GMG's Top 10 Composers

[mc ukrneal]

The blame goes to Anthony Tommasini of the NY Times.

Sarge

True, although he also asks what makes a composer a 'top 10' composer writing, "What goes into a decision to put certain composers on such a list or to keep them off? Should influence matter, or just the works themselves? What about popularity? Are there any objective criteria?"

So this thread could also explore the criteria people are using and if/how using different criteria would alter their result.

[Mirror Image]

It's not so much a subjective question...

Anything titled choose your top 10 composers IS subjective.

[karlhenning]

I think Janáček should be in the poll, too.  No need to institutionalize Tomassini's blind spots.

[Mirror Image]

I think Janáček should be in the poll, too.  No need to institutionalize Tomassini's blind spots.

Yes, Karl, I agree. Many people love Janacek and I'm certainly one of them.

[Henk]

It's a logic but not to praise or disqualify a composer by just this argument. The opposite logic counts too, some composers and their art represent the end of a development of some sort of style or era.

I think that music of so called transition composers, music that doesn't fit clearly in one style but is in between two styles, is not very interesting, but may have been very influential.

One can easily show the weakness of Boulez' thought. Was Beethoven great because he influenced others? No he was great because his music was great. So the composers Boulez talks about are already the "second rated" composers.

Henk

[mc ukrneal]

I have added Janacek. I will be hesitant to add many more, but since there were several members who felt he should be added (and a certian threshold had been reached), I thought the poll would ultimately be more interesting for us.

[MishaK]

Anything titled choose your top 10 composers IS subjective.

That wasn't the context in which Boulez made his comments on composers' relative greatness. I don't really see him making a top ten list.

One can easily show the weakness of Boulez' thought. Was Beethoven great because he influenced others? No he was great because his music was great.

Boulez's logic is a lot more sound than yours, which is a tautology. If a composer is great because he wrote great music (and Boulez would actually agree), you need to explain what it is that makes his music great. What I termed "influence" is rather the fact that subsequent generations of composers see the greatness in that person's music and find inspiration and guidance in it. There is no greater vote of confidence than that of your professional peers. Again, if you go by that metric, it is easy to see that Bach's influence is pervasive reaching all the way to the present day (Andriessen supposedly starts every working day by first analyzing a different Bach work), while Dvorak influenced only a few who found interest in expressing their national folk music heritage through the romantic idiom in a Dvorakian vein, while already many contemporaries were moving in different new paths. Don't get me wrong. Dvorak is a fine composer I wouldn't want to be without, but he represents the culmination of a certain national central European romantic tradition, an end point, not a departure to new shores yet to be explored.

So the composers Boulez talks about are already the "second rated" composers.

I'm not sure what you mean with this sentence. At the talk that I attended, Boulez half-jokingly said that Mozart was a great composer because he was essential to what followed, whereas e.g. Telemann "we could probably do without". 

[Henk]

I have added Janacek. I will be hesitant to add many more, but since there were several members who felt he should be added (and a certian threshold had been reached), I thought the poll would ultimately be more interesting for us.

Well, much people have yet voted and couldn't vote Janacek. Isn't that quite unfair?

[mc ukrneal]

Well, much people have yet voted and couldn't vote Janacek. Isn't that quite unfair?

I think I checked the ability to change your vote - so people can go back and change their vote. If not, then you are right.

[The Diner]

Stand by your poll, man! No changes once set.

[mc ukrneal]

Stand by your poll, man! No changes once set.

Ok. Ok. I'm done being wishy-washy. Janacek is not a choice (perhaps we can do a poll where we delete the guys who got zero and add in a few replacements like Janacek).  I also think I didn't set it so that you can change your vote, so that indeed would be unfair. Back to the regular program...

[Henk]

That wasn't the context in which Boulez made his comments on composers' relative greatness. I don't really see him making a top ten list.

Boulez's logice is a lot more sound than yours, which is a tautology. If a composer is great because he wrote great music (and Boulez would actually agree), you need to explain what it is that makes his music great. What I termed "influence" is rather the fact that subsequent generations of composers see the greatness in that person's music and find inspiration and guidance in it. There is no greater vote of confidence than that of your professional peers. Again, if you go by that metric, it is easy to see that Bach's influence is pervasive reaching all the way to the present day (Andriessen supposedly starts every working day by first analyzing a different Bach work), while Dvorak influenced only a few who found interest in expressing their national folk music heritage through the romantic idiom in a Dvorakian vein, while already many contemporaries were moving in different new paths. Don't get me wrong. Dvorak is a fine composer I wouldn't want to be without, but he represents the culmination of a certain national central European romantic tradition, an end point, not a departure to new shores yet to be explored.

I'm not sure what you mean with this sentence. At the talk that I attended, Boulez half-jokingly said that Mozart was a great composer because he was essential to what followed, whereas e.g. Telemann "we could probably do without". 

Don't get me wrong. I also think Dvorak and Telemann aren't great. But why try to argument that with some sort of logic and present that as a general truth which is even considered to be more important then the music itself, when other arguments or just subjective feelings are far more persuasive (as you use in this post to which I reply now)?

What I think of Boulez is that he wants in an artificial way to be considered as one of the greats. I don't want to support his motive and as a consequence manipulative means. I don't mind he does this however, because I really can understand he may be afraid of being forgotten or him wanting to being praised for his music / influence on other composers. Moreover I like his music very much. But we don't have to agree with him at this point.

Henk

[MishaK]

Don't get me wrong. I also think Dvorak and Telemann aren't great. But why try to argument that with some sort of logic and present that as a general truth which is even considered to be more important then the music itself, when other arguments or just subjective feelings are far more persuasive?

You lost me there. How are other (presumably less logical) arguments, let alone "subjective feelings", more persuasive? Clearly, there is general consensus on the few very great composers, if not on the entire top ten. One might as well try to figure out what it is that makes this music great. Without having something a little better than "subjective feelings" to back up your point, it becomes hard to argue for, e.g., the need for continued funding for the arts or music education.

[Tapio Dmitriyevich]

DCSH, Bruckner, Mahler, Beethoven, Dvorak, Tchaik, Sibelius. Regrettably RVW and Elgar are missing.

[Henk]

You lost me there. How are other (presumably less logical) arguments, let alone "subjective feelings", more persuasive? Clearly, there is general consensus on the few very great composers, if not on the entire top ten. One might as well try to figure out what it is that makes this music great. Without having something a little better than "subjective feelings" to back up your point, it becomes hard to argue for, e.g., the need for continued funding for the arts or music education.

Well these feelings can very well be argumented. But not everybody has to agree with these arguments and recognize it. That's something different then to state something that is to be considered as something everybody has to agree with. I tried to show you Boulez' trueism is false and just have added something to my previous post about Boulez' motives. Please read it again.

Henk

[MishaK]

Well these feelings can very well be argumented.

Feelings can't be "argumented" (which isn't a verb). They can be explained, but they don't make good arguments except by accident. I don't know why you resist any attempt at objectivity.

I tried to show you Boulez' trueism is false

But you failed at that. I don't see how you showed anything to be "false". Your counterargument seems to merely be a disinclination to abandon the comforts and perceived pluralism of subjectivity. There is of course a degree of inaccuracy in measuring "influence", not to mention the fact that some composers works may be forgotten for centuries only to be dug out later and have profound influence long after the composer is dead. Those are valid counterarguments to the Boulezian proposition, but what you said doesn't really get us anywhere.

and just have added something to my previous post about Boulez' motives. Please read it again.

I see.

What I think of Boulez is that he wants in an artificial way to be considered as one of the greats. I don't want to support his motive and as a consequence manipulative means. I don't mind he does this however, because I really can understand he may be afraid of being forgotten or him wanting to being praised for his music / influence on other composers. Moreover I like his music very much. But we don't have to agree with him at this point.

Oh, no question about it. But even though Boulez is setting up these goalposts for himself, it is still possible for him to fail his own test. Perhaps in a few decades time we might see that all those who followed Boulez's example only produced meaningless garbage that has been rightly forgotten, that in fact Boulez represented a dead end, the pinnacle of a Schoenbergian serialist development perhaps, but an end point at  that with no further development, similar to how Dvorak represented a dead end (Boulez would hate that comparison, I can tell you!). Time will tell.

[Henk]

Well, Mensch, why am I supposed to be convinced by objectivity which I don't recognize and reject subjectivity (which can very well be rationality as well, and I mean it in this sense, as communication) which I do recognize. Isn't that just the logic of power against the logic of knowledge?

[laredo]

1. Bach
2. Beethoven
3. Mozart
4. Wagner
5. R. Strauss.

Plz, it's such a sorrow to see Bach lower than Brahms...

[MishaK]

Well, Mensch, why am I supposed to be convinced by objectivity which I don't recognize and reject subjectivity (which can very well be rationality as well, and I mean it in this sense, as communication) which I do recognize. Isn't that just the logic of power against the logic of knowledge?

Res ipsa loquitur. It has finally become clear that you use words with meanings very different from those found in the dictionary. "Rationality" and "logic" clearly mean something else to you and you seem justified in that exceptionalism. Accordingly: end of discussion. We're entering Diner territory here.

[laredo]

Art is subjective, maybe, but subjectivism is when u r in lazy mood and cannot recognize what is real and false Art.
Objectively Bach is better than Britney Spears but many folks can argue that subjectively she's better than the Kantor.