Which composer would you eliminate from history?

[Mirror Image]

Pfft. Good luck justifying that statement.

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

[Karl Henning]

Thanks for saying Glass. Thanks for saying Glass. Thanks for saying Glass...

Well played!

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Karl Henning]

Pfft. Good luck justifying that statement.

Am I the only one here who thinks for himself?!

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Karl Henning]

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

That was a "Jacobin" jest.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Ken B]

Dear Ken B !

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

P.S.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!

Sorry Cato but I gotta. For the children. Think of the children, Leo, think of the children.

[Cato]

Sorry Cato but I gotta. For the children. Think of the children, Leo, think of the children.

Heh-heh!  When I was teaching German, I was able to videotape a broadcast of Jessye Norman in Erwartung, whose text my German IV students then translated.  Then we watched the opera on a projection television with stereo sound.

I still recall one student at the end sitting back in his seat and exhaling heavily.  When I asked why he seemed so fatigued, he said: "That opera!  It was so tense!" 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Heh-heh!  When I was teaching German, I was able to videotape a broadcast of Jessye Norman in Erwartung, whose text my German IV students then translated.  Then we watched the opera on a projection television with stereo sound.

I still recall one student at the end sitting back in his seat and exhaling heavily.  When I asked why he seemed so fatigued, he said: "That opera!  It was so tense!" 

Good kid.

[PerfectWagnerite]

You're right, they didn't include Wagner...

I am missing the joke. The OAE did do Wagner, you can watch it on Youtube.

That said, probably Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Simpson.

[Hollywood]

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

[Jo498]

I agree with Brian that Antony Pay had the funniest response...
I also liked the idea to eliminate Mozart because he puts all the contemporaries in the shade (of course, I'd still rather have Mozart than Vanhal, Rossetti etc.)

It is easy to pick some not very well known composer (e.g. Salieri, Rossetti, Spohr...).
Of well known composers I'd pick probably Puccini although I like Tosca and Turandot once in a decade or so, I would not miss much if I never listened to it again and Puccini is so late in music history that not much would change by eliminating him.
Not having "Nessun dorma" as music for soccer worldcups and the like would be a welcome side effect...

[aligreto]

Thanks for saying Glass. Thanks for saying Glass. Thanks for saying Glass...

    ....

[ritter]

The politically correct answer would be "no one", as they are all "good in their way", and all that BS. Slightly less politically correct would be (still) not to eliminate anyone, so one can realise how good some composers are, compared to how bad some others are. I think that to a certain extent we all have our lists of the "good" and the "bad", so there's no point in delving in this now.

But if I were pressured to give one name, and one name only, I'd probably say Giuseppe Verdi. Even if he has some good stuff (I enjoyed Simone Boccanegra recently) and IMHO one bona fide masterpiece (Falstaff), I think Verdi drove Italian opera into a corner from which it would (almost) never be able escape again, with hitherto unheard of levels of vulgarity and banality. 

[Christo]

Thanks for saying Glass. Thanks saying for Glass. Thanks Glass for saying ...

fixed it.

[Madiel]

fixed it.

OMG, even better.

[Karl Henning]

:-)

[mc ukrneal]

It is an interesting question - eliminating which composer would change music history the most? I was leaning towards Bach this morning, but Berlioz stuck me as a potential candidate this afternoon. Wagner is an obvious candidate here too. Haydn also crossed my mind.

[Karl Henning]

It is an interesting question - eliminating which composer would change music history the most? I was leaning towards Bach this morning, but Berlioz stuck me as a potential candidate this afternoon. Wagner is an obvious candidate here too. Haydn also crossed my mind.

Yes, to all four.

[Jo498]

It is an interesting question - eliminating which composer would change music history the most? I was leaning towards Bach this morning, but Berlioz stuck me as a potential candidate this afternoon. Wagner is an obvious candidate here too. Haydn also crossed my mind.

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).
My candidates would be Monteverdi, Haydn, Beethoven and Wagner. But very probably the really "indispensable composers" that set the course of music history were even earlier than Monteverdi. Or maybe there weren't any and most things would have developed a long roughly similar lines anyway...

[Spineur]

Verdi drove Italian opera into a corner from which it would (almost) never be able escape again, with hitherto unheard of levels of vulgarity and banality. 

Whaouh !!  When I think of Teresa Stratas as "La Traviata" in Zeffirelli film, I think more of "Nobility" than "Vulgarity & banality".  Surly, you cannot seriously think that !!

[(poco) Sforzando]

But if I were pressured to give one name, and one name only, I'd probably say Giuseppe Verdi. Even if he has some good stuff (I enjoyed Simone Boccanegra recently) and IMHO one bona fide masterpiece (Falstaff), I think Verdi drove Italian opera into a corner from which it would (almost) never be able escape again, with hitherto unheard of levels of vulgarity and banality. 

Yeah, there's no comparison between the banalities of Verdi and the non-banalities of Donizetti, Mercadante, Spontini, Meyerbeer . . . .

Honestly, do you think Falstaff is some kind of isolated sport that had nothing to do with Verdi's development for the 50 years prior? Do you have no recognition for why even as early as Nabucco, Verdi was immediately recognized as contributing something new and unheard of in terms of dramatic power in Italian opera, not to mention the development in Verdi's career towards greater subtlety of characterization, richness in orchestration, and originality in harmony and melody? Yeah, sure, Di provenza is arguably banal and the Anvil Chorus vulgar as well. What does that have to do with the Grand Inquisitor scene in Don Carlo or the Love Duet from Otello?