# The greatest musical oeuvre 1920-2020



## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Which composer in your view has the greatest body of work written between 01.01.1920 and 01.01.2020?

I am not asking about greatest "talents", prodigiousness, or who was the speediest composer, but instead about a finger point at one *set of works* under a common surname which you would consider the greatest achievement.

The timeframe "After the end of World War One", which is set at the end of 1919 because of the immediately following regime and border changes, demobilizations, and the rampant Spanish Flue epidemic, excludes, for example:

Mahler, Debussy, Scriabin, Stravinsky's revolutionary early ballets, and some important works of Schoenberg and Ravel. Holst's "Planets" also.

Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ravel, Holst etc. stay in the game, but on the merits of their post-1919 works only.

If someone really has a bone to pick with choosing 1920 instead of before 1919 (which would include Le Tombeau de Couperin, for example) or after 1921, when the Fountainbleau Schools opened, you may shift the demarcation line by one year in either direction.

Under these circumstances, my admittedly semi-educated guess would be Shostakovich.

Would you agree?

Note: I would prefer this thread to not be torpedoed by the "use favourites" vigilantes.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I'd be very tempted to nominate Shostakovich but there was an abundance of mediocre film music. Unfair, perhaps, as for a while he had to rely on film music as his main source of income but there was so much of it that it puts him out of the running. Britten would probably be my choice if pushed - he composed incidental music for film documentaries and radio plays which could be deemed as surplus to requirements but that was only a very small fraction of his total output.


----------



## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

elgars ghost said:


> I'd be very tempted to nominate Shostakovich but there was an abundance of mediocre film music. Unfair, perhaps, as for a while he had to rely on film music as his main source of income but there was so much of it that it puts him out of the running. Britten would probably be my choice if pushed - he composed incidental music for TV documentaries and radio plays which could be deemed as surplus to requirements but that was only a very small fraction of his total output.


Interesting. So from your perspective bad apples spoil the basket? I have honestly never thought of that... I guess I simply ignore what does not interest me, and focus on the positives.

Coincidentally, I recently checked out some of Britten's work for these media, and was surprised how minimalist yet clearly very competent it all was. I expected him to have phoned such works in.

Ok, thank you for your reply. Britten is certainly a choice I expected someone to bring up :tiphat:


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Bad apples they are if I am to be strict with myself and not allow Shostakovich a reprieve on the basis that a lot of the film music was necessary hack work.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Fabulin said:


> Which composer in your view has the greatest body of work written between 01.01.1920 and 01.01.2020?
> 
> .


Stockhausen (Licht)


----------



## Littlephrase (Nov 28, 2018)

Hindemith might be a name to seriously consider in the discussion, at least among his contemporaries.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Littlephrase1913 said:


> Hindemith might be a name to seriously consider in the discussion, at least among his contemporaries.


As a 'composer's composer'? I like that idea...

I'm a Hindemith fan but you don't have to go far to find the 'too dry/too academic' train of thought, which I can also appreciate even if it doesn't have any bearing on my enjoyment of his music.


----------



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Prokofiev or Shostakovich. I am too lazy to survey their oeuvre to check what was written when and who has more masterpieces. I personally slightly prefer Prokofiev. Other options might be Bartok, Martinů, Messiaen, Schoenberg


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The "greatest" as defined by people like ourselves is Shostakovich, based on both the frequency and the positioning of his works on the *top-10 lists by decade* (starting in the 1920s). Shostakovich, though, was said to consider Stravinsky the greatest.


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

John Williams. Just kidding. Shostakovich for me no doubt.


----------



## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

KenOC said:


> The "greatest" as defined by people like ourselves is Shostakovich, based on both the frequency and the positioning of his works on the *top-10 lists by decade* (starting in the 1920s). Shostakovich, though, was said to consider Stravinsky the greatest.


It appears there has been nearly a consensus that Stravinsky was the greatest composer in the world from Petrushka onwards, as long as he lived. I intended this thread to explore how much do his Ballets Russes factor into that, at least among modern listeners.


----------



## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

It's gotta be Ligeti, right?


















Right?


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Excluding composers who lose significant works due to the date cut off, for me it would be between:

Rodrigo
Takemitsu
Partch


----------

