The Greatest Composer of All Time?

Probably all that heavily sampled (c)rap music. Oh, I thought you were asking who the greatest COMPOSTER of all time was…

There were so many other composers I wanted to add:

Verdi

Monteverdi

Handel

Vivaldi

Telemann

Puccini

Gonoud

Rachmaninov

Ravel

Haydn

Sibelius

Saint-Saens

Stravinsky

Prokofiev

Shostakovich

Britten

Sondheim

Bernstein

Bruckner

Bruch

Bartok

Gershwin

Copeland

Cage

Johann Strauss

Richard Strauss

Elgar

Satie

Tallis

Rossini

Bizet

Bach

Your list isn't bad OP, but I would have taken out Mahler and added Handel. Maybe Vivaldi. You give very short shrift to pre-Bach musicians.

Another list would be your favorites, rather than the greatest. For favorites I would have said Ravel, Prokofiev, Saint-Saens, Dvorak, and Mendelssohn.

Brams, Batch and Beet-oh-ven.

I'm very far from a music historian or connoisseur of classical music; but this piece might be the most sublime three minutes in Western music.

I'm not a classical music aficionado, but I love Mozart. His music is so timeless and life-affirming. His operas are the only ones I truly enjoy.

"My music is better because I work harder."

Igor Stravinsky. He moved the dial on composed music three times in his career.

For me, it depends.

Greatest? Bach.

Best symphony composer? Beethoven.

Best piano sonatas? Mozart.

Best operas? Wagner, Puccini, or Verdi

Favorite? Brahms and Tchaikovsky.

Overrated? Wagner or Mahler.

Somehow my posts do not show up for me, but do for theirs. Test. I couldn't block myself, could I?

Yes, you can block yourself, r11

Did someone say bussy?

Best composer of fugues-Bach

Best composer of choral music-Bach (or Handel)

Best composer of symphonies-Beethoven (or Haydn or Mahler)

Best composer of sonatas-Beethoven

Best composer of string quartets-Haydn (or Beethoven)

Best composer of lieder-Schubert (or Wolf)

Best composer of Italian opera-Verdi (or Handel)

Best composer of German opera-Wagner (honorable mention-Strauss)

Best composer of Czech opera-Janacek (honorable mention-Dvorak)

Best composer of Russian opera-Mussorgsky (or Tchaikovsky)

Best composer of French opera-Massenet

Best composer of English opera-Britten

Best composer of tone poems-Strauss

Best composer in all fields-Mozart

Stravinsky for “The Rite of Spring” alone.

Thanks, R12, at least I know my posts are out there somewhere.

Comparisons Are Odious

Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata and Ode to Joy are perfection.

Mozart is my least favorite of all the "great" composers. His chamber pieces are well done but his large orchestral pieces are bland and predictable.

Beethoven is the best all around. There's nothing he didn't do well.

Brahms is erratic -- some great works, some not so great.

Schubert is amazing but wish he had lived longer.

Most underrated: Saint-Saens and Berlioz.

If I could only take the works of one composer to a desert island, etc. if would be Bach. Never get tired of Bach, ever.

Schubert was vaguely cute

Carey, Mariah

Bach. My favorite composer is Debussy, but Bach pretty much invented what we think of as "modern" classical music. Incredibly innovative.

Dear R22, I think you must be 600 years old if you consider Bach to be modern.

1. Bach

2. Bach

3. Mozart

Vivaldi, LeClair, Tchaikovsky, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Debussy, and if I hear Bach's Cello Concerto Prelude 1 one more time, I'll go stark raving mad!

[quote] LeClair

You'll have to post a YouTube video if you want us to believe this person exists.

Too inept to post a YouTube video, but it's Jean Marie LeClair, and he was murdered, maybe by second wife,....

[quote] YouTube video, but it's Jean Marie LeClair,

all the videos are over 3o minutes.

I like this “Rite of Spring” arrangement for two-pianos.

R23 No, but I did study music theory and composition. Bach pretty much created modern music theory, everything that comes after him is based on his innovations in music. He was critical in the move from modal to tonal music and really pushed what music could do. Incredibly innovative and a mathematical as well as musical genius.

Debussy, my personal favorite, was also innovative, but not as pivotal a figure as Bach.

R30 -- what the hell? Your post makes it seems as you think Datalounge is a forum for intelligent people who have studied subjects carefully and can offer insights in an articulate and thoughtful manner.

Freak.

R31, You're right, I forgot . . .Can I change my answer to Madonna?

[quote] Best composer of choral music-Bach (or Handel)

I think Vivaldi is a bit "slept on" in this category. His chroal music is sublime.

My favorite: Mahler. His second symphony is my greatest/favorite piece of music. Then come Schubert, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, in no particular order. I like Mozart's operas and piano concertos. I've also gotten to like Samuel Barber over the past few years.

Here’s another performance of the two piano version of Rite Of Spring, but this time performed by adorable twinks!

Beethoven

The Rite of Spring must have blown minds when it was released. It still sounds shocking today. Stravinsky is genius!

What about Philip Glass?

While I'm not crazy for any minimalist composer, r38, I prefer Steve Reich, or Terry Riley's "In C." I have several Philip Glass CDs, and wish I had someone I could give them to.

R37, it did. There was a riot in the theater when it was performed, as much for Nijinsky's dancing as Stravinsky's music.

John Williams and Max Bruch

Tcychowsky

Debussy is my favorite to listen to - serene and relaxing.

Sondheim, as voted for by the fags on DL

David Foster, hands down.

Any answer other than "Janet Jackson" is racist. Bunch of racist ol' white men!

Interestingly Richard Rodgers is apparently the most popular composer

Vivaldi's Four Seasons looks like it may be the most popular classical work. If you combine the different versions on youtube, it has something like 350 million views. That's incredible longevity for a piece that's more than 300 years old. Four Seasons is an incredible work that sounds incredibly modern to my ears but most of Vivaldi's other works are slept on, especially his choral works.

I voted for Tchaikovsky

Favorites: Scarlatti, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Saint-Saens, Dvorak, Ravel, Prokofiev

Least Favorites: Elgar, Mahler, Stravinsky

But the wonderful thing about classical music is there is so much, so very much, too chose from, you can spend a lifetime and never feel you don't have more to learn, more to listen to.

Berlioz glowers at all of you from the corner. Except you, R19. You can sit with us.

Berlioz STILL sounds avant-garde.

[quote] Beethoven is the best all around. There's nothing he didn't do well.

I would argue Mozart (followed by Dvorak) are the two best all around composers. Mozart had great works in countless categories. Beethoven's strength was definitely not in vocal works, Mozart owns him on that one.

Berlioz obviously thought so highly of himself

I love Verdi. The perfect operatic composer. Wagner’s pretty amazing too

From that list, it's always a toss-up between Beethoven and Mahler. Both so misunderstood as people while celebrated as composers.

Mozart, of course, while genius, can also sound a tad transparent once you see through his tricks and patterns.

Barry Gibb.

Anyone not saying Cardi B is just not interested in popular music. Behold:

[quote]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, you fucking with some wet ass pussy Bring a bucket and a mop for this wet ass pussy Give me everything you got for this wet ass pussy

R54 The first paragraph of his Memoirs.

R59, wow, worse than anyone could have imagined

John Tesh

Yanni

Strauss

There's Maliszewski, Rubinstein, Arensky, and Tchaikovsky, Sapellnikoff, Dmitriev, Tcherepnin, Kryzhanovsky, Godowsky, Artsybushev, Moniuszko, Akimenko, Soloviev, Prokofiev, Tiomkin, Koreshchenko.

There's Glinka, Winkler, Bortniansky, Rebikov, Ilyinsky, There's Medtner, Balakirev, Zolotarev and Khvoshchinsky. And Sokolov and Kopylov, Dukelsky and Klenovsky, And Shostakovich, Borodin, Glière, and Nowakowsky.

There's Lyadov and Karganoff, Markevitch, Panchenko, And Dargomyzhsky, Shcherbachov, Scriabin, Vasilenko, Stravinsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, and Gretchaninov, And Glazunov and César Cui, Kalinnikov, Rachmaninoff!

Stravinsky and Gretchaninov, Rumshinsky and Rachmaninoff, I really have to stop because we all have undergone enough!