Greatest Composers of All Time

Not much that I can add to Learsfool's excellent posts. I would simply further stress a couple of points:

The importance of Wagner cannot be overemphasized. As Learsfool points out, his influence on the direction of music was greater than just about any other composer. What is seldom pointed out is the vast influence that he had on other art forms; notably literature. His music and compositional style was one of James Joyce's primary influences which led to the lyricism and "orchestral" gestures in his writing. Wagner was an artistic giant of the highest order and undoubtedly deserving a place in a
"greatest" list.

The subject of Beethoven is a particularly interesting one. I completely agree that his Romanticism is exaggerated; he was a Classicists more than anything and a key transitional figure on the way to true Romanticism. The idea that one composer "introduced" the Romantic era in music is missing the point of how music (and all art) evolves. The move away from the clarity and order of Classicism to the more emotion-driven and eventual programatic aspects of Romanticism was not a sudden one. For me, one of the more interesting facts about Beethoven and how his music points to a slow move away from Classicism is the fact he was the first major composer to make a living as an "independent contractor" (in modern parlance). He was the first to not be employed by a noble or court as "composer in residence" and made his living selling his works and teaching. If that independence, with all it's uncertainty, doesn't inspire romance, I don't know what would.

Learsfool thanks for your throughful response. Maybe I am reading more into Beethoven's 5th. While the opening motif develops the theme, it is the context of the development of the subsequent movements, the darkness and shadow of the opening movement to the final sense of optimism, triumph if you will in the final movement and I was speaking in that context of Beethoven's romanticism. Wonder what he was thinking when he wrote it. I never get any of that sense when listening to the symphonies of Hayden or Mozart, just the typical structure of classical form and of course what I consider one of the greatest classical era symphonies, the 41st "Jupiter" which encompasses the counterpoint elements of the baroque in the final movement and about every element of classical form at the very highest level, unsurpassed IMHO. I suppose I need to get into Greenberg's lectures for a more thorough education in this subject because it certainly is a fascinating development in Western music, from the Classical era to the Romantic, so much seemingly influenced by Beethoven. Thanks again for making me realize this :)

Yes, well, Wagner, real important and all that, for sure. Highly influential. His experiments in tonality, chromaticism, and the unification of forms all obviously a big deal. But a) he wrote Opera only (or almost only), and b) the classical forms and formats that he might appear to have transcended in fact lived on past him, while the format his championed did not. Corigliano still writes symphonies, Carter and Feldman wrote string quartets, and many many modern masters have written piano sonatas. Many of all of these still employ classical forms such as sonata allegro, rondo, fugue, and many are rich with counterpoint. But where are the modernists who write anything really Wagnerian? I don't deny the influence of course, but it is easy to overstate it.

Reason (a) above -- writing in either one or only a handful of formats -- similarly for me disqualifies composers like Bruckner, Mahler, Chopin, Verdi, and some others from the list. The composers I listed above mastered all the formats and instruments, and were prolific as well.

Learsfool says many interesting things, most of them very reasonable. but being a horn player no more requires or justifies selecting Mahler than, e.g., being a classical guitarist would require or justify picking Fernando Sor. I had 2 good friends in college, one a tuba player and the other a violinist. The tuba player knew and loved Mahler, Dvorak, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky-Ravel, Holst, Prokofiev, Strauss. The violinist knew and loved music, period.

If I were a classical horn player, I'd aspire most to play in a performance of Mahler's third symphony !

I understand the perspective but would tend to disagree that the greatest composers wrote all forms. In the case of Mahler, for example, I recall reading that his symphonies were more grand vehicles in which to incorporate many simpler motifs like songs but on a grand symphonic scale.

In other words, if Mahler were around today, he might be doing "concept albums". :^)