the greatest

[calimac]

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.

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I'm far too ignorant of music to have an informed opinion of this, but there are a couple more I would ask if you've considered. Of course Handel's most widely known work is primarily choral; are you ruling him out on grounds parallel to those for ruling out operatic composers? A lot of people seem to rate Chopin very highly; what about him? I'm personally fond of Nielsen, but I suppose he's much too minor a figure.

Going in the other direction, is there anyone earlier than the baroque era you'd think about?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I'm not ruling out Handel, and he might well make my top 20. Chopin, Tommasini suggests, was not out to be a "great" composer, and narrowness of scope is a handicap as it is for Bruckner, nor am I particularly fond of much of his work, though it depends on how it is played.

Composers before the High Baroque were left out by Tommasini a priori; they're really in a sufficiently different business that comparison is difficult. Most often named by objectors: Monteverdi. For my part: most of the greatest music of those earlier eras is church music, and I've never developed a sufficiently strong sense of the individual composers of it for that era to judge. Instrumental music (and to some extent, secular vocal music) is different, but the instrumental music of that time is too light, though much of it is very good.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

These days, Handel's operas are as much performed as his choral music.

[rwl.livejournal.com]

Hard to take seriously any top ten composers list that didn't include Papa Haydn. I also think that Dvorak deserves a place in the list,and perhaps Tchaikovski.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Dvorak and Tchaikovsky wrote more sheerly lousy music than any other two composers capable of writing music as great as their best works are. So their best is as good as anyone's, but the average drops.

[rwl.livejournal.com]

Your tastes are obviously much different from mine. Dvorak and Tchaikovski were masters melodic music and variations on it, which to me is the is what the pleasure of classical music is all about. To me, most of the 20th century composers are just sheer white noise. Bruckner, in particular, is unlistenable. Mozart would have had a field day mocking him.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

"Dvorak and Tchaikovski were masters melodic music"

I entirely agree. (See where I said "capable of writing music as great as their best works are.") However, they both also wrote reams of worthless sludge, especially early in their careers. It's rarely heard, and for good reason.

[(Anonymous)]

To me, most of the 20th century composers are just sheer white noise. Bruckner, in particular, is unlistenable.

OK, but Bruckner died in 1896.

-MTD/neb

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

One could make a case that Wagner's operas were much better symphonies.

How about including Sibelius?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Sibelius? He's nice too, he's nice too. Probably a better candidate than Bruckner or Nielsen, even though I like the other two a bit more.

It is sometimes said that Wagner's operas would be much better if the singers would just shut up, but what you'd get if you played a Wagner opera without the vocals would be not a symphony - Wagner didn't deal in symphonic structure or development - but a giant Richard Strauss-style tone poem, except that it'd be better than any actual Richard Strauss tone poem.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

Sullivan is an entertaining choice for greatest opera composer. If you're going to split off opera from concert music, then maybe we should split things down more by genre lines - don't consider chamber music with symphonic, or something.

I'm not planning to make my own list, but I'm glad Tommasini's had Debussy and Bartok. They are the two great hidden influences on music of the 20th and 21st centuries, in addition to having written a great deal of transcendent music.

rwl, there's plenty of top-notch 20th c. tonal music, if that's what you're implying with the remark about 20th c. music being mostly white noise to you. It's a century with something for everyone, whether you like high modernism or melodies.

Nielsen: great and underrated.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

Fun post and fun comments, informative and provocative.

I'll take a stab at an alternative top ten:

1 Bach
2 Beethoven
3 Haydn
4 Mozart
5 Schubert
6 Mieczyslaw Weinberg
7 Shostakovich
8 Sibelius
9 Nielsen
10 Dvorak

Yes, I rank Haydn higher than Mozart. I am going way out on a limb by including Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996); almost all of the recordings of his music ever made have been made since his death, and in my view he is emerging as one of the 20th century's greatest composers -- I will even go so far as to suggest that he may prove to be greater than Shostakovich, though I'm happy to defer to the latter and have them swap places for now. Though Nielsen wasn't nearly as prolific as the others, at his very best he was so incredible that I think he deserves a spot here. So too with Dvorak -- I'm happy to pretend that all his wretched student works don't exist -- his mature works alone are more than enough to get him into the bottom of this list.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

Hmm, two Weinberg sightings this week, the other being on the ArkivMusic web site, where they were hawking a recording of string quartets by him. Perhaps it's a sign.

Slightly off topic, but calimac is one of the go-to guys for this - I spotted a set of Robert Simpson's symphonies at Berkshire Record Outlet. What's his music like?