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  4. List your favorite Composers

  • List your favorite Composers

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    Just to check our musical tastes...

    My favorites are

    - Wagner

    - Richard Strauss

    - Debussy

    - Tchaikovsky

    - Korngold

    Also like a lot:  Liszt, Puccini, Verdi, Mahler, Ravel, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Delius, Dvorak, Bartok, Elgar, Rachmaninov, Beethoven, Berg

    Of course there are many others composers who's music i Like but these are my "main guys" 
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    Hildegard von Bingen (1098 - 1179)

    Petrus de Cruce, (1270 - 1300)  

    Franco of Cologne (1239-1281)

    Halle, Adam de la (1237 - 1287)

    PĂ©rotin, (1160 - 1205)

    Monteverdi, Claudio (1567 - 1643)

    Lassus, Orlandus (1532 - 1594)

    Marcello, Benedetto (1686 - 1739)

    Campra, André (1660-1744)

    Croft, William (1678-1727)

    Bellini, Vincenzo (1801-1835)

    Berwald, Franz (1796-1868)

    Leoncavallo, Ruggiero (1858-1919)

    Ponchielli, Amilcare (1834-1886)

    Meyerbeer, Giacomo (1791-1864) 

    Donizetti, Gaetano (1797-1848) 

    Gaspare, Spontini (1774-1851)

    Fibich, Zdeněk (1850-1900). The Klavierzyklus "Nálady, Dojmy a Upomínky" Op. 41, Vol. I - XII is my favorit at the moment

    Schmitt, Florent  (1870-1958) 

    d'Indy, Paul Marie Théodore Vincent (1851-1931)

    Revueltas, Silvestre (1899-1940)

    Mascagni, Pietro (1863-1945)

    Koechlin, Charles (1867-1950)

    Marie Joseph Alexandre Deodat de Severac (1873-1921) ----> my all time favorite

    Wolf-Ferrari, Ermanno (1876-1948)

    Guridi, Jesus (1886-1961)

    Sarasate, Pablo de (1844-1908)

    Nin-Culmell, Joaquõn Marõa (1908 )

    Calatayud, Bartolome

    Antonio Lauro (1917-1986)

    Surinach, Carlos (1915-)

    Turina, Joaquin (1882-1949)

    Halffter, Ernesto (1905-1989)

    Mompou, Federico (1893-1987)

    Nin-Culmell, Joaquõn Marõa (1908 -)
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    Samuel Barber would be on my list first, then comes Ennio Morricone.

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    Angelo, I guess you don't dig Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Brahms etc. hey? They're actually not that bad. ; )
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    Guy...

    how are you?

    I dig that stuff more then I like to. There was a time where everything was Bach, Beethoven and Mondzart in my life, not because I like their music that much but because that was the material our teachers tried to make us believe that's all which is important, of course they where wrong.

    My instrumental teacher at the conservatory was a Richard Wagner fan and a regular in the festival orchestra in Beyreuth and in the festival orchestra in Lucerne, I played already as a student in the SĂĽdwestdeutsche Philharmonie orchestra. The big band arranging professor was into Duke Ellington and Count Basie but I had absolutely no interest in making arrangement in the style of Duke Ellington, I had my own ideas. The piano teacher was into Bach, Scarlatti, Chopin etc., I mean all the stuff which is played at every dog funeral, and has been recorded by the thousands and is cramped at every piano competition by any south east Asian pianist. The piano teacher once said: "Bach is the greatest, then long nothing, then Bach again then Mozart, and then again Bach" on which I replied: "I heard there was once a real good composer but he die 200 years ago", he never mention Bach again during the whole curriculium. The classical harmony teacher talked more or less only about Bach and Palestrina, I guess he didn't knew anything else.

    But I like to listen to music from France, Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, Sicily, Spain, Greece when I have the time, even like Samuel Barber and Copeland a lot, but I grew up and still live in the German culture. So one day a person I didn't know died; he was a collector of classical vinyl records and as business man traveled the world and bought records everywhere he went. Records from Russian Melodia, from Spain, France, Japan, Mexico, Cuba, Scandinavia, Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria etc. etc., all earnest music of course, he had quasi everything but no Bach, no nothing from Germany, Austria or Switzerland well maybe Arthur Honegger, Rolf Liebermann or an Ernst Bloch, all together he owned circa 6000 vinyl.

    So I bought from the heirs all French, Spanish, Slavic, Mexican, Scandinavian, Japanese and all US American composer, all together circa 1000 vinyl. Then I made a longer listening session, keept everything I liked and the rest I gave to an antiquariat. What I keept was mainly French, Spanish, Japanese and Rumanian composers and everything from Barber and Copeland.

    .
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    Barber is one my favorites --such elegant power there, and in a familiar language. Liadov has a brilliant impressionistic piece which I love -- The Enchanted Lake. Korngold -- a great symphony, F# minor, Op. 40..... B. Hermann for his spectral fingers which trace lightly behind the lids. Let's see..... hmmm... oh..... and Janacek, for his piano cycle "On an Overgrown Path", absolute beauty that one, and so evocative of it's very name that you can almost see the rain soaked leaves hanging in your way.
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    Hi Angelo, I think your extreme multi-cultural choices in music is very interesting and I hope to live long enough to enjoy them all. But I don't think it's because of what our teachers taught us that we know much more about Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. It's rather the opposite, THESE are the composers that will first awake our senses in music and give us the joy to listen to more of it. Teachers use them because their music is simple and beautiful to the highest degree and not because they oppose themselves to using other composers. Why does a child reacts so well to the "Nutcracker"? Because the music is great, so naturally teachers will talk about Tchaikovsky. I could list probably more than 100 examples like that. Barber got a lot of praises over the years, but he's no Beethoven and it's not because we are bombarded with the big 3s that gives us a reason to dismiss them. All the composers you mentioned I'm ready to bet you love only a hand full or at the most a dozen pieces from each one of them. Come on now, be honest. But Bach, Beethovem and Mozart, just about everything they ever wrote is great to masterpiece. I do think it's great you talk about all these lesser known composers but please let's keep the respect for the kings of music, no harm being a prince. And I'm a huge fan of Barber and many more lesser known composers.
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    Guy... 

    I am aware that there are only lesser composers outside the Holy Roman Empire, but inside, the talent is sheer unlimited

    .
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    Emm, ok, although don't see your point.
  • W
    W

    Guy is correct on this point.

    The revered composers like Bach, Beethoven and Mozart are comparable to other composers in a way similar to an atomic bomb compared to a firecracker. Every one of the less-known composers mentioned in the other post probably worshipped Bach and Beethoven.  This doesn't mean that dry recitations of their greatness in a dull academic setting are good, but those composers are not reducible to the uses to which they are put by college professors.  To me, they still live whenever their music is played.
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    Absolutely. Plus, as far as I'm aware, they didn't have any Disco Kings (or Queens) in The Holy Roman Empire.
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    I thought we were just listing our favorite composers, which don't necessarily have to be the 'best' composers. And this is why I like them. I find it invigorating to see the flaws in a person's attempts at creation. In this I can see character of a person! In Mozart, it's very difficult for me to perceive flaws because most of what I've listened to is beyond mortal and seemingly nearly perfectly rendered. Total respect and awe to Mozart and I do like him very much. But if we're talking favorites, I believe it can be as subjective as you need it to be.

    Mahlon
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    @Mahlon said:

    I thought we were just listing our favorite composers, which don't necessarily have to be the 'best' composers. I believe it can be as subjective as you need it to be.

     

    Mahlon



    So whaddya think of Angelo's list? Do you think subjectively it's the most overblown, pompous load of bollocks you've ever seen?
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    Hehe! That's pretty direct. ; )
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    ... by some of the posts I come to the conclusion that some forumites live in the Papua New Guinea of 1804

    There is no thought needed to be considered a person of good taste by appreciating Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. Some of the above opinions are more semi-official pseudo academic and mainstream cultural establishment seal of good taste approval, eventually intelligent enough for a small talk with cardinal Ferdinand de Medici IV at a formal reception at the Embassy of Liechtenstein.

    Shallow people can put on a classical record and be sure to impress others with their good taste. No risks, no research, no thinking required... just status. Music from the composers such as I listed require a depth of knowledge and passion.

    Any surrealists out there, or maybe even a contemporary? Anyone an innovator of new music... or only the old conservative opinions of the boring bourgeoise?

    .
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    Hildegard von Bingen apparently used to go down a storm at Barmitzvah's and weddings - so I defer to your greater knowledge on this one Angelo.
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    @PaulR said:



    So whaddya think of Angelo's list? Do you think subjectively it's the most overblown, pompous load of bollocks you've ever seen?
    Well, I don't know Angelo personally, so I was taking it that these composers are his favorites -- his very, very specific faovorites. [;)]

    Mahlon
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    That is perfectly legitimate, what got me to react and as I suspected was the reasons for not mentioning Bach, Beethoven or Mozart.
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    [quote=PaulR]

    Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), English Hildegard of Bingen, was an artist, author, scientist, philosopher, physician and composer etc..

    SHE is the first composer with an musical biography:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen

    Her music is fabulous. Her work "Ordo Virtutum" is called the first form, and is possibly the origin of opera:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordo_Virtutum

    .
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    Antiphonar, 12th century

    http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd269/AngeloClematide/CodSang388_2.jpg

    Tropen, Ordinarium and Sequences (930-940)

    http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd269/AngeloClematide/CodSang484_5.jpg

    Cantatorium (922) the oldest neumen handwriting of solo singing

    http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd269/AngeloClematide/csg-0359_046.jpg

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