Posted on 01/23/2011 1:38:09 PM PST by Pharmboy
HERE goes. This article completes my two-week project to select the top 10 classical music composers in history, not including those still with us.
Left, 1. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). From top left, 2. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), 3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 — 91). 4. Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828). From middle left, 5. Claude Achille Debussy (1862 — 1918), 6. Igor Stravinsky (1882 — 1971), 7. Johannes Brahms (1833 — 97). From bottom left, 8. Giuseppe Verdi (1813 — 1901), 9. Richard Wagner (1813 — 83), 10. Bela Bartok (1881 — 1945).
I am about to reveal my list, though as those who have been with me on this quest already know, I’ve dropped hints... And the winner, the all-time great, is ... Bach!
My top spot goes to Bach, for his matchless combination of masterly musical engineering (as one reader put it) and profound expressivity. Since writing about Bach in the first article of this series I have been thinking more about the perception that he was considered old-fashioned in his day. Haydn was 18 when Bach died, in 1750, and Classicism was stirring. Bach was surely aware of the new trends. Yet he reacted by digging deeper into his way of doing things. In his austerely beautiful “Art of Fugue,” left incomplete at his death, Bach reduced complex counterpoint to its bare essentials, not even indicating the instrument (or instruments) for which these works were composed.
On his own terms he could be plenty modern. Though Bach never wrote an opera, he demonstrated visceral flair for drama in his sacred choral works...
The obvious candidates for the second and third slots are Mozart and Beethoven. If you were to compare just Mozart’s orchestral and instrumental music to Beethoven’s, that would be a pretty even match....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I can sort of see that...
Awesome...like I posted earlier, none of these guys truly stand on their own. Not even JSB. Without Buxtehude, in all seriousness, where would we be? Not as well off that’s for sure.
Lists, unfortunately...suck (except for Franz that is..) but seriously, there are soooo many that are defamed by not naming them.....most inexcusably Chopin..I like him better than Beethoven and Mozart by far. Rachmaninov, and Ravel are missing...there’s no Rimsky-Korsakov, or Villa-Lobos or Sibelius..it could go on and on.
Charles Ives was a far greater American master than Copeland.
The most haunting guitar on The Wall is the acoustic at the start of Is Any Body Out There. Arpeggios of open chords written in standard tuning. Simple to play. and written by Waters.
Gilmour, whilst a better player, stuck primarily with standard tuning, with the occasional drop 1/2 step. Goodbye Blue Sky(on the wall) is his best acoustic work. Standard tuning and simple to play.
Page tunings(for the acoustic in particular) has driven amateur guitarist like me mad for years. He has stated thathe figured out the guitar tunings and he will never(unfortunately) divulge his secrets. The &#!@#*$. The majority of his 'special tuning' songs takes hours and hours to learn and almost take the fun out of learning them.
The music’s where it’s at. :0)
Debussey was the best, in my opinion.
Ira was wonderful! Michael Feinstein hung out with him in his later years, and found trunkloads of lyrics and songs that had never been published. He could not get any current music company or publisher to EVEN LOOK at them, must less publish them. I guess they were too busy publishing hip-hop and rap to consider REAL music (sigh).
No argument...Copeland was a terrific orchestral arranger, IMO.
Do You think PBS would love Copeland’s Music as much if he were a Straight, White, Christian Conservative with six kids and a Ford pickup? LOL!
Just askin’
I agree.
Even Leonard Bernstein was a better American Composer than Copeland.
Come to think of it, FRANK ZAPPA was a better American Composer than Copeland!
(LOL)
With all the posters suggesting that Stravinsky be bumped in favor of many others, it should be said that Stravinsky is very good. But top 10? I like his Rite of Spring. Disney did a good job with it.
Some that I’d rather see in the top ten instead of Stravinsky or Bartok would be Haydn, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and Miles Davis.
Other than Miles Davis, all of your choices are well-represented in posts to this thread. IOW, you’re in good company!
I know and it's a shame. Most people don't know him except for Messiah and perhaps the Water Music, and yet almost his complete canon is still in existence as he was as meticulous in archiving his works as he was in composing them.
Handel was a true innovator in opera. He had a unique (at least until Mozart) to set the emotional color of a scene and to spin from light to dark on a dime.
In this excerpt from Acis and Galatia he takes us from a moment of pure, unadulterated (pun) joy, to a grave and solemn forecasting of the dark fate born of that sweet union, culminating in a pointillistic use of voices to build on the drama in a way that wasn't again used until Kodaly came on the scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9WnCyHmxzY
If the hair on the back of your neck doesn't stand on end from this as Handel takes us from the frivolity of Bernstein's "Glitter and be Gay" to Bach's b minor Mass, to the slow movement of Schumann's Rhenish Symphony with Kodaly-esque motivic punctuation layered on top...
Well then you have no soul. It's just a miracle.
And Handel did it before all of those fakakas (well, 'cept his equal, Bach - see St. Matthews Mass for the puncti-vocals)
“forecasting”...I meant foreshadowing. Hate when that happens.
Copland’s work was endlessly imitated by movie composers like elmer Bernstein. Listen to his early Piano Variations. He was a very challenging composer.
The list isn’t of favorite composers it’s of all time greats. Chopin isn’t more important than Mozart and Beethoven. Rimsky Korsakov was a very minor composer.
What about making room for Buck Owens?
Absolutely demented. Bartok makes the cut but not Mahler. Where is Bruckner? Where is Haydn?? Stravinsky was great but debateable whether he deserves top 10.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.