Posted on 01/23/2011 1:38:09 PM PST by Pharmboy
HERE goes. This article completes my two-week project to select the top 10 classical music composers in history, not including those still with us.
Left, 1. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). From top left, 2. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), 3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 — 91). 4. Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828). From middle left, 5. Claude Achille Debussy (1862 — 1918), 6. Igor Stravinsky (1882 — 1971), 7. Johannes Brahms (1833 — 97). From bottom left, 8. Giuseppe Verdi (1813 — 1901), 9. Richard Wagner (1813 — 83), 10. Bela Bartok (1881 — 1945).
I am about to reveal my list, though as those who have been with me on this quest already know, I’ve dropped hints... And the winner, the all-time great, is ... Bach!
My top spot goes to Bach, for his matchless combination of masterly musical engineering (as one reader put it) and profound expressivity. Since writing about Bach in the first article of this series I have been thinking more about the perception that he was considered old-fashioned in his day. Haydn was 18 when Bach died, in 1750, and Classicism was stirring. Bach was surely aware of the new trends. Yet he reacted by digging deeper into his way of doing things. In his austerely beautiful “Art of Fugue,” left incomplete at his death, Bach reduced complex counterpoint to its bare essentials, not even indicating the instrument (or instruments) for which these works were composed.
On his own terms he could be plenty modern. Though Bach never wrote an opera, he demonstrated visceral flair for drama in his sacred choral works...
The obvious candidates for the second and third slots are Mozart and Beethoven. If you were to compare just Mozart’s orchestral and instrumental music to Beethoven’s, that would be a pretty even match....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I don’t like Aaron Copeland. His music reminds me of a Corn Flake Commercial.
I LOVE Borodin! The Complete Polovetzian Dances with vocals, in Russian, is sublime.
Also the string quartet that was morphed into “This Is My Beloved” in Kismet is a favorite of mine.
Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsokoff, Chopin, Mahler, and my personal fav, Dvorak, would all make my list.
You are a FlagLady after my own heart! :-)
Dieterich Buxtehude (German pronunciation: [ˈdiːtəʁɪç bʊkstəˈhuːdə], also Dietrich; Danish Diderich [ˈdidəʁɪk buksdəˈhuːðə], equivalent to the modern Diderik) c. 1637-1639 - May 1707 was a German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services. He composed in a wide variety of vocal and instrumental idioms, and his style strongly influenced many composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach. Buxtehude, along with Heinrich Schütz, is considered today to be one of the most important German composers of the mid-Baroque.[2]
I’m going with Debussy. Bach??? no soul.
This was not MY list, but the author of the article. Although I do agree with him on seven; how he could leave Chopin off, I will NEVER know.
hahahah! That’s what this thread needs!
Pucinni and Kate Bush.
Listen to the Mass in B Minor and then see if you can say that. If you can, then *you* have no soul.
With all respect, you have not given Bach the time he deserves...please listen to the partitas for solo violin or perhaps the orchestral suites. I used to think the same about him (that he was without soul), but boy was I wrong.
I’m sure there are some fine people on that list. But I’m going with (or at least going to add) Charles Ives, Edgar Varese, Leonard Bernstein, and Frank Zappa.
I respectfully disagree.
Perhaps Debussy would be better off on a list of the 10 greatest composers of the 20th century.
Bela Bartok? I don’t get that.
Here’s some more of that “souless” music...
Bach’s Sonata No. 1 “Siciliana”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGEBiPy5lH0&feature=related
Wagner the Pink Floyd of his time.. Such innovations and such beautifully composed preludes. And his hard a— operas were probably considered the Metal of the 1800s. IMO he is one of the best. If you can get past what a nasty man he was.
No way Gilmour blows away Page any day.
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