/lit/ - Literature

go stuy.

1. Bach
2. Dvorak
3. Beethoven
4. Mozart
5. Rachmaninoff
6. Grieg
7. Chopin
8. Debussy
9. Shostakovich
10. Sibelius

. . . . .

9001. Gershwin

>>1434526
Shostakovich is terrible

From the article that OP posted:

>So if you were to try to compile a list of the 10 greatest composers in history, how would you go about it?

>>1434459
Hello Calamari

Guillaume de Machaut

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZxAqWV7a0A

>>1434526
Why does your list titled "classical composers" include baroque and romantic composers?

>>1434546
shut up

>>1434546
Debussy is modernist you retarded faggot, look how little you know

>>1434530
he does have music that is bombastic or "harsh," i will give you that. you will never see a CD titled "shostakovich for relaxation" like you do with rachmaninoff.

however, the harsh designation doesn't really apply to shostakovich. he is able to make aggressive music with it still retaining coherence. compare this to the music composers such as bartok or messiaen, and you realize that it is the music of those composers that is aggravating. shostakovich was able to compose music that was aggressive without being aggravating.

>>1434567
haha his music is unoriginal crap

Tchaikovsky and Chopin 2 and 3.

I am pleased.

I wish the author of this article would explain his reasoning for his top picks instead of rambling on about the composers he didn't include or put near to the end of the list.

>>1434565
Woah there cowboy, Debussy DEFINITELY a modernist? The dude was so whack, he straddled the fence. Brutha was a playa, and dem playas get imitated. New World Symphony by Dvorak is based heavily on Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. Now New World Symphony IS the start of Modern. But is Debussy? That's arguable.

>>1434583
fuck.
your absolutely right. i am confusing shostakovich with stravinsky.
fuckin' russians, how do they work?

>>1434526

Perfect.

>>1434607
inb4 drunk

>>1434526
Aww, come on. Rhapsody in Blue was at least fun.

BWAAAAAAAH bah bah bah bum bum bum BUMMMM bum bum BUMM bum bum BUM bum BUMMMMMMMMM

Chopin will always be number 1 to me.

1. Johann Sebastian Bach
2. Ludwig van Beethoven
3. Arnold Schoenberg
4. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
5. Claude Debussy
6. Franz Schubert
7. Johannes Brahms
8. Bela Bartok
9. Elliott Carter
10. Franz Liszt

I had those qualities in the back of my head when I made this list:
forward lookingness
variety of output
quantity of great works
influence

some of them don't match well with all of them (bach wasn't forward looking for instance), but in those cases the rest more than makes up for it.

also, I'll have you know that /mu/ has great classical music threads.

um that's nice, i've actually been getting into classical music lately. Any recommendations for a good intro book to it?
Actually anyone have a link to any ebook on classical music, i've been searching forever for something like "classical music for dummies" or Classical music by Phil G. Goulding, but have failed miserably, halp.

>>1434622
this guy has sibelius as a top 10 composer, you're free to disregard anything he says. Grieg too, like what the hell. and dvorak, no. 2? don't make me laugh. The guy's one of the greatest melodist of all time, no denying, and I do love him dearly, but that does not make him top 10 material.

>>1434663
the rest is noise by alex ross on 20th century classical music! http://www.mediafire.com/?t17vcom8uavliom

disregard the fact that he's butthurt that pretention aside, there's some great avant-garde music though

>>1434680
thanks! i have this though, i was looking for something on older stuff, the baroque, classical and romantic periods

great book though

>See thread, go to youtube to listen to Ave Maria
>first autocomplete term is "Ave Maria Beyonce"
>highest rated comment is "I always imagine Agent 47 killing people in slow motion to this song"
>pic related

>>1434692
listen to this ave maria instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1H9OuWQ7mU

I knew I would spark more conversation about classical music here on /lit/, as opposed to /mu/

>>1434692
Our Vay Maria,
Grass, see her plen a
Dom in Oz, Take home
Benedict's tattoo.

>>1434622
you're right, the only reason i put gershwin there is because "an american in paris" seems to be way overplayed by the radio stations in my area.

The real 9001 is Bartok.

>>1434674
Sibelius is a top 10 composer no doubt. He consistently made great music and its not just a piece here and there. I can upload my Sibelius collection and school you if you would like.
Grieg is incredible. I find it funny that you pick him to complain about.
Dvorak does deserve the 2 spot. He has made the second greatest single piece of music OF ALL TIME.

>>1434713
we had one 300+ post classical music thread on /mu/ today followed with another 100+ replies one

>Dvorak does deserve the 2 spot. He has made the second greatest single piece of music OF ALL TIME.
let me guess, the ninth? I found it real nice for a while too, but it's the kind of piece that you can overplay, and then it becomes pretty much unbearable for a long time. I actually just listened to this work today for the first time in possibly more than a year; mengelberg and the concertgebouw, shit was so cash. I still probably wouldn't include it in my top 10 symphonies and I most probably would take Dvorak's 7th over it.

sibelius well, he never fails to bore me. I don't see what people see in him, I've heard all his symphonies, his vc and stuff like tapiola. doesn't do anything to me, perhaps I'm not English enough (because only English speaking people seem to like Sibelius for some reason).

grieg well, he has that nice piano concerto I guess. it suffers a lot from the fact that it's always coupled with the superior Schumann pc though. the lyric pieces and peer gynt, I guess they're ok. nothing extraordinary in my mind though.

>>1434791
now, I have to go, I'll be back in 2-3 hours to continue this argument. hopefully the thread will be alive by th-oh wait, this is /lit/, the thread will surely still be alive by then.

bump

>>1434791
The fact that you know exactly what I'm talking about without my naming it points to the fact that this is an extraordinary piece of music. "From the New World" is not, however, what first got me really enthusiastic about Dvorak, it was his Cello Concerto. There is incredible emotion evoked through that piece.

You call Sibelius boring but to me his stuff is very calming and retains a very lyrical quality. It is unique. Maybe there is indeed something to the primarily English-speaking idea.

I am listening to my Grieg collection right now. I have been steadily archiving massive amounts of music for a while now, and I have large amounts of each of a great number of composer's works all ripped in flac. I simply recall many of Grieg's pieces being memorable and very outstanding. When I find these works in my collection that I am currently perusing I can upload them for you, if you would like.

Just downloaded all of Mozart's symphonies. . .

>>1435199
>The fact that you know exactly what I'm talking about without my naming it points to the fact that this is an extraordinary piece of music.
that it is extraordinary, sure, pretty much undeniable in my mind, along with his 7th Symphony or his 14th SQ. But is it extraordinary enough to push him all the way to the near top? As I said, there's so many works, symphonies even, that I like far more than it for various reasons. Bruckner's 8th or 9th say; infinitely more massive and breathtaking. Beethoven's third; formal perfection with what's pretty much the single greatest symphonic movement of all time. Tchaikovsky's sixth even, almost as good of a melodist as Dvorak, and the fourth movement; the greatest finale ever? Brahms' third and fourth, I just worship those. And what about Mozart or Schubert? Yes, I think that in the end, I would indeed much rather end up listening to their symphonic masterpieces rather than Dvorak's. And how about Mahler? oh boy.

and I want to restate the fact that I'm not trying to denigrate the work, it's just that I don't feel like it reaches the heavenly heights of the others, and that the heights that it does reach become progressively lower the more often you listen to it. 's just my personal opinion though, I'm not forcing anyone to subscribe to it.

/lit/ doesn't like Shostakovich or Bartok?

you are not my people

eastern europe 4 lyfe

>>1435230
Well you certainly know how to make this conversation difficult. Brahms is one of my favorites, and just as you say, I will not denigrate him, but to my ear he falls just short of the top 10.

I will say the same for Schubert. I put Mozart at 4, but he could easily be 2, and despite my insistence that Bach is best, there could be an argument for 1.

Now you bring up Bruckner and Mahler. They are top 10 artists. In reality they should be on my list. For the sake of variety of styles, however, I omitted them.

This leaves Tchaikovsky. I will admit that I am not as well versed in Tchaikovsky as I would like to be. Funnily enough before this thread was even created I borrowed some Tchaikovsky CDs from my local library just today. I'm looking forward to listening to them.

I would also like to mention Handel. I have a real propensity for his "Water Music."

What do you think of Bizet? I really love this piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji6VRnwxaJU

>>1435257
JANACEK: BETTER THAN BOTH

>>1435268
Actually now that I listen to this performance of it, this is a lackluster example. The NBC Symphony Orchestra did an amazing performance of this work back when they were in existence.

I love how Abstinent is actually having a civil, intelligent discourse about this while getting trolled left right and center with "lol fag, your wrong. no way, hes shit. stfu man."

>>1435282
yeah, trolling is funny

To say that Shostakovich is terrible is like saying Einstein is stupid. Clearly someone has nothing better to do than bash on one of the greatest Russian composers ever... I don't see why Haydn is not mentioned here. He taught Beethoven to say the least... and clearly Schubert has completely been overlooked. WTF people.....

Just noticed the second mistake on my list. I confused Grieg with Franz Liszt. Maybe I shouldn't stay up for any more days and nights on end and take a nap.

>>1435322
>and clearly Schubert has completely been overlooked

Schubert is god tier.

I agree with that dude...Dvorak, Sibelius, and Grieg are definitely not top 10 material. Don't get me wrong, i love them, but Schubert, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Schoenberg, and Tchaikovsky are more influential and have a larger array of "great" works. Also were more progressive...changed times. Made big marks in music that changed music forever! I still have to learn more about Brahms aaahhhh

I haven't even looked at the link yet, but I already know Mozart is number 1.

>>1435322
except that Shostakovich has had nowhere near the influence of Einstein, nor the prescience and the genius. He's pretty low in my list of favorite russian composers, way below my beloved Scriabin: still the best thing that ever came out of mother russia

>>1435620
I think a few rebels who lived in the USSR might disagree with ya there.

>>1434526
I'm sorry, the correct answer is:
1. Bach
2. Mozart
3. Beethoven
4. Wagner
5. Monteverdi
6. Haydn
7. Palestrina
8. Stockhausen
9. Mahler
10. Schoenberg

>>1435627
>>1435627
Edit: substitute Mahler for Brahms.

>>1435625
and that's because they're unable to treat this music, that they've come to relate to for historical reasons rather than for musical ones, objectively.

>>1435620
Don't you mean Schnittke?

>>1435633
nop. schnittke is a fine guy, one of the few interesting composer that shostakovich actually influenced in fact, but he's no scriabin

>>1435348
sibelius is on my list for the sake of stylistic variety. i would have no problem bumping him to an "honorable mention." in fact the list should have bruckner or mahler in his place (possibly tchaikovsky, going to listen to a lot of his stuff today, but as of right now i'm not sure yet).

also, like i just posted, grieg was not supposed to be on there. i confused his name with the name of Franz Liszt, who is and deserves to be number 6.

>Dvorak not top ten material
oh fuck i now realize i've just been trolled. good job, sir.

>>1435620
>scriabin better than rachmaninoff
nope.jpg
he is great though. maybe i will have to make an honorable mention list.

>>1435634
I am disappoint.
Look at his face - YOU did that!

>>1435635
>scriabin better than rachmaninoff
way better than rach in fact. You're comparing one of the most daring and outright bizarre composer of all time with again, a fine melodist with a few nice works indeed, I'm very partial to his vespers, but they're no scriabin late-sonatas. surely the most amazing sonata cycle since beethoven, and I'm not sure if it's been matched since. Even by prokofiev!

>>1435627
in terms of sheer influence, it's hard to disagree with most of these names

Monteverdi, Stockhausen and Palestrina though, they still haven't clicked with me.

>>1435630
>treat music objectively

>>1435638
sorry alfie :(

>>1435648
you do know that it's possible to think of music as, you know, music rather than a political force or whatever? Musically-wise shostakovich ain't the most impressive 20th century guy.

>>1435627
No Chopin, no Reich, not even Strauss.

>>1435647
- Monteverdi for operatic and secular vocal output
- Stockhausen for development of electronic music and influence on other 20th/21st-century artists
- Palestrina for his development of counterpoint and polyphony.

>>1435654
Mahler > Strauss

deal with it

>>1435659
yes, I know all that. I still don't like Stimmung or L'orfeo.

>>1435653
You do know that that's:
Not treating it objectively.
Not a way to discern someone as better or worse.

Shostakovich was influential, prescient and a genius for how he could use music within the political climate of the USSR. That was the original point, dealwithit.jpg

>>1435663
Lolno. Melodramatic hogwash.

1. Bach
2. Beethoven
3. Mozart
5. Liszt
6. Dvorak
7. Chopin
8. Rachmaninoff
9. Scriabin
10. Bruckner

. . . . .

9001. Bartok
90001. Messaien
900001. Philip Glass

>>1435672
the USSR is dead, and I certainly wouldn't want to waste any of my time thinking about it when I'm busy listening to music. and prokofiev, also under the strict restriction of the regime, wrote better music than shostakovich. that's all there is to it

and besides, the most influence that shostakovich's ever had was by having other major composers parody him to death. like bartok in the concerto for orchestra. take that, pseudo-mahlerian hack.

>>1435679
Come on, Glass is minimalist, but he's not shit.

yeah. bach is the best. i like a lot of other baroque composers from his time too. reinken, buxtehude, alibinoni, pachelbel etc. i typically like organ music. this is where i envy the eurobros. if i lived over there i would be visiting all those fancy churches and looking at all their amazing organs.

>>1435679
what is 4?

>>1435654
That's because their music is for little girls.

>>1435666
Fair enough, it's just that my list was based on how influential they were as composers in regards to form, harmony, tonality, orchestration and overall development within their periods (...IMO).

>>1435675
you've just described strauss perfectly. mahler is king; he's the better orchestrator, the better contrapuntalist, the greater melodist, and his supreme mastery of form more than trumps Strauss'

also, he was the better conductor, HOW'S THAT FOR YOU RICHARD, YOU'RE THE ONE WHO SHOULD HAVE DIED IN 1911, ALL YOUR TRUE MASTERPIECES WERE OUT BY THEN ANYWAY :( :( :(

>>1435679
>9001. Bartok
>90001. Messaien
what's the matter, too intense for your sissy ears?

Bach is probably not only the best musician ever, but also the best artist.

>>1435684
Then you limit your appreciation of music drastically, and that is your loss. The way you wish to measure music is also a fools errand, so good luck with that.

>>1435694
which is why I pretty much agree with your list other than the fact that I would have put someone like Debussy rather than Mahler or Brahms. Maybe Cage too, influence wise only stockhausen tops him as far the contemporaries.

>>1435704
That's exactly it. BRB listening to some death metal.

>>1435715
>he thinks death metal is intense in comparison with bartok and messiaen
laughinggirls.jpg

1. John Williams
2. John Cage
3. John Cale
4. John Adams
5. John Ireland
6. John Gardner
7. John Mayer
8. John McLaughlin
9. John Alden Carpenter
10. John Eaton

>9000: Anyone called Johann or Jean.

>>1435715
cool. have fun with yo children's music.

>>1435711
Cage I can understand, but I put Brahms (and initially Mahler) for his harmonic sense within the chamber and symphonic works.

>>1435679
> Still no Wagner
Y U DO DIS.
Really.
I mean, even though Bruckner was renowned for his sacred (and symphonic, kinda) works, and Dvorak brought an interesting Czech flavour to the chamber/tone poem repertoire, they'd both be nowhere without Wagner.

I try as much as possible to detract myself from the historical context of a work when I listen to it because it is flimsy and makes you very prone to misjudgments. In 1937, when he first released his 5th symphony, Would you have liked Shostakovich any less than you do now, considering that everyone believed that he was caving in to state pressure? Of course now, we know otherwise, does that make the work better than it was back then? I don't think so. I know about those allusions to this obscure song he composed beforehand, but I don't exactly feel them in the music, and all in all, music has to be felt more than anything. In my mind at least.

>>1435740
(Oh and as for Debussy, although he did develop a completely unique orchestral/tonal sense, I just don't really think of him as a consistent artist.)

>>1435727
john is a weak ass name, try franz instead

1. Franz Schubert
2. Franz Liszt
3. Franz Joseph Haydn
4. Franz Schmidt
...
9001. François Couperin

>>1435756
>implying Debussy did not birth the entire modern movement.
O U!

>>1435756
really? the préludes, the images, the études, la mer, the string quartet, the nocturnes; pretty much everything I've heard from him is top notch.

>>1435751
You cannot appreciate pieces like Mozart's A Musical Joke without knowledge of the context it was written in.

>>1435780
if you're familiar with music at all, you should pick up the jokes without needing anyone to tell you.

>>1435789
Lolno. Because, even here, music has changed over time. There is a history even of music that must be appreciated.

Favorite composer is Tchaikovsky, listening to The Nutcracker as a kid introduced me to the world of classical music.

>>1435766
Scriabin, Stravinsky and Mahler were already driving at it IMO.
>>1435768
La mer, the Images and the Prelude to the Afternoon, yes, but for me (based on these works) he doesn't really stack up against the other composers in terms of progression and influence on the period as a whole.

>>1435801
well, you can clearly hear that it's a bad piece and that he's trying to make a point by repeating some of the more cheesy parts over and over

>>1435802
I have like Tchaikovsky's ballets less and less as I've grown older. Not least because I used to dance ballet, and Swan Lake, the most famous of ballets, is almost entirely female in cast. SO NO I DO NOT KNOW THE SWAN LAKE DANCE FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME.

>>1435806
impressionism as a whole is pretty much born out of debussy alone. Bartok was hugely impressed by Debussy and made sure that he met him when he went to paris, even though he clearly knew that the guy was asshole. Szymanowski too, I think was influenced by Debussy, and there's shades of impressionism apparent here and there in the second Viennese School, the language isn't that far away from one another in my mind.

>>1435807
>Ho ho ho, he thinks that's the joke!
Oh dear, do you not even get the brass picking up the wrong crooks? And even then limiting the notes they can play? And the over the top exposition on the phrases?

It's actually quite a decent piece, but it's all over the place.

>>1435811
ballet is pretty much the most fucking manly art form of them all though, miraculous mandarin anyone?

>>1435817
honestly, I'd never heard it before you mentioned it, so my answer was borne out of a cursory of the first and fourth movement (but seriously, don't try to tell me that the ending isn't deliberately ridiculously bad). But either way, everything you've said thus far, that's all part of the musical context. Where I become reticent to follow you, is when you're starting to go outside of the musical world to include other criteria as part of how music should be appreciated. Personally, I wouldn't want to let the fact that I know that Wagner was a flip-flopping imbecile distract me from his sheer musical and dramatic mastery. There's more to lose than to win by going this way.

>>1435818
Ballet is awesome and difficult. And Bela Bartok's ballet's are incredible!

>>1435815
Fair point, but the "impressionist" movement in music was short-lived (and, dare I say it, fairly limited) in comparison to the other styles that have emerged in the "modern" period, so I don't regard him as a top-10 worthy composer. Each to their own, though!

>>1435835
The ending may be the composition and harmony imploding in a fart. You also can't appreciate L'apres midi d'un faune without knowing it's based on Mallarme's poem of the same name, Tchaikovsky's La Pathetique without knowing he'd run away from a marriage due to his homosexuality, and was critically ill. Music does not stand in isolation to the world.

What makes you think Wagner was an imbecile?

>>1435806
>>1435815
>>1435841
Debussy birthed the whole of modern music fools. No Debussy, no New World Symphony.

I have to agree...Debussy is the keystone to the prelude to modern music. He surpassed romanticism and moved forward. However, there have been many pieces by Beethoven, Liszt, and Chopin which were amazingly forward thinking. They don't get the credit for being modern and that is only because these pieces were so ahead of their time. For our purposes we can safely say that Debussy is the founder of "Post-tonal Music" ....yes...no??

>>1435853
>Tchaikovsky's La Pathetique without knowing he'd run away from a marriage due to his homosexuality, and was critically ill.
of course you can, the emotions carried through the work are universal. You don't need to know anything about Tchaikovsky's life to appreciate the fourth movement's despair and lament.

On the contrary, I think that equating a work with his composer is the more limiting approach here, because you're bound to forget that he's not alone in this endeavour. In the case of the pathétique, there's the conductor, 60-80 musicians, and also there's you too, the listener. Do you also have to know about Gergiev's life and about the history of the VPO to appreciate his recordings?

The composer is just a part of the equation, a major one admittedly, but it's important never to forget that the work itself is an entity that takes a life of its own as soon as it is given to the musicians for performance. As such, I believe that it is very misleading to give too much importance to the man behind the music.

>>1435930
His music is still tonal, but I think I get your sentiment. Like in La Cathedrale Engloutie you have this new kind of tonality contrasted with the traditional concept of tonality.

I think, though, you could even go back another step and give a lot of credit to Javanese Gamelan. Debussy, though, did have the balls to try out ideas he co opted from Gamelan.

>>1435943
>there are emotions inherent in the notes/phrases
No, there's tension and consonance, I'll give you that, but to say there are tangible emotions is a joke. Go read Shenker's Harmony. Then come back and we can discuss.

>>1435930
To the popular eye, yes, but Scriabin's works were much more progressive (tonally).
Either way, this argument's a little tangential.

ooooh I've never heard of Gamelan. What should I listen to. I'd like to get a glance at him. Thank you. I am loving this site!!

>>1435952
The idea of progress in music (and the arts in general) is a chimera. And Scriabin is less influential than Debussy.

1. Bach
2. Dvorak
3. Mozart

I don't give a shit about the rest of the list.

>>1435960
Gamelan is a kind of folk music from Bali and Java. It doesn't follow our 12 tone system, seemingly dividing the "octave" into 5 sections of equal tonal length. They also use slight dissonance to create a sublime "vibrato" effect.

John Cage's piece for prepared piano is attempting to sound like Gamelan. Just youtube Gamelan.

I always forget that I actually enjoy Beethoven.

I don't really like his ninth and I hear that played all the damn time. I really enjoy his fifth, though.

>>1435949
do you honestly believe that one has to know about Tchaikovsky's repressed homosexuality to feel the depressed and hopeless atmosphere that exudes from this fourth movement?

>>1435968

>>1435973
>still doesn't understand that musical phrases only find reality through repetition

>>1435983
so? where's the link to tchaikovsky's life there?

Yes...I see gamelan is sort of a folk music. You can't say that this was the precursor to Debussy though. Indian music...in other words "non-tonal music" has been made before Debussy, no doubt about that. The thing is I talk about the influence in western music

>>1435962
I didn't say that Scriabin was the more influential composer, just that his music experimented more with the 20th-century mould and hence more deserving of the title as "modern pioneer".

>>1435992
liszt wrote his bagatelles sans tonalité before anyone else, and as such he wins!

I recently heard and enjoyed Bedrich Smetana's Ma Vlast, would anyone have any recommendations on other works to pursue of his?

>>1436014
maybe not what you're looking for but his two string quartets are second only to Janacek's in czechland

--liszt wrote his bagatelles sans tonalité before anyone else, and as such he wins!

Yes see thanks for coming up with the example! you rock. Thing is that era's in music are not set in stone.

>>1436018

Thanks, I'll czech them out.

See what I did there?

>>1435990
Gamelan influenced both Chopin and Debussy heavily, as well as their contemporaries. They'd go listen to the Gamelan bands in Paris.

>>1435989
I'm not spoon feeding you. Go find out yourself.

>>1436029
grasping at straws already, I see

/mu/'s discussion was so much better. You know you're doing something wrong when /mu/'s discussion is better than your own.

>>1436039
Lolno.