The Greatest [Who were the top ten composers of all time?]

NY Times Blog ^ | January 7, 2011 | ANTHONY TOMMASINI

[Pharmboy]

YOU know that a new year has truly arrived when critics stop issuing all those lists of the best films, books, plays, recordings and whatever of the year gone by. These lists seem to be popular with readers, and they stir up lively reactions.

snip...

Yet in other fields, critics and insiders think bigger. Film institutes periodically issue lists of the greatest films of all time. (“Citizen Kane” seems to have a lock on the top spot.) Rock magazines routinely tally the greatest albums ever. And think of professional tennis, with its system of rankings, telling you exactly which player is No. 1 in the world, or 3, or 59.

snip..

Imagine if we could do the same in classical music, if there were ways to rank pianists, sopranos and, especially, composers. The Top 10 composers of all time. Now that’s the list I have secretly wanted to compile. It would be absurd, of course, but fascinating. My thinking about this was shaken, though, last spring, when Mohammed e-mailed me. That’s Mohammed Rahman, then a freshman at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. He was writing a paper on why people have different musical tastes, and he wanted to interview me. His questions were so thoughtful that I met him at a cafe.

Mohammed picked my brain about how my tastes had been formed, about what I looked for in good music. Inevitably we came to the question of how it gets decided that certain music, certain composers are the best. And of course some really are. I’m open-minded but not a radical relativist.

So if you were to try to compile a list of the 10 greatest composers in history, how would you go about it? For me

[Domestic Church]

Yes, Holtz - The Planets and Hymn of Jesus.

[bmwcyle]

Thank you, you know talent.

[shibumi]

"I don’t know how you could make this list and not have ENNIO MORRICONE up around # 4. What were you th(dr)inking? :^]"

Wow. Just, Wow.

Of course, you are right.

Well, old Wagner will just have to go.

[Semper Mark]

My top three - (subject to change)

David the Psalmist

Luke the Drifter

Toy Talmadge Caldwell Jr.

[tellw]

Bach
Beethoven
Mozart
Wagner
Schubert
Haydn
Brahms
Handel
Verdi
Chopin

It is sad that the virtuosi today don’t compose. That used to be an expectation.

[Domestic Church]

I sang Holst in ‘76.

[the invisib1e hand]

Truth is, those guys collectively were what made that band and I have always gotten the feeling it never would have gone the way it did without any one of them.

Proof of that is Coverdale-Page, which is pitiful.

[rustbucket]

I tried posting these with links, but after verifying that a couple of the links worked the site started slowing down, so I took the linkage out. You can copy and paste to see the YouTube videos.

Mozart

Marriage of Figaro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AFPiEi4WRE
Don Giovanni: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK1_vm0FMAU&feature=related
Magic Flute (What a voice!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ufeyarJxNQ

Handel

Messiah: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CddlwbwCiiM
Water Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fa2wZEsRWM&feature=related

Vivaldi:

Dorilla in Tempe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waBhj5N4uRs&feature=related
Juditha Triumphans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jCKbHDN5os&feature=related
Gloria: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQx2TWgxX14

Verdi

Aida: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMnl1URCH3w&feature=related
Rigoletto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYRZOEzoOgQ&feature=related
La Traviata (Zeffirelli, of course) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc-PjPf-uIE

Beethoven:

Symphony 9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0xPjkBz6I8&feature=related
Moonlight Sonata: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpFtKi_HYGI&feature=related

Puccini

La Boheme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b7VY52C82k
Turandot (Zeffirelli): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoTa-b7cUw0&feature=related

Mahler

Symphony 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6idPaGqvV8 (I think they have the whole symphony here)

Wagner

The Ring Cycle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOk_lqPlXQE&feature=related

Purcell:

King Arthur: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-WTCwYYXoc
Funeral of Queen Mary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWRcx9LHBJU&feature=related

Bach:

Tocatta and Fugue in D minor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipzR9bhei_o

[Elwood P. Doud]

It’s very hard to separate “greatest” from “favorite.” A name for either list, obviously, is Bach. My faves would include Mendelssohn, Debussy, and Erik Satie.

[Captain Jack Aubrey]

VERDI.

[garyhope]

I saw and heard Jimmy Page play with the Yardbirds back at the old Fillmore East before he was well known and upon hearing him said to a friend, “who is that guy, he’s great”.

Plant may have been the brains, but Page is one hellva guitar player.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Listen to the Orphanage Mass (K. 139) which Mozart wrote when he was 13

It's impressive for a 13- year old if it really was written in 1768 and Wolfgang, not someone else, wrote it.

I do like Mozart. You can believe that he was the greatest composer if you like, but your statement that he is

so far beyond everyone else in greatness that words just cannot suffice.

just don't agree with what he himself said, e. g.

Kozeluch had assured Mozart that he would never composed a quartet the way Haydn had, to which Mozart replied: “Nor should I, but do you know why? Because neither you nor I would have had so good an idea.”

And maybe you can supply me with a list of Bach's greatest operas?

Oh please. Bach's passions, masses, cantatas, and motets (from which Mozart eagerly and profoundly learned)?

[garyhope]

For me:

1. J.S. Bach, right at the top, always.

Then in no particular order:

Beethoven, Vivaldi, Bartok, Haydn, Purcell, Handel, Stravinsky, Brahms and I know I’m forgetting many.

[garyhope]

For me:

1. J.S. Bach, right at the top, always.

Then in no particular order:

Beethoven, Vivaldi, Bartok, Haydn, Purcell, Handel, Stravinsky, Brahms and I know I’m forgetting many.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Did you ever read Bernstein's Joy of Music, specifically "Why Beethoven?"

It starts out with a comment that the hills are "pure Beethoven." Bernstein goes through various elements of music: melody, harmony, rhythm, counterpoint, orchestration, and says that Beethoven was not the best any any of those, but then said:

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

I would rank Bach above Beethoven, but I think this is an interesting approach.

[Errant]

Please permit me the honor as the system is faster now.

Mozart
Marriage of Figaro
Don Giovanni
Magic Flute (What a voice!)

Handel
Messiah
Water Music

Vivaldi
Dorilla in Tempe
Juditha Triumphans
Gloria

Verdi
Aida
Rigoletto
La Traviata (Zeffirelli, of course)"

Beethoven
Symphony 9
Moonlight Sonata

Puccini
La Boheme
Turandot (Zeffirelli)

Mahler
Symphony 2 (I think they have the whole symphony here)

Wagner
The Ring Cycle

Purcell
King Arthur
Funeral of Queen Mary

Bach
Tocatta and Fugue in D minor

[BigEdLB]

JS Bach
Mozart
Beethoven
Schubert
Wagner
Debussy
Carl Nielsen
Stravinsky
Respighi
Vaughan Williams

[Blind Eye Jones]

Edgar Allen Poe — second symphony (The Raven)
William Falkner — the string quartets
Henry Ford — aleatory music
Abraham Linclon — two Broadway musicals (unCivil War and Pericles)
Ulysses S Grant — his whole tome
Frederich Nietzsche — piano piece (Dio è morto)

[Churchillspirit]

26 posts before Tchaikovsky gets a mention.

In the modern era.....

Richard Rodgers
George Gershwin
John Williams
Andrew Lloyd Webber.

[Churchillspirit]

Don't have a top 10 but my personal faves are Chopin, Bach, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg.

Heard a radio interview with a very famous musician who stated that he hated Stravinsky's music.

.When asked why play it then, he replied..."A wife, four kids and a mortgage."

Each to his own :)