Favourite composers: The tenuous link thread

[Daedalus]

Greetings!

I had this idea for a thread so perhaps you might humour me for a minute or two...? 

I want you to link together your personal favourite composers in a logical order of discovery (and not necessarily the way you did discover them, although that might be fun too!) 

A very simple example might be:

Haydn --> Mozart --> Beethoven --> Mahler --> Shostakovich

You get the idea? The composers above arguably link together. One could go from Haydn to Mozart, for instance, and see the similarities
and find a new composer through this method that they will enjoy and perhaps didn't know about before.

The thread will act as a bit of fun for those with a huge knowledge of classical music composers – how about a competition, the biggest and most impressive composer linking wins a prize (TBA  ) -  but, crucially, it could act as a good way for neophytes (like myself) to make new discoveries.

Sound like fun?

D.

P.S. I think that was probably the most convoluted and discursive explanation ever - I hope you get the idea!

[Symphonien]

I can see exactly what you mean, and I've thought of these things before myself. The example you gave is a great one for tracing the development of the symphony, although I might slot in Brahms/Bruckner in between Beethoven and Mahler, then Schnittke after Shostakovich.

Here's a few I came up with just for fun:

Debussy --> Varese --> Messiaen --> Dutilleux --> Boulez (The French connection)

Schoenberg --> Webern --> Stockhausen --> Lachenmann --> Rihm (The German connection)

Berlioz --> Rimsky-Korsakov --> Ravel --> Stravinsky --> Messiaen --> Boulez --> Saariaho --> Lindberg --> Salonen (The art of orchestration)

[some guy]

I think it may engender convoluted links, too, so what the hay....

Early core: Rachmaninoff/Tchaikovsky/Beethoven

Early branching out: Grieg/Schumann/Vivaldi/Ravel/Saint-Saens/Mendelssohn/Brahms

Later branching out: Bruckner/Mahler/Prokofiev/Bach/Shostakovich/Haydn/Janacek

Later core: Bartok (same day as Bruckner, by the by)/Stravinsky

Early branching out from later core: Carter/Stockhausen/Berio/Cage/Berlioz/Monteverdi/Varese/Ives/Ferrari

Later branching out from later core: Mumma/Ashley/Oliveros/Behrman/Ligeti/Reynolds/Tudor/Marclay/Yoshihide/Zorn/Biber/Shields/ Webern

The circle grows: Bokanowski/Barrett/Ferreyra/Dhomont/Bruemmer/Gobeil/Akita/Wolff/Schoenberg/Berg/Wellesz/Krenek/ Huber/Vande Gorne/Czernowin/Crawling With Tarts/Parallel Lives/AMM/MEV/Haino/Uchihide/Dumitrescu/Avram/Hodgkinson/Cutler/Dumizio/Lachenmann

And so it goes, most recently with Musik in Deutschland discs and Stradivarius discs and Menche/KK Null/Karkowski....

As you can see from say Biber and Zorn being in the same group, that that chronological/developmental thing just hasn't been workin' for me. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. 0:)

[hornteacher]

From Austria to America:

Haydn - Mozart - Beethoven - Schubert - Mendelssohn - Schumann - Brahms - Dvorak - Gershwin - Copland - Bernstein

[Haffner]

Bach-Paganini-Mozart-Verdi-Haydn-Puccini-Wagner

Nordic to Mediterranean and back.

[Christo]

- Kodály - Respighi - Vaughan Williams - Shostakovich - Walton - Alwyn - ?


(All married a /much younger/ often second or third/ very capable/ wife who were able to play their role of `composers widow' & musical agents with verve and often for decades after their husbands decease.)

[greg]

cool idea.


Paganini-> Bach-> Prokofiev-> Brahms-> Mahler -> Schoenberg-> Penderecki-> Xenakis-> Gorecki-> Shostakovich

[(poco) Sforzando]

Poussin and Mondrian especially bear a striking ressemblance to one another, the same geometry and the same overuse of the primary colors.

That's a new one. How could I have missed it?