Our favorite classical composers - Progressive Rock Music Forum

...and except from Paco de Lucia plays Manuel de Falla - if that counts as "Classical". Big smile

quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond

Hrychu wrote:

I personally enjoy the works of Liszt and Chopin. I'm not a huge classical music geek, so there's probably a lot of exceptional composers whose works I haven't heard.

Philip Glass is the only classical composer who's ever been on my Chopin Liszt. Tongue

Saperlipopette! wrote:

To me Schostacovich, Penderecki, Bartok, Messiaen, Vasks etc... belongs to the same ongoing tradition. But I do think some 20th century composers mainly as Modern Classical while others mainly as Avantgarde. But our language isn't perfect and very few composers belong excusively in one category anyway. Besides the original classical era is lasts from 500 to 336 BC. Classical music means more than just the classical period in music. I'm really just trusting that most people understand what I mean - given the context.

That's fair enough and I didn't mean to criticise it. I am however curious where you put the line between "modern classical" and "avantgarde".

BrufordFreak wrote:

I LOVE Ralph V-W: would've put him on my list by was aiming to cover composers that weren't on Rollon's original list.

Great to hear Drew. You don't find too many Brits who rate him as highly as his music is quintessentially English. I think his 9 Symphonies represent the pinnacle of his artistic achievement; all quite different and in their own ways, put down markers in time for the first half of the twentieth century.

I'm not sure I feel comfortable with the term "classical" applied to many 20th century composers; the way I learnt it it covers mainly the period of Mozart and Beethoven, but I see that it's mostly used to refer to all Western "art music" - but then where to draw the line between avantgarde experimental and last 50 years "classical"?

Anyway, emotionally I was always more attracted to music from say about 1890 to the present than the "classical" or even romantic period.

Favourites from the more modern period are

Ligeti, Stravinskij, Debussy, Messiaen, Reich, Stockhausen, Ives, Prokofiev, Penderecki, Bartok, Nancarrow, Varese, Cage, Wim Mertens, Pärt, Shostakovich. I can go on listing many important modern composers such as Schoenberg, Hindemith, Boulez, Nono, Berio, Lotuslawski, but I think I put them slightly below the first group when it comes to my personal enjoyment.

Some older ones who have some works that give me joy:

Johann Sebastian Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, Richard Strauss, Satie, Liszt, Mahler, Rachmaninov (many of them already with one foot in modernity, often I have more respect for the older music than really loving it)

If they count, I'd certainly list some avantgarde electronic and experimental composers and/or improvisors in the top group such as Eliane Radigue, Alvin Curran, Phill Niblock, AMM, Ikue Mori, Toshimaru Nakamura, Otomu Yoshihide

Drew lists Piazzolla which certainly should be on my list, too, if he counts.

By the way am I right that Eliane Radigue and Ikue Mori are the first women listed here?

Edited by Lewian - February 21 2023 at 10:01

Jared wrote:

& (I know this will be controversial) Vaughan-Williams

Why? He was also mentioned by Geekfreak btw.

BrufordFreak wrote:

I'm down with most of the composers listed so far. I also have enjoyed music by:

Jean Sibelius

Olivier de Messiaen

Claudio Monteverdi

Frederic Chopin

Wim Mertens

Steve Reich

They were all on my "extended" list. Gabriel Fauré and Henryk Górecki could have been there too, had I not forgotten them. (+ Leoš Janáček, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Béla Bartók were also on my list:)

I'm down with most of the composers listed so far. I also have enjoyed music by:

Gabriel Fauré

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Jean Sibelius

Benjamin Britten

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

Ryuichi Sakamoto

John Adams

Thomas Tallis

Giacommo Pucchini

Orlande de Lassus

Olivier de Messiaen

Claudio Monteverdi

Maurice Ravel

Josquin de Prez

Jacques Offenbach

Leoš Janáček

Edward Elgar

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Frederic Chopin

Alexander Borodin

Wim Mertens

Astor Piazzolla

Steve Reich

Frederick Delius

Johannes Brahms

Michel Legrand

Jauquin Rodrigo

Henryk Górecki

Jules Massenet

Béla Bartók

Joe Hisiashi

Drew Fisher
https://progisaliveandwell.blogspot.com/

It's clear as Glass who my favourite classical composer is. Smile

Dmitri Shostakovich
Antonio Vivaldi
Johann Sebastian Bach
Franz Schubert
Arvo Pärt
Krzysztof Penderecki
Ludwig van Beethoven
Alessandro Scarlatti
Johannes Brahms
Gustav Mahler
Henry Purcell
Jan Dismas Zelenka
Giacinto Scelsi
Leoš Janáček
Morton Feldman
Sergej Prokofjev
Erik Satie
Arnold Schoenberg
Arcangelo Corelli
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Luigi Boccherini
Pēteris Vasks
Kaija Saariaho
Valentin Silvestrov
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Bela Bartok
Maurice Ravel
François Couperin
George Friedrich Handel
Claude Debussy

I would added to this awesome list.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Richard Wagner
Franz Liszt
Giuseppe Verdi
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Felix Mendelssohn
Ralph Vaughan Williams

Friedrich Nietzsche: "Without music, life would be a mistake."

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