Your Top 10 Favorite Composers

[Sergeant Rock]

5. Pachelbel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM)

[Mirror Image]

Newly revised list....


JUST KIDDING!!!!!

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Newly revised list....


JUST KIDDING!!!!!

At least Britten was there every time.

[Mirror Image]

At least Britten was there every time.

Britten's music made quite an impression on me when I first heard it. I had bought that Rattle Conducts Britten 2-CD set on EMI and the rest was history.

[mc ukrneal]

Oh, boy. I see I'm the butt of some jokes again. I love it! I guess this just proves what a difficult task it is to narrow down your favorites to only 10 choices.

It's just such a surprise. For so long, Shostakovich was immovable on your lists. But then it was suddenly not even in the top 10! He hasn't gone the route of Delius has he?

[Mirror Image]

It's just such a surprise. For so long, Shostakovich was immovable on your lists. But then it was suddenly not even in the top 10! He hasn't gone the route of Delius has he?

Oh, no. I still love Shostakovich's music, it's just that it is so hard to pick just 10 which proves this is a difficult exercise to begin with or at least for me.

[TheGSMoeller]

Oh, no. I still love Shostakovich's music, it's just that it is so hard to pick just 10 which proves this is difficult exercise to begin with or at least for me.

I can appreciate this. I love lists, creating them and reading others, but I know that every year can offer different results. Four years ago Bruckner wasn't even in my top 30 listened to composers, now he's who I listen to the most or at least in the past year. But I don't know if that means I need to change my list, but I can understand how listening habits alter.

[Mirror Image]

I can appreciate this. I love lists, creating them and reading others, but I know that every year can offer different results. Four years ago Bruckner wasn't even in my top 30 listened to composers, now he's who I listen to the most or at least in the past year. But I don't know if that means I need to change my list, but I can understand how listening habits alter.

Indeed. It's interesting you mention Bruckner because four years ago he was actually in my top 10. Yes, listening habits can certainly change, but I have found that the composers that we always return to are the ones that we truly love or at least that's the way I've started to feel about it.

[ritter]

I can only commend Mirror Image on his wise decision to drop DSCH form his list!    Aplogies! That was an unnecessary remark form me  , and de gustibus non est disputandum...

I once tried (in a Spanish language forum) to get people to say which composer's they thought  were their 10 "fundamental" ones. By "fundamental", I meant that the enjoyed there music (i.e., subjectively), and also they thought they were "objectively" (if there is such a thing) "great", "important" or "influential". A silly exercise, perhaps, but one that tried to avoid someone saying soemthing like "Gabriel Pierné is one of the greatest compsers ever"... The results were compared, and the outcome was quite interesting.

My contribution then (and it remains unchanged, I daresay), was--in chronological order:

Claudio Monteverdi
Johann Sebastian Bach
Wolgang Amadeus Mozart
Ludwig van Beethoven
Richard Wagner
Gustav Mahler
Claude Debussy
Igor Stravinsky
Alban Berg
Pierre Boulez

Of course, the lists of runner-ups were very long (and as revealing as was what we then called the "A-list").

[DaveF]

Oh, no. I still love Shostakovich's music...

The interesting thing about this exercise (for me) is not necessarily the composers (although some incredulous fun is to be had from those who claim to be unable to live without the music of Johann Gambolputty - Johann Gambolputty??, we all go), but the fact that (for me) the top 10 are not at all the same as the composers of one's favourite top 10 pieces.  Mine fall conveniently into two divisions: those I really can't live without and those I really really can't live without.  So top 5:

Byrd
Bach
Haydn
Nielsen
Stravinsky

and second-division 5:

Messiaen
Tallis
Mozart
Beethoven
Sibelius

with Schumann as a late tactical substitution.

(BTW, MI, your Delius avatar looks a lot like Martinů - keeping your options open?)

[Cato]

I can appreciate this. I love lists, creating them and reading others, but I know that every year can offer different results. Four years ago Bruckner wasn't even in my top 30 listened to composers, now he's who I listen to the most or at least in the past year. But I don't know if that means I need to change my list, but I can understand how listening habits alter.

Creeping Brucknerism is at least a benign disease!   0:)

[Mirror Image]

The interesting thing about this exercise (for me) is not necessarily the composers (although some incredulous fun is to be had from those who claim to be unable to live without the music of Johann Gambolputty - Johann Gambolputty??, we all go), but the fact that (for me) the top 10 are not at all the same as the composers of one's favourite top 10 pieces.  Mine fall conveniently into two divisions: those I really can't live without and those I really really can't live without.  So top 5:

Byrd
Bach
Haydn
Nielsen
Stravinsky

and second-division 5:

Messiaen
Tallis
Mozart
Beethoven
Sibelius

with Schumann as a late tactical substitution.

(BTW, MI, your Delius avatar looks a lot like Martinů - keeping your options open?)

I have always liked this picture of Delius as it was used for a Royal Mail stamp and postcard (of which I own). As for him looking like Martinu, I'll have to say there is only a passing similarity to me. Thanks for your list. Very interesting.

[Walt Whitman]

All Time Favorites:

1. J.S. Bach
2. Beethoven
3. Mozart
4. Haydn
5. Rameau
6. Vivaldi
7. Pärt
8. Schubert
9. Fauré
10. Händel
11. Brahms
12. Liszt
13. Bruckner
14. Copland

[Minor Key]

In order:
1. Mahler
2. Schubert
3. Beethoven
4. J.S. Bach
5. Mozart
6. Dvorak
7. Sibelius
8. RVW
9. Brahms
10. Haydn

[André]

In order:
1. Mahler
2. Schubert
3. Beethoven
4. J.S. Bach
5. Mozart
6. Dvorak
7. Sibelius
8. RVW
9. Brahms
10. Haydn

I would replace Dvorak by Bruckner and leave all others in - although in no particular order. Methink we have good taste  .

[EigenUser]

New (replaced Mahler with Beethoven):
1. Bartok
2. Ligeti
3. Ravel
4. Messiaen
5. Haydn
6. Beethoven
7. Feldman
8. Gershwin
9. Debussy
10. Mendelssohn

I haven't really listened to Gershwin or Mendelssohn in ages, but I could never remove them. I still love their music.

[Papy Oli]

let's see...

The unchallenged top 3 :

1. Mahler
1. Bruckner
1. Beethoven

then 2 proper newcomers in the last year, mostly thanks to Hogwood...

2. Haydn
2. Vivaldi

then 7 long-serving regulars.

3. D. Scarlatti
3. Satie
3. Schubert
3. Pärt
3. Chopin
3. Rameau
3. Loewe (could have possibly been Stravinsky)


The one that tantalizingly knocks at the door : JS Bach...

hmmm.... time for some slight revisions..

1. Mahler
2. Beethoven
3. Bruckner
4. Haydn
5. Bach
6. D.Scarlatti
7. Vivaldi
8. Rameau
9. Chopin
10. Victoria or Tallis or Gesualdo.

[Jubal Slate]

Um...
Beethoven
Chopin
Schubert
Brahms
Bach
Prokofiev
Haydn
Mozart
Sibelius(?)
Renaissance

[Dax]

Ives
Alkan
Szymanowski
Medtner
Grainger
Ellington

[Moonfish]

I think these lists are a cruel exercise. I can't sleep at night and if I do fall asleep the composers that didn't make my list haunt me in horrible nightmares!!!!!!   

I think that is Stockhausen's ghost...