Your soul mate composers...

[Guido]

Though I love many works by many of the great composers, there are some composers where virtually every work of theirs moves, interests and/or excites me. It's not just that I think their individual ideas are beautiful, but rather the very idiom and language that they compose with. They may not always be considered as great as Mozart or Beethoven etc. (though for some people it might be these composers), but maybe we love them for their foibles and peculiar traits. I think other people know what I am talking about as I have seen people hint at this kind of thing before, but I thought that it would be interesting to see everyone's own 'soul-mate' composers for want of a better term. I currently have three and greatly look forward to finding more:

Ives
Barber
Finzi

there are a few others that I think may be possible candidates, but I wont say them yet.

If any one can articulate better what I am trying to say please feel free to!

[BachQ]

Brahms, Bruckner, Beethoven, Schubert, and Mozart

[Don]

Bach, Schumann, Aho and Scriabin.

[ChamberNut]

Beethoven and Bruckner in particular.

[BachQ]

Luke = Janacek

[lukeottevanger]

You got in whilst I was typing that!

I think you articulate it very well, Guido, particularly the bit about how 'they may not always be considered as great as Mozart or Beethoven etc. ... but maybe we love them for their foibles and peculiar traits'. That's certainly true in my case - in fact, I almost always feel closer to those composers with flaws and vulnerabilities. Conversely I can find it impossible to have anything like a 'soul mate' relationship with the very 'Greatest' composers for exactly that reason - they are just too far above me. So, among mine are Janacek, Tippett and even Satie, but there are others too. Ives is pretty close to the list too.

[quintett op.57]

Haydn, Beethoven, Bruckner, Smetana (until now), R.Strauss, Liszt, Shostakovich, Schumann, schubert, Berlioz, Nielsen, Ravel, Stravinsky.

You may find it's too much, but almost every work by the 13 composers above interested and provided me a great pleasure.
Harry will have more names than me by the way.

It's not exactly my top 13 but it's similar

[Kullervo]

Sibelius

[Morigan]

Tchaikovsky

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Beethoven... And then - Berlioz, Wagner, Bruckner, Scriabin, Brian, Langgaard, Delius... They all embody some part of me and are inspiring presences.

[Que]

I feel a personal connection with Brahms' music.

Another composer that is very close to me - but not as a "soul mate" - is Bach.

Q

[Wendell_E]

Berg, Janáček.

[greg]

It's not just that I think their individual ideas are beautiful, but rather the very idiom and language that they compose with.

Mahler

[marvinbrown]

there are some composers where virtually every work of theirs moves, interests and/or excites me. It's not just that I think their individual ideas are beautiful, but rather the very idiom and language that they compose with. 

  The above quote accurately describes what WAGNER  0:) as a composer means to me! I am madly enamoured by the "very idiom and language that" Wagner composes with. Marvellous, simply marvellous!


  marvin   

 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Beethoven above all. Also Berlioz, Berg, Mahler, Chopin in their own ways. The Verdi of Falstaff, who is a very different Verdi from anything he had written previously. Bach too, but it's harder to think of him as a "soul-mate."

[bhodges]

My personal "three B's" are Bartók, Berg and Britten, and many of their works speak to me very deeply.

--Bruce

[rappy]

Richard Strauss' music is where I find the meaning of life which I've found by myself either.
While Schubert is the one whose style is probably closest to mine (when I showed my older classical compositions to my new composition teacher, he immediately thought of Schubert, either).

So Schubert expresses my musical way of thinking, why Richard Strauss expresses my philosophical way of thinking.

[btpaul674]

Vaughan Williams and Rautavaara, definitely.

[The Emperor]

Shostakovich, Part, Bartok and Stravinsky. (a couple of works here and there i might not like, but in general this are the closest to perfection in my book)

[hornteacher]

Dvorak, both in his life and his music.