Greetings!
I had this idea for a thread so perhaps you might humour me for a minute or two...? :-\
I want you to link together your personal favourite composers in a logical order of discovery (and not necessarily the way you did discover them, although that might be fun too!) :)
A very simple example might be:
Haydn --> Mozart --> Beethoven --> Mahler --> Shostakovich
You get the idea? The composers above arguably link together. One could go from Haydn to Mozart, for instance, and see the similarities
and find a new composer through this method that they will enjoy and perhaps didn't know about before.
The thread will act as a bit of fun for those with a huge knowledge of classical music composers – how about a competition, the biggest and most impressive composer linking wins a prize (TBA ;D) - but, crucially, it could act as a good way for neophytes (like myself) to make new discoveries.
Sound like fun? ???
D.
P.S. I think that was probably the most convoluted and discursive explanation ever - I hope you get the idea!
I can see exactly what you mean, and I've thought of these things before myself. The example you gave is a great one for tracing the development of the symphony, although I might slot in Brahms/Bruckner in between Beethoven and Mahler, then Schnittke after Shostakovich.
Here's a few I came up with just for fun:
Debussy --> Varese --> Messiaen --> Dutilleux --> Boulez (The French connection)
Schoenberg --> Webern --> Stockhausen --> Lachenmann --> Rihm (The German connection)
Berlioz --> Rimsky-Korsakov --> Ravel --> Stravinsky --> Messiaen --> Boulez --> Saariaho --> Lindberg --> Salonen (The art of orchestration)
I think it may engender convoluted links, too, so what the hay....
Early core: Rachmaninoff/Tchaikovsky/Beethoven
Early branching out: Grieg/Schumann/Vivaldi/Ravel/Saint-Saens/Mendelssohn/Brahms
Later branching out: Bruckner/Mahler/Prokofiev/Bach/Shostakovich/Haydn/Janacek
Later core: Bartok (same day as Bruckner, by the by)/Stravinsky
Early branching out from later core: Carter/Stockhausen/Berio/Cage/Berlioz/Monteverdi/Varese/Ives/Ferrari
Later branching out from later core: Mumma/Ashley/Oliveros/Behrman/Ligeti/Reynolds/Tudor/Marclay/Yoshihide/Zorn/Biber/Shields/ Webern
The circle grows: Bokanowski/Barrett/Ferreyra/Dhomont/Bruemmer/Gobeil/Akita/Wolff/Schoenberg/Berg/Wellesz/Krenek/ Huber/Vande Gorne/Czernowin/Crawling With Tarts/Parallel Lives/AMM/MEV/Haino/Uchihide/Dumitrescu/Avram/Hodgkinson/Cutler/Dumizio/Lachenmann
And so it goes, most recently with Musik in Deutschland discs and Stradivarius discs and Menche/KK Null/Karkowski....
As you can see from say Biber and Zorn being in the same group, that that chronological/developmental thing just hasn't been workin' for me. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. 0:)
From Austria to America:
Haydn - Mozart - Beethoven - Schubert - Mendelssohn - Schumann - Brahms - Dvorak - Gershwin - Copland - Bernstein
Bach-Paganini-Mozart-Verdi-Haydn-Puccini-Wagner
Nordic to Mediterranean and back.
- Kodály - Respighi - Vaughan Williams - Shostakovich - Walton - Alwyn - ?
(All married a /much younger/ often second or third/ very capable/ wife who were able to play their role of `composers widow' & musical agents with verve and often for decades after their husbands decease.)
cool idea.
Paganini-> Bach-> Prokofiev-> Brahms-> Mahler -> Schoenberg-> Penderecki-> Xenakis-> Gorecki-> Shostakovich
Quote from: Sarkosian on April 09, 2008, 09:53:44 PM
Poussin and Mondrian especially bear a striking ressemblance to one another, the same geometry and the same overuse of the primary colors.
That's a new one. How could I have missed it?