the greatest

Anthony Tommasini has completed his ten greatest composers list. His result:

1. Bach
2. Beethoven
3. Mozart
4. Schubert
5. Debussy
6. Stravinsky
7. Brahms
8. Verdi
9. Wagner
10. Bartok

These are all pretty obvious candidates, so rather than invent my own list from scratch, how would I modify his? The only composer I'd feel completely comfortable about striking without a second thought is Debussy, and for him I can substitute Shostakovich. Maybe Bartok could go also, but who would I put for another 20th century composer? Prokofiev?

Then I would insist that opera, for all its obvious correlations, is a different genre from classical concert music, and strike Verdi and Wagner on those grounds. (My candidate for the greatest opera composer of all time would be Arthur Sullivan.) That would allow me to put in Haydn, giving the Viennese classicists a clean sweep, and perhaps Schumann or Mendelssohn.

Of what remains, Stravinsky is the one I'm least fond of, but he is very likable nonetheless, as well as also both very good and monumentally influential.

Other composers I'd rank highly get excluded from the top ten for one reason or other - Bruckner, not a wide enough range; Vaughan Williams, not consistently sufficient depth; and so on.

And that's how I back sideways into a list.