Topic: Your Top 10 Favorite Composers

[Mirror Image]

I'll start...

1. Ravel -



2. Bartok -



3. Stravinsky -



4. Poulenc -



5. Shostakovich -



6. Villa-Lobos -



7. Vaughan Williams -



8. Szymanowski -



9. Janacek -



10. Berg -



Of course, there have been many changes throughout the years, but these composers have always been pretty much on top for me. Okay, your turn!

[Ken B]

John, what is your email address? I want to send you my latest app. A button that reads "Press here to move Shostakovich down." It's still in beta testing but I can see you need one desperately.

 

 

[Mirror Image]

John, what is your email address? I want to send you my latest app. A button that reads "Press here to move Shostakovich down." It's still in beta testing but I can see you need one desperately.

 

 

Haha. I love Shostakovich's music, though, so I could never keep him below the 5th ranking. I'll be curious to see your list....

[Ken B]

First place is easy. JS Bach.
So second place is empty.
From there, you mean now or lifetime? Mozart would be next if we integrated over the past nearly 40 years. He'd be lower now since, knowing the music so well ( crack my skull and you will hear PC 21 leak out) I listen only occasionally. So my answer will lifetime. More or less this order, after Mozart.
Stravinsky.
Schubert.
Beethoven.
Palestrina.
Josquin.
Brahms.
Bruckner.
Schutz. Or maybe Glass or Nyman.
 Edited to fix typing oversight of Brahms

The most important in having changed my life and my musical listening are Tchaikovsky and Glass. Each has been for a while 1 or 2. I confess that for a brief period of madness Mahler was in top spot, but I'd better say no more on that topic 

In terms of this past few months Haydn makes top 3, but long term not.

[TheGSMoeller]

Funny, there was a top 25 composers thread two years ago, and I found it! Here was my top 10 from 2 years ago...

Richard Strauss
William Byrd
Heinrich I. F. Biber
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Franz Joseph Haydn
Hector Berlioz
Charles Ives
Sergei Prokofiev
Benjamin Britten
Philip Glass

...and it's safe to say it has changed a bit. I would definitely remove Byrd and even Ives and replace them with Bruckner, Poulenc or Brahms.

[Mirror Image]

First place is easy. JS Bach.
So second place is empty.
From there, you mean now or lifetime? Mozart would be next if we integrated over the past nearly 40 years. He'd be lower now since, knowing the music so well ( crack my skull and you will hear PC 21 leak out) I listen only occasionally. So my answer will lifetime. More or less this order.
Stravinsky.
Schubert.
Beethoven.
Palestrina.
Josquin.
Bruckner.
Schutz. Or maybe Glass or Nyman.


The most important in having changed my life and my musical listening are Tchaikovsky and Glass. Each has been for a while 1 or 2. I confess that for a brief period of madness Mahler was in top spot, but I'd better say no more on that topic 

In terms of this past few months Haydn makes top 3, but long term not.

Well, I'm really talking about your all-time favorites. Surprised to see Bruckner on your list. He used to be high on my list, but over the past couple of years I haven't been really interested in hearing any of his music. I do like his music a lot no question about it. Mahler I can take or leave. Mostly leave, although I do still love Symphonies 5 & 7.

[Mirror Image]

Funny, there was a top 25 composers thread two years ago, and I found it! Here was my top 10 from 2 years ago...

...and it's safe to say it has changed a bit. I would definitely remove Byrd and even Ives and replace them with Bruckner, Poulenc or Brahms.

Good to see Poulenc would be on your list. I, obviously, feel the same way. Surprised that you would replace Ives, though, but our tastes seem to change and we really can't control them, so my hat is off to you for accepted those changes and moving on with it.

[Ken B]

Well, I'm really talking about your all-time favorites. Surprised to see Bruckner on your list. He used to be high on my list, but over the past couple of years I haven't been really interested in hearing any of his music. I do like his music a lot no question about it. Mahler I can take or leave. Mostly leave, although I do still love Symphonies 5 & 7.

Bruckner is another lifetime thing. I listen a lot less now, and there just isn't that much music.
But central for a long time.
Sibelius is off the list but he wrote my favorite piece (#7). I like his music but only love 5 and 7.

[TheGSMoeller]

Good to see Poulenc would be on your list. I, obviously, feel the same way. Surprised that you would replace Ives, though, but our tastes seem to change and we really can't control them, so my hat is off to you for accepted those changes and moving on with it.

You know as well as anyone here that tastes change. 
And my omission of Ives doesn't in any way diminish my admiration for his music, but I have had a re-discovery of sorts of Bruckner's music and a new discovery of Brahms chamber works that have out weighed my Ives listening these past years.

Now looking at the rest of the 25 list I'm leaving out some heave hitters, honestly you could mix and match any of these with my top ten and I'd be pleased. 

John Dowland
Claudio Monteverdi
J.S. Bach
Antonio Vivaldi
Georg Philipp Telemann
W. A. Mozart
Franz Schubert
Edward Elgar
Alban Berg
Francis Poulenc
Alfred Schnittke
Michael Nyman
Pascal Dusapin
David Lang
Paul Schoenfield

[Brian]

Now hang on, wasn't this Top Three before?

1. Beethoven
2. Dvorak
T3. Chopin
T3. Schubert
5. Ravel
6. Janacek
7. Berlioz
8. Haydn
9. Martinu
10. Tchaikovsky

[Mirror Image]

You know as well as anyone here that tastes change. 
And my omission of Ives doesn't in any way diminish my admiration for his music, but I have had a re-discovery of sorts of Bruckner's music and a new discovery of Brahms chamber works that have out weighed my Ives listening these past years.

Now looking at the rest of the 25 list I'm leaving out some heave hitters, honestly you could mix and match any of these with my top ten and I'd be pleased. 

Very true. Tastes do change indeed. Like for example I left off Prokofiev, Martinu, Debussy, Sibelius, Koechlin, Hartmann, among others, but I still admire, and love, their music, but narrowing down my choices was pretty easy for me.

[Mirror Image]

Bruckner is another lifetime thing. I listen a lot less now, and there just isn't that much music.
But central for a long time.
Sibelius is off the list but he wrote my favorite piece (#7). I like his music but only love 5 and 7.

I love Sibelius but just couldn't include him on my top 10 because I love other composers much more.

[Mirror Image]

Now hang on, wasn't this Top Three before?

1. Beethoven
2. Dvorak
T3. Chopin
T3. Schubert
5. Ravel
6. Janacek
7. Haydn
8. Martinu
9. Tchaikovsky
10. Mingus

 

Nice list, Brian, especially Ravel, Janacek, and Martinu.

[Brian]

Just realized Berlioz was missing and changed my list. I'm sad I had to give Charles Mingus the boot.

[Ken B]

Nice list, Brian, especially Ravel, Janacek, and Martinu.

Isn't that funny. I thought Nice list Brian, especially Schubert and Beethoven.
Must be the close birthdays explains why we think alike. 

[Mirror Image]

Isn't that funny. I thought Nice list Brian, especially Schubert and Beethoven.
Must be the close birthdays explains why we think alike. 

Haha...

[Dancing Divertimentian]

I'm sad I had to give Charles Mingus the boot.

  +1

[Dancing Divertimentian]

...and a new discovery of Brahms chamber works that have out weighed my Ives listening these past years.

Brahms's chamber works with piano are some of my favorite pieces of all (along with the piano concertos). Brahms being a pianist himself it seems to me the whole piano/chamber group interacting thing was a big challenge to him and something he reveled in.

The piano quartets, the sonatas for clarinet and piano, the piano quintet, the piano trios, the sonatas for violin and piano...for me these works rank way up there as far as greatest works ever written.

I guess it helps that I love the piano.

[Philo]

01. Handel
02. Schumann
03. Satie
04. Lim
05. Gornicka
06. Messiaen
07. Haydn
08. Liszt
09. Berg
10. Ptaszynska

[Dancing Divertimentian]

...and the sonatas for cello and piano...