Posted on 01/09/2011 7:12:24 AM PST by Pharmboy
YOU know that a new year has truly arrived when critics stop issuing all those lists of the best films, books, plays, recordings and whatever of the year gone by. These lists seem to be popular with readers, and they stir up lively reactions.
snip...
Yet in other fields, critics and insiders think bigger. Film institutes periodically issue lists of the greatest films of all time. (“Citizen Kane” seems to have a lock on the top spot.) Rock magazines routinely tally the greatest albums ever. And think of professional tennis, with its system of rankings, telling you exactly which player is No. 1 in the world, or 3, or 59.
snip..
Imagine if we could do the same in classical music, if there were ways to rank pianists, sopranos and, especially, composers. The Top 10 composers of all time. Now that’s the list I have secretly wanted to compile. It would be absurd, of course, but fascinating. My thinking about this was shaken, though, last spring, when Mohammed e-mailed me. That’s Mohammed Rahman, then a freshman at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. He was writing a paper on why people have different musical tastes, and he wanted to interview me. His questions were so thoughtful that I met him at a cafe.
Mohammed picked my brain about how my tastes had been formed, about what I looked for in good music. Inevitably we came to the question of how it gets decided that certain music, certain composers are the best. And of course some really are. I’m open-minded but not a radical relativist.
So if you were to try to compile a list of the 10 greatest composers in history, how would you go about it? For me
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Once you die you cant be considered a composer. You are in fact a decomposer.
In my opinion, Mozart is the greatest. Others that I like are Dmitri Rakhmaninov, Modest Mussorgskii, Pyotr Chaikovskii, Charles Gounod, and Gioacchino Rossini.
The masters with their undisputed masterpieces in parentheses:
Bach (St Matthew Passion, Mass in B minor)
Mozart (late symphonies, Great Mass, Don Giovanni)
Beethoven (Sym 9)
Haydn (Creation)
Schubert (Sym 8)
Bruckner (Sym 9, Te Deum)
Mahler (Sym 2)
Brahms (Sym 4)
Chopin (piano sonatas, nocturnes)
Wagner (Ring)
More heavy hitters: Rossini, Verdi, R.Strauss (could continue on)
Yep...agree with you there. The article’s author makes a good point on Chopin: genius though he was, he just wrote (really) for piano. I would still put him as number 4.
Freddy Boom Boom Cannon
I’d put Mozart at the top, and find a spot for Tchaikovsky and Debussy, because there is a place for the tunesmith.
Roger Waters
mars rover to mars holst the planets
It's great but I prefer Williams
PIANO - John Williams - Jurassic Park theme song - ending theme
Bach, Mahler, Stravinsky, Haydn, Mozart, then whatever...
Holtz? Why not Grieg or Grofe? I had to perform “The Planets” in various school orgs, secondary and college. No, thanks.
Nothing.
I once met Freddy Cannon in a TV studio. My favorite opus of his is Buzz Buzz A Diddle It (1961).
My personal opinion is that people like Mozart, Beethoven, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci etc. were intense and driven by the desire to do things beyond themselves. There are clearly ‘intense’ people today, but they tend to be those who are intensely ambitious and want to do things to advance themselves, not reach out beyond themselves. The kind of intensity that pushes people to look for meaning in life and existence is often denigrated in our ‘modern’ society (witness the denigration of religion and the push toward secularism). People are more likely to be passionate about who won American Idol than they are about finding the meaning in their own lives.
J.S. Bach (genius on all fronts)
Beethoven (introduced spectacle to music)
Haydn (nice)
Chopin (thoughtful)
Tchaikovsky (melodramatic, but catchy)
Bernard Hermann (music/film unity)
Lennon/McCartney (changed modern culture - for better or worse - lots of classical references)
Hank Williams (the Shakespeare of country music - classics in their own way)
Handel - (Alleluia!)
Number 10 - The hundreds of unknown writers of folk songs from many countries. They gave music to all.
Never liked Mozart or Vivaldi. Sorry.
And the winner is: Chickadee with the VIVALDI vote, IMHO!
After Mozart there are quite a few greats. In no particular order: Beethoven, Bach, Verdi, Wagner, Rossini, Haydn, Chopin, Tchaikovsky ...
ML/NJ
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