50 greatest composers

[Glissando]

id put mozart way down, he doesnt stand out to me, he wasnt incredibly innovative.

his operas howevers are great, but frankly i dont hear more depth or greatness in his music than rachmaninov, beethoven, alkan, etcetera..

WHAT?!
You cannot be serious!!!!!!!!!!!
Why does everyone dislike Mozart so much- his music is pure genius. I so don't get why he isn't more popular.
grrr. Stop picking on Mozart!

[klavierkonzerte]

Where the hell is Bartok, Berlioz, Wieniawski, Glazunow?

wieniawski and glazunov, seiously?

[musicsdarkangel]

no Bartok? ....

[lenny]

WHAT?!
You cannot be serious!!!!!!!!!!!
Why does everyone dislike Mozart so much- his music is pure genius. I so don't get why he isn't more popular.
grrr. Stop picking on Mozart!

i stand by what i said

i dont dislike mozart, i love quite a few of his works, but i have NO REASON WHATSOEVER to rank him as the second greatest composer of all time

i simply cant see what makes him superior to beethoven...etc

[Skeptopotamus]

Mozart sucks!  And not in a good way. hehe jk

I honestly dont like mozart though.  Too simple.  I'm a glutton for complication.

Rautavaara
Liszt
Bartok
Ravel
Rachmaninov
Penderecki
Prokofiev
Babajanian
Corigliano
Rzewski
Kodaly
Britten
Debussy
Glass
Massenet
Ligeti
Bowen
Alkan
Stravinsky
Ginastera
Berg
Szymanowski
Sorabji
Elfman
Hindemith
De Falla
Shostakovich
Danielpour
Goldsmith
Scriabin
Tchaikovsky
Nymen
Schumann
Anthiel
Glazunov



And I'm aware Beethoven and Chopin aren't on here.  That wasn't a mistake.

haha talk about a controversial list eh?


********in that order

[DarkWind]

Babajanian
Danielpour
Goldsmith
Nymen

These are the only guys I'm not familiar with. Care to provide some recordings? Also, what do you have of Antheil? I've only been able to hear fragments of his Ballet Mecanique, and would love to hear that piece, as well as his Sonata Sauvage.

[lenny]

These are the only guys I'm not familiar with. Care to provide some recordings? Also, what do you have of Antheil? I've only been able to hear fragments of his Ballet Mecanique, and would love to hear that piece, as well as his Sonata Sauvage.

goldsmith is a famous movie score composer, youve heard his music for sure, but you porobably didnt know it!

and michael nyman, composer of the famous 'the piano' soundtrack, with that famous theme..

[Skeptopotamus]

babajanian you've probably heard one piece of his- the Poem for Piano.  It's a peronal favorite.

Danielpour wrote The Enchanted Garden which you may have heard.

Goldsmith wrote tons of stuff i KNOW you've heard.

And Nymen I'm surprised you don't know him.  He is very famous, not for the piano though.  He did write a piano concerto though.



I can give you some pieces by those guys if you want easily if you give me your email, and I've got recordings of some of anthiel's symphonies.

[DarkWind]

darkwind AT darkwinddesign DOT com

Send them away, all the piece you two have mentioned, if you happen to have recordings. I'd love to hear them! Also, be sure to just replace the AT with @ and the DOT with "." . It's to prevent e-mail collecting bots.

[Ant1]

i noticed all of these liszts are quite good but there are a few mistakes that need to be rectified. mozart should be removed, along with beethoven, and chopin and astor piazzolla, scarlatti and bach should dominate the ranks

mozart

[Skeptopotamus]

yes!


hehe im not the only one who isnt a big chopin fan.

[SteinwayTony]

I'm quite confident that the people on this forum who dislike Mozart do so because he is not as virtuosic and flashy as Liszt and Alkan.

These half-wits need to realize that, if anything, it is more difficult to perform a convincing rendition of a Mozart sonata, because the nature of his music is such that the pianist is expected to give a "perfect" performance.  There is no room for error.  On the other hand, if Skeptopotamus were to sit down at the bench, start drooling and twitching like a retard, hold down the pedal and slam down a bunch of notes for ten minutes, he would probably tell you he just played something Alkan wrote, and proceed to add it to his impressive repertoire list*.  I have a great deal of respect for Liszt and Alkan, but I do not take kindly to people who just play technically difficult pieces for the sake of technical difficulty and brush everybody else off as "shite."**

*   https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,7121.0.html
** https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,581.msg70937.html#msg70937

[musik_man]

Could those of you who hate Beethoven and Mozart possibly give us a reason?

To answer the original topic of the post, I hate any and all atonal music.  That and Kenny G.(whenever I hear him I think of Wayne's World, which reveals what listening to Kenny G is really like)

[Glissando]

I'm quite confident that the people on this forum who dislike Mozart do so because he is not as virtuosic and flashy as Liszt and Alkan.

Agreed.
Mozart was amazing- look, he has successfully written for all instruments, for symphony, piano, opera, all different moods of music (happy, sad, romantic, calming, etc. etc.). And you want to brush him aside, because his music is too 'simple'? Is it easy to compose a 'simple', yet flowing and beautiful melody? And anyone who can play Mozart well- do you think Mozart is easy to play? I think romantic music is infinitely easier. Mozart requires so much more than just technique to sound good- you have to have musicality to play Mozart. And usually you don't have the pedal to help cover up your mistakes like you do in romantic music. I've heard people bang Chopin and everyone loved it anyway, but if you bang Mozart- you are in big trouble.
So don't say Mozart is easy to play well. It isn't.
Besides, does it really matter so much whether a piece is difficult or not, if it is truly beautiful? I think not.
BTW- has anyone else noticed that the most annoying posters this (and other) forums have had have always been huge fans of Alkan? 

[lenny]

Agreed.
Mozart was amazing- look, he has successfully written for all instruments, for symphony, piano, opera, all different moods of music (happy, sad, romantic, calming, etc. etc.). And you want to brush him aside, because his music is too 'simple'? Is it easy to compose a 'simple', yet flowing and beautiful melody? And anyone who can play Mozart well- do you think Mozart is easy to play? I think romantic music is infinitely easier. Mozart requires so much more than just technique to sound good- you have to have musicality to play Mozart. And usually you don't have the pedal to help cover up your mistakes like you do in romantic music. I've heard people bang Chopin and everyone loved it anyway, but if you bang Mozart- you are in big trouble.
So don't say Mozart is easy to play well. It isn't.
Besides, does it really matter so much whether a piece is difficult or not, if it is truly beautiful? I think not.
BTW- has anyone else noticed that the most annoying posters this (and other) forums have had have always been huge fans of Alkan? 

im afraid youre both being a bit ignorant here

i simply dont like mozart as much, because i dont find him as mucically or emotionally appealing.

alkan is way more dramatic and furious, alot more extreme, this is more emotionally appealing than mozart.

also - the whole 'classical era' style has a harmonic and textural simplicity that sometimes annoys me.

[Skeptopotamus]

oh yeah.


i barreled through the alkan in my repertoire but the Turkish March killed me.


PLEASE.  i can play alot by both composers and it makes me want to vomit all over you hearing that you think alkan is easier than mozart.  Just cause you suck furiously at mozart doesnt mean he's hard to people with talent.



ARG i need to stop doing this.  but that was too easy.

[aquariuswb]

oh yeah.


i barreled through the alkan in my repertoire but the Turkish March killed me.


PLEASE.  i can play alot by both composers and it makes me want to vomit all over you hearing that you think alkan is easier than mozart.  Just cause you suck furiously at mozart doesnt mean he's hard to people with talent.



ARG i need to stop doing this.  but that was too easy.

If playing Mozart is easy for you then you probably butcher it. You don't seem to understand what people are saying. It's not hard for blindlingly fast technical reasons -- it's hard because it must be played flawlessly. There's great Mozart and there's bad Mozart. And I've never heard anyone who plays great Mozart say that it's easy. Get over yourself.

Could those of you who hate Beethoven and Mozart possibly give us a reason?

To answer the original topic of the post, I hate any and all atonal music.  That and Kenny G.(whenever I hear him I think of Wayne's World, which reveals what listening to Kenny G is really like)

You're mistaking this thread with the "Music you really hate" thread. And I agree, K*nny G is the pits.

[Radix]

1. Medtner
2. Beethoven
3. Rachmaninoff

That's all you need. 

[lenny]

i think there is a major misconception that only mozart must be played flawlessly

alkan and liszt should be played flawlessly too!

yes, due to the fact that the music is texturally thicker, and not every note is as 'essential' to the melodic structure - wrong notes arent quite as much of a problem.

but also actually - godowsky demands note perfect accuracy to sound convincing, its like bach on steroids.

[Glissando]

oh yeah.


i barreled through the alkan in my repertoire but the Turkish March killed me.

Yeah, it takes a lot of practice to play that piece well. Keep it up, you'll master it in 10 years or so.

[Skeptopotamus]

If playing Mozart is easy for you then you probably butcher it. You don't seem to understand what people are saying. It's not hard for blindlingly fast technical reasons -- it's hard because it must be played flawlessly. There's great Mozart and there's bad Mozart. And I've never heard anyone who plays great Mozart say that it's easy. Get over yourself.



You're mistaking this thread with the "Music you really hate" thread. And I agree, K*nny G is the pits.

never- i love myself!

[willcowskitz]

alkan is way more dramatic and furious, alot more extreme, this is more emotionally appealing than mozart.

Are you sure you don't mean: "Emotionally more *obvious* than Mozart."

I think romantic era music, especially Liszt, is generally more straight-forward than classical or baroque. If you have the technique, Liszt's music pretty much plays itself. For Mozart you don't always need developed technique (except that the scales he's chosen are sometimes uncomfortable for hands to play), but the problem is that Mozart's music is very "fragile", and easy to break. If one has been only predisposing themselves to emotionally quite trivial romantic music, the complexity of emotions that Mozart's music consists of, can be incomprehensible, even invisible. For a reason I don't think that Mozart bashers have even experienced his music in a way that would allow them to cast their vote. This is one characteristic in people that I don't understand; If there exists music that doesn't appeal to me and I can't tell why it would appeal to someone else, I don't put it aside as uninteresting or bad - instead I put it aside as "incomprehensible", and return to it after a while. If there is something I don't understand now, I'm sure it is possible to see it later, and that is exactly how I treat music that does not immediately appeal to me; I just wait for a better setting to approach it. Is it because people don't generally want to admit to themselves that they probably still aren't complete, and instead of accepting that and keeping the channel open for the music for the future, they just label it as "simple" ("explains" their inability to relate to that music), or non-appealing (allows them to tune themselves into the "passive mode" where they only process the most immediate and obvious emotional signals they receive).

[lenny]

i disagree that liszt's music plays itself, its very subtle and demands a colourful musicality to bring out its genius.

yes, mozart is less obvious, he is alot less extreme, but i wouldnt say hes necesarily more subtle.

[willcowskitz]

i disagree that liszt's music plays itself, its very subtle and demands a colourful musicality to bring out its genius.

I think Liszt's music is so detailed from it's structure, yet so obvious in it's emotionality, that if you possess the technical abilities to play it, there's a little effort to add in terms of interpretation, and it doesn't show out as well as with Mozart if you lack understanding of the music. Liszt is often very "bangable", there's a passage for this and that emotion, here's the twist, now we contrast these previous parts with another fast passage - its easily slicable into a "movie script" where you can tell which parts are communicating what. Because its easier to grasp emotion in Liszt's music, it communicates to us on a "lower" level (which I see as one reason for why some people like Liszt, and others just don't - because they differ from each other fundamentally), pushing buttons in our heads to produce a sad, happy, suspicious, thoughtful atmosphere etc., the music itself is also easier to transmit to the listener, because when your use of dynamics - soft sound here, hard sound there - is used to strengthen the already immediate reactions on the listener, whereas in Mozart there is not so clear script to how one is "supposed to" experience the music, and every moment counts as much more than in a sentimental passage of bangable Liszt. The way Mozart displays emotions is much more "miniaturistic", which is why it is easier to trip on the details and guide the listener to a whole wrong direction when trying to bring the music to a comprehensible scale without breaking it. Liszt was more elaborate on emotions in his music, adding "effects" and lots of unessential additional frames for his music, which I see another potential reason for why some people get tired of his music quickly, and this also counts as a great interpretative/musical difficulty in Mozart's music compared to that of Liszt's; there's a short moment in time in which you're supposed to express something very essential for the piece, and if you blow it you'll just have to move on to the next phase dragging the misguided audience behind you, whereas Liszt usually  makes sure nobody will miss the landscapes he's painted, and a note or a couple wrong doesn't matter as in the larger scale. Mozart can't be "compressed" without losing it's shape.

I'd also keep in mind when listening to Mozart, that major doesn't always mean happy or worriless, it might simply be an alternative perspective.
 

[lenny]

i completely disagree with your simplified perspective of liszt

mozart's music isnt any more complex than liszt's, sure - liszt's pianistic textures are more varied and full, these notes are not of as much melodic value as mozart's, but even if you take out these notes of 'textural value', the harmonic and melodic core of the music is just as rich and 'great', in my opinion.

i dont think mozart is harder to play than liszt.

liszt is technically much more difficult, and i dont see why he is any less musically difficult.

[willcowskitz]

My attempted explanation of some of Mozart's and Liszt's differences was intentionally simplified, or I wouldn't compare Liszt's music to a movie script. My point was though that Liszt has more layers, and layers above layers, and hides the low-level stimulus-response type of reactive emotions within these layers resulting in a stronger, broader, more "expressive" structure, but also musically easier to receive and transmit as bigger packets. I think that when we speak of difficulty in music, technical side of it is unimportant because technique is simply what makes playing and interpreting music possible, and in the end when one has achieved technical profoundity, the highest demand arises from musicality - to internalize music as you play it, touch it just enough to allow it to become real in that brief moment in time. Putting technical aspects aside, flawlessly processing and transmitting Mozart is by far more demanding than to throw oneself into a "Liszt mood" and just react to the emotions that the music evokes. I just think that when you're playing Mozart, you have to be more present in the moment, in the music, to tie the notes together, articulate the music seamlessly.

If you're saying that Mozart is easier to play, who are you relating to? If you're playing a Mozart sonata that doesn't much appeal to you, to someone else, and in the end the listener just says "It was nice", do you take it as a succesful performance? Or are you alone a sufficient quantity to relate your music to in order to determine success in bringing out the music? I'm just interested to know, why do you think Mozart is easy to play, and I hope you're not only thinking of the technical side of it.

[BoliverAllmon]

this thread is unbelieveable. some people here are so pompous and ignorant it is pathetic.

[Lance Morrison]

It is hard to argue with the listings of the great composers....Beethoven, Liszt, Mozart, Chopin---all incomparable

but out of renaissance music, it is absolutely essential to at least include Josquin, and many others are very important including the Elizabethan composers like William Byrd......of course there is the great transitional figure Monteverdi...and in the baroque I must insist on Rameau, who wrote many wonderful operas and was one of the most progressive figures in late baroque music. C.P.E. Bach too deserves some credit, and i really wish people would be nicer to Haydn

the 20th century has a lot of great composers, but unfortunately only Debussy, Ravel, Bartok, Hindemith and Stravinsky get much credit among most classical listners. It is only because of their accessibility....of course I still like them....yet I submit that Schönberg is a greater composer than any of them, and that Webern and Ives are not far behind. When it comes to the later 20th century composers, there are too many to pick from, many wonderful....and really, I have this deep hope that some obscure composer has used microtones and complex rhythms effectively, for all i've heard when people use them is tinkering

[jas]

I'd have put Palestrina much higher up. He appeals to the emotions as well as those looking for technical perfection. I know the story about how he rescued polyphony in the Catholic church isn't true but still, he proved that polyphony didn't have to make the music incomprehensible. His music's just gorgeous.
Beethoven would be at the top of my list, then J.S. Bach, then Chopin (he's actually my favourite but I realise Beethoven and Bach are more important in terms of "where would music be without him?").
After that it gets harder to decide!

It is hard to argue with the listings of the great composers....Beethoven, Liszt, Mozart, Chopin---all incomparable

I agree. The question of who's the "best" composer is just too hard to answer. If you're a pianist you could be justified in saying Chopin, but if you play the trumpet you're probably going to prefer someone who caters to your own musical requirements. (I know, this site is called the Piano Forum, but humour me .)

Also, I think it depends quite heavily on whether you consider a great composer to be someone who innovates or someone who exemplifies. I personally would put Haydn lower because he didn't move music along. But he did pretty much define Viennese Classicism. On the other hand, Beethoven didn't really define anything. But he did open up completely new ground.

Jas

[Lance Morrison]

somehow, Palestrina has just never appealed to me nearly as much as Josquin

[pianoboi666]

Here are my 25 favorite composers

1. Prokofiev( a friggin GOD)
2. Rachmanninov
3. Balaikirev
4. Shostakovich
5. Scriabin
6. Bartok
7. alkan
8. Khatchaturian
9. Rimsky Korsikov
10. Stravinsky
11. Brahms
12. Beethoven
13. Liszt
14. Bach
15. Sorabji
16. Rutaavara(not sure of spelling)
17. Barber
18. Chopin
19. Hindemith
20. Ravel
21. Debussy
22.Telemann
23.Sibelius
24.Glazunov
25. Tchaikovsky

[mikeyg]

Pianoboi666, just out of curiosity, are you from russia?

[pianoboi666]

hahaha, no I'm not from Russia, I'm actually from Florida.  I just love the russian composers, and I've found that their music has had a tremendous impact on my playing, listening, and composing.

Dan

[jakub_eisenbruk]

Hi there. I will also post my own list.

1. Mahler.
2. Bach & Glass (tied).
3. Beethoven.
4. Chopin.
5. Sorabji.
6. Messiaen.
7. Dvorak.
8. Liszt.
9. Rachmaninoff.
10. Brian.

Enough for me.

Jakub Eisenbruk, Mexico City.

[jre58591]

id love to see alistair hinton's list. im too lazy to make mine right now. maybe later.

[jakev2.0]

1. Mahler.
2. Bach & Glass (tied).

Uhh...ok.

[ganymed]

Chopin !!!!!!!! of course

[phil13]

Has anyone else noticed that Scriabin is missing from the list as well?

I would add Medtner as well, with the reasoning that he basically took over where Chopin left off, developing solely the art of the piano and taking it to an entirely new level.

Phil

[mephisto]

id love to see alistair hinton's list.

Me too, but let me guess:

01.   Bach
02.   Sorabji
03.   Chopin
04.   Alkan
05.   Carter(Elliot)
06.   Scriabin
07.   Busoni
08.   Godowsky
09.   Szymanowski
10.   Medtner

[klick]

What about Cage  


lol!!



Klick