I remember Leonard Bernstein doing the whole Beethoven symphonic series on PBS in the late 1980's. It was called Bernstein/Beethoven (of course, Lennie deserved to be listed first). Anyway, Maximillain Schell was the cohost, and he would ask Bernstein about the symphony being presented or Beethoven's music in general.
On point they discussed was that despite not being particularly good at writing melodies, being a so-so orchestrator and having numerous short-comings, Beethoven managed to write some truly grand works. Why? Bernstein argued that Beethoven's music had perferct form (which if I remember correctly) simply meant that each note sounded like it HAD to be the one that followed.
I love the music of a lot of composers born over the past 200 years, but I'm still a sucker for Baroque. Another discussion I'd like to see would be one comparing Bach and Handel, since I tend to think GFH was better.
I love both but cannot claim that Handel was a Bach. Bach had too many incredible pieces in EVERY form imaginable. Handel was the genius at the Oratorio but for each great piece in other forms there are ten of Bach.
Bach is like Shakespeare in that his depth can never be plummed. He is the greatest ever though had Mozart lived as long the title would be in doubt.