Your Top 10 Favorite Composers

Started by Mirror Image, March 08, 2014, 06:24:13 PM

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Christo

#240
Probably posted some list here before, but today they are, in alphabetical order:

Arnold
Barber
Bate
Berkeley (père)
Braga Santos
Brian
Cooke
Dvořák
Falla
Guarnieri
Gershwin
Holmboe
Holst
Janáček
Kinsella
Nielsen
Pierné
Ravel
Respighi
Shostakovich
Tubin
Vaughan Williams
Villa-Lobos (to make it ten  ;))

Edit: forgot to mention my rising star:  Hindemith  :)
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

Elgarian

Quote from: Jo498 on January 21, 2015, 01:07:45 AM
I did not mean to offend the Elgar lovers. However, after Greg expressed some puzzlement that Beethoven was so high on many peoples's lists I did likewise for Elgar. And I still find it surprising that Elgar is so highly esteemed. I would not have wondered too much if he had been on some lists hovering around positions 8-10, but for me it is astonishing that several have him as favorite or at least among the top positions.

Oh gosh, no one is offended - well at least, I'm certainly not. I just wanted to clarify what was happening in these lists we're making.

I'm still mildly surprised by your surprise, though. I'd have thought that someone else's love for something we don't admire ourselves would often seem hard to empathise with, no matter what it might be. Elgar, abstract painting, blue cheese ...

71 dB

Quote from: Ken B on January 21, 2015, 01:46:59 PM
Ditto. He [Elgar] wrote some good tunes. The chamber music I have heard is excellent.  The cello concerto is very good, as are some of the Enigmas. Most of the rest is overblown, overlong. It's hard not to detect the pompous self importance so evident in his photos in his Important Big Works like the symphonies or Gerontius. He's better in the smaller stuff.

*runs for cover*

Imo, Elgar wrote one bad tune, Sevillana Op. 7. :)

This is rather common image of Elgar, but as a person who knows his music somewhat well, I don't agree to that image at all. What people describe as overblown I find rich and powerful. Listen to the quieter parts of Elgar's music and hear how rich they are. Elgar builds his fortissimos and climaxes on that "background" and when you do that, using your rich thematic material in sophisticated ways, it becomes what some people think is overblown. When you 'get' the music and what's going on you might find it heavenly.

I don't find Elgar's often long works (his Violin Concerto is among the longest ever I think) overlong at all. I could take 2 hours long symphonies from him anyday, because his music is so brilliant.

I understand Elgar can't be everybody's cup of tea, but it's sad if resilient steteotypic images prevent people to enjoy the music to it's full potential.
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vandermolen

#243
Quote from: Christo on January 22, 2015, 01:41:17 AM
Probably posted some list here before, but today they are, in alphabetical order:

Arnold
Barber
Bate
Berkeley (père)
Braga Santos
Brian
Cooke
Dvořák
Falla
Guarnieri
Gershwin
Holmboe
Holst
Janáček
Kinsella
Nielsen
Pierné
Ravel
Respighi
Shostakovich
Tubin
Vaughan Williams
Villa-Lobos (to make it ten  ;))

Edit: forgot to mention my rising star:  Hindemith  :)

I guessed who this list was from before I read the name.  :)

'Tubin, Braga Santos, Kinsella....' Were the giveaways.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

springrite

Quote from: vandermolen on January 22, 2015, 10:54:05 AM
I guessed who this list was from before I read the name.  :)

'Tubin, Braga Santos, Kinsella....' Were the giveaways.

Not to mention the length...
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

vandermolen

"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Christo

Quote from: vandermolen on January 22, 2015, 10:54:05 AM
I guessed who this list was from before I read the name.  :)

'Tubin, Braga Santos, Kinsella....' Were the giveaways.

Happy I kept my anonymity as a member of the Alcoholics Anonymous.   :-X
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

springrite

Quote from: vandermolen on January 22, 2015, 10:54:05 AM
I guessed who this list was from before I read the name.  :)

'Tubin, Braga Santos, Kinsella....' Were the giveaways.

Or should I also mention alphabetical ?
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

PaulR

Swore I posted in this before.....Updated list regardless.....

1. Shostakovich
2. Weinberg
3. Schumann
4.  Biber
5. Haydn
6. Beethoven
7. Mussorgsky
8. Martinu
9. Corelli
10. Brahms

vandermolen

Today's list. If Christo can list 20 composers, so can I. 8) 21 actually.

Braga Santos
Bate
Miaskovsky
Bliss
Vaughan Williams
Kinsella
Rootham
Dyson
Copland
Rubbra
Shostakovich
Honegger
Bruckner
Bax
Gliere
Tubin
Glazunov
Sibelius
Klami
Madetoja
Rosenberg
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Christo

#250
Quote from: vandermolen on January 23, 2015, 11:59:57 AM
Today's list. If Christo can list 20 composers, so can I. 8) 21 actually.

8) Cannot disagree with any of your choices, except that I know too little Rootham (missed the favoured Lyrita CD, so far). See that you dived deeper into Bruckner in between.  :)
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

Ken B

Quote from: vandermolen on January 23, 2015, 11:59:57 AM
Today's list. If Christo can list 20 composers, so can I. 8) 21 actually.

Braga Santos
Bate
Miaskovsky
Bliss
Vaughan Williams
Kinsella
Rootham
Dyson
Copland
Rubbra
Shostakovich
Honegger
Bruckner
Bax
Gliere
Tubin
Glazunov
Sibelius
Klami
Madetoja
Rosenberg

I do not know Klami, Rootham, Bate

North Star

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

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André



Mirror Image

Quote from: vandermolen on January 23, 2015, 11:59:57 AM
Today's list. If Christo can list 20 composers, so can I. 8) 21 actually.

Braga Santos
Bate
Miaskovsky
Bliss
Vaughan Williams
Kinsella
Rootham
Dyson
Copland
Rubbra
Shostakovich
Honegger
Bruckner
Bax
Gliere
Tubin
Glazunov
Sibelius
Klami
Madetoja
Rosenberg

Okay, I'll play, too! 8) Top 21:

Elgar
Vaughan Williams
Shostakovich
Ravel
Bartok
Britten
Stravinsky
Berg
Schnittke
Villa-Lobos
Martinu
Delius
Janacek
Barber
Prokofiev
Respighi
Sculthorpe
Poulenc
Debussy
Szymanowski
Copland

EigenUser

Quote from: Mirror Image on January 23, 2015, 06:32:46 PM
Okay, I'll play, too! 8) Top 21:

Elgar
Vaughan Williams
Shostakovich
Ravel
Bartok
Britten
Stravinsky
Berg
Schnittke
Villa-Lobos
Martinu
Delius
Janacek
Barber
Prokofiev
Respighi
Sculthorpe
Poulenc
Debussy
Szymanowski
Copland
Top 22  >:D :P:
1. Bartok
2. Ligeti
3. Ravel
4. Messiaen
5. Haydn
6. Mahler
7. Feldman
8. Gershwin
9. Debussy
10. Mendelssohn
11. Schumann
12. Ohana
13. Ockeghem
14. Webern
15. Stravinsky
16. Bruckner
17. Boulez
18. Dvorak
19. Reich
20. Ades
21. Tchaikovsky
22. Beethoven

The last three are admittedly 'bottom of the barrel'. Not the composers (lol at the idea of calling LvB 'bottom of the barrel') -- just things I need to hear more of, but that have the potential of being top.

Based solely on the Op. 9b, Schoenberg is a possibility for 23. I think the world of that piece.
Beethoven's Op. 133 -- A fugue so bad that even Beethoven himself called it "Grosse".

The new erato

I'm so boring. My favorites are the great names, even though I listen mainly to lesser names, 

Jo498

Quote from: The new erato on January 24, 2015, 02:34:23 AM
I'm so boring. My favorites are the great names, even though I listen mainly to lesser names,
I am even more boring; my favorites (see somewhere above) are all great names and I mainly listen to their music (although quite a bit of lesser names as well, lately I think Telemann might make it into my top 20  ::))
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

The new erato

Of course I stil take healthy doses of Bach cantatas, Beethoven string quartets and Brahms chamber music, but I know the canon quite well and have great joy in discovering less known music, even though I usually see quite clearly why it is less known. But it is a great pity that the great stuff put some "very good but not quite on that level" music in the shade. And the vagaries of musical history has a surpsing number of "might gave beens".