Our favorite classical composers

Five or six years old I located a handful of classical records in my parents record collection. Very basic collections/compilations of the "greats" and their greatest hits:). It was far from the worst introduction to about 600 years of unfamiliar sounds. I noticed this music somehow filled the living room space in a very differnt way than the rock & pop music I'd heard up til then. So rich and densely thick. The melodies sort of came and went in waves. But it wasn't until my late teens I started seriously digging deeper, using the local library + buying tons of second hand records, practically for free, while trying to locate the composers, compositions, recordings, sounds, ensembles, eras etc... that spoke to me the most. I must have heard thousands of both household names and forgotten dead men (and a few women) of eras past by now. Still a happy amateur, like most of us I suppose. I don't play any instrument, don't know anything about music theory, can't read music etc... so it's all based on emotional response - or perhaps an intellectual response I can't put into words.

It's hard to explain why 90% of what I've tried has left me cold - while these have all created spine tingling music that touches my soul and overwhelms me. Alternatively the music's just beautiful beyond words, and pleases me or comforts me. Sometimes all at once.

I split the ones who've stuck with me (there's plenty more composers I know and love a couple of works by) into a first, second, and third group of "favorites". I'd like to know what composers you like and enjoy the most as well. Maybe we'll some kind of discussion going. Or we may share a few reccomendations.

10 (my "desert island" batch of composers:) 

Dmitri Shostakovich

Gustav Mahler

+10

+10

Morton Feldman

Sergej Prokofjev

Erik Satie

Arnold Schoenberg

Arcangelo Corelli

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi