All other composers are inferior to Beethoven

[M forever]

You two idiots are a match made in heaven.

[springrite]

You two idiots are a match made in heaven.

They should have their own room, or at least, thread.

[M forever]

I had proposed that a long time ago. Still a good idea. Or rather, not just their own thread - their own forum. So much stupidity really hurts. I actually read both posts to see if there wan't anything of interest in there after all. We don't want to be prejudiced. Now my brain hurts.

[Haffner]

Mozart is a totally overrated composer. I have never heard a single movement of any piece of Beethoven that could fool anyone into believe it was a Mozart piece, so I am having serious doubts about your cognitive faculties. I feel no need to discuss Haydn's symphonies in the context of this topic.

Concerning the concerto anyone who thinks that Mozart composed anything of the standard of B's 4th is clearly deluded. Beethoven was being his usual respectful self with that comment. I presume you do not want to read the later comments from Beethoven whereby he stated he no longer believed Mozart was the greatest composer...?

How could I have been so blind? Thanks so much, I really learned alot from your post. Please forgive my obtusity.

[karlhenning]

Mercy, and here I had forgot just how knee-slapping funny the Corkster could be!

[DavidW]

Lead.

But Schubert was full of mercury, they used it to try and cure his syphilis. Yikes! 

Poor Schubert, he shouldn't have had that Trout.

[(poco) Sforzando]

The worth of composers like Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Schubert, etc., has already been determined by generations of performers, composers, scholars, and listeners, and is not likely to be assaulted by a few people posting to an Internet music forum. This isn't the Olympics, and there isn't one composer superior to all others, but so long as any and all of the composers listed above are considered "among the very greatest," I have no problem.

No comment towards the gentlemen who consider Mozart "overrated" and Elgar more interesting than Mozart or Beethoven.

[karlhenning]

The worth of composers like Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Schubert, etc., has already been determined by generations of performers, composers, scholars, and listeners, and is not likely to be assaulted by a few people posting to an Internet music forum. This isn't the Olympics, and there isn't one composer superior to all others, but so long as any and all of the composers listed above are considered "among the very greatest," I have no problem.

No comment towards the gentlemen who consider Mozart "overrated" and Elgar more interesting than Mozart or Beethoven.

I completely agree, on all points.

[karlhenning]

Poor Schubert, he shouldn't have had that Trout.

We told him to go for the clam strips . . . .

[MN Dave]

The Clam Strip Quintet. I like it. 

Followed by the Red Lobster Symphony in D Minor.

[longears]

You two idiots are a match made in heaven.

I had proposed that a long time ago. Still a good idea. Or rather, not just their own thread - their own forum. So much stupidity really hurts. I actually read both posts to see if there wan't anything of interest in there after all. We don't want to be prejudiced. Now my brain hurts.

Just don't try to take them seriously and then they're almost as funny as Victor Borge (only he knew he was being absurd!).  BTW, Corkie has his own site.  Maybe Poju will become a frequent visitor there...and to ACD's site, too!  They all have so much in common, I bet they'll get along famously! 

[karlhenning]

:-)

[Haffner]

Just don't try to take them seriously and then they're almost as funny as Victor Borge (only he knew he was being absurd!).  BTW, Corkie has his own site.  Maybe Poju will become a frequent visitor there...and to ACD's site, too!  They all have so much in common, I bet they'll get along famously! 

WhhhheeeEEEEEEEeeeeee!!! I just can't wait to miss that merger!

[longears]

Just add a pink harpie, some lingerie, and a bowl of fruit punch spiked with Everclear, and these geniuses should cook up a Nobel prize in no time at all!

[knight66]

So you agree Mozart's operas are weak. I ask you then......

Come on now, it's Christmas...what is all this? Possibly a clutching at straws; or there again, perhaps more akin to trying to lure some innocent child into your car with a bag of half sucked acid-drops. Leave the boy alone for goodness sake!

As to that lopsided menage a trois proposed by Longears; can you imagine two superegos fighting over a freethinker? It's like that old saw about bald men fighting over a comb, but here the comb has a few teeth missing. It would be tears before bedtime and a divorce with hearings about who is NOT going to get custody.

Keep them all in their separate institutions say I. Poju is too nice for the likes of you Rod Corkin, you just don't mess with his mind, do you hear?

Now, as you were folks; funny hat and balloon time I feel.

Mike

[karlhenning]

Now, as you were folks; funny hat and balloon time I feel.

Laissez les bons temps rouler, Mike!

[knight66]

Laissez les bons temps rouler, Mike!

My life is ruled by it.

Mike

[jwinter]

Highly amusing thread, this.    Thanks, Dave

Like Karl, I can find no fault with:

The worth of composers like Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Schubert, etc., has already been determined by generations of performers, composers, scholars, and listeners, and is not likely to be assaulted by a few people posting to an Internet music forum. This isn't the Olympics, and there isn't one composer superior to all others, but so long as any and all of the composers listed above are considered "among the very greatest," I have no problem.

This  , on the other hand, is just bad taste IMHO:

...The much vaunted fugue I think is actually the weakest movement, its a bloody awful piece....

This is like running across someone who tells you that Timon of Athens is a stronger play than King Lear; hard to even know where to begin...

[(poco) Sforzando]

This is like running across someone who tells you that Timon of Athens is a stronger play than King Lear; hard to even know where to begin...

Don't laugh; in the opinion of G. Wilson Knight, one of the best known of Shakespearean scholars, Timon was the greatest of his tragedies. I have seen it only once, and it plays abysmally on the stage.

But there's always one . . . .

[jochanaan]

...Could Beethoven have achieved what he did in the symphonies, the quartets, the piano sonatas, without Mozart first blazing the trail?...

And could either of them have gone where they did without "Papa" Haydn?  Could he have blazed the trail without Stamitz's or C.P.E. Bach's examples?  Could C.P.E. Bach have left the legacy he did without the legacy he received from his Olympian father?  Could Sebastian Bach have--?  The line goes all the way back to the first monks who dared to chant plainsong in harmony, and probably yet further, into deepest antiquity; and it continues through all the great, innovative composers who have added and are adding to all these legacies.

And the quotes we have from LvB himself show that he was very conscious of the great debt he owed to his forebears.

Music is not a competition where composers are getting eliminated one by one; it's a commune that continuously receives new members.