Your Top 10 Favorite Composers

[Ken B]

One's got to have something better for an extra slot than Elgar... 

I'm just thankful he didn't slot a rapper in there!

[Sergeant Rock]

One's got to have something better for an extra slot than Elgar... 

How about Franz Schmidt? ...or LL Cool J 

Sarge

[Jo498]

Sure, one could do much worse! although I admit that a rapper was not in the realm of possibilities I entertained.
I know even less Franz Schmidt than Elgar, although I own two quintets and a symphony and have listened to them. It's your list, so do what you please, but what about Schubert, Schumann, Bartok or Bach?

[Cosi bel do]

I think it would be easier to say which is my one and only favourite composer. Or which are my three favourites. Ten is too much. And after 3 or 4, all the following are really very far and could more easily be replaced in the future. But let's try it.

1. Bach
2. Beethoven (until there, I think I'm really sure)
3. Mahler (ok, that's really tricky, I'm not that sure I really prefer Mahler to Mozart)
4. Mozart
5. Bruckner (probably)
6. Shostakovich (well, that's where I really start to feel names are from a different "league" in my personal ranking, if I have one)
7. Buxtehude
8. Tchaikovsky (does that sound a little too random yet ?)
9. Schumann
10. I have to think...

I love Wagner, or Sibelius, or Liszt, or Brahms, or Chopin, or Debussy, or Berg, or Haydn, or Frescobaldi... But compared to the previous ones, I guess I might be able to live without their music.

[Sergeant Rock]

Sure, one could do much worse! although I admit that a rapper was not in the realm of possibilities I entertained.
I know even less Franz Schmidt than Elgar, although I own two quintets and a symphony and have listened to them. It's your list, so do what you please, but what about Schubert, Schumann, Bartok or Bach?

Well, we're talking about favorites. Bach is God. No question. And yet I rarely listen to him. I've been trying to become a Bartok fan for 50 years...it hasn't happened yet so I doubt it ever will. Not that I dislike everything, but little of his music moves me. Schubert should probably be in the Top 10 (he was for years)...but who would I kick out of my current list? (No, not Havergal. He's sancrosanct.) Schumann, once a strong favorite, has lost his luster after these many years. Perhaps a victim of familiarity. The composers I really regret not including are Prokofiev and R. Strauss.

Sarge

[Sergeant Rock]

Twelve is the right number. The metric system is a bad side effect of a bad radix.

When will we see your list of 12?

Sarge

[Ken B]

When will we see your list of 12?

Sarge

I thought I posted a list once ... It's hard to distinguish right now from lifetime, from the past few years. I listen to Mozart a lot less than when I was younger, and usually enjoy it less, but largely that's familiarity. I know so much of his music backwards.  Over the long haul a few are clear

Bach
Mozart
Stravinsky
Brahms
Schubert
Beethoven
Palestrina
Schutz
Josquin

The guys sniffing around the final three spots are Nyman, Glass, Chopin, Bruckner, Handel, Haydn.  Virgil Thomson has two pieces in my top 10, but not a large body of stuff I love. Sibelius wrote my favourite piece.

These days Haydn, Nyman, Bruckner would make the cut.

The most significant, in terms of their effect on me and my involvement with music are Tchaikovsky, by a lot, and then Glass.

[EigenUser]

My current top 12:
1. Bartok
2. Ravel
3. Ligeti
4. Messiaen
5. Haydn
6. Debussy
7. Mendelssohn
8. Gershwin
9. Schumann
10. Feldman
11. Mahler
12. Stravinsky, perhaps...

I feel like Feldman should be higher since I listen to him on a near-daily basis, but I like Schumann and Gershwin too much to raise him. 13 would probably be Webern, but I'd have to think about it.

Mendelssohn was my first favorite composer.

[Moonfish]

Twelve is the right number. The metric system is a bad side effect of a bad radix.

Copycat! 

[Ken B]

Copycat! 

Note to self: beware of agreeing with Moonfish.

[Moonfish]

Note to self: beware of agreeing with Moonfish.

[Karl Henning]

Twelve? Let's see . . .

Stravinsky
Schoenberg
Prokofiev
Shostakovich
Chopin
Berlioz
JS Bach
Rakhmaninov
Sibelius
Nielsen
Brahms
D. Scarlatti

Getting the first ten is easy ... and then I wonder, whom am I leaving out, and I'll kick myself (figuratively) for the omission?...

[Mirror Image]

Twelve? Let's see . . .

Stravinsky
Schoenberg
Prokofiev
Shostakovich
Chopin
Berlioz
JS Bach
Rakhmaninov
Sibelius
Nielsen
Brahms
D. Scarlatti

Getting the first ten is easy ... and then I wonder, whom am I leaving out, and I'll kick myself (figuratively) for the omission?...

I didn't know Nielsen was so high on your list, Karl. That's excellent. I really do need to spend more time with his music. He was actually one of the first composers I explored.

[Karl Henning]

I played the Clarinet Concerto for my senior recital at Wooster, and I was hooked.

[Mirror Image]

I played the Clarinet Concerto for my senior recital at Wooster, and I was hooked.

'That's all she wrote..." as the old saying goes. That's certainly a fine work. I love the Flute Concerto as well. I haven't really spent a great deal of time with the Violin Concerto. I need to remedy this soon.

[PaulR]

I played the Clarinet Concerto for my senior recital at Wooster, and I was hooked.

One of my friends is playing that in the concerto competition at bgsu today.

[Jo498]

I do not really distinguish right now from lifetime. Of course it's basically right now (so Tchaikovsky is out although some of his pieces were basically my intro into classical at about 15), but with at least some of the last 20-25 years kept in mind. Neither do I take what I listen to most right now as more important. There is music I have listened to much more frequently in earlier times, and I do not rate it as highly now, but there is also music I rate still very high despite not frequently listening to it.
There are "big works" like the Bach passions or Beethoven's Missa solemnis or some operas I hardly listen to because it is hard for me to focus for such a long time at home, but I still revere these pieces and am bowled over at the occasions I do listen to them. So I rather tend to think if I "could not live without a piece" in addition to the actual amount of pieces listened to. It's just a silly game, after all...

[Mirror Image]

It's just a silly game, after all...

Sure, this isn't to be taken as anything serious or something that's 'written in stone.' I'm curious about other people's favorites and in revealing some of their favorites gives each of us a better of idea of what a member prefers without having to dig the questions out of them.

[Karl Henning]

One of my friends is playing that in the concerto competition at bgsu today.

It's cracking good fun to play.  Good luck to your friend!

[Jo498]

Sure, I do find interesting how people "update" their lists and how very different those lists can be. But for me personally it seems that what I am really very fond of in music has not changed so much in the last 10 years. I have been listening to classical for more than 25 years since I was about 15.

I posted the list below in summer. Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart were among my top when I was 17 I guess. Schubert came not much later. Haydn rose up in the late 90s when I finally got around to listen to more than a handful of his symphonies. I had always been impressed by a few works of Bach but it took me years to get into his keyboard music which I am now listening to much more than e.g. Brandenburgs (frankly, I do not care all that much for them, even less for the ouverture suites), I guess. Lots of organ and cantata stuff I still know only superficially or not at all. Handel would not have figured until about 12 years ago (although I have loved Messiah long before), Schumann also rose in appreciation in the 2000s. Bartok has been my favorite 20th century since I heard the "divertimento" in high school, even before I really got into classical, but of course it took a long time to explore his music and there is quite a bit I still do not know very well. The last spot could as well have been Chopin, Dvorak, Mendelssohn, maybe even Bruckner. Of Bruckner's and Mahler's I like some works tremendously and do not much care for others (Bruckner's 4th and <3, Mahler 3 and 8 ). Similarly with Wagner and Strauss, although I don't think I like any Strauss as much as, say Mahler's and Bruckner's 9th and there is a lot of Strauss I am not fond of or have just ignored for now. Shostakovitch is a similar case. The 7th symphony bores me to death, but I admire some string quartets or the 1st violin concerto. Music I came to love mostly in the last 10 years, e.g. Fauré's chamber music I do not rate high enough for top ten, but they probably rose from nothing to top 20. I also love some other baroque stuff, Purcell's Dido is my favorite opera, Vivaldi is much more than just the 4 seasons. Of 20th century music I often feel that I do not know it well enough to decide how much I like it. Besides Bartok I love e.g. Berg's Lyric Suite, but I don't know enough other Berg well enough to rate him this way or another (it is rather tough going). I prefer Nielsen to Sibelius, but not sure if either would make the top 20 of mine. There is just too much music and I admit that I am often to lazy and listen to "the same old stuff" I know I love.

Beethoven
J. Haydn
W.A. Mozart
J.S. Bach
Brahms
Schubert
Handel
Schumann
Bartok
Mahler