# What are your 10 composers with the most recognizable voice?



## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

There are some great geniuses, or maybe not much so, who can claim they have a quite distinguishable style or voice of his own, that when you listen to a specific piece, you can determine almost instanly that was written by such or such composer.

These represent that for me:

Arnold
Bruckner
Hindemith
Janacek
Mahler
Poulenc
Prokofiev
Shostakovich
Sibelius
Vaughan Williams


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Probably couldn't name ten but some who come to mind:

R. Strauss
Janacek
Stravinsky
Prokofiev
Haydn
Poulenc


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Without thinking too much:

Wagner
Tchaikovsky
Chopin
Berlioz
Vivaldi
Bruckner
Mahler
Debussy
Sibelius
Beethoven


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## Livly_Station (Jan 8, 2014)

Honestly, I think this concept applies to most famous composers since Beethoven. Although there are some derivative composers here and there (still perfectly good, though), I could recognize most of the known ones as long as I'm familiar with their style.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Whether or not I can recognise a distinctive voice in a composer's music is the main question that determines whether I listen to that composer. I listen to the music of a very large number of composers and all of them have recognisable and distinctive voices. There are also quite a number of composers who I don't listen to because their music seems generic.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

If you're a fairly well-seasoned and prolific fan of classical music, you can probably turn on a classical radio station in the middle of a piece of music that you don't know and recognize the composer with 80-90% accuracy: "I don't know this piece, but it _sounds_ like it could be Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Wagner, Debussy, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, or Sibelius." That in and of itself is the mark of a great composer. I have a special interest in American composers; the likes of Ives, Copland, Barber, Virgil Thomson, William Schuman, Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, Ulysses Kay, Alan Hovhaness, Lou Harrison, Ellen Taaffe Zwillich, Adolphus Hailstork, Joseph Schwantner, and many others. They are all good and interesting, and I love them all for providing the USA with it's own diverse and rich classical musical heritage, but only a handful such as Ives, Copland, and Barber (maybe Bernstein and Hovhaness) are near the greatness of the heavy-hitters included in our European counterparts because most other American composers don't have a sound that is almost always instantly recognizable.

Along this line, pretty much ALL the big names that you'll find in any book or music collection concerning the "Great Composers" would fit the bill.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

lucashomem said:


> Honestly, I think this concept applies to most famous composers since Beethoven.


True, but I think even composers before Beethoven are recognizable by their "styles" if one looks closely. Often by their "regional dialects", rather than "individual characteristics". There are many elements A shares with B but never with C, for instance. To discuss them specifically with examples I have in mind would be beyond the scope of this thread though.


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## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

I don't have a Top 10 but I think that Messiaen (I'm surprised he doesn't get mentioned), Prokofiev and Hindemith are among the composers with most recognizable voices.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Let’s see...in no particular order:

Debussy
Mahler
Strauss
Bartók
Janáček
Shostakovich
Sibelius
Martinů
Penderecki
Copland


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

MusicSybarite said:


> There are some great geniuses, or maybe not much so, who can claim they have a quite distinguishable style or voice of his own, that when you listen to a specific piece, you can determine almost instanly that was written by such or such composer.
> 
> These represent that for me:
> 
> ...


I was going to list my 10, but you just did.


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## haziz (Sep 15, 2017)

Off the top of my head:

Beethoven
Chopin
Grieg
Tchaikovsky
Rimsky-Korsakov
Borodin
Mahler
Elgar
Debussy
Ravel
Shostakovich


A baker's "ten".


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Debussy
Stravinsky
Bartók
Ligeti
Kurtág
Xenakis
Schoenberg
Lutosławski
Webern
Weinberg
Takemitsu
Feldman
Schnittke
Varèse
Stockhausen
Sorabji
Mozart
J.S. Bach
Beethoevn
Brahms
Partch
Wagner
Chopin
Szymanowski


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

I don't know enough to comment on Weinberg or Szymanowski, but I agree with the rest in the list above. I'd add:

Gesualdo
Boulez
Ives
Schubert
Sibelius
Cage
Franck
Scriabin


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Bach
Beethoven
Chopin
Brahms
Tchaikovsky
Bruckner
Mahler
Sibelius
Wagner
Mozart (late, especially)
Bonus: Webern


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Nielsen
Janacek
Bruckner
Tchaikovsky
Pettersson
Mahler
Rachmaninoff
Glazunov
Sibelius
Bax
Wagner
Langgaard
Ives
Myaskovsky
Scriabin
Debussy
Mussorgsky


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## Jen L (Sep 1, 2021)

Monteverdi 
Gesualdo
Handel
D Scarlatti
Shostakovich 
Stravinsky 
Martinu
Arvo Pärt
Ligeti
Glass


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## Bruckner Anton (Mar 10, 2016)

Since great composers have followers/pupils/successors who are greatly influenced by them or even compose in similar styles, I would like to put the great composers back into his/hers historical context, and compare his/hers' mature style only with his/hers contemporaries and predecessors (i.e. not with later composers) when examine the uniqueness of his/hers' musical language.

Here is my list based on the above criteria (there should be more of course):
1. Beethoven
2. Wagner
3. Debussy
4. Stravinsky
5. Gesualdo
6. Bruckner
7. Prokofiev
8. Berlioz
9. Paganini
10. Schoenberg


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Hmm...

Mahler
Bruckner
Sibelius
Chopin
Brahms
Debussy
Stravinsky
Beethoven
Part
Glass


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## AaronSF (Sep 5, 2021)

Hard to narrow to 10...

Mahler
Bruckner
Schubert
Bach
Brahms
Beethoven
Fauré
Ravel
Debussy
Puccini


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Here's some I can think of fairly easily:

Machaut
Palestrina
Gesualdo (I agree with all those who included him in their lists)
Bach
Mozart
Beethoven
Liszt
Verdi
Debussy
Stravinsky
Gershwin
Webern
Feldman


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## 1846 (Sep 1, 2021)

Mozart
Beethoven
Wagner
Mahler
Janacek
Richard Strauss
Poulenc
Leonard Bernstein
John Williams
Peter Schickele


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## R3PL4Y (Jan 21, 2016)

Jon Leifs should definitely be on this list


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

Another composer who strikes me like unmistakably distinctive is Erik Satie. His style is so unique. Perhaps the pioneer of minimalism in a kind of way.


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## mossyembankment (Jul 28, 2020)

The few that come to me right away: 

Debussy
Schumann (surprised no one has mentioned him)
Ravel
Mozart
Chopin
Schubert


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

Orfeo said:


> Nielsen
> Janacek
> Bruckner
> Tchaikovsky
> ...


Langgaard? Very curious. I often mistake him with Romantic composers like Schumann or Wagner. Mind you, I love his style no matter if not 100% original.


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## Christine (Sep 29, 2020)

1846 said:


> Mozart
> Beethoven
> Wagner
> Mahler
> ...


Finally, someone said John Williams (though I think the one composer he may have "borrowed" from, or was inspired from, the most, was Shosty)


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## kyjo (Jan 1, 2018)

MusicSybarite said:


> Langgaard? Very curious. I often mistake him with Romantic composers like Schumann or Wagner. Mind you, I love his style no matter if not 100% original.


I much prefer Langgaard's more "visionary/advanced/personal" works (Music of the Spheres, Symphonies 4 and 6, etc.) to the ones where he sounds like Schumann or Wagner. I find that stuff be annoyingly anachronistic, and I love a lot of "conservative" music from the 20th century.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

kyjo said:


> I much prefer Langgaard's more "visionary/advanced/personal" works (Music of the Spheres, Symphonies 4 and 6, etc.) to the ones where he sounds like Schumann or Wagner. I find that stuff be annoyingly anachronistic, and I love a lot of "conservative" music from the 20th century.


Those definitely are my very favorites by this composer too. Despite he intentionally wrote many anachronistic works, I confess I love them, especially for the sheer loveliness they convey, e.g. in most of his string quartets and some symphonies.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Yes but how many of us think a composer has a unique voice - but we already know all the major works so there is no way to put it to the test. Before I knew all Mozart's piano concertos - in my early days of discovery - in a CD shop - I heard a PC in classical style - basically it was so good - not that I recognised Mozart as such - but from that era I could not fathom who else it could be. But that's not the same thing. I think it was K503 - yes you can imagine - nobody but Mozart from that era could do such a thing.

Im afraid these lists on this thread though are just unconfirmed claims.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Glass
Richter
Adams
Riley
Reich
Williams 
Part
Chopin
Beethoven
Górecki


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