Your Top 10 Favorite Composers

[Florestan]

there's no reason why the list of things you listen to can't be far, far wider than whoever makes your top 10.

I think this is the case with the vast majority of GMGers, except Gurn, of course, who has only a Top 1 list.   

[Mirror Image]

I think this is the case with the vast majority of GMGers, except Gurn, of course, who has only a Top 1 list.   

But, hey, at least Gurn's 'Top 1' is incredible! Got to love some Haydn.

[Jo498]

I am not adding up listening hours over my lifetime. This is probably one factor but not in exact proportion. There is also "rise and decline" but only to some extent. If I look at a typical list of mine: Beethoven, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Händel... these are also the composers I have huge amounts of CDs of. And this is in some proportion to what I listened to over the 28 years I have been buying CDs.

If I had made a top ten list 21 years ago, in my early twenties, Händel and Schumann would certainly not have been in the top 10, not sure about Haydn or even Bach (I might have listed them out of reverence but not because I listened to a lot of their music). I am not even sure which composers would have been there instead, maybe Bruckner and Mahler although I always had a mixed "relationship" to both. Top 10 will hardly reflect what else listens to but back then I was fairly narrowly focussed on favorites, only slowly exploring other stuff, partly because there was so much Beethoven etc. I had not listened to yet. And while I listened to quite a bit of other stuff, this was too widely dispersed to have stable favorites. CDs were not so cheap and one could not just get all Shostakovich symphonies or quartets for the price of two full price discs, so exploration was slower. And I would not have nominated Shostakovich as a top 10 favorite after having heard 2 symphonies and 3 quartets or so.

So Mirror Image has certainly listened to far more (and more diverse) music in 7 years than I had in the late 80s/early 90s and it is understandable that his top 10 fluctuates.

[Mirror Image]

I am not adding up listening hours over my lifetime. This is probably one factor but not in exact proportion. There is also "rise and decline" but only to some extent. If I look at a typical list of mine: Beethoven, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Händel... these are also the composers I have huge amounts of CDs of. And this is in some proportion to what I listened to over the 28 years I have been buying CDs.

If I had made a top ten list 21 years ago, in my early twenties, Händel and Schumann would certainly not have been in the top 10, not sure about Haydn or even Bach (I might have listed them out of reverence but not because I listened to a lot of their music). I am not even sure which composers would have been there instead, maybe Bruckner and Mahler although I always had a mixed "relationship" to both. Top 10 will hardly reflect what else listens to but back then I was fairly narrowly focussed on favorites, only slowly exploring other stuff, partly because there was so much Beethoven etc. I had not listened to yet. And while I listened to quite a bit of other stuff, this was too widely dispersed to have stable favorites. CDs were not so cheap and one could not just get all Shostakovich symphonies or quartets for the price of two full price discs, so exploration was slower. And I would not have nominated Shostakovich as a top 10 favorite after having heard 2 symphonies and 3 quartets or so.

So Mirror Image has certainly listened to far more (and more diverse) music in 7 years than I had in the late 80s/early 90s and it is understandable that his top 10 fluctuates.

Thanks for this, but I highly doubt what I've listened to is that diverse as I'm mostly just plunging the byways and corners of the 19th and 20th Centuries. I really ought to know more Classical Era composers, but I just can't get onboard with Mozart, but, as I mentioned before, I do like Haydn a lot even though I seldom listen to his music. I just hope to keep growing as a listener. Beethoven and Brahms have certainly been more and more appealing to me over the past month or so. It seems I'm becoming more and more drawn to Germanic music and why wouldn't I be? It's absolutely glorious!

[Ken B]

I once thought Berg would be safe...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzw1_2b-I7A

[Brahmsian]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzw1_2b-I7A

A recent favourite film of mine. 

[vandermolen]

A recent favourite film of mine. 

I'm going to the dentist tomorrow - so thanks for that! 

[Autumn Leaves]

Not so long since my last list I guess but heres the latest one:

Bruckner
Chopin
Debussy
Mahler
Mendelssohn
Schumann
Shostakovich
Sibelius
Tchaikovsky
Vaughan Williams

[Mirror Image]

^ Great list, Conor!

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

1 to 10 as of today

Boulez
Dean
Pintscher
Liza Lim
Birtwistle
Olga Neuwirth
Carter
Isabel Mundry
Sculthorpe
Rebecca Saunders

[Mirror Image]

I think I'll give this a try for today, too, Jessop (in no particular order):

Sibelius
Nielsen
Ravel
Bartok
Vaughan Williams
Bruckner
Dvorak
Schnittke
Takemitsu
Szymanowski

[bhodges]

1 to 10 as of today

Boulez
Dean
Pintscher
Liza Lim
Birtwistle
Olga Neuwirth
Carter
Isabel Mundry
Sculthorpe
Rebecca Saunders

A very unusual line-up, with some off-the-radar choices. Happy to see Dean, Pintscher, Birtwistle, Neuwirth, and Carter get some love, especially. Never heard anything by Mundry; in any case, nice to see her as one of four women on your list.

--Bruce

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

A very unusual line-up, with some off-the-radar choices. Happy to see Dean, Pintscher, Birtwistle, Neuwirth, and Carter get some love, especially. Never heard anything by Mundry; in any case, nice to see her as one of four women on your list.

--Bruce

My top 10 is always basically just a reflection of which composers I have been enjoying most of all lately. I really love Mundry's 'Ich und Du' for piano and orchestra, and I am also fond of arrangements she has made of music by Dufay which have been released on that wonderful Kairos label.

[EigenUser]

1. Bartok
2. Ligeti
3. Ravel
4. Messiaen
5. Haydn
6. Beethoven
7. Feldman
8. Gershwin
9. Mendelssohn
10. hmmmm...

Slot number 10 could be a number of things... Webern or Berg perhaps? I've really taken to Berg recently, especially the Chamber Concerto. And I managed to learn his Piano Sonata cover-to-cover on piano.

Or Debussy? Schumann? Hard decision.

[vandermolen]

Today's list:

Miaskovsky
Vaughan Williams
Tubin
Rosenberg
Bax
Copland
Diamond
Sibelius
Shostakovich
Walton

[Christo]

Tonight:

Vaughan Williams
Holst
Nielsen
Tubin
Shostakovich
Stravinsky
Respighi
Falla
Braga Santos
Barber

[Mirror Image]

Time for an update:

Sibelius
Nielsen
Ravel
Bartók
Vaughan Williams
Shostakovich
Prokofiev
Martinů
Dvořák
Schnittke

[Scion7]

Time for an update

Schnittke

I really am worried about you.   

[North Star]

My current list:

Nielsen
Sibelius
Dvořák
Bruckner
Vaughan Williams
Bartók
Shostakovich
Elgar
R. Strauss
Rachmaninov

I think I'll give this a try for today, too, Jessop (in no particular order):

Sibelius
Nielsen
Ravel
Bartok
Vaughan Williams
Bruckner
Dvorak
Schnittke
Takemitsu
Szymanowski

Time for an update

Sibelius
Nielsen
Vaughan Williams
Bartók
Shostakovich
Prokofiev
Martinů
Dvořák
Schnittke
Szymanowski

I'm astonished to count as many as five same names on all of the three most recent lists: Sibelius, Nielsen, Vaughan Williams, Bartók, Dvořák.

[Mirror Image]

I really am worried about you.   

Hah! I love Schnittke, but it wasn't always this way of course. I think he's the best Russian composer to arrive after Shostakovich. That particular generation has some cool ones like Gubaidulina, Denisov, Firsova, Artyomov, but IMHO Schnittke leads the pack since I believe his music is a continuation of where Shostakovich left off and he, in his own way, upheld the tradition with his some downright zany polystylistic methods, which I find strangely compelling and he just made it work.