Best - and Of Course - Worst Wannabe Classical Composers

[Cato]

Elgar would of course be the worst one here!       0:)

Pop musicians, like that marching lackey of Edwardian England above, have occasionally wanted to consider themselves worthy of the Veil of Verdi or the Chapeau of Chausson or even the Wig of Wagner.

Gershwin of course comes immediately to mind as a Best!  And maybe Leonard Bernstein?

For your consideration: Best or Worst?  And why?

And should "film composers" be considered "popular composers"?  Or just composers?

Korngold and Herrmann come to mind!  Not to mention Jerome Moross.

Paul McCartney  (Possibly the worst, since he hires somebody to write down everything that he taps out,  The evidence: Liverpool Cantata      

Stewart Copeland (Writing operas and ballets and asking critics for a break because he was still learning how to orchestrate!)

In no particular order:

Johann Strauss
Billy Joel
Phil Lesh
Franz Lehar
Franz von Suppe
Ferde Grofe
Morton Gould
Victor Herbert
Louis Gottschalk
Richard Rodgers (?!)
Lord Berners
Richard Rodney Bennett

And we are open to nominations in both categories!

[Pierre]

Off-hand, I don't think Richard Rodney Bennett belongs in the 'wannabe' company - he's a thoroughly capable and trained classical composer (studied under Howard Ferguson and Lennox Berkeley at the Royal Academy of Music, and subsequently under Boulez). It just happens he's gained a higher profile as a film composer - it's some of those confections he's written (for Gormenghast, Murder on the Orient Express etc etc) which I had in mind when adding him to my list of 'favourite non-great composers'.

[uffeviking]

Elgar would of course be the worst one here!       0:)

Reading the very impressive book by Alex Ross The Rest is Noise might improve your opinion of this remarkable composer Edward Elgar. 

[not edward]

Does Frank Zappa count as a wannabe? If so, he's got to be very high on the list.

[Josquin des Prez]

Frank Zappa was a better orchestrator then Beethoven!

[karlhenning]

Beethoven was nothing in a Frog Hollow Day-Camp T-shirt

[Brian]

Johann Strauss
Franz Lehar
Franz von Suppe
Louis Gottschalk

Objection! 

By the way, when you knock Strauss in such a way, you might have to face down critics of his, like Hanslick, who cited much of his music as being "too symphonic," and you will have to deal with a certain fan of Johann's. A certain fan who once wrote out the opening measures of the Blue Danube, and underneath it signed his name by writing ... "Alas, not by Brahms."

[springrite]

Objection! 

By the way, when you knock Strauss in such a way, you might have to face down critics of his, like Hanslick, who cited much of his music as being "too symphonic," and you will have to deal with a certain fan of Johann's. A certain fan who once wrote out the opening measures of the Blue Danube, and underneath it signed his name by writing ... "Alas, not by Brahms."

Well, knocking operetta composers will not only rile GBS, but also our very own Harry van der Smack!

[Kullervo]

Herrmann's scores are great in their context. Korngold had great potential that was crushed by his obsessive father's promotion and the failure of Das Wunder der Heliane. After that he never did anything as adventurous.

[Brian]

Well, knocking operetta composers will not only rile GBS, but also our very own Harry van der Smack!

According to Wikipedia, GBS may refer to:

    * Gastric bypass surgery
    * Guillain-Barré syndrome
    * Game Boy Sound System
    * Group B Streptococcus, a type of bacteria
    * George Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright
    * Great Big Sea, an iconic Canadian band producing a twist of Newfoundland traditional music and modern pop.
    * Glenbrook South High School
    * God's Bible School and College
    * GNU build system
    * post-nominal letters for the Gold Bauhinia Star in Hong Kong, the second highest rank in the Hong Kong honours system
    * Gravity Based Structure, an offshore petroleum production platform as used for Hibernia (oil field)

[Cato]

Well, knocking operetta composers will not only rile GBS, but also our very own Harry van der Smack!

I have no intention of knocking operetta composers, if they are good ones!  Who would not like the overtures of von Suppe, especially after hearing them in Bugs Bunny cartoons?

The list was just a list to consider for "Best" or "Worst" here!  Long-time members will know I have no reaction to Grofe other than looking for the closest bottle of potassium chloride to end my sonic misery if his stuff happens to come on.

Frank       Zappa: better orchestrator than    0:)   Beethoven?

[Mark G. Simon]

Johann Strauss
Billy Joel
Phil Lesh
Franz Lehar
Franz von Suppe
Ferde Grofe
Morton Gould
Victor Herbert
Louis Gottschalk
Richard Rodgers (?!)
Lord Berners
Richard Rodney Bennett

What's Richard Rodney Bennett doing on this list? He's as full-fledged a classical composer as you can get. I saw his opera The Mines of Sulphur at Glimmerglass a few years ago and found it an impressive piece of writing. His serious music is much different from his film scores.

In this category you have to separate the literates from the illiterates. Paul McCartney and Billy Joel, of course, belong to the illiterate category, and this eliminates them from serious consideration as composers right off the bat.

I'm not aware that Richard Rodgers ever aspired to be anything other than a tunesmith. His most extended work, the music for Victory at Sea was chiefly composed by Robert Russell Bennett based on tunes supplied by Rodgers.

Among the literates, there are some, like Leonard Bernstein, who excelled at light music but were perfectly capable of turning our high quality serious music. Dvorak was greatly impressed by Victor Herbert's Cello Concerto. I've heard high praise for Morton Gould's Symphony no. 4.

Zappa is a category in himself.

[Cato]

What's Richard Rodney Bennett doing on this list? He's as full-fledged a classical composer as you can get. I saw his opera The Mines of Sulphur at Glimmerglass a few years ago and found it an impressive piece of writing. His serious music is much different from his film scores.

In this category you have to separate the literates from the illiterates. Paul McCartney and Billy Joel, of course, belong to the illiterate category, and this eliminates them from serious consideration as composers right off the bat.

Zappa is a category in himself.

Bennett came to me precisely because of the film scores, which have never enthused me much, but if the "serious music" is much different, then okay!

I recall McCartney claiming, with that curious class-warfare pride found in England, that he cannot read or write music outside of the "tab" system for strumming guitars: the term "illiterate" is therefore quite apt.

Billy Joel  had some classical style piano lessons in his youth, and can indeed read and write music.  Still, I am surprised that Schirmer decided to market his Piano Sonata #1 and other pieces (q.v.):

http://www.audiophileaudition.com/audaud/NOV01/CLASSICAL/clcds2NOV01.html

[Siedler]

Korngold is hardly a wannabe composer!  He didn't start as a film composer but studied, according to Wikipedia, under Zemlinksy and Fuchs. He composed wonderful opera Die Tote Stadt before moving to the US. Both R. Strauss and Puccini spoke very highly of him and Mahler called him a "musical genius". Unfortunately he started to compose film music in the US...

[71 dB]

Unfortunately he started to compose film music in the US...

Unfortunate to who? Would it be better if he stopped composing completely? Or if less talented composerd would have scored those movies. I believe Korngold benefitted the world more composing movie scores.

[Cato]

Billy Joel is big, bad, and back in action, threatening now to play an orchestrated version of "Waltz #2" in public with the Philadelphia  Orchestra.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22419342/

Will anybody here be attending that?

[Mark G. Simon]

Billy Joel  had some classical style piano lessons in his youth, and can indeed read and write music.  Still, I am surprised that Schirmer decided to market his Piano Sonata #1 and other pieces (q.v.):

I thought I read that he required an assistant to help write out his "Fantasies and Delusions". But it also irks me that in spite of having written some of the most distinctive pop songs of his era, he chose to channel Schumann and Chopin in his classical pieces. Why copy someone else's style when he has so much of his own?

Ditto McCartney. What I've heard of his Ecce Cor(n) Meam sounds decent (meaning he hired very good assistants), almost like something John Rutter might have written, only Rutter would have done it better. Why should the author of "Eleanor Rigby" bother writing second-rate Rutter?

[paulb]

Elgar would of course be the worst one here!       0:)

http://www.amazon.com/Greenes-Biographical-Encyclopedia-Composers-Greene/dp/0385142781

Here's a  book with 2400 composers bios.

There's 2 extreme type of CMphiles. Very broad range of acceptance of almost all composers fitting the tag Classical Music, and then the other extreme type of fan-atic, with a strict level of acceptance of who makes into through the doors as  a  Classical Music Composer..
I happily fall into the 2nd category.
CM to me is that genre which began with Vivaldi and Bach, Corelli was influential on both, but there's only op6 we have of Corelli.
And this unique level of artist genius ends brilliantly with Elliott (2 T's) Carter and most recently I've added Boulez as closing out (El Fin) this incredible 250 yr epoch of the highest expression of the creative  mind.

[Cato]

http://www.amazon.com/Greenes-Biographical-Encyclopedia-Composers-Greene/dp/0385142781

Here's a  book with 2400 composers bios.

There's 2 extreme type of CMphiles. Very broad range of acceptance of almost all composers fitting the tag Classical Music, and then the other extreme type of fan-atic, with a strict level of acceptance of who makes into through the doors as  a  Classical Music Composer..
I happily fall into the 2nd category.
CM to me is that genre which began with Vivaldi and Bach, Corelli was influential on both, but there's only op6 we have of Corelli.
And this unique level of artist genius ends brilliantly with Elliott (2 T's) Carter and most recently I've added Boulez as closing out (El Fin) this incredible 250 yr epoch of the highest expression of the creative  mind.

(My emphasis above)

And so why has the "epoch" closed?  Has "pop" music killed off classical music of any definition? 

Is it not continuing because you see nobody beyond Boulez to continue it, only a series of Billy Joels invading the concert halls with pseudo-classical music?

[greg]

Is it not continuing because you see nobody beyond Boulez to continue it, only a series of Billy Joels invading the concert halls with pseudo-classical music?

both