Which composer would you eliminate from history?

[Karl Henning]

Not Berlioz.

That terse negation is not an argument 

I think Bach is also overrated in that respect, compensating for the equally false myth that he had been "forgotten". If there had been no JS Bach, people would probably have stuck to Palestrina and some textbook writer as Fux for polyphony examples (as they did to a considerably extent in the catholic regions where Bach was not so well known).

You are only partially right;  you speak as if all practice of polyphony were equivalent, but that is not at all the case.  There is a character and style of execution in Bach's polyphony—particularly his instrumental applications, for which Palestrina could never serve as an example—which have been eternally inspiring to composers since. (And you cannot really have it both ways:  let's agree that Bach was never really "forgotten"—but of course, that underscores the potency of his musical influence.)

[(poco) Sforzando]

Arnold Schoenberg. Sorry, but I'm just not a fan of the 12 tone technique.

Are you a fan of Schoenberg's music before he developed the 12-tone technique?

[(poco) Sforzando]

Not Berlioz. I think Bach is also overrated in that respect, compensating for the equally false myth that he had been "forgotten". If there had been no JS Bach, people would probably have stuck to Palestrina and some textbook writer as Fux for polyphony examples (as they did to a considerably extent in the catholic regions where Bach was not so well known).

I don't think Berlioz was really highly influential, not that I'd ever want to eliminate some of the most magical music ever composed. Charles Rosen makes the case that Bach was the most influential composer in history, and I'll take Charles Rosen's word over yours.

[Karl Henning]

I don't think Berlioz was really highly influential [...]

Arguably, most respects in which he might be influential, really point back to LvB.  The treatise on orchestration was an important landmark, of course.

[Ken B]

The race so far:
Some votes for Glass. But you guys are just repeating each other.
Two votes for Schoenberg. But good, well-reasoned, tasteful and perceptive votes!
The leading candidate though seems to be Shostakovich. This is evidence the right answer is actually: Boulez.

[(poco) Sforzando]

The race so far:
Some votes for Glass. But you guys are just repeating each other.
Two votes for Schoenberg. But good, well-reasoned, tasteful and perceptive votes!
The leading candidate though seems to be Shostakovich. This is evidence the right answer is actually: Boulez.

Fortunately, the race is not to the swift.

[Brian]

Fortunately, the race is not to the swift.

So, you're saying it's Feldman?

[(poco) Sforzando]

That's an atonal way of saying No...

No, an atonal way of saying No would be:
NTDKIZOEMQAC
CAQMEOZIKDTN

[Florestan]

Di provenza is arguably banal

A young bourgeois in love with a courtesan --- was there any topic more banal than that in the literature of the time? 

and the Anvil Chorus vulgar as well.

You cannot expect a bunch of gypsy blacksmiths to sound like the Vatican choir, can you? 

[(poco) Sforzando]

A young bourgeois in love with a courtesan --- was there any topic more banal than that in the literature of the time? 

You cannot expect a bunch of gypsy blacksmiths to sound like the Vatican choir, can you? 

Di provenza is the father's aria, and I really think it a banal failure in an otherwise exquisitely designed opera.

I wouldn't expect anyone to sound like the Vatican choir.

[(poco) Sforzando]

My pick is Stockhausen. He wasn't that important and his music is just...umm..well...it's just there, but yet some people think he's some kind of deity.

Just out of my curiosity, what Stockhausen have you actually heard?

[Hollywood]

Are you a fan of Schoenberg's music before he developed the 12-tone technique?

Not really.

[Florestan]

Di provenza is the father's aria, and I really think it a banal failure in an otherwise exquisitely designed opera.

Even more bourgeois and banal than the son. 

[Jo498]

I don't think Berlioz was really highly influential, not that I'd ever want to eliminate some of the most magical music ever composed. Charles Rosen makes the case that Bach was the most influential composer in history, and I'll take Charles Rosen's word over yours.

Paradoxically, I think there is not necessarily a contradiction between "very influential" and "not much happens if you cut him out". Because Bach was there, he was influential but IMO in an often subtle and indirect way. But this does not show that other composers would not have had a somewhat similar influence had he not existed. E.g. Handel, Palestrina and maybe some other baroque and Renaissance composers would have instead had served as inspiration. Of course, Bach focusses and concentrates all these and more elements in a superlative way and in ONE composer, and even in a handful of keyboard collections that were readily available to be studied by any budding composer, so because he was there, his music was influential.

If JS Bach had not been there, not much would have changed in the rest of the 18th century. (This is obviously not true, but only because his son Carl Philipp Emanuel was extremely influential in mid-century. And I take that this biological fact is not what was meant...) I am not sure but I do not think Haydn ever knew or studied a lot of Bach and the earlier, lesser composers of the early classical style (Richter, Stamitz, Wagenseil etc.) are also independent of Bach (again, exclude his sons or pretend that they had a different father - we are fantasizing counterfactually here). I don't know enough about this but I have seen claims that there was an Austrian tradition of polyphonic church music largely independent of Bach, e.g. Biber-Fux-M.Haydn-Bruckner.

Mozart was impressed by Bach and Handel, but Handel's music would have been there in the counterfactual case and Mozart had also learned counterpoint before he got to know Bach and Handel. Maybe we would lack some masterful movements, like the Jupiter finale, but I cannot believe that e.g. the Da Ponte Operas would have been all that different if Mozart had never seen a Bach fugue. Similarly with Beethoven, at least until the latest pieces. (And as "middle Beethoven" was more immediately impactful, we would have beacons like the Eroica or Pastoral as point of departure for the romantics anyway.)

Schubert, Berlioz, Italian opera: probably nothing changes without Bach. Same for Weber and early/mid Wagner (not sure if Meistersinger polyphony could not have been derived from other "learned music"). Tchaikovsky did not care for Bach and I have no positive evidence that Smetana, Dvorak, Mussorgsky did.

Now the more traditionalist German romantics (Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms) are of course a very different case. They might have composed differently and we would probably lack some explicitly "Bachian" pieces, but again, the re-discovery of Palestrina as "only true church style" could have taken place anyway and Handel's choral stuff was well known and influential independent of (or in the real world together with) Bach's.

But I certainly admit that apart from the general fragility of such speculations I do not know enough music theory to have a reasonable guess in which cases "Bach influence" is a shorthand for quasi-baroque polyphonic technique or genuine Bach influence that could only have been caused by Bach's music and not by Fux's or Handel's.
One indication that it sometimes was used as some kind of shorthand for "learned style" is that when you look in Mozart's or Beethoven's letters etc. they will often write "Bach and Handel" (like a law firm, e.g. Mozart when referrring to the music sessions with Van Swieten) and as their music is fairly different with Bach's being much denser and more systematic and tightly organized, this could indicate that the important thing Mozart admired and wanted to learn was not Bach specific but basically the learned high baroque style.

Of course, very similar arguments could be made for other influential composers. But the spell Wagner cast on not only musicians but many other artists for half a century or more is well documented and very specific (compared to Bach or Haydn). And in my impression also Beethoven's influence on 19th century music is more specific than Bach's on any later music.

[Karl Henning]

For only a couple of obvious examples, Chopin, Hindemith & Shostakovich drew inspiration specifically from Bach's keyboard music, and Hindemith & Stravinsky (among numerous others) from the Brandenburg concerti.

[Cato]

For only a couple of obvious examples, Chopin, Hindemith & Shostakovich drew inspiration specifically from Bach's keyboard music, and Hindemith & Stravinsky (among numerous others) from the Brandenburg concerti.

By chance I came across this comment today in Louis Vierne's autobiography: note the date! (My emphasis)

"An event of considerable importance in our artistic development occurred at the beginning of October 1892... This was the discovery of Bach's chorale preludes.  When I say 'discovery' the word is not an exaggeration...  Widor was astonished that since his arrival at the Conservatoire no one had brought in one of the celebrated chorale preludes... I was acquainted with three of them, published in Braille...  My classmates did not even know the names of the pieces...  (Widor) spent the entire class time playing these pieces for us, and we were bowled over.  The most overwhelming part of the giant's organ works was suddenly revealed to us.  All of us played some chorale preludes...for the trimester examination, and the surprise of the jury* was no less than ours had been....  Ambroise Thomas (said) to Widor: 'What music!  Why didn't I know that forty years ago?  It ought to be the Gospel for all musicians, and organists in particular.' "

* Among the jurors one found Theodore Dubois, Gabriel Pierne', and Alexandre Guilmant.

[Ken B]

By chance I came across this comment today in Louis Vierne's autobiography: note the date! (My emphasis)

"An event of considerable importance in our artistic development occurred at the beginning of October 1892... This was the discovery of Bach's chorale preludes.  When I say 'discovery' the word is not an exaggeration...  Widor was astonished that since his arrival at the Conservatoire no one had brought in one of the celebrated chorale preludes... I was acquainted with three of them, published in Braille...  My classmates did not even know the names of the pieces...  (Widor) spent the entire class time playing these pieces for us, and we were bowled over.  The most overwhelming part of the giant's organ works was suddenly revealed to us.  All of us played some chorale preludes...for the trimester examination, and the surprise of the jury* was no less than ours had been....  Ambroise Thomas (said) to Widor: 'What music!  Why didn't I know that forty years ago?  It ought to be the Gospel for all musicians, and organists in particular.' "

* Among the jurors one found Theodore Dubois, Gabriel Pierne', and Alexandre Guilmant.

Not even Karl suggested eliminating Bach!

[kishnevi]

My pick is Stockhausen. He wasn't that important and his music is just...umm..well...it's just there, but yet some people think he's some kind of deity.

a classic case:  I would undoubtedly think better of Stockhausen if certain others thought less of him.

[nathanb]

I don't have to justify it. I mean this is a fantasy thread after all.

True. In that case I choose everybody but Stockhausen

[(poco) Sforzando]

a classic case:  I would undoubtedly think better of Stockhausen if certain others thought less of him.

Good to see your judgment is based solely on the music.