Classical Top Five

It is often hard to ignore the historical context of any artist, so I can understand why Wagner is so reviled.  But, if one can just isolate the music, and how he melded the music to the drama, he is quite an important artist.  I don't think gg107 said that he was as great as Bach, merely that he has been under-appreciated.  If I were to attach the same kind of historic responsibility to the Passion plays of Bach and the B Minor mass, in comparing Bach and Wagner, I would have to conclude that the Nazi body count is pretty paltry compared to that of Christianity.

I read through the responses the other day and refrained from responding. The pandemic and a new CD player with a good DAC encouraged me to listen to and expand my music collection. I soon began to focus on classical music and to appreciate Mozart more than ever. I sometimes try to listen to the other greats, especially Beethoven, but keep coming back to Mozart, especially his chamber music, to the extent that I sometimes need to take a break from his intensity. 

Today I came across this, which, I feel, makes much of what I read the other day somewhat irrelevant:

"As with all great artists, Mozart expressed not only the soul, the taste and the aroma of his epoch but also the spiritual world of man--man for all ages, in all the complexity of his desires, his struggles and ambivalence. Some of us, who only identify in Mozart a certain aristocratic refinement, may find these words strange. Often we meet with a condescending attitude towards him, to his music, reminiscent of the chiming of bells in a music box! 'It's very nice but not for me," say such people, 'Give me passion--Beethoven, Brahms, tragic, monumental...." Such comments only reveal one thing: these people don't know Mozart." 
--L Bernstein

Apropos of the above comment, most musicians I know feel that way about Mozart.
There’s just magic.
An epithet I once made up:
”Mozart tickles the soul”