Top 25 Favorite Composers

[steve ridgway]

Typo?

I was really struggling with no. 25 but Strauss got there on the grounds of composing music by writing down actual notes to be played by regular instruments. I'll give the list a fair listen now and see how it gels.

[steve ridgway]

I bow to @Mandryka 's wisdom and replace Strauss with Stockhausen, plus a few I prefer listening to when they come up even though I don't have much by them.

Luciano Berio
Harrison Birtwistle
Pierre Boulez
George Crumb
Gérard Grisey
Charles Ives
Mauricio Kagel
György Ligeti
Bruno Maderna
Olivier Messiaen
Tristan Murail
Luigi Nono
Krzysztof Penderecki
Horațiu Rădulescu
Giacinto Scelsi
Alfred Schnittke
Arnold Schoenberg
Alexander Scriabin
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Igor Stravinsky
Karol Szymanowski
Toru Takemitsu
Edgard Varese
Anton Webern
Iannis Xenakis

[kyjo]

A few minor changes since last time:

Antonín Dvořák
Sergei Prokofiev
George Lloyd
Jean Sibelius
Sergei Rachmaninoff

Kurt Atterberg
Johannes Brahms
Carl Nielsen
Francis Poulenc
Ralph Vaughan Williams

Camille Saint-Saëns
Ottorino Respighi
Alfredo Casella
Joly Braga Santos
Franz Schubert

Samuel Barber
Sir Malcolm Arnold
Gerald Finzi
Ludwig van Beethoven
Richard Strauss

Felix Mendelssohn
Volkmar Andreae
Maurice Ravel
Sir Edward Elgar
Josef Suk

Time for an update! There's hardly any changes in personnel on my list except for Nos. 21-25, but some notable changes in general order of preference:

Antonin Dvořák
Sergei Prokofiev
Kurt Atterberg
Johannes Brahms
Jean Sibelius

Sergei Rachmaninoff
Francis Poulenc
Camille Saint-Saëns
Carl Nielsen
George Lloyd

Ludwig van Beethoven
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ottorino Respighi
Alfredo Casella
Franz Schubert

Samuel Barber
Gerald Finzi
Joly Braga Santos
Sir Edward Elgar
Richard Strauss

Sir Arnold Bax
Maurice Ravel
Robert Schumann
Ernö Dóhnanyi
John Foulds

As usual with my lists, the order of preference is somewhat arbitrary and shouldn't be taken too seriously. I dearly love all the composers on my list, plus at least 100 more...

[mystic chord]

Bach JS
Bartok
Berg
Bridge
Debussy
Delius
Ellington
Faure
Gershwin
Honegger
Ives
Kapustin
Koechlin
Martinu
Messiaen
Milhaud
Poulenc
Prokofiev
Ravel
Satie
Scriabin
Stravinsky
Takemitsu
Villa-Lobos
Webern

[Symphonic Addict]

Not sure how much it changed since the last time, but here it goes:

Beethoven
Brahms
Dvorak
Nielsen
Prokofiev

Strauss
Martinu
Sibelius
Saint-Saens
Vaughan Williams
Arnold
Janacek
Tchaikovsky
Respighi
Schubert

Hindemith
Rachmaninov
Poulenc
Alwyn
Walton
Roussel
Shostakovich
Villa-Lobos
Stravinsky
Britten

[Lisztianwagner]

It hasn't changed much, apart from some different positions and the introduction of Bach:

1. Wagner
2. Mahler
3. Liszt
4. Beethoven
5. Rachmaninov
6. Schönberg
7. Tchaikovsky
8. R. Strauss
9. Ravel
10. Holst
11. J. Strauss II
12. Mozart
13. Debussy
14. Chopin
15. Sibelius
16. Nielsen
17. Zemlinsky
18. Shostakovich
19. Brahms
20. Bruckner
21. Bartók
22. Berg
23. Vaughan Williams
24. J.S. Bach
25. Prokofiev

[San Antone]

There have been some changes since the list I posted in 2018:

Chronological list:

Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377)
Giovanni Perluigi Palestrina (1525 - 1594)
J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Erik Satie (1866-1925)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Othmar Schoeck (1886-1957)
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Elliott Carter (1908-2012)
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996)
Krzysztof Meyer (1943)
Osvaldo Golijov (1960)

Only three replacements in three years:

Donizetti (for Schubert)
Verdi (for Mahler)
Puccini (for Gershwin)

I still listen to and enjoy those three replacements, but can't fit them into my top 25 this year. My love for opera has overtaken my enjoyment of the three I scratched.