Greatest Composers of All Time

Hi Tubegroover - the main thing about the 5th symphony is what I alluded to in my previous post. Instead of a longer melody, the "theme" that is developed is simply that four-note motif at the opening of the work. This was the radical aspect of it, if you will, though interestingly there is nothing "Romantic" about that part of it - in fact, it is a concentration of a very Classical procedure. It also has the expanded codas, and the interesting transition between the scherzo and final movement. But despite these things, it is a very Classical work, in form. A better choice for your argument would have been the Eroica symphony, with it's vague association with Napoleon, and the "heroic" concept, though again, very Classical in form. Or the Pastoral symphony. But even with those two examples, Beethoven was very insistent that there was not real "program," as there would be in Berlioz Symphony Fantastique, a much more "Romantic" work, or the tone poems of Liszt. These are the sorts of steps Beethoven pointedly refused to take into the Romantic era.

In style, yes he is quite a bit different from Mozart and Haydn, though Mozart also foreshadowed the Romantic era in many ways in his operas, especially in Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute. In his symphonies, Beethoven used a wider range of dynamics and a wider variety of articulations, and took full advantage of new innovations in the instruments themselves, deliberately pushing these boundaries, and in this way he is closer to the Romantic era in spirit. And of course there is the innovation of the chorus and soloists brought into the realm of the symphony. But that said, he is essentially a Classical composer - he did not experiment in new forms, as the early Romantics did. In fact, a great many early Romantic composers decided Beethoven had done all that could be done with what they considered an essentially Classical form, the symphony, and avoided it altogether, Wagner being the most famous case in point. Others disagreed, particularly Brahms, who is of course considered a very conservative composer because he stuck to the Classical forms.

Sorry for the rambling post, need to get to bed.

Not much that I can add to Learsfool's excellent posts. I would simply further stress a couple of points:

The importance of Wagner cannot be overemphasized. As Learsfool points out, his influence on the direction of music was greater than just about any other composer. What is seldom pointed out is the vast influence that he had on other art forms; notably literature. His music and compositional style was one of James Joyce's primary influences which led to the lyricism and "orchestral" gestures in his writing. Wagner was an artistic giant of the highest order and undoubtedly deserving a place in a
"greatest" list.

The subject of Beethoven is a particularly interesting one. I completely agree that his Romanticism is exaggerated; he was a Classicists more than anything and a key transitional figure on the way to true Romanticism. The idea that one composer "introduced" the Romantic era in music is missing the point of how music (and all art) evolves. The move away from the clarity and order of Classicism to the more emotion-driven and eventual programatic aspects of Romanticism was not a sudden one. For me, one of the more interesting facts about Beethoven and how his music points to a slow move away from Classicism is the fact he was the first major composer to make a living as an "independent contractor" (in modern parlance). He was the first to not be employed by a noble or court as "composer in residence" and made his living selling his works and teaching. If that independence, with all it's uncertainty, doesn't inspire romance, I don't know what would.

Learsfool thanks for your throughful response. Maybe I am reading more into Beethoven's 5th. While the opening motif develops the theme, it is the context of the development of the subsequent movements, the darkness and shadow of the opening movement to the final sense of optimism, triumph if you will in the final movement and I was speaking in that context of Beethoven's romanticism. Wonder what he was thinking when he wrote it. I never get any of that sense when listening to the symphonies of Hayden or Mozart, just the typical structure of classical form and of course what I consider one of the greatest classical era symphonies, the 41st "Jupiter" which encompasses the counterpoint elements of the baroque in the final movement and about every element of classical form at the very highest level, unsurpassed IMHO. I suppose I need to get into Greenberg's lectures for a more thorough education in this subject because it certainly is a fascinating development in Western music, from the Classical era to the Romantic, so much seemingly influenced by Beethoven. Thanks again for making me realize this :)

Yes, well, Wagner, real important and all that, for sure. Highly influential. His experiments in tonality, chromaticism, and the unification of forms all obviously a big deal. But a) he wrote Opera only (or almost only), and b) the classical forms and formats that he might appear to have transcended in fact lived on past him, while the format his championed did not. Corigliano still writes symphonies, Carter and Feldman wrote string quartets, and many many modern masters have written piano sonatas. Many of all of these still employ classical forms such as sonata allegro, rondo, fugue, and many are rich with counterpoint. But where are the modernists who write anything really Wagnerian? I don't deny the influence of course, but it is easy to overstate it.

Reason (a) above -- writing in either one or only a handful of formats -- similarly for me disqualifies composers like Bruckner, Mahler, Chopin, Verdi, and some others from the list. The composers I listed above mastered all the formats and instruments, and were prolific as well.

Learsfool says many interesting things, most of them very reasonable. but being a horn player no more requires or justifies selecting Mahler than, e.g., being a classical guitarist would require or justify picking Fernando Sor. I had 2 good friends in college, one a tuba player and the other a violinist. The tuba player knew and loved Mahler, Dvorak, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky-Ravel, Holst, Prokofiev, Strauss. The violinist knew and loved music, period.

If I were a classical horn player, I'd aspire most to play in a performance of Mahler's third symphony !

I understand the perspective but would tend to disagree that the greatest composers wrote all forms. In the case of Mahler, for example, I recall reading that his symphonies were more grand vehicles in which to incorporate many simpler motifs like songs but on a grand symphonic scale.

In other words, if Mahler were around today, he might be doing "concept albums". :^)

Hi Rnm4 - I'm gonna have to call shenanigans on one comment you make, the one about the violinist and the tubist. Your story speaks more to the people involved, not the instruments they happen to play. A person is no more inherently musical because he plays the violin rather than the tuba. To argue otherwise is absurd.

That said, lets get to your legitimate points. Yes, some 20th century composers wrote symphonies, but they are not Classical in any sense (with the exception of course of Prokofiev's famous first symphony), including structurally. Wagner's influence on the composers that followed extended for many decades on music in general, not just opera (in fact, the development of opera did not at all happen as he envisioned it, a fact his detractors love to point out - this fact, however, does not diminish his actual influence on the history of music). Pretty much every composer after him had to deal with what he had done, either for it or against it, well into the 20th century (in great contrast to Beethoven, who everyone loved). Current, 21st century composers are free of this, of course. But there are many reasons why Wagner was as late as the 1980's the third most written about figure in the Western world, behind only Christ and Napoleon. Not sure if he still is, but as of his centennial in 1983 he was indeed. Some of these reasons don't have anything to do with music, but let's not get into all that here. Speaking of him as an artist, I still maintain that there has never been a greater iconoclast in the history of the arts. After Beethoven, music went in new directions, definitely, but after Wagner, it was never the same, splintering off in countless directions from the possibilities he opened up.

@Tubegroover - the above statement was exactly what Greenberg and I got into a great debate about when I was taking a seminar from him in grad school. I deliberately made it (during my required presentation, for which I had chosen Wagner) to bait him into that argument, just to see how much time I could get him to waste on it, because I knew he wouldn't be able to resist it. Who won? Take a wild guess, it was his class, and he had to keep control of it. But afterwards, he admitted being very impressed by my argument, which was really nice of him to say, and he didn't penalize me for the wasted time, either. I did like him alot and I do highly recommend his stuff - he has a great way of presenting things in very clear ways to musical laymen.

Learsfool,

The tuba player/violinist story was a bit of a cheap shot. My point was of course that absent familiarity and appreciation with a wide range of classical forms and formats, one is not really in a position to rank composers. My tuba player friend loked and was most interested in what he got to play, and thus rather blinkered him. Me, I don't play any instrument well enough to count as a musician in any sense, but I am familiar, even intimate, and love very side range of music, classical and otherwise.

All of what you say about Wagner is at least arguably true, and I telescoped my agreement in my first couple of sentences. But I think that, unless you have a quite technical sense of what "classical" means (a perfectly good sense, of course, but not the only one), many 20th century symphonies and concertos and string quartets, etc, get to count, not just Prokofiev 1.

Hi Rnm4 - yes, we were indeed using the term Classical in a much narrower sense earlier in the thread. And it is also true that almost no symphonies written in the 20th century had the same type of form that they did in the Classical and even Romantic eras. Some composers still called their works symphonies, and I am not saying they are not symphonies - but I am saying that they do not the same structure anymore as a Classical era symphony. A symphony by Nielsen, or Shostakovitch, or Henze bears only a surface resemblance to a Haydn symphony. Same with concertos, string quartets, etc. To use an analogy with a different art form, think of the term "novel," and how it's various forms developed over the centuries.

Now some composers did deliberately write some works in what is called a Neo-Classical style, where the form is closer, but other aspects of the works, particularly harmony, are still very far removed from the Classical era. No one would mistake Stravinsky's Rake's Progress for a Mozart opera, for instance.

Speaking of making "best" lists, I actually when I was in school did two different surveys of hundreds of musicians each time where I asked them to list their ten "favorite" composers, sort of a desert island kind of thing. The big difference being it was specifically "favorite," not "best." When stated in that way, you do get much more variation in what professional musicians will answer, not to mention students. Though interestingly, the two times I did the survey the total results came out quite similar, despite it being two completely different groups of musicians, with a very wide variety in both surveys. Enough so that it was kosher with the stat people, anyway, as far as being statistically significant, or whatever the term is.

I think the op's question is nearly unanswerable in any specific way(I also don't think it needs an answer), I just have a tangential thought. I'm a classical musician, and I play in orchestras a lot. As such, I have a lot of repertoire that I need to listen to and practice. I have found over the last few years in music school that you simply cannot listen to, for example, Mahler the same way you would listen to Mozart. You have to approach every composer with his aesthetic firmly in mind. It might seem obvious, but when we approach classical (lowercase c) music with the general mindset of "I'm going to listen to x symphony" we are setting ourselves up for a sub-optimal experience.

Greatest Composer? Hard choice. But the one Classical Composer that has the largest iconic status of all time is Beethoven. He has more books published and in print on him than any other. Mozart comes in second. His Symphonie's, Concerto's and Sonata's are globally recognized as the greatest ever wriiten. His music has been played more in motion picture's, TV Commercials and radio ads than any other composer. By 1805 the People of Vienna referred to Beethoven as the King of the Piano. Between 1792 and 1797 Beethoven beat the top three piano player's in Europe in competition's in the Palace's of Vienna. Those player's were Joseph Gelenek, Lipavsky, and Josef Wolffi. Winning competition's back then would secure you a one year contract to live in a Palace apartment as a house composer with a monthly salary and a horse and carriage. Beethoven never lost a competition. Beethoven is responsible for designing and giving birth to the first early Grand Piano due to his deafness. Around 1809 he drew sketches on paper of a piano with larger hammer's, longer piano string's, and more key's and sent his sketche's to the John Broadwood and Son's piano company in London. Broadwood built the piano. First of its kind.

Yes, but more than anything that simply says that LVB grew up a generation later than WAM. He came along as music was emerging from a church and court medium to a point where the newly-emerging middle class was creating an outlet that previously did not exist.

Personally, I'll take Beethoven over Mozart most of the time, but that's just my opinion. Again, there is no one absolute best.

Tostadosunidos..Mozart and Beethoven are the same generation..not a generation later. Mozart was born in 1756 and Beethoven was born in 1770. There has always been speculation that Beethoven had two private meetings with Mozart in Vienna in the Spring of 1787. Beeethoven was 16.
It was Beethoven's first trip to Vienna, but he had to return to Bonn in July upon receiving news his Mother was dying. Mozart died in December 1791 at the age of 35 from kidney failure. Several month's later Beethoven returned to Vienna and resided their until his death in March of 1827.

Audiozen, your statement in your first post today is incorrect. Wagner is the most written about figure in classical music, by miles. In fact, at one point, he was the third most written about figure in the Western world, behind only Christ and Napoleon. This was true in the late 1980s, anyway, and I seriously doubt any other composer has passed him in the 45 years or so since.

If Beethoven was 16 he as not yet started (he lived another 50+ years) and Mozart was 32 and almost finished. Mozart was at the very front end of public concerts and publishing. These were far better established by the time Beethoven came of age (I think).

I have a friend who was a father at 17, grandfather at 34 and great-grandfather at 50. This was certainly not uncommon in the 18th century. I don't regard those two men as from the same generation. I don't regard someone 16 years older or younger than myself as the same generation.

Learsfool.."Wagner is the most written about"...My post state's on Beethoven that book's published on Composer's that he has the largest volume of published books in print. Having owned a Publishing company for over ten year's and having done a major research project on Beethoven in 1998, his record with published book's is a statistical fact. I said nothing about "most written about", just books in print.

Well Audiozen, if you are referring to Beethoven's Piano Concertos vs Mozarts' piano concertos I'm not too sure I'm with you on that one. Yes, Beethoven's 5 concertos are all masterpieces but are they readily acknowledged as besting Mozart's last 10 say? Not to my ears, they're all great and memorable pieces in their own right. Interestingly listening to Beethoven's first you might well believe you are listening to Mozart, so obvious is his influence.

Mozart's Concerto's up against Beethoven's Emperor Concerto? No Way. The Emperor Concerto is Mount Everest and Mount Olympus combined. Can't touch it's majestic power.

Thanks for the clarification, Audiozen! To the subject of Mozart's piano concertos - one of the very underrated things about them is that they were actually used by him as laboratories of orchestration, particularly wind orchestration. His last symphonies and operas, etc. would not have been the masterworks they are without this type of experimentation.

I DO agree with you concerning the Emperor it is indeed majestic!

The one Composer that is alway's ignored for the pioneering technique's he developed in 1705 in Venice is Violinist Antonio Vivaldi. He invented a bowing technique that became the standard for the Violin that spread all over Europe resulting in a major evolution that took violin playing too a whole new level.

True, but the standing witticism about Vivaldi is that he wrote the same concerto 500 times.

But it's a very good concerto!

Yeah...The Four Season's can get monotonous after awhile. Another Composer that deserve's attention from the same time period was Giovanni Sammartini who pioneered the structuring of the Concert Symphony. He wrote over eighty small scale symphonie's and influenced Bach and Haydn.

06-29-13: Schubert

"True, but the standing witticism about Vivaldi is that he wrote the same concerto 500 times."

But it's a really good concerto!

Bach
Mozart
Schubert
Beethoven
Haydn
Brahms
Telemann
Monteverdi
R. Strauss
Puccini

Schubert, I'm curious to know if you're "into" string quartets very much...

JSBach
Beethoven
Mahler
Haydn
Mozart
Schubert
Shostakovich
Brahms
Schutz
Wagner

I could almost have listed Bach as 1-9 with LvB #10. The breadth, depth, beauty, and genius, and profundity of his works that survive is astonishing. No one save LvB approaches.

Tosta, not nearly as much as I once was, though I still listen
to perhaps 2-3 a week and have full sets of my faves, namely
Beethoven, Schubert, Haydn, Bartok. Shostakovich, Bartok and Villa Lobis .

I'm 78 and started record collecting about 50 years ago and for several decades chamber music was my main interest. Followed by periods when choral and then opera was my mainstay, but in
the last decade or so I've listened to Symphony more than anything else.
From what I've read this seems to be a reversal of the usual route most follow. Go figure.

Brownsfan, I couldn't agree more. All composers have their strengths and weaknesses, save Bach, who had it ALL.
IMHO his Cantatas are the high-point of all music.

BTW, I received my Totem Model 1 Sigs yesterday, listening to Live from Met on them right now, will post my early thoughts
on this post Monday.

Schubert, I too place his cantatas at the pinnacle. What Bach did with his cantatas, especially the Leipzig work, is just superhuman. 54 cantatas a year for 3 years, in addition to his other duties as cantor. He wrote at least one new cantata a week on Monday and Tuesday, practiced with the choir the remainder of the week. How is that even possible? They are not formulaic tripe. They are masterworks. And lets not forget his choral preludes, cranked out at the same pace. The man was a gift from God, pure and simple. All this, while being a husband and father to double digit children, not to mention his teaching duties, and the constant frustrations of dealing with the blockheaded pietistic clergy in Liepzig, who regarded him as nothing but a third rate composer.
Can't wait to hear your thoughts on the Sigs! I think you have probably made a great choice.

The Germans don't call him Allmachtige(Allmighty)Bach for nothing.
Common opinion among educated Germans is that Bach is the greatest artist of all time in ANY genre.
Even above Shakespeare, who the Germans are freaky about to the extent that more of his plays are staged in Berlin than London most years.Actually, he translates better into modern German than modern English.

Anybody for Edgar Varese? Have a listen to "Ionization"!!! The estimable F.Zappa was a fan!

Or I.Stravinsky! Try "Le Sacre Du Printemps"!!!

Or G.Mahler: "The Symphony should be the World"!!! Try Symphony No. 9!!!

Anybody for Erik Satie??? Just trying to add some humor to this thread!

I listen to a lot of "modern" composers and like them very much.  Varese, Ligetti, Nono, they are all very interesting, but, I suspect that it is pretty much impossible for anyone past the Romantics to get wide enough acclaim to challenge for even a top 10 popularity rating.  
I just noticed that in recent posts, Mahler's 9th, and Erik Satie are mentioned.  That is a bit of a coincidence because I have a playlist on an iPod I have hooked up to my car audio system and the recently played tracks include Mahler's 9th (my favorite of his symphonies) and it is currently playing Satie's Gnossiennes.

I guess a few questions in order:
Why Stravinsky or Berg or Schonberg?
What about opera? Verdi and Puccini?
Not a huge output, but what is there is choice: Sibelius.
I'm glad I didn't see Schumann, whom I always find 'meh'. 
But as someone said: it's just great that they wrote what they did.