Greatest Composers of All Time

I think the op's question is nearly unanswerable in any specific way(I also don't think it needs an answer), I just have a tangential thought. I'm a classical musician, and I play in orchestras a lot. As such, I have a lot of repertoire that I need to listen to and practice. I have found over the last few years in music school that you simply cannot listen to, for example, Mahler the same way you would listen to Mozart. You have to approach every composer with his aesthetic firmly in mind. It might seem obvious, but when we approach classical (lowercase c) music with the general mindset of "I'm going to listen to x symphony" we are setting ourselves up for a sub-optimal experience.

Greatest Composer? Hard choice. But the one Classical Composer that has the largest iconic status of all time is Beethoven. He has more books published and in print on him than any other. Mozart comes in second. His Symphonie's, Concerto's and Sonata's are globally recognized as the greatest ever wriiten. His music has been played more in motion picture's, TV Commercials and radio ads than any other composer. By 1805 the People of Vienna referred to Beethoven as the King of the Piano. Between 1792 and 1797 Beethoven beat the top three piano player's in Europe in competition's in the Palace's of Vienna. Those player's were Joseph Gelenek, Lipavsky, and Josef Wolffi. Winning competition's back then would secure you a one year contract to live in a Palace apartment as a house composer with a monthly salary and a horse and carriage. Beethoven never lost a competition. Beethoven is responsible for designing and giving birth to the first early Grand Piano due to his deafness. Around 1809 he drew sketches on paper of a piano with larger hammer's, longer piano string's, and more key's and sent his sketche's to the John Broadwood and Son's piano company in London. Broadwood built the piano. First of its kind.

Yes, but more than anything that simply says that LVB grew up a generation later than WAM. He came along as music was emerging from a church and court medium to a point where the newly-emerging middle class was creating an outlet that previously did not exist.

Personally, I'll take Beethoven over Mozart most of the time, but that's just my opinion. Again, there is no one absolute best.

Tostadosunidos..Mozart and Beethoven are the same generation..not a generation later. Mozart was born in 1756 and Beethoven was born in 1770. There has always been speculation that Beethoven had two private meetings with Mozart in Vienna in the Spring of 1787. Beeethoven was 16.
It was Beethoven's first trip to Vienna, but he had to return to Bonn in July upon receiving news his Mother was dying. Mozart died in December 1791 at the age of 35 from kidney failure. Several month's later Beethoven returned to Vienna and resided their until his death in March of 1827.

Audiozen, your statement in your first post today is incorrect. Wagner is the most written about figure in classical music, by miles. In fact, at one point, he was the third most written about figure in the Western world, behind only Christ and Napoleon. This was true in the late 1980s, anyway, and I seriously doubt any other composer has passed him in the 45 years or so since.