Greatest Composers of All Time

I would have Schubert in the top five for just what he composed in the last year of his life.

Stravinsky should be in the top fifteen, particularly for his influence on subsequent generations of composers--Rites of Spring was a real game changer.

Although I don't quite know where to place them, the mid century Brits loom large in my estimation--Britten, Walton, Vaughn Williams are all favorites of mine, and others, such as Alwyn are pretty good too.

I would have Schoenberg, Bartok and Shostakovich up pretty high as well for somewhat modern composers.

It would be interesting to see how deep one must go before an American born composer makes the list--Ives, Copland, Barber, Adams, Beach ???

Who, and where placed, would be the first female composer? I have works by about two dozen female composers but none, except Hildegard von Bingen, would be considered major composers.

Learsfool, If you ever get the chance you might enjoy hearing Wagner performed in a small hall with period instruments as it would have during the times he composed. Enjoyable and informative. Hard to find though I think. Barry Wordsworth/New Queen's Hall Orchestra/Eye of the Storm 5001 CD.

Re Beethoven - I would argue that his taking us out of the form of music that preceeded him into the 'romantic' period was huge. For example we went from symphonic form with movements not necesarily sharing anything that were unifying into a 'whole' piece. And, re influence, everyone followed his path. While its readily apparent in the music of Hayden and Mozart I'll throw out an example which clearly illustrates the seperation of movements in the classical period. Mozart's Elvira Madigan Piano Concerto (#21). Where did that 2d movement come from? How does it relate to the first and last movement. Love it anyway, but....

PS I realize that you know all of that and much more, I just really wanted to mention the Wagner HIP recording and its use of period horns but I got carried away.

Schubertmaniac, Only slightly off topic, but since Schubert is your favorite composer I'll ask you - or anyone else who can respond for that matter.

What do you think of Paul Lewis' recordings of Schubert's music for solo piano released in the last year or so? I've been really impressed so far. One CD down, 3 to go. I was mesmerized by his performance of some of the Impromptus'.

Newbee, an answer from"anyone else." I like Lewis's Schubert very much, but I like Richter's better. They are older, with dated sonics, some audience noise, but personally, its the best Schubert I've heard. Cheap too, on the alto label. Praga has a couple SACD releases (remasters I assume) that I haven't heard yet. For the money, the Alto releases are a no brainer.

Hi Newbee - Mozart and Haydn indeed did begin writing works in which all of the movements were unified by motivic development. Mozart's last three great symphonies, and also the Prague; Haydn picked up on this further after Mozart's death with the London symphonies. This was not a new thing with Beethoven, though he did it with much smaller motivic units than his predecessors - this was the main difference, as well as his expansion of the symphonic form. Beethoven's Romanticism is often greatly exaggerated - formally speaking, he is a Classical composer through and through. This is even the case with Schubert, when he writes in sonata form in the symphonies, chamber music, etc. It is in the song form where Schubert begins to be Romantic. The Romantic movement in music does not really start until their successors - Chopin, Schumann and Liszt in particular. These are the first composers who are completely Romantic in outlook and form. The late Charles Rosen wrote a great book on this very subject, which I happened to just finish reading a couple of weeks ago.

As far as the horn in Wagner's day - it was actually very little different from our modern horns, except they were mostly single horns, and still used some crooks, as opposed to the modern "double" horn which does not require crooks. But the valves on the horns in Wagner's day were very little different from our own. The Vienna Philharmonic still uses that type of instrument to this day, by the way. I am a big fan, and keep threatening to buy a Vienna one of these days and use it in my orchestra. As a low horn player, I could probably get away with it in many circumstances. If you search the Vienna Horns, they have recorded a couple of great discs. Those instruments are essentially unchanged from Wagner's day.

Also, the size of the orchestra Wagner ideally liked for his works was indeed the equivalent of the modern large symphony orchestra, though he often had to make do with less earlier in his career - but this was not by his choice. In fact, Wagner loved to triple the winds when performing Beethoven, making the orchestra even larger, something which is not done anymore generally (though again, it is sometimes done in Vienna in certain cases, for instance the third movement of the 6th). Mahler also liked to do that.