Classical Music Composers

HMMMM I THINK I SEE A PATTERN HERE FREIND DANBO (THERES MISCHEIF AFOOT!!)

DOES THE TERM "BOGUS SUCKIN THREADS" MEAN ANYTHING?

Way to go, Danbo - your animations crack me up!!!

arqwave wrote: ehem... classical music is were everything started for music in the west side of the world, mainly with master BACH and other early composers from the baroque era, however the great russian composers of the late XIX and early XX century are great: Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, etc., and the new modern acts like Stockhausen, Takemitsu and Arvo Pärt are great, beyond our knowledge, great poll man!!! peace

Um actually it started earlier, in the Renaissance. A composer named Monterverdi is widely credited with inventing opera in the form we know it (although he probably didn't, but that's another story...) and composers were producing full-length instrumental pieces too. This practice probably started even earlier - perhaps the middle ages or before, with groups of musicians either in the courts of the rich, or strolling minstrels. There's not enough documentation to be sure though - the earliest we have is Monterverdi and some of his contemporaries. We know that Henry VIII enjoyed music - and even published some, including Greensleeves - although it is doubtful that Henry actually wrote any of it.

Bach "merely" rationalised the whole thing and created beautiful mathematical structures of music, raising the bar several notches. Vivaldi and his contemporaries were already writing in what was essentially sonata form, the basis of "classical" music (small c) until the end of the 19th Century.

Mozart is really responsible for some of the major changes that led from Classicism to Romanticism, and even though he is still held in very high regard generally, he achieved such a huge amount in such a short space of time that his real genius in so many areas is easily overlooked. Beethoven was the colossus under whose shadow composers still live, Schoenberg and his contemporaries formulated a new mathematical method of writing music - it's really not that far out once you've got used to it - modern jazz and Stockhausen, Cage et al - not to mention PROG can be far more extreme... then there's Mariah...

Bach, Tchichovsky, and Holst. But Mozart's up there too

However, one of my all time favourite songs in Moonlight sonata by Beehtoven

I really can't vote because it's impossible for me to pick a favorite, and because some of my faves aren't up there.  I love all of the 20th century Russians that robert mentioned (plus Mussorgsky!), as well as Beethtoven. 

I'm very surprised that nobody's mentioned Chopin yet.  Not a profound influence on prog, I don't think, but he's written some of the most beautiful (and challenging) piano music that exsists!