Who would YOU (yes you) be?

[ihatepop]

Ok, who would you rather be and why?
If you find any mistakes with the spelling, please inform me.
Sorry for the long list.
Hope someone will bother to answer.
Oh yes, you can vote twice.
Good Luck (I wonder why)
 

[gymnopedist]

You have three Strausses, but no Ravel?

Also, either Frederic or Fryderyk Chopin, and Johannes Brahms.

[ihatepop]

You have three Strausses, but no Ravel?

Also, either Frederic or Fryderyk Chopin, and Johannes Brahms.

Thanks for the info. I'll change it immediately.

[ihatepop]

POLL UPDATE!

OK, you won't need this, but, what the heck...
According to our poll charts so far, Franz Liszt is the most voted for composer. Three Cheers For Liszt!!!

 
'\/'
 U

[kghayesh]

Why the hell would someone choose to be Chopin or Mozart or Beethoven ??

Isn't it obvious that all of them lived miserable lives, torn apart between illness, love, money, deafness ??

[pianistimo]

i don't want to be a man.  do i have to?  well, i do like beethoven - but he had such a hard life and at the end - whew, he had some medical problems. 

and clara schumann (was she on the list?) - had to be so strong emotionally.  i am tied to her philosophy of piano - but wouldn't necessarily want to go through all the things she did - with robert going insane and all.

i think i'll just be myself.

[damien]

Liszt is the best because of the fairly long life and the fact that he liked women lol

[mikey6]

Liszt is the best because of the fairly long life and the fact that he liked women lol

That or Bach - I mean, creating 20 children would be rather fun - fathering them on the other hand

[apion]

I'd be Brahms, with the only difference being that I would NOT destroy 75% of my compositional output.

[jre58591]

id be leo ornstein. he lived to be 107 years old.

[donjuan]

composers generally had pretty miserable lives... this was tough.  I voted for Liszt because he got all the ladies in the sack, and yetmiraculously died at a ripe old age from a non-STD related ailment --> pneumonia.

...better him than Mozart or Schubert; poor saps

[xavierm]

Not a very comprehensive list. No Proko?

[ahinton]

id be leo orns
tein. he lived to be 107 years old.

So it's the longevity that you sek in answering this, then? Well, Ornstein is certainly the best example to follow, that's for sure - and he lived to an even greater age than you mention - sources give his year of birth as 1892 or 1893, so he was either 108 or 109 when he died in February 2002, depending on which source you go for. But perhaps you should consider what it's like to be creatively inactive at so advanced an age. It is true that most compsers who have survived into their 90s had either stopped compsing by the time they reached the age of 90 (Rodrigo, Sorabji, Petrassi) or stopped very shortly afterwards (Brian). Ornstein was apparently still actively composing until he was 97. Paul de Flem continued until blindness took over when he was 94 (preventing him from completing a cycle of preludes for orchestra after he'd just completed his fourth symphony - like Ornstein, but unlike all those others mentioned here, he lived past his own centenary, dying in 1984 at the age of 103). But it is still perhaps to Leo Ornstein that you should look for your principal route to longevity - especially, perhaps, since he is believed (although the date is uncertain) to have shared a birthday - 11 December - with the one composer who is today still creatively active as he approaches his 99th year - Elliott Carter - only you obviously can't be him, because he's still up and at it himself!

Best,

Alistair

[ted]

I'm with pianistimo. I have absolutely no desire to be anybody except myself, musically or otherwise.

For longevity and productivity don't forget Havergal Brian. His creativity in old age was astonishing.

[ahinton]

For longevity and productivity don't forget Havergal Brian. His creativity in old age was astonishing.

I did mention Brian, in case you did not notice; his productivity ended in his early 90s, however - at an age less than that at which le Flem's was forced out of existence by blindness (Brian's creativity ended, let's not forget, because he self-admittedly ran out of new ideas), or at which Ornstein's ended for whatever reason it did, or at which Carter's still continues apace...

No wish to undermine Brian here, but...

Best,

Alistair

[houseofblackleaves]

I chose rach, because he's the most asian one up there on that list.

[Tash]

i'd rather marry one. maybe rach, or prokofiev, the russians are always hot. but debussy'd have a hot accent too. but i have a friend who's already baggsed him. her plan was to marry debussy and then have an affair with rach- i told her that'd probably be ok with debussy cos he'd most likely be doing the same thing. berlioz might keep me entertained though, and he'd have a hot accent...

[moi_not_toi]

I choose Bach and Liszt because they both had boiling Love lives.
over 50 children?
local musical hearthrob?

[Waldszenen]

Haydn or Handel for the reason that they were welcomed everywhere they went and everybody liked them.