Favorite Composers?

August 28, 2013 at 01:01 AM · Anton Bruckner.

August 28, 2013 at 01:45 AM · Do you mean favourite to play (either physically or conceptually to yourself) or favourite to listen to? I've found recently they are not the same. Haydn, for instance, is far higher up the latter list than the former, and I wonder just how much I really like listening to Brahms, as opposed to playing him (including playing or singing in my mind to myself), in which latter context he's pretty well at the top of my list.

August 28, 2013 at 03:37 AM · Wolfie.

August 28, 2013 at 05:37 PM · anon. - prolific medieval/renaissance tunesmith

August 28, 2013 at 08:41 PM · Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Vivaldi...

and many others that I forget I'm sure.

Anything that moves and is very active/lively with a beautiful melody. I'll have all of my elder days to listen to quiet music lol (only joking...)!

August 28, 2013 at 09:41 PM · As something to play, I'd have to say Dvorak and Handel. They say something different and beautiful so efficiently, the end of a bar brings an entirely new theme and there isn't the endless repetition and hammering home of the same themes. Much as I love Mozart, Its a little tedious thinking I'm hearing flute concerto x and realising its the clarinet y / violin z. He was still pretty genius though :)

August 28, 2013 at 10:23 PM · My favorite composers are Sergei Prokofiev, Gabriel Faure, Francis Poulenc, Shostakovich, Zoltan Kodaly- list goes on.

August 29, 2013 at 02:16 AM · Anne-Marie: same here. I usually like lively and quick-paced songs. Of course, I do enjoy some occasional slower songs. Well you all have listed some composers I've never heard of. I guess I still have much time to explore the wonderful world of classical music since I'm only still in high school! :)

August 29, 2013 at 02:16 AM · Also I've heard Sibelius is hardest to play. Anyone have insight/experience on that?

August 29, 2013 at 02:40 AM · Ditto William, though I would personally replace Shosty with Szymanowski and Kodaly with Bartok.

August 29, 2013 at 07:26 PM · Prokofiev, Beethoven, Bach, and Piazzolla. Check out the four seasons of buenos aires if you haven't, It is incredible!

August 29, 2013 at 08:53 PM · Vincent, I think I can play the harmonics in the Sibelius (It's what else is in the outer movements that floors me), but when it comes to the double stopping harmonics in the Paganini No 1 ... and I was told that No 2, the "Witch's Dance" is even more difficult.

August 29, 2013 at 10:41 PM · Bach! Why has it taken so long to mention Bach?

I agree that there can be a distinction between favourite composers for listening to as opposed to playing. Some of this is pragmatic: I can't play Liszt (wrong instrument, way too advanced), and our orchestra can't play Beethoven (we're too small). For listening, I love the Russian romantics (Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, etc.). Baroque music (especially Handel) was too dry until I started playing it (seeing it from the inside, as it were), at which point it turned into something wondrous.

Bill Kilpatrick likes Anon. Good choice. In addition I like his cousin Trad, who has also written lots of good stuff.

August 30, 2013 at 01:17 AM · Charlie, if you think Liszt is wrong instrument, just wait till you get to tackle the first violin part of the Faust Symphony - I think that work is his masterpiece and puts him with Brahms, Dvorak, Bruckner, etc.

August 30, 2013 at 03:51 AM · *sigh* SO MANY CHOICES!!! Britten as recently become one of my favorites. I loooooove Ravel, Hindemith, Brahms (oh my gosh Brahms *melts*), Bach (cello suites!!), Grieg, Bartók,uhhhhhhhhhh.....Mozart!!! Dvorak :))ooh ooh ooh!! Mahler! Okay. Those are my absolute top...1,2,3.....11!!My top 11! These composers make me excited to play music. I am starting to like Haydn more than before, I really couldn't stand him before. And Beethoven is not one of my favorites. I like some of his things, but he isn't my favorite.

August 30, 2013 at 10:18 PM · Carly-thanks. I might sight-read Sibelius concerto for fun.:) I'm self learning Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D, Op. 35 as of now. Did you play that before?

September 4, 2013 at 02:22 PM · Fauré

September 4, 2013 at 02:57 PM · Favorite composers: Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorak, Schuman, Mendelsohn, Brahms,

Tchaikovski. Charles

September 4, 2013 at 03:20 PM · Oh God, not another one!

September 4, 2013 at 06:09 PM · So, Oliviu, you only have one favourite composer. You like the sound of the sea roaring, the sound of thunder and the sound of the wind howling, etc., and don't care for any other music, even in the DORIAN mode? Do I read you correctly? But please remember, there's another of His compositions you may not like when you hear it; you know, the one which starts "Depart from me, ye cursed ... "

September 4, 2013 at 06:36 PM · I like my composers in the order that they seem to be heralded: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Mozart all tied for first, then Ravel, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Shostakovich tied for second, then Haydn, Dvorak, Prokofiev, Faure, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Bartok, Copland, Schumann, and Handel, in no particular order.

September 4, 2013 at 10:01 PM · All these Vivaldi fans: Does NOBODY know the Purcell G minor Sonata, with that glorious third movement? I would rank these two equally as Bach and Handel's greatest predecessors.

September 6, 2013 at 07:54 PM · If I may, I would like to add one more composer to my list, that of David Del Tredici, who was commissioned to write a work for the St. Louis Symphony-was recorded in 1980 by same orchestra, and if you can get past the first four minutes of painful dissonance I, only my opinion, it is the most technically, emotionally complex work written in 20th century- conductor, Leonard Slatkin-titled" In Memory of a Summer's Day".

September 6, 2013 at 09:24 PM · Both to play & to listen to - Lully, Handel and O'Carolan. Fabulous!