic tastes depend and are based in large part on a large and complex set of cultural norms and traditions that each individual accepts (or rejects, or adapts) to varying degrees (and there is always at least some individual variance, even among those from the same society, time, place, and circumstances).

Too many posters here are like fish who can't see the water they are swimming in. They are so accustomed to a particular set of underlying norms and traditions that they come to think that these are inevitable and objectively or naturally correct or superior. In fact, the opposite is the case. Cultural norms and traditions always are at least partly the arbitrary product of random historical developments. So individual tastes vary for that reason, as well as due to the inevitable differences between any two individuals.


----------



## mmsbls

fluteman said:


> Yes, but there is no reason to be "brainwashed". ...


I agree with your comments. I think the term "brainwashed" has been used rather than the more appropriate "influenced". We have all been influenced by a wide variety of inputs. Our non-shared environments (external inputs) influence our unique brains to produce our personal set of musical preferences. Our brains and environments, though unique, tend to be similar enough such that the vast majority of us, but certainly not all, love Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, and others. I can't fully understand how some others can manage not to love Mozart, but obviously some environments influence some brains to produce ambivalence or worse towards the greatest composer of all time .


----------



## MatthewWeflen

I have no idea what's going on in these charts. Are they cumulative, or are people just assigning an arbitrary number of pluses and minuses to things?

Anyway, in response to the OP, I positively and negatively rate composers based on how memorable I find their music. If I can hum a few bars without preparation, they're doing something right (for me). If I can't, they're going to have a hard time climbing my personal ranking.


----------



## SanAntone

fluteman said:


> Yes, but there is no reason to be "brainwashed". Rather, one needs to understand and acknowledge that one's aesthetic tastes depend and are based in large part on a large and complex set of cultural norms and traditions that each individual accepts (or rejects, or adapts) to varying degrees (and there is always at least some individual variance, even among those from the same society, time, place, and circumstances).
> 
> Too many posters here are like fish who can't see the water they are swimming in. They are so accustomed to a particular set of underlying norms and traditions that they come to think that these are inevitable and objectively or naturally correct or superior. In fact, the opposite is the case. Cultural norms and traditions always are at least partly the arbitrary product of random historical developments. So individual tastes vary for that reason, as well as due to the inevitable differences between any two individuals.


Do you think that Beethoven is a great composer because of "a particular set of underlying norms and traditions"? And even if the Western European cultural norms and traditions produced the environment in which Beethoven worked it does not negate his accomplishment, which can be demonstrated to be at a higher level than most of the other composers of his generation who also swam in the same water.

I believe that Beethoven is a great composer because of how he wrote his music, not because I've been told he is a great composer. Even a cursory analysis of his music will uncover his mastery of the materials he chose, how he conceived of his themes in order for them to offer ample opportunities to develop and exploit for his musical purpose.

This I believe to be true of all of the composers that are considered great.


----------



## mmsbls

MatthewWeflen said:


> I have no idea what's going on in these charts. Are they cumulative, or are people just assigning an arbitrary number of pluses and minuses to things?


I don't think the pluses and minuses are well-defined, but a plus would indicate the poster likes or would rank the composer higher. A minus indicates the poster likes or would rank the composer lower. More than 1 plus or minus indicates a stronger positive or negative reaction (++ more than a bit higher, +++ much higher, ---- vastly lower, etc.)



MatthewWeflen said:


> Anyway, in response to the OP, I positively and negatively rate composers based on how memorable I find their music. If I can hum a few bars without preparation, they're doing something right (for me). If I can't, they're going to have a hard time climbing my personal ranking.


Would you be able to select a couple of composers from the list in the OP that you would rank or that you like significantly higher or lower?


----------



## fbjim

SanAntone said:


> Do you think that Beethoven is a great composer because of "a particular set of underlying norms and traditions"? And even if the Western European cultural norms and traditions produced the environment in which Beethoven worked it does not negate his accomplishment, which can be demonstrated to be at a higher level than most of the other composers of his generation who also swam in the same water.
> 
> I believe that Beethoven is a great composer because of how he wrote his music, not because I've been told he is a great composer. Even a cursory analysis of his music will uncover his mastery of the materials he chose, how he conceived of his themes in order for them to offer ample opportunities to develop and exploit for his musical purpose.
> 
> This I believe to be true of all of the composers that are considered great.


It's context, not causation. Beethoven's greatness depends on us viewing his work through a certain framework that allows us to appreciate what he did. This isn't negating his accomplishment, but rather forming a context that allows us to appreciate his accomplishment. Without that, music is just sounds.


----------



## fbjim

Just to put it in perspective, this is maybe slightly silly, but it's like saying that one must know English to appreciate Shakespeare, which is very much not to say that Shakespeare is only good because of the English language.


----------



## SanAntone

fbjim said:


> It's context, not causation. Beethoven's greatness depends on us viewing his work through a certain framework that allows us to appreciate what he did. This isn't negating his accomplishment, but rather forming a context that allows us to appreciate his accomplishment. Without that, music is just sounds.


Well, yes. But why point this out?

All Classical music is a product of the Western European culture, as are most of us. So yes, we have that context for our response to Beethoven. But he is considered great because of how his music stands up compared to all other Classical music - all a part of the same cultural context.

I am also not sure if Beethoven's greatness rests entirely on this cultural basis. I would think that people from other cultures can appreciate Beethoven's music despite not having the same framework.


----------



## Strange Magic

SanAntone said:


> I am also not sure if Beethoven's greatness rests entirely on this cultural basis. I would think that people from other cultures can appreciate Beethoven's music despite not having the same framework.


Some will appreciate his music and some won't. It is all very personal and individualistic. The last recourse is to put it to a vote, but what would such a vote show other than the summed opinions of the polled group?


----------



## hammeredklavier

SanAntone said:


> Even a cursory analysis of his music will uncover his mastery of the materials he chose


That would mean Beethoven is inherently superior to Bob Dylan.


----------



## fbjim

That's kind of where this is going. It's virtually impossible for us *not* to listen in this context because we've been immersed in it as classical listeners, so it happens without us having to think about it. It's a shared understanding between us and the composer. Even when the composer is deliberately breaking traditions, we know that practices are being broken because we have a familiarity, even if subconscious, of how things "should" go. 

That being said, of course we can place ourselves or immerse ourselves in different cultures to appreciate works from traditions we're unfamiliar with. But even people from the same culture aren't always able to do this. When someone says that music from a certain genre "all sounds the same to me", that's a sign that they don't get the musical language that genre operates in, meaning that all they hear is "sound". In a similar way that an instruction manual and great literature might sound exactly the same when spoken aloud to someone who doesn't know the language.

The idea that Beethoven sounds anything like Vivaldi or Ravel might sound silly to any listener familiar with classical, but some people just hear "violins, string instruments, etc" and can't get past that. Classical music really all does sound the same to them.


----------



## SanAntone

fbjim said:


> The idea that Beethoven sounds anything like Vivaldi or Ravel might sound silly to any listener familiar with classical, but some people just hear "violins, string instruments, etc" and can't get past that. Classical music really all does sound the same to them.


But I don't think that Beethoven sounds like Vivaldi or Ravel. Beethoven could be said to sound like Hummel or Haydn or Mozart, since they were all of the same stylistic period. But not Wagner, or Stravinsky, or any composer whose style is different from the 18th century Classical period.

Several of you are making the point that because we share the Western European culture we can readily appreciate the music of Beethoven. But that also applies to composers of his period who are not considered great, or "as great" as Beethoven.



> That would mean Beethoven is inherently superior to Bob Dylan.


There is no basis for comparing Beethoven and Dylan since their periods and styles are very different. Beethoven can meaningfully be compared to composers that share his style, i.e. those from the Classical period, roughly 20 years +/- the dates of Beethoven's composing career. Just as Bob Dylan can meaningfully be compared to songwriters of his period and style.


----------



## hammeredklavier

SanAntone said:


> can meaningfully be compared to composers that share his style, i.e. those from the Classical period, roughly 20 years +/-


sounds like a convenient argument to me. There's no basis Mozart's contemporaries tried to achieve the same style. (ie. "They tried to be like Mozart, but ended up being failed Mozarts", "Una cosa rara was more popular than Le Nozze di Figaro because people at the time were musically dumb", etc.) I think it's wishful thinking propagated by the later generations.


----------



## hammeredklavier

SanAntone said:


> Just as Bob Dylan can meaningfully be compared to songwriters of his period and style.


Can Bob Dylan be analyzed and be proven to be superior to his peers? Why can Beethoven be, but not Dylan.


----------



## SanAntone

hammeredklavier said:


> Can Bob Dylan be analyzed and be proven to be superior to his peers? Why can Beethoven be, but not Dylan.


There is a widespread belief that Bob Dylan is the greatest songwriter of his generation.


----------



## fluteman

SanAntone said:


> Do you think that Beethoven is a great composer because of "a particular set of underlying norms and traditions"?


Yes.



SanAntone said:


> And even if the Western European cultural norms and traditions produced the environment in which Beethoven worked it does not negate his accomplishment, which can be demonstrated to be at a higher level than most of the other composers of his generation who also swam in the same water.


Yes, also very true.



SanAntone said:


> I believe that Beethoven is a great composer because of how he wrote his music, not because I've been told he is a great composer. Even a cursory analysis of his music will uncover his mastery of the materials he chose, how he conceived of his themes in order for them to offer ample opportunities to develop and exploit for his musical purpose.
> 
> This I believe to be true of all of the composers that are considered great.


I agree, except that it takes far more than a "cursory analysis of [Beethoven's] music" to "uncover the mastery of the materials he chose." There, you are writing from the standpoint of a professional musician with extensive formal education, training and experience in a number of western music traditions (as well as other traditions, I suspect). If you disagree with me on that, let's go out on the street together, stop a random stranger, and see how easily and quickly he or she can uncover Beethoven's mastery of the materials he chose. We may first have to explain to this stranger who Beethoven was.

While I am not one of the world's leading musicians, musicologists or aesthetic historians or philosophers, far from it, in a number of lengthy past threads here, I have cited some excellent books by some great thinkers who are, or were, experts on this very topic and analyzed it insightfully, brilliantly and at length from various standpoints. These include Charles Rosen, Leonard B. Meyer, Walter Jackson Bate, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Dewey.


----------



## SanAntone

fluteman said:


> I agree, except that it takes far more than a "cursory analysis of [Beethoven's] music" to "uncover the mastery of the materials he chose." There, you are writing from the standpoint of a professional musician with extensive formal education, training and experience in a number of western music traditions (as well as other traditions, I suspect). If you disagree with me on that, let's go out on the street together, stop a random stranger, and see how easily and quickly he or she can uncover Beethoven's mastery of the materials he chose. We may first have to explain to this stranger who Beethoven was.


Okay, I see how I have misunderstood the parameters of this discussion. I was thinking as a musician who has studied Beethoven's music, as well as read other books that have analyzed his music, and not as a casual Classical music lover. Casual fans (who don't have the tools to analyze his music for themselves) take it on faith that Beethoven is a great composer. It is what they've been taught in booklets that accompany their CDs, books they've read, by the media, and other Classical music fans, as well as some professionals they've met.

However, I do think that judgment, now 250 years old, has been based on an analysis of his music by professionals.


----------



## Strange Magic

> *SanAntone:* However, I do think that judgment, now 250 years old, has been based on an analysis of his music by professionals.


All true that the professionals have been polled. Yet the average TC member, along with the general CM listening public, are not music professionals, yet these were the audience that Beethoven was writing for, (actually, who knows what that audience was?) and they were not in a position, generally, to "know" how good Beethoven's techniques were, his mastery. They listened as they sat in the audience and either liked what they heard or they didn't, just like you (maybe not like you) and me and the large majority of the auditors in the concert space. It again, when all is said and done, remains a matter of opinions--those of the professionals, those of the lay audience, those of you and me.


----------



## DaveM

No one told me to go check out those musty, dust-covered Beethoven and Brahms Violin Concerto 78 rpm albums on a shelf in the basement when I was 7 years old. Those albums were passed down from my grandparents, but my parents had never once played classical music on a record player when I was young. My only exposure previously had been Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel when I was 4-5. 

But still, on my own I took those albums down and played them and was immediately mesmerized by the Brahms and subsequently the Beethoven. From then on, the need to hear everything Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms was insatiable. Why? There was no brainwashing, no programming. There is a reason for the term ‘Common Practice’ as regards the period during which it occurred. Once one accepts, acknowledges, understands that it did occur and why, then the reason that the same composers tend to be at or near the top is not a mystery. What the average man/woman on the street knows or doesn’t know about these composers is irrelevant.


----------



## Strange Magic

> *DaveM:* What the average man/woman on the street knows or doesn't know about these composers is irrelevant.


All true. It's each person's private (or then shared) opinion that counts. All other opinions are, indeed, irrelevant. Maybe fun to read, or even educational ("You should listen to Rautavaara's Piano Concerto No.1; you might like it."), but still just opinion,


----------



## Philidor

Opinion is the point, to my mind.

However, there is maybe such thing as "natural opinion". We (almost) have the natural opinion that sweets are fine.

I don't think that most people have the "natural opinion" that cigars are fine. However, some people spend a lot of money for it. 

If someone says that he was enriched by listening some music after 1950, and if I have the initial suspicion, that this person knows one or two things about music, I could try to get an approach, even if my natural opinion tells me that I don't like the music at all. Could lead to something like "educated taste".


----------



## MatthewWeflen

mmsbls said:


> I don't think the pluses and minuses are well-defined, but a plus would indicate the poster likes or would rank the composer higher. A minus indicates the poster likes or would rank the composer lower. More than 1 plus or minus indicates a stronger positive or negative reaction (++ more than a bit higher, +++ much higher, ---- vastly lower, etc.)
> 
> Would you be able to select a couple of composers from the list in the OP that you would rank or that you like significantly higher or lower?


That I can do:

Here's the list as given:

1 Bach
2 Mozart
3 Beethoven 
4 Wagner
5 Brahms
6 Schubert
7 Haydn
8 Tchaikovsky
9 Handel
10 Chopin
11 Schumann
12 Stravinsky
13 Mendelssohm
14 Debussy
15 Dvorak
16 Liszt
17 Mahler
18 Verdi
19 R. Strauss
20 Prokofiev
21 Shostakovich
22 Berlioz
23 Puccini
24 Ravel
25 Vivaldi
26 Sibelius
27 Bartok
28 Rossini
29 Bruckner
30 Rachmaninov

And how I'd rank them:
1 Beethoven (+2)
2 Sibelius (+24)
3 Mozart (-1)
4 Brahms (+1)
5 Tchaikovsky (+3)
6 Haydn (+1)
7 Mendelssohn (+6)
8 Schubert (-1)
9 R. Strauss (+10)
10 Dvorak (+5)
11 Bruckner (+18)
12 Shostakovich (+10)
13 Bach (-12)
14 Schumann (-3)
15 Rossini (+13)
16 Wagner (-12)
17 Liszt (-1)
18 Vivaldi (+7)
19 Handel (-10)
20 Prokofiev (+1)
21 Bartok (+7)
22 Debussy (-7)
23 Verdi (-4)
24 Stravinsky (-11)
25 Ravel
26 Chopin (-16)
27 Rachmaninov (+3)
28 Berlioz (-6)
29 Puccini (-6)
30 Mahler (-13)

But I personally would replace a good many of the bottom third with other composers who better fit my criteria of memorability and enjoyment, like Carl Nielsen, Max Bruch, John Williams, Aaron Copland, Boris Lyatoshinsky, John Field, Bedrich Smetana, Edvard Grieg, Franz Schmidt, Ralph Vaughan Williams...


----------



## fluteman

Strange Magic said:


> All true. It's each person's private (or then shared) opinion that counts. All other opinions are, indeed, irrelevant. Maybe fun to read, or even educational ("You should listen to Rautavaara's Piano Concerto No.1; you might like it."), but still just opinion,


And yet, as fbjim said in his intelligent post no. 191, "no one can ever free themselves from context."


----------



## DaveM

fluteman said:


> And yet, as fbjim said in his intelligent post no. 191, "no one can ever free themselves from context."


Well, that kind of statement may get some heads nodding and hands clapping when no time was taken to process it, but the fact is that yes they can and people with minds of their own do it all the time.


----------



## Strange Magic

fluteman said:


> And yet, as fbjim said in his intelligent post no. 191, "no one can ever free themselves from context."





> *DaveM:* Well, that kind of statement may get some heads nodding and hands clapping when no time was taken to process it, but the fact is that yes they can and people with minds of their own do it all the time.


Do we have signs of position shifts here? It seems to me that if someone offers an opinion, a recommendation to me, I will either ignore it or not, and, iif I choose to listen to the recommendation, I can like it or not. But this is not the sort of "context" that is important in any way; it's just a random-number sort of thing. My opinion. like yours (all of us) always overrides the "context". AS before, my opinion of any composer's work is entirely separate of the opinions of others, although opinions can and are held in common with an other or others.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> I think we have a key and lock situation in music and actually in all the arts. We each individually have an inner template of things that will please us, and the art/music we like is the key that most perfectly fits the lock. The lock--our innate taste or evaluation--does often slowly change and thus the fitting key will change also. i will here NOT raise the issue of subjectivism/objectivisism in esthetic discussion--no I won't though others may secretly wish to.....


The lock changes rapidly in the first decade, then more slowly the 2nd decade, and slowly done after the late 20s.


----------



## Luchesi

fbjim said:


> It's circular to an extent, I think, because part of what musicologists look for is the impact of the composer's works on their peers, and the changing nature of music. So - the fact that people consistently say certain composers are great is an important fact in itself, rather than some kind of arbitrary fact of chance. It's sot of mixing up the cause for the effect.
> 
> I think there's a sort of defensive stance that comes from - probably poorly worded - statements that we revere composers nowadays because of contextual factors around their work. Certainly, some people actually do take the blinded view that "you only like Mozart because he's recorded so often, you only like him because everyone says he's a genius, etc etc". Some people take discussions about cultural context as an accusation that listeners are being brainwashed by historians, the concept of the "canon", etc. But it's not that simple. If I say Beethoven, or Debussy, or Wagner, or Schoenberg, or Reich had extraordinary impact and influence on how music changed over the years, I'm making an argument for their music based entirely on contextual factors - certainly this doesn't constitute an argument toward "brainwashing".
> 
> At the end of the day, I think it almost doesn't matter. Even if one wanted to say the fame of certain artists was arbitrary, random, or ideological - they're still part of our musical culture all the same. No one can ever free themselves from context.


the blinded view that "you only like Mozart because he's recorded so often, you only like him because everyone says he's a genius, etc etc".

I think learning musical analysis clears things up. A person who says something like the above ^^^^, probably hasn't learned enough musical analysis.


----------



## SanAntone

Strange Magic said:


> All true that the professionals have been polled. Yet the average TC member, along with the general CM listening public, are not music professionals, yet these were the audience that Beethoven was writing for, (actually, who knows what that audience was?) and they were not in a position, generally, to "know" how good Beethoven's techniques were, his mastery. They listened as they sat in the audience and either liked what they heard or they didn't, just like you (maybe not like you) and me and the large majority of the auditors in the concert space. It again, when all is said and done, remains a matter of opinions--those of the professionals, those of the lay audience, those of you and me.


While I agree with your post, I think that it (as well as a number of others referring to context) are missing the point to a certain degree.

Beethoven's success during his lifetime was based on the popularity of his compositions with the wider public of his time. But he was also acknowledged by his peers, the other professional musicians, composers, and critics of the day. It has been this community of professionals which wrote about Beethoven during their lifetimes, and secured his fame for future generations. Future generations of scholars also recognized genius in Beethoven's music and they wrote their books, all of which we have inherited.

This recognition of Beethoven, as well as a number of other composers, created a "context" of their perceived greatness. And for some Classical Music listeners they accept this judgment unquestionably. But they are standing on solid ground since the judgment concerning Beethoven was originally based on a real response by an audience that was trained to separate the wheat from the chaff. And their initial judgement has been endorsed and expanded by generations of other scholars.

Beethoven's music is enjoyed by the lay person and professional alike because it is simply good music.

For someone with little or no interest in the history of music finding composers whose music they find pleasing, interesting, enjoyable, profound, is enough - and this is how most people I think approach Classical music. Some go a little further and read biographies and even some analysis found in a CD booklet. This might broaden their appreciation of the music.

But to keep hounding on the subjective response as trumping all context, for me, becomes tedious. The subjective response is primary for all of us when we listen to music. But it does no harm to also be aware of the judgment of history concerning some composers.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Do we have signs of position shifts here? It seems to me that if someone offers an opinion, a recommendation to me, I will either ignore it or not, and, iif I choose to listen to the recommendation, I can like it or not. But this is not the sort of "context" that is important in any way; it's just a random-number sort of thing. My opinion. like yours (all of us) always overrides the "context". AS before, my opinion of any composer's work is entirely separate of the opinions of others, although opinions can and are held in common with an other or others.


So, you have determined, on your own, that Beethoven is close to the top?


----------



## That Guy Mick

Luchesi said:


> the blinded view that "you only like Mozart because he's recorded so often, you only like him because everyone says he's a genius, etc etc".
> 
> I think learning musical analysis clears things up. A person who says something like the above ^^^^, probably hasn't learned enough musical analysis.


Hi Luchesi,
It has been a while since we have chatted. Glad to see you are still enjoying the musical chats. Given your deep enjoyment of analysis, I'm curious about your opinion regarding music appreciation. Is there a distinction between musical appreciation and music enjoyment? Are there compositions that are notable for the composer's talent, but offer little emotional satisfaction beyond the analysis?


----------



## hammeredklavier

SanAntone said:


> Saying that Beethoven is greater than Hummel is a subjective statement, and hard, if not impossible, to prove to someone (other than pointing to the cumulative test of time) who has more enthusiasm for Hummel. Judging greatness based on the test of time is the closest thing we have to an objective standard. But again, the test of time is merely a cumulative collection of subjective determinations, many of which were influenced by the judgment of previous generations and what has been taught. Multiplying subjective judgments over time does not produce an objective determination.


So, have you had a change of heart since then?


----------



## SanAntone

hammeredklavier said:


> So, have you had a change of heart since then?


No.

I have always recognized the judgment of history, i.e. the anointing of some composers as great, by a consensus, over a long period of time. In fact, I allude to this with "Judging greatness based on the test of time is the closest thing we have to an objective standard." Still, the original judgments were subjective, but a subjectivity informed by a deeper knowledge and experience than a single lay person saying, "I like Hummel more than Beethoven."

In other posts I said that these collective informed subjective opinions, after they are repeated across generations, solidify into something approaching an objective measure (the judgment of history) since it transcends one individual's subjective opinion.


----------



## VoiceFromTheEther

1 Bach
2 Mozart -1
3 Beethoven +1
4 Wagner
5 Brahms -4
6 Schubert -22
7 J. Haydn -22
8 Tchaikovsky +3
9 Händel -6
10 Chopin -13
11 Schumann -31
12 Stravinsky +1
13 Mendelssohn +7
14 Debussy +7
15 Dvorak -3
16 Liszt -52
17 Mahler -16
18 Verdi -6
19 R. Strauss -13
20 Prokofiev +1
21 Shostakovich +8
22 Berlioz +14
23 Puccini -14
24 Ravel -10
25 Vivaldi +9
26 Sibelius -31
27 Bartók -26
28 Rossini -11
29 Bruckner +12
30 Rachmaninov -22

In my top 30 there would be some composers not found here:
Carl Maria von Weber, Camille Saint-Saens, Arnold Schönberg, John Williams, and others


----------



## DaveM

Within the CP era, the fact that, over generations, millions of people have been independently, subjectively drawn to a particular composer provides significant objective evidence that there is something special, often great, about that composer.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> So, you have determined, on your own, that Beethoven is close to the top?


Yup!..................


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> Within the CP era, the fact that, over generations, millions of people have been independently, subjectively drawn to a particular composer provides significant objective evidence that there is something special, often great, about that composer.


I thoroughly agree. One cannot argue against the results of that poll as false; one must establish it as a fact that many people regard Beethoven (name your favorite) as a Special, a Great Composer. I do too.

Note to SanAntone: You can end your sense of tedium at my responses by ignoring them. All I can repeat is that few here fully grasp the idea that greatness of art or of its practitioners is Entirely a Matter of Opinion. Some do understand. In the arts, everything is opinion and only opinion. It is also an expression of freedom and authenticity that enables each perceiver of artwork to have confidence in the worth and validity of their own taste.


----------



## DaveM

All opinions are not equal. I prefer educated opinions.


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> All opinions are not equal. I prefer educated opinions.


What if somebody "just likes" the music of Beethoven? It surely happens that many people could and do. Do they thus like his music for the wrong reasons? Can they safely be associated with as equals or are they of a second order of aficionados?


----------



## marlow

DaveM said:


> All opinions are not equal. I prefer educated opinions.


I don't know. Some of the opinions coming out of some of the universities these days indicate that some educated opinions are those of idiots


----------



## Strange Magic

Question for the House: What if everybody ranked all composers the same as everyone else? And what if, for each composer, they ranked each piece the same as everyone else? Would that be (metaphorically) Heaven? Or would it be Hell? TC would certainly be a different place than it is today.


----------



## hammeredklavier

SanAntone said:


> the judgment of history





DaveM said:


> educated opinions


Aren't these "appeal to authority", "appeal to popularity" fallacies? Isn't it more reasonable to think there can be various factors other than "traits/qualities of artistic work" that ultimately decide who/what get remembered and who/what don't?
Let's say there was a composer A, whose music had not been distributed widely in his lifetime because he didn't want it printed or published, and it had been "misattributed" to various other composers up until the end of the 20th century. How could "professional critics/academics" during most of the 20th century have had an accurate view of his "greatness"?
(Isn't it a little disturbing to) think of Echberg's writings about the "canon", which I posted earlier, in relation to this.
Again, I'm not trying to argue any of the composers mentioned in this thread are overrated or underrated, or that they don't deserve their popularity today, but-
I read that Hummel wrote about 20 operas, which haven't been recorded yet. How can we simply "conclude" he's inherently "inferior" (not just "different") without giving him enough chance?
And isn't this an educated opinion as well?- _"One of the many unfortunate legacies of nineteenth-century biographical writing is the excessive focus on the Wunderkind Mozart and the Incomparable Genius Mozart."_.
How can we logically prove that the Gloria from Mass K.427 (1782) is inherently superior to the Gloria from Missa sancti Ruperti (1782) regardless of their popularity and people's "preferences" today? 
Is "greatness" something that changes with the passing of time? If so, how can it be "absolute"?


SanAntone said:


> Multiplying subjective judgments over time does not produce an objective determination.


----------



## Enthusiast

If I didn't know much classical music I would probably still like a lot of Beethoven when I heard it. I am not sure what I would make of Mozart but I would probably like, say, Khachaturian just as much or more. As someone who has spent more than 50 years listening to classical music I feel I _know _that Beethoven was one of the greatest and that Mozart was another. Khachaturian, however, now just seems like a sideshow to me. There will be some here who feel differently but I would suspect that they had listened to a lot less music than I have!


----------



## SanAntone

hammeredklavier said:


> Aren't these "appeal to authority", "appeal to popularity" fallacies?


I am not saying that Beethoven is great because one authority has written a book saying so. That would be an appeal to authority fallacy. I am acknowledging the history of music in which Beethoven's greatness has been established. I am also saying that this judgment of history has been a combination of popular fame due to widespread appreciation of his music by a generally lay audience, as well as the closer analysis by a professional class with the tools to find in Beethoven's music more than in that of his peers.

For myself, I don't have a dog in this hunt, i.e. I don't care if Beethoven is considered great, is truly great, or has falsely been considered great. I think his music is very well-written and I listen to it and enjoy it a lot. But there are many composers whom are considered great but whose music bores me. At least as of right now.

But I have tried to remove myself and my personal feelings from this discussion and attempted to present what I think is an accurate recapitulation of history. And I am also not trying to convince anyone that Beethoven is great; that horse is already out of the barn.

I know that once I begin using animal metaphors it is time to exit the discussion - and I've used two.


----------



## SanAntone

One more thing -

The judgments of fame and subsequent greatness are not applied in a surgical manner. There are many things that go into an artist's achievement of fame, success, and if he hangs on long enough a consideration of greatness. Although largely based it is not entirely based only on the quality of the music.

Personality.

Charisma.

Talent, of course.

Originality.

Character, both good and bad.

Luck.

Beethoven had all of these traits in spades. He was known to be dismissively rude, especially to the nobility. He arrogantly (for the time) thought of himself as equal if not better than their class. He was both capable of blunt intolerance as well as great acts of kindness. And finally his character was such that as he was going deaf, something acutely tragic for a composer, he not only continued composing but writing some of his greatest works. 

Beethoven's charisma was a product of his dynamic personality as well as his talent. As a concertizing composer he developed a large following. Each new premier of a work was eagerly anticipated by the Viennese public.

And he was lucky to have been born at the right time for his particular style of music and personality. At a transition period when tastes were beginning to change, Beethoven was perfectly positioned to be the composer to bridge the Classical period with the Romantic. He definitely had the personality and character to enable a heroic image. And most date the idea of the heroic ccomposer with Beethoven.

So, no, the judgment of history is not fair and balanced. No doubt there have been very talented composers whose music has not been championed and has gone mostly unknown or under-appreciated. But this does not invalidate all judgments of history.


----------



## fbjim

Strange Magic said:


> Do we have signs of position shifts here? It seems to me that if someone offers an opinion, a recommendation to me, I will either ignore it or not, and, iif I choose to listen to the recommendation, I can like it or not. But this is not the sort of "context" that is important in any way; it's just a random-number sort of thing. My opinion. like yours (all of us) always overrides the "context". AS before, my opinion of any composer's work is entirely separate of the opinions of others, although opinions can and are held in common with an other or others.


I think people are overstating the idea of context as in "you only like Beethoven because he's considered great" when I'm more talking about the cultural language that allows us to understand Classical music as more than vaguely organized sound*.

This is true even for a lay person - there are absolutely debates on which aspects of music are universals, and which are not, but an average, reasonable listener, even one with no inclination for theory, would be able to intuit, or simply "know" the mindset with which to listen to classical music as opposed to other forms of music - it's this environment in which we consider Beethoven a great artist.

To extend it a bit further, the objective fact of Beethoven's fame and great standing among composers means that - even if one doesn't like him, a listener almost can't help but listen to music that was, in some way, influenced by his work, even if they are entirely unaware of it. That's another reason I'd say that it's not really possible to "escape" the context of Beethoven's renown, even if it doesn't factor into your decisions on what you like, and what you want to listen to at all. That's not "brainwashing", that's just art becoming a part of our culture.

*and even this isn't true of all people - not even all Westerners


----------



## Strange Magic

> *fbjim:*To extend it a bit further, the objective fact of Beethoven's fame and great standing among composers means that - even if one doesn't like him, a listener almost can't help but listen to music that was, in some way, influenced by his work, even if they are entirely unaware of it. That's another reason I'd say that it's not really possible to "escape" the context of Beethoven's renown, even if it doesn't factor into your decisions on what you like, and what you want to listen to at all. That's not "brainwashing", that's just art becoming a part of our culture.


This is true but trivially so. I am and you are and we all are aware of any number of composers and other artists of every stripe and hue--how can it be otherwise unless one is living as a troglodyte?. So there is almost always "context" in a most superficial sense. But it is not a matter of escaping context; it's a matter of ignoring/superseding context. One of our favorite whipping girls, Katy Perry, turns up here on TC, embedded in and radiating (usually negative) context, yet I listen to her stuff and like some few of her songs irrespective of her "context". And I could name several armies of highly thought of CM composers and Pop/Rock songsters whose work leaves me, shall we say, unimpressed.


----------



## SanAntone

Strange Magic said:


> This is true but trivially so. I am and you are and we all are aware of any number of composers and other artists of every stripe and hue--how can it be otherwise unless one is living as a troglodyte?. So there is almost always "context" in a most superficial sense. But it is not a matter of escaping context; it's a matter of ignoring/superseding context. One of our favorite whipping girls, Katy Perry, turns up here on TC, embedded in and radiating (usually negative) context, yet I listen to her stuff and like some few of her songs irrespective of her "context". And I could name several armies of highly thought of CM composers and Pop/Rock songsters whose work leaves me, shall we say, unimpressed.


At the risk of being rude I will respond - no offense intended, but it's not about you. 

There is the reality of the history of music in which some composers have been judged greater than others. While it does not mean that anyone has to agree about this group of composers, or even enjoy their music - as I said earlier it does no harm to acknowledge it and even investigate the list to hear what all the fuss is about.


----------



## Strange Magic

SanAntone said:


> At the risk of being rude I will respond to both you and *arpeggio* - no offense intended, but it's not about you.
> 
> There is the reality of the history of music in which some composers have been judged greater than others. While it does not mean that anyone has to agree about this group of composers, or even enjoy their music - as I said earlier it does no harm to acknowledge it and even investigate the list to hear what all the fuss is about.


Actually it is all about me--and you--and that person over there. I trust that you, like all of us, hold fast dearly to our opinions of anything and everything in the arts despite the contrary views of others. But I agree that no harm is done by investigating music and musics new to us.


----------



## SanAntone

Strange Magic said:


> Actually it is all about me--and you--and that person over there. I trust that you, like all of us, hold fast dearly to our opinions of anything and everything in the arts despite the contrary views of others. But I agree that no harm is done by investigating music and musics new to us.


No, I don't agree.

I am more interested in the history of music and composers than my own responses to the music I love. I already know what I love. I am more interested in learning about everything else. There is navel-gazing quality about being too preoccupied with your individual subjective opinion.


----------



## Strange Magic

SanAntone said:


> No, I don't agree.
> 
> I am more interested in the history of music and composers than my own responses to the music I love. I already know what I love. I am more interested in learning about everything else. There is navel-gazing quality about being too preoccupied with your individual subjective opinion.


I disagree in your binary choice. I surely can both walk and chew gum at the same time, and also be interested in the history of music, its social aspects, its psychological aspects, its neurological aspects, etc.

And I thought you were done with this aspect of this thread.


----------



## SanAntone

Strange Magic said:


> I disagree in your binary choice. I surely can both walk and chew gum at the same time, and also be interested in the history of music, its social aspects, its psychological aspects, its neurological aspects, etc.


Yes, that is true. But all you seem to talk about is your own subjective opinion.

Anyway, it is not worth talking about.


----------



## Strange Magic

SanAntone said:


> Yes, that is true. But all you seem to talk about is your own subjective opinion.
> 
> Anyway, it is not worth talking about.


Finally done?...... And I am always interested in the opinions of others, as I have both the desire and the time to devote to them. I have an established approach to esthetics as have we all, and display those several approaches in almost every post. My approach is different from yours and some others; you and they will just have to get used to it.


----------



## Luchesi

That Guy Mick said:


> Hi Luchesi,
> It has been a while since we have chatted. Glad to see you are still enjoying the musical chats. Given your deep enjoyment of analysis, I'm curious about your opinion regarding music appreciation. Is there a distinction between musical appreciation and music enjoyment? Are there compositions that are notable for the composer's talent, but offer little emotional satisfaction beyond the analysis?


Hey Mick from my deep (online) past..

Sometimes I think music is like a spectator sport.

A guy who doesn't follow the team, doesn't follow the seasons, doesn't know the rules and doesn't really think it's that interesting to watch. Quite boring. He's like the music fan who wants music enjoyment.

But the music fan who wants music appreciation has to watch the sport and the team develop through time, learn everything and be interested enough to attend to every detail in such a placid and measured activity. (It's quite odd and unnatural when you think about it.)

I'll have to consider your second question with more time.

But you can ask anybody. People love to be asked questions.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Yup!..................


If you've ever glanced two scores and felt that you were making the (personal) objective evaluation that quickly… That seems to be how quickly the brain can rank pieces, ..but surely not in words that others can easily follow.


----------



## Ethereality

Oops. I forgot to review some favorite works:

1 Bach -
2 Mozart -
3 Beethoven --
4 Wagner ++
5 Brahms +++
6 Schubert ---
7 Haydn ---
8 Tchaikovsky -
9 Handel ---
10 Chopin -
11 Schumann +
12 Stravinsky 0
13 Mendelssohn -
14 Debussy 0
15 Dvorak ++
16 Liszt ----
17 Mahler ++++
18 Verdi --
19 R. Strauss +
20 Prokofiev +++
21 Shostakovich 0
22 Berlioz -
23 Puccini +++++
24 Ravel +++++
25 Vivaldi +
26 Sibelius ++++
27 Bartok +
28 Rossini --------
29 Bruckner +
30 Rachmaninov +++


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> If you've ever glanced two scores and felt that you were making the (personal) objective evaluation that quickly… That seems to be how quickly the brain can rank pieces, ..but surely not in words that others can easily follow.


I am sure you are not asserting that examination of scores supersedes the direct auditory experience of the music


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> I am sure you are not asserting that examination of scores supersedes the direct auditory experience of the music


The auditory sensations offer our brains a whole landscape of open-ended metaphors, while it's almost complete ambiguity for the uninitiated. Unlimited avenues, I agree.

Scores are explicit and precise, and totally exposed to our quantifying instincts.

So we have two views of every piece. We can wallow in a dreamy state and where ever our brain engrams (experiences) lead us. The memory traces give us the feeling of 'control'.

As you know, I prefer standing back and trying the figure it out from the basics of music theory. Just like any other subject, but the difference here is, I'm enthralled by the mysteries even after I can put into words what I think's going on. The mysteries in other subjects are not experienced personally by me, so I've become (surprisingly) an exploring musician. I never tire of it.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> The auditory sensations offer our brains a whole landscape of open-ended metaphors, while it's almost complete ambiguity for the uninitiated. Unlimited avenues, I agree.
> 
> Scores are explicit and precise, and totally exposed to our quantifying instincts.
> 
> So we have two views of every piece. We can wallow in a dreamy state and where ever our brain engrams (experiences) lead us. The memory traces give us the feeling of 'control'.
> 
> As you know, I prefer standing back and trying the figure it out from the basics of music theory. Just like any other subject, but the difference here is, I'm enthralled by the mysteries even after I can put into words what I think's going on. The mysteries in other subjects are not experienced personally by me, so I've become (surprisingly) an exploring musician. I never tire of it.


I think I can share your view, in part. My training was in geology and so I am able to look at certain landscapes and tease out their structures and histories. But I balk at your notion that others--or you, or I--"wallow in a dreamy state" while experiencing the music or the landscape directly. Your usage suggests that such direct experiencing is perhaps base or primitive--wallow is such a loaded term--and thus a large portion of music's auditors and their responses are of less value than the responses of others. Perhaps you might replace wallow with a more neutral verb. When Burke wrote about our experience of the sublime, to my knowledge he never used the word "wallow".


----------



## 59540

The question is strange. One does not "overrate or underrate", one thinks that others do so.


----------



## VoiceFromTheEther

dissident said:


> The question is strange. One does not "overrate or underrate", one thinks that others do so.


One needs doublethink


----------



## McCall3

The only composers that I know well enough to have an informed opinion on are Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Wagner. Of those, compared to this list, I overrate Vivaldi and underrate Handel.


----------



## That Guy Mick

Luchesi said:


> Hey Mick from my deep (online) past..
> 
> Sometimes I think music is like a spectator sport.
> 
> A guy who doesn't follow the team, doesn't follow the seasons, doesn't know the rules and doesn't really think it's that interesting to watch. Quite boring. He's like the music fan who wants music enjoyment.
> 
> But the music fan who wants music appreciation has to watch the sport and the team develop through time, learn everything and be interested enough to attend to every detail in such a placid and measured activity. (It's quite odd and unnatural when you think about it.)
> 
> I'll have to consider your second question with more time.
> 
> But you can ask anybody. People love to be asked questions.


Hey Luchesi. Given your deep consideration of music, it is a little surprising that you need more time to contemplate the question regarding "appreciation, but not enjoyment." However, I realize the existence of complexities in arriving at a well articulated conclusion.

The team analogy is interesting, but lies opposite of the question. The comparison offers an example of those who do NOT enjoy music due to ignorance of music "rules" and "teams" and "seasons," but wants to enjoy music. The example strays from my question of a LEARNED appreciation that lacks listening enjoyment despite the understanding of rules, teams, and seasons.

For example, though I appreciate that Charlie Parker was a significant Jazz innovator, his recordings aren't very interesting to me. I much prefer to listen to Sonny Rollins use of Parker's approach on the sax.

Or how about, an exquisitely aged and highly rated Islay Scotch. Would you enjoy drinking with the awareness of its quality in spite of the fact that you hate the medicinal taste that accompanies Islay Scotch?


----------



## That Guy Mick

Strange Magic said:


> I think I can share your view, in part. My training was in geology and so I am able to look at certain landscapes and tease out their structures and histories. But I balk at your notion that others--or you, or I--"wallow in a dreamy state" while experiencing the music or the landscape directly. Your usage suggests that such direct experiencing is perhaps base or primitive--wallow is such a loaded term--and thus a large portion of music's auditors and their responses are of less value than the responses of others. Perhaps you might replace wallow with a more neutral verb. When Burke wrote about our experience of the sublime, to my knowledge he never used the word "wallow".


No harm in music wallowing. It the ultimate experience. I wallow on my sofa with deep admiration for its comfort and beauty. Certainly, I can revel in the use of high quality materials and superb stitching. No chipboard or unprotected, low density foam stuffing. At the end of the day... It looks and feels great!


----------



## That Guy Mick

VoiceFromTheEther said:


> One needs doublethink


One must not overthink it.


----------



## Strange Magic

That Guy Mick said:


> No harm in music wallowing. It the ultimate experience. I wallow on my sofa with deep admiration for its comfort and beauty. Certainly, I can revel in the use of high quality materials and superb stitching. No chipboard or unprotected, low density foam stuffing. At the end of the day... It looks and feels great!


You may wallow. I am in an altered mindstate.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> I think I can share your view, in part. My training was in geology and so I am able to look at certain landscapes and tease out their structures and histories. But I balk at your notion that others--or you, or I--"wallow in a dreamy state" while experiencing the music or the landscape directly. Your usage suggests that such direct experiencing is perhaps base or primitive--wallow is such a loaded term--and thus a large portion of music's auditors and their responses are of less value than the responses of others. Perhaps you might replace wallow with a more neutral verb. When Burke wrote about our experience of the sublime, to my knowledge he never used the word "wallow".


I see now that I wrote, "We can wallow in a dreamy state and where ever our brain engrams (experiences) lead us. The memory traces give us the feeling of 'control'." It's difficult to find the words about brain experiences. You pick out the one word wallow, but I was thinking of much more.

I'll read a thread I wrote a month ago and disagree with parts of it. It's a new syndrome I'll call forum distemper, a disturbance of the 4 humours (pre-scientific medicine).


----------



## MarkW

Oh, just for something to do.


----------



## GMB

For me, it's being on the same wave-length as the composer, which is psychological. The Psyche is the soul. The soul's journey, the soul's pilgrimage, the soul's struggle. I love intensity in music. It is "religious" in another context, but not Christian, or any other creed.
It is very subjective. I love the subjectivity!


----------



## Ludwig Schon

Manna determines what is underrated and overrated. 

Scandinavia has produced some of the greatest composers in the 20th century; yet you are unlikely to hear Stenhammar, Holmboe or Langgaard in any concert all from Milan to Yucatan, because the numbskulls in the all powerful English establishment, think we need even more puke-inducing recordings of Sibelius’ reeking corpus.


----------



## 59540

Ludwig Schon said:


> Manna determines what is underrated and overrated.
> 
> Scandinavia has produced some of the greatest composers in the 20th century; yet you are unlikely to hear Stenhammar, Holmboe or Langgaard in any concert all from Milan to Yucatan...


So what? The concert hall as a means of propagating music has gone the way of the dodo and typewriter.


----------



## Luchesi

That Guy Mick said:


> Hey Luchesi. Given your deep consideration of music, it is a little surprising that you need more time to contemplate the question regarding "appreciation, but not enjoyment." However, I realize the existence of complexities in arriving at a well articulated conclusion.
> 
> The team analogy is interesting, but lies opposite of the question. The comparison offers an example of those who do NOT enjoy music due to ignorance of music "rules" and "teams" and "seasons," but wants to enjoy music. The example strays from my question of a LEARNED appreciation that lacks listening enjoyment despite the understanding of rules, teams, and seasons.
> 
> For example, though I appreciate that Charlie Parker was a significant Jazz innovator, his recordings aren't very interesting to me. I much prefer to listen to Sonny Rollins use of Parker's approach on the sax.
> 
> Or how about, an exquisitely aged and highly rated Islay Scotch. Would you enjoy drinking with the awareness of its quality in spite of the fact that you hate the medicinal taste that accompanies Islay Scotch?


"The example strays from my question of a LEARNED appreciation that lacks listening enjoyment despite the understanding of rules, teams, and seasons."

I'm puzzled thinking about lacking listening enjoyment? It is a fear I've heard from students, young and old.

"Will I lose some of the spontaneous joy I used to experience, before I studied music theory?" It's possible here and there, but you'll quickly find new and larger dimensions to appreciate.

I don't remember clearly, but my breakthrough came when I began merging the sights and sounds and tactile patterns of music. All senses experiencing the whole of music. Imagine the experience of playing air guitar while playing along to a score you know so well! Hearing what you see, 'seeing' what you feel, and hearing what you feel (with emotions).

Can you express with your whole body without having music theory as a guide and a safety net? Not in my experience.


----------



## That Guy Mick

Luchesi said:


> "The example strays from my question of a LEARNED appreciation that lacks listening enjoyment despite the understanding of rules, teams, and seasons."
> 
> I'm puzzled thinking about lacking listening enjoyment? It is a fear I've heard from students, young and old.
> 
> "Will I lose some of the spontaneous joy I used to experience, before I studied music theory?" It's possible here and there, but you'll quickly find new and larger dimensions to appreciate.


I guess everyone's interests and drive levels vary. Perhaps those students are finding that the study of music becomes too much of a work routine. Certainly, over-exposure can leave one cold, but I would imagine most people rebound fairly quickly with ample time away. If the experience is accompanied by too many negative associations, then I can understand the hand-wringing. However, I have conversed with quite a few who have studied music for years and none have lost the joy gained from leisurely listening.



> I don't remember clearly, but my breakthrough came when I began merging the sights and sounds and tactile patterns of music. All senses experiencing the whole of music. Imagine the experience of playing air guitar while playing along to a score you know so well! Hearing what you see, 'seeing' what you feel, and hearing what you feel (with emotions).
> 
> Can you express with your whole body without having music theory as a guide and a safety net? Not in my experience.


I think I understand the experience that you are trying to convey. No one can literally see or hear a feeling, of course. It has no tactile sensation. It sounds as if you are pretending to play a memorized score while associating the passages with emotions. The translation of sound into human traits is a curious thing and I'm quite sure rules and guidelines are an important component in some theory instruction.


----------



## Forster

Why do you overrate or underrate composers?I don't. I rate them exactly as they deserve.


----------



## mmsbls

Forster said:


> Why do you overrate or underrate composers?I don't. I rate them exactly as they deserve.


OK, but why do you think that you like or dislike certain composers more than other people do?


----------



## Forster

mmsbls said:


> OK, but why do you think that you like or dislike certain composers more than other people do?


That's a harder question, one which seems to have been avoided, certainly in the early pages of posts which focused on the rating, not the reasons behind over or underrating.

I would ascribe differences broadly to matters of taste preference, assuming roughly equal values of listening experience. That is to say, someone's rating of Sibelius having heard only Finlandia, and not his symphonies woukd be of less accuracy than someone's rating based on more comprehensive familiarity.

That's not to disparage the rating of the lesser experienced, merely to observe that in an overview of ratings by many people that tends to claims of objectivity, the greater experienced carries greater weight.

As you may be aware, I'm inclined to the view that comparisons are odious and otiose.


----------



## Strange Magic

mmsbls said:


> OK, but why do you think that you like or dislike certain composers more than other people do?


Different neurology, psychology, life experience. We are all individuals whose views may sometimes be congruent with the views of some others.


----------



## fluteman

Strange Magic said:


> Do we have signs of position shifts here? It seems to me that if someone offers an opinion, a recommendation to me, I will either ignore it or not, and, iif I choose to listen to the recommendation, I can like it or not. But this is not the sort of "context" that is important in any way; it's just a random-number sort of thing. My opinion. like yours (all of us) always overrides the "context". AS before, my opinion of any composer's work is entirely separate of the opinions of others, although opinions can and are held in common with an other or others.


I don't think one can ever entirely separate oneself from context. Consider, for example, that modern American English (presumably) is your primary language. Now, you can, and for all I know have, learned additional languages. But your characteristic as an American English speaker has an impact on how you perceive things, including art. So do numerous other aspects of the life you have lived. You concede that your training in geology has an impact on how you look at and think about things. That's just the tip of an iceberg.

None of which is to say you don't have, and are not entirely entitle to, unique, individual opinions about art and much else. Humans are both unique individuals and the product of their environment and circumstances.


----------



## Strange Magic

fluteman said:


> I don't think one can ever entirely separate oneself from context. Consider, for example, that modern American English (presumably) is your primary language. Now, you can, and for all I know have, learned additional languages. * But your characteristic as an American English speaker has an impact on how you perceive things, including art.* So do numerous other aspects of the life you have lived. You concede that your training in geology has an impact on how you look at and think about things. That's just the tip of an iceberg.
> 
> None of which is to say you don't have, and are not entirely entitle to, unique, individual opinions about art and much else. Humans are both unique individuals and the product of their environment and circumstances.


I appreciate your probing more deeply (and broadly, very broadly) into context. But I think you have soared far beyond the context in which I was speaking of context--I was speaking of context in the sense of the everyday setting of most people in TC-land discussing musical or art rankings and ratings and values, inherent or otherwise. I will freely affirm that, overall, the totality of one's processing of incoming stimuli is dependent on a host of factors--though the mechanism of the scientific method can very much reduce the effects of differing experiences.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Different neurology, psychology, life experience. We are all individuals whose views may sometimes be congruent with the views of some others.


It's an abstract idea, but I think we like and dislike music which follows or doesn't follow the logic of the development in music history. It's unconscious in most people, but once you focus on it you open new lanes of appreciation.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> It's an abstract idea, but I think we like and dislike music which follows or doesn't follow the logic of the development in music history. It's unconscious in most people, but once you focus on it you open new lanes of appreciation.


Are you saying that when we listen to Haydn, we expect the music to sound Haydnesque? What happens when we hear Prokofiev's "Classical" symphony. Or a lot of Respighi's "ancient" music? Are you saying "like" = "follows" and "dislike" = "doesn't follow"?


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Are you saying that when we listen to Haydn, we expect the music to sound Haydnesque? What happens when we hear Prokofiev's "Classical" symphony. Or a lot of Respighi's "ancient" music? Are you saying "like" = "follows" and "dislike" = "doesn't follow"?


I meant that when we listen to Haydn we expect to hear compositions from that time in the history of music development. If we hear it we're rewarded with brain chemicals. 
But if we hear something curious or odd from Haydn, then we're entertained by that, momentarily. We look at the score and marvel at Haydn's extended stab of ambiguity (the heart and soul of all art comes from these attempts to trick the complacent brain, but they have to be subtle).


----------



## Forster

Strange Magic said:


> Are you saying that when we listen to Haydn, we expect the music to sound Haydnesque? What happens when we hear Prokofiev's "Classical" symphony. Or a lot of Respighi's "ancient" music? Are you saying "like" = "follows" and "dislike" = "doesn't follow"?


I obviously can't speak for anyone else's ears, but my sense of musical chronology didn't evolve until...well, I don't quite know when. I suppose that in my younger years, all music that sounded classical just sounded old like different music from pop. I was probably exposed to more Prokofiev than Haydn when I was a kid (_Lt Kije _and _Three Oranges _being more ubiquitous than _Surprise _or _Clock _on TV.)

By the time I knew which composer I was listening to, I already knew the chronology, so couldn't listen to Prokofiev's 1st and mistake it for Haydn - nor did I think it was Haydnesque: to me, it sounds Prokofievesque.


----------



## Strange Magic

I guess what Luchesi is saying is that we can enjoy music that is of its time and also music that is not of its time. Am I right, Luchesi? Your post suggested with "dislike" that it might apply automatically to period nonconforming music. When I was much younger and not familiar with Bach, I heard on the radio the D-minor keyboard concerto (piano) slow movement and thought it was Rachmaninoff. Go figure!


----------



## SanAntone

mmsbls said:


> OK, but why do you think that you like or dislike certain composers more than other people do?


This is a question that I cannot answer.

For one thing, my list of favorite composers constantly changes probably because my moods change and I desire one kind of music more than another. Or I have read something about a composer and I suddenly start listening to his music and finding enjoyment in it, which prior to this moment I'd mostly ignored.

Also I don't "dislike" any music. My responses are more about liking or being interested in certain music more than another. I can't think of any composer for whom his music I haven't enjoyed at one time or another. But there are a few composers whose music I keep coming back to more than most. Conversely there is no composer of whom there aren't a few works for which I don't find interesting or pleasing. Or I may only really like one or two works of a composer's entire output.

So it might be, for me, I like works more than composers.

I don't know. I wake up each day and suddenly want to listen to something. Last night it was the Well-Tempered Clavier, a work I listen to a lot. Earlier in the day it was a work by Gavin Bryars which I hardly knew.

But the bottomline is that I don't really know nor do I really care why I like the music I like. Shawn Colvin has a song, "I Don't Know Why" which is among my favorites.

The relevant lines (which she uses more than once in the song) for this thread are:

I know if there were no music
I would not get through
I don't know why I know these things
But I do


----------



## SanAntone

mmsbls said:


> There have been several threads about underrated composers, and other threads have suggested that certain composers are overrated. I thought it would be interesting to have a slightly different focus. The question I'd like to ask is: Why do _you_ think that you like or dislike certain composers more than other people do?
> 
> Obviously it's hard to know whether one overrates or underrates composers without a standard rating. Since there really is no such thing, I thought I'd simply average several ratings that are readily available so everyone could compare themselves to some list that attempts to average classical musical taste. The list below is an average of 4 lists: Goulding's 50 Greatest Composers, The DDD composer list, the top 500 composers from the Western Kentucky site, and a list averaging TC members' picks. The top 30 composers averaged from these lists are shown below.
> 
> 1	Bach
> 2	Mozart
> 3	Beethoven
> 4	Wagner
> 5	Brahms
> 6	Schubert
> 7	Haydn
> 8	Tchaikovsky
> 9	Handel
> 10	Chopin
> 11	Schumann
> 12	Stravinsky
> 13	Mendelssohn
> 14	Debussy
> 15	Dvorak
> 16	Liszt
> 17	Mahler
> 18	Verdi
> 19	R. Strauss
> 20	Prokofiev
> 21	Shostakovich
> 22	Berlioz
> 23	Puccini
> 24	Ravel
> 25	Vivaldi
> 26	Sibelius
> 27	Bartok
> 28	Rossini
> 29	Bruckner
> 30	Rachmaninov
> 
> *Could you pick one composer that you significantly "overrate" and one composer that you significantly "underrate" compared to this "average" list and try to say why your tastes differ?*


I completely missed your OP when I previously took part in this thread. This is more interesting than an open-ended discussion.

According to my personal preferences, I seriously underrate *Tchaikovsky* (he would not even appear in a list of my own creation of 30 composers) and overrate *Mahler* (who would be in my top ten).

The reason is because I find Tchaikovsky's music superficially "pretty" without much meat on the bones. Whereas Mahler's music seems to be created with more motivic strength, a rigorous organic development of that motivic material, and the architecture of his large works I find impressive.


----------



## Luchesi

SanAntone said:


> I completely missed your OP when I previously took part in this thread. This is more interesting than an open-ended discussion.
> 
> According to my personal preferences, I seriously underrate *Tchaikovsky* (he would not even appear in a list of my own creation of 30 composers) and overrate *Mahler* (who would be in my top ten).
> 
> The reason is because I find Tchaikovsky's music superficially "pretty" without much meat on the bones. Whereas Mahler's music seems to be created with more motivic strength, a rigorous organic development of that motivic material, and the architecture of his large works I find impressive.


We can agree so closely about this for example, Mahler and Tchaikovsky, and yet disagree (I think) about the larger questions of music appreciation. 
Tchaikovsky would be a little higher than you've noted - above Dvorak, but also Bartok and Rachmaninov would be higher than Tchaikovsky, so it gets complicated..


----------



## Roger Knox

...........................................


----------

