Greatest Composers of All Time

One interesting thing to me is that unless I am remembering wrong, no one has mentioned Bruckner on this thread. In Europe, he is still considered second only to Beethoven as a symphonist. Rnm4, I mostly like your list, though I personally would not list either Ravel or Shostakovitch. To name two other 20th century candidates, how about Prokofiev and Hindemith? As a horn player, I also must have both Strauss and Mahler in a top ten. Another one of my favorites is the late Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo - no one wrote music as chromatic as his again until Wagner. Anyone not familiar with his madrigals in particular should check them out, especially the fifth and sixth books. For an American inclusion in the discussion, I like to promote Charles Ives, for me a much more quintessentially American composer than say Copland.

Learsfool. Bruckner made my list. I like Ives and Copland, but I would have a hard time bumping someone else off my top 15 to include one of them. Another interesting observation, by my memory, there were no British composers. I would wonder if one could not make a case for Britten in a top 15 list. I find so much of his work to be of outstanding quality. While he was not as prolific as some, there are outstanding examples in chamber, orchestral, and vocal genres.

1. Schubert, of course, hey there is a reason for my moniker......
2. Machaut
3. Schnittke
4. Webern
5. Beethoven
6. Mozart
7. Dufay
8. Van Morrison for writing "G-l-o-r-i-a" ;-))

I agree with Learsfool about the value of 'best' lists. Silly and at best fun. Ultimately, in most audio forums anyway, it is a value assigned with no foundation beyond which composer's music impresses that person at that particular time.

The alternative selection criteria for the 'best' could be (and I think should be) based on not only the popularity of the music but, maybe more importantly, the composers contribution to to the evolution of music.

For example, while I don't listen to Bach's music much, his contibution to the developement of music was huge. Wagner, another who introduced a form completely different from that which preceeded him and influenced subsequent composers, maybe not as huge as Bach, but I like Wagner music more. Beethoven is probably the most influential of all balancing both innovation and popularity (then and now). His music for me is just facinating and has been lasting.

The list which started this thread was, no matter how much you may agree with the selections, at least one in which the rational for the selections was set forth and could be the basis for some lively discussions. Not so much for most of the opinions contained in this thread I think.

Because it is so personal, I think, I will not contribute to the list. Who really cares what I like. But I must admit I have found it facinating to see who others have placed on thier lists. So far I've resisted challenging them. Visualize a halo over my head! :-)

Hi Brownsfan - I would certainly agree that a case for Britten in a top 15 is a very strong one.

@Newbee - it could be argued (and I have, against no less an authority than Robert Greenberg) that Wagner had a greater effect on the development of music than any other artist has ever had on their particular art. He is the textbook definition of a true iconoclast. As influential as Beethoven was, music still developed along roughly the same lines after him - whereas after Wagner, it splinters off into all kinds of different reactions, both for and against what he did. Harmony in particular was changed forever.