GMG Classical Music Forum

The Music Room => General Classical Music Discussion => The Polling Station => Topic started by: Florestan on March 22, 2023, 02:42:30 PM

Title: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Florestan on March 22, 2023, 02:42:30 PM
My list as of today

Mozart
Rossini
Bellini
Verdi
Massenet


Your turn.
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: San Antone on March 22, 2023, 02:50:09 PM
Machaut
Bach
Carter
Cage
Shostakovich
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Lisztianwagner on March 22, 2023, 02:54:33 PM
Wagner
Mahler
Liszt
Beethoven
Rachmaninov
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Karl Henning on March 22, 2023, 02:59:32 PM
Stravinsky
Haydn
Chopin
JSB

(The moment I nominate a fifth, I'll think of a sixth whom I'll upbraid myself for having forgotten.)
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: foxandpeng on March 22, 2023, 03:04:33 PM
Vasks
Tabakov
Pettersson
RVW
DSCH

Easy enough choice today 👍
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Brahmsian on March 22, 2023, 03:24:39 PM
Shostakovich
Bruckner
Dvořák
Tchaikovsky
Sibelius
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: vers la flamme on March 22, 2023, 05:36:42 PM
Amazing lists, gentlemen. Let me give it a shot...

Johannes Brahms
Gustav Mahler
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Johann Sebastian Bach
Maurice Ravel

Kind of a white-bread list, I realize, but I couldn't leave any of them out. Then, of course, there's about fifty other composers who might edge out one of them on a good day.
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: DavidW on March 23, 2023, 07:00:28 AM
Bach
Haydn
Mozart
Beethoven
Brahms

For all time, but for current listening:
Bach
Schubert
Bruckner
Mahler
Shostakovich
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: DavidW on March 23, 2023, 07:03:03 AM
Okay so I have all time, and I have recently but if I expand it to past few months (i.e. the intermediate) then I have

Schubert
Bruckner
Wagner
Sibelius
Shostakovich
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Brahmsian on March 23, 2023, 07:03:50 AM
Quote from: OrchestralNut on March 22, 2023, 03:24:39 PMShostakovich
Bruckner
Dvořák
Tchaikovsky
Sibelius

I'll follow David's lead.  Above is "all-time", or overall.

Top 5 current listening:

Bacewicz
*Classical guitar
Falla
*Ballet music
Shostakovich

*A mishmash of composers.  :D
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: DavidW on March 23, 2023, 07:06:27 AM
Quote from: OrchestralNut on March 23, 2023, 07:03:50 AMI'll follow David's lead. 

And I was following Florestan's lead! ;D
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Sergeant Rock on May 12, 2023, 04:21:27 AM
Wagner
Mahler
Bruckner
Sibelius
Haydn
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Peter Power Pop on May 12, 2023, 11:01:52 PM
1. Rameau
2. Ravel
3. Copland
4. Debussy
5. Tchaikovsky
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: vandermolen on May 12, 2023, 11:07:31 PM
Quote from: foxandpeng on March 22, 2023, 03:04:33 PMVasks
Tabakov
Pettersson
RVW
DSCH

Easy enough choice today 👍
Must listen to more Tabakov!
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: vandermolen on May 12, 2023, 11:09:56 PM
Vaughan Williams
Miaskovsky
Shostakovich
Copland
Bax
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: San Antone on May 13, 2023, 03:05:48 AM
Not ranked

Boulez
Carter
Cage
Schoenberg
Machaut
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Brian on May 13, 2023, 07:20:42 AM
Quote from: Peter Power Pop on May 12, 2023, 11:01:52 PM1. Rameau
2. Ravel
3. Copland
4. Debussy
5. Tchaikovsky
Question! Given this ranking, does it mean that the Vikingur Olafsson album combining Debussy and Rameau is basically heaven for you? Or do you have thoughts on how those composers go together?
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Brian on May 13, 2023, 07:26:25 AM
Beethoven
Dvorak
Haydn
Janacek
Chopin
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: foxandpeng on May 13, 2023, 08:28:59 AM
Quote from: vandermolen on May 12, 2023, 11:07:31 PMMust listen to more Tabakov!

Yes! Moar Tabakov!!

My choices remain the same, I think. At least for now.

Vasks
Tabakov
Pettersson
RVW
DSCH
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Peter Power Pop on May 13, 2023, 03:27:16 PM
Quote from: Brian on May 13, 2023, 07:20:42 AMQuestion! Given this ranking, does it mean that the Vikingur Olafsson album combining Debussy and Rameau is basically heaven for you? Or do you have thoughts on how those composers go together?

I'm not a huge fan of Rameau's keyboard music. But Debussy's on the other hand... [Chef's kiss].

I don't think of Rameau and Debussy as composers that should ever be put together on a program. There's nothing stylistically to link the two, so to have a disc with both of them is weird to me.

Having typed that, I'll have a listen to Ólafsson's album.

Compare and contrast:


Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Brian on May 13, 2023, 03:42:45 PM
For Rameau, are you more of an opera guy?

The booklet quotes Debussy speaking highly of Rameau as a revolutionary. I can find the quotes tomorrow morning and post some.
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Peter Power Pop on May 13, 2023, 04:54:47 PM
Quote from: Brian on May 13, 2023, 03:42:45 PMFor Rameau, are you more of an opera guy?

The booklet quotes Debussy speaking highly of Rameau as a revolutionary. I can find the quotes tomorrow morning and post some.

My introduction to Rameau was the suites from the operas (see below), and from there I moved on to the operas. I love all of it. The music of Rameau speaks to me in a way that no other composer does. His keyboard and chamber works don't speak to me in quite the same way. I like them, but they don't have the effect on me that his fully orchestrated (and vocal) stuff does.

As for Debussy, he wrote Hommage à Rameau which is from Images Book I:


This was the very first piece of music I heard of Rameau:


I was hooked from the start.
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Brian on May 14, 2023, 05:30:10 AM
For me the magic of Rameau is you never know what he's going to do next. In common reputation maybe, "baroque" has this reputation as predictable, neat, formal music that tick-tocks along, but Rameau has so many cool, wild ideas. Biber is like that too.

Quote from: Peter Power Pop on May 13, 2023, 04:54:47 PMMy introduction to Rameau was the suites from the operas (see below), and from there I moved on to the operas. I love all of it. The music of Rameau speaks to me in a way that no other composer does. His keyboard and chamber works don't speak to me in quite the same way. I like them, but they don't have the effect on me that his fully orchestrated (and vocal) stuff does.

As for Debussy, he wrote Hommage à Rameau which is from Images Book I:

Olafsson saves that for the very end, as the last track on his album. Here's what he writes in the booklet about pairing the two composers:

"Debussy had been swept away by a performance of the first two acts of Rameau's opera Castor et Pollux [in 1903]. In his superlative review, he described the music as "so personal in tone, so new in construction, that space and time are defeated and Rameau seems to be contemporary." Curiously, the more time I spent with Rameau's keyboard music, the more my mind wandered to Debussy and the seemingly unlikely affinity of that revolutionary, who openly disregarded tradition and denounced all musical rules except the law of pleasure, to the founding father of French musical theory and pedagogy. Upon closer inspection, I found that being a revolutionary is one of the very things the two had in common. Despite very different historical circumstances, both possessed a rare kind of relentless intellectual independence.

"Another shared element...is what could be called a synaesthetic streak. In my view, a certain blending of sensory experience seems natural to how the two approached music. Debussy famously surrounded himself with poets and painters, drawing inspiration from a wide range of sources. Dubbed the "Newton of Harmony", Rameau had a certain scientific interest in the colours of sounds as well as in light, but also a remarkable originality in what we call the colours of orchestration....Both composers wrote music which engages more senses than just hearing. And both enjoyed giving their compositions titles that stimulate the imagination."

Anyway, the proof is (or isn't) in the listening!
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: kyjo on May 22, 2023, 03:09:39 PM
Quote from: vandermolen on May 12, 2023, 11:07:31 PMMust listen to more Tabakov!

Only if you want to develop depression and anger issues... >:D
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: foxandpeng on May 22, 2023, 03:34:46 PM
Quote from: kyjo on May 22, 2023, 03:09:39 PMOnly if you want to develop depression and anger issues... >:D

Or address them 😁
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Owen David on May 22, 2023, 04:33:27 PM
Beethoven
Tchaikovsky
Sibelius
Puccini
Satie

Clearly this might change tommorow!
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Owen David on May 22, 2023, 04:34:44 PM
Beethoven
Tchaikovsky
Sibelius
Puccini
Satie

Clearly this might change tommorow!
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Keemun on May 23, 2023, 06:39:28 PM
Bach
Beethoven
Bruckner
Sibelius
Tchaikovsky


In alphabetical order.  ;D 
Title: Re: Your Top 5 Composers
Post by: Cato on May 29, 2023, 04:47:43 AM
Oy!  This is just too impossible, although I think - because of my (apparently genetic  ;)  ) affinity for them, my top 3 will always be Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg...

Never to be forgotten: Karl Amadeus Hartmann, a quasi-Salvador Dali of Music, creating fantastic and even nightmarish soundscapes of The Id.

But then come all kinds of others, especially Russian composers: Scriabin, S. Taneyev, Nikolai and Alexander Tcherepnin, Prokofiev and Sergei Protopopov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov,...

Certainly Beethoven and Charles Ives could rotate into the top 5!

And also never to be forgotten: our creator of Kammeredelsteine and other wonderful works for chorus and for orchestras: Karl Henning!

e.g.