The current issue of BBC Music Magazine (Dec 2019) has a feature on the 50 Greatest Composers as voted for by 174 contemporary composers, ranging from Kalevi Aho to Unsuk Chin to Ola Gjeilo to Jennifer Higdon to Stephen Hough to Lowell Liebermann to Magnus Lindberg to Roxanna Panufnik to Steve Reich to Bent Sørensen to John Williams (to pick a few of the more well-known names). Each of them was allowed to nominate five composers, then the votes were counted.

A few surprises....

Here are the top ten (from No.1 to 10):

1) Bach
2) Stravinsky
3) Beethoven
4) Mozart
5) Debussy
6) Ligeti
7) Mahler
8) Wagner
9) Ravel
10) Monteverdi

I know everyone wants to know where Freddy, everyone's favorite composer (except mine ) is placed.

He is at No.20, just below Reich and Brahms. Of the two well-known pianist-composers, Hough and Montero, only Hough voted for Chopin as one of his five.

The highest-placed contemporary composer (and woman) is Kaija Saariaho at No.17. (BTW, she wasn't one of the voters). Which I agree with .

Poor old Rach is No.50 , just below Schumann and Boulez.....

Of course, we'd get a completely different set of results if the voting was by pianists (Monteverdi probably won't even figure in the list), but it's interesting to see which composers are considered 'great' by other composers.

Bogus.

1) Me myself
2) Max Richter
3) Stravinsky
4) Liszt
5) Ferneyhough
6) Polyphonist
7) Arvo Pärt
8) Palestrina
9) My HS composition teacher
10) C. P. E. Bach

...

34) Bach

...

48) Webern
49) Stockhausen
50) Mozart

...

...

...

3481) Rachmaninov

Where does PDQ Bach (the greatest Bach in the canon) fit in your list?

Hmmmm, it's time for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lauw7hvzDkE

Is the full list available? Where did Schubert come?

OK, if you insist - here's the rest:

11) Britten
12) Sibelius
13) Messiaen
14) Bartók
15) Shostakovich
16) Haydn
17) Saariaho
18) Brahms
19) Reich
20) Chopin
21) Vaughan Williams
22) Schoenberg
23) Gesualdo
24) Janáček
25) Schubert
26) Gershwin
27) Glass
28) Ives
29) Prokofiev
30) Lutoslawski
31) Cage
32) Tchaikovsky
33) Berg
34) Feldman
35) Varèse
36) Webern
37) Byrd
38) R.Strauss
39) Verdi
40) Elgar
41) Birtwistle
42) Knussen
43) Sondheim
44) Stockhausen
45) Satie
46) Tallis
47) Hildegard von Bingen
48) Boulez
49) Schumann
50) Rachmaninov

Poor old Franz is obviously not innovative enough for contemporaries. The other Franz (Liszt) is nowhere to be seen......

And how come Sondheim is there but not Lennie??

PDQ is no. 14.

And I forgot Glass... crap

Boulez at no. 48) is a head scratcher.

I've never heard of Knussen, Birdwhistle or von Bingen... and yet Liszt is not even on the List.

My Estonian pride is also deeply hurt by not seeing Pärt on the list.

The way the poll is organized, in fact these composers did not rank 50 but only 5 each. Basically after the first 10 or 15, the ranking of all the other ones does not mean anything. So it is just a mathematically statistical result not the result of an actual ranking.

There is a statistical interpretation that can be made though - that very few of the 174 living composers ranked Rachmaninoff (for example) among their top 5 composers.

I agree in principle, which was why I only gave the first ten in my OP.

Incidentally, one or two of the voters tried hard to skew the results, e.g. John Corigliano voted for Beethoven, Beethoven, Beethoven, Beethoven, Beethoven. Another composer voted Bruckner x 5, but to no avail.

Poor old Anton......

But it does give us an idea which composers today's composers think are great, which don't tally with the views of the general musical public: Schubert and Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov will certainly be much higher than Monteverdi, likely in the top ten; and Stravinsky and Ligeti will be a lot lower.

Most of the top 10 is to be expected. I was surprised by Ligeti and to some extent Stravinsky. On the other hand there are plenty of composers not even listed. Also very surprising that Schumann is not much appreciated.

IMO only...
1. Beethoven
2. Bach
3. Mozart
4. Brahms
5. Haydn
6. Schumann
7. Chopin
8. Liszt
9.Schubert
10. Shostakovitch
11. Ravel
12. Debussy
13. Granados
14-20. Pick-A-Russian

My response to the results:

Lol. Schumann below Elgar and Feldman?

At least Ives is somewhat high up.

Yes, a big joke to me as well.

Where's Zipoli? Oh yes ... here I am again. Not only on the wrong planet, which is hard enough, but in the wrong century which is downright miserable.

Just shows how few composers actually understand what people like!

Interesting that there is no Mendelssohn. Once again difference between what professionals (musicians and composers) and amateurs like.

Now that is the truth.

They should do a 50 greatest living composers by 50 greatest living composers - and voting for yourseld would be allowed.

All I know is that Ferneyhough would be 50) with just one vote, which he gave himself.

Or maybe it shows that what people like isn't the basis on which composers judge the work of other composers.

Regards,

Great to see Ligeti, Ravel, and Monteverdil in the top 10. At least they got that right...

LOL. John, have you played any Ligeti?

I started the Devil's Staircase and another couple of the etudes, but I never finished any of them. I love them all though. Automne a Varsovie is another favourite. I need to choose one and stick with it... I bought the three books of etudes a few years ago. Other people's etudes deal with specific technical challenges. With Ligeti I think it's more mental. It's like he has endless ways to fry your brain...

I sang some Ligeti in a choir.

Ligeti?

Easy peasy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIDN_3EkWN8

Though I think Op.111 is slightly better music....

That list does not say much about the composers of the past, but it speaks volumes about the current ones.

I presume Mr. Handel was busy appearing elsewhere.

That may be a demonstration of what's wrong with contemporary "serious" music. Do they *really* think that Steve Reich outranks Schubert? Probably not. But it looks "modern" to say so. It's trying to put some clothes on that naked emperor.

Sondheim - is that Stephen Sondheim? Hmm.. they missed Lloyd Webber - is he a modern composer or is he too successful to be considered?
Jerome Kern, Scott Joplin anybody?

Along with Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Verdi, Respighi and dozens of other greats not mentioned.

Anyone living who writes memorable - and simple - tunes like this cannot be seriously considered by a contemporary composer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-L6rEm0rnY

As for Sondheim, I can only think of one tune by him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSxx-qJXZKw

Unrelated to the topic at hand: Couldn't help but notice the Cats video looks like it was lip synched.

Years ago out of curiosity I bought a CD of Ligeti piano music. This was before you could just get on YouTube to satisfy your musical curiosity about something, and save yourself some money. Upon listening to the CD I thought it was so much musical "doodling" for the most part, and regretted buying it. Now that I have learned that Ligeti is the sixth greatest composer of all eternity, I will have to go back and re-listen to that CD...I surely must have missed something!

Yes, Send in the Clowns is the only thing I know by Sondheim.
At the risk of wandering off into the wild blue yonder, this is another Lloyd Webber song that often 'nudges it's way into my head':
Barbara Dickson - Another Suitcase In Another Hall

You surely haven't missed this masterpiece?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gKQVrIdw5w

Yeah I saw "2001" when it came out. As far as I can tell, that's what Ligeti's reputation is all about. I actually do like that music that Kubrick drew from...but I wouldn't place it above the work of most of those 44 other composers...or even 100 other composers.

If you like musicals but are not familiar with many Sondheim songs, I think you owe it to yourself to listen to more by this composer. He is widely considered one of the great composers for the musical theater. I don't think he belongs on the list since he is not a composer of classical music.

There is a recently published volume of Sondheim songs arranged for piano by many different great contemporary composers. It's available on Amazon and I recommend it highly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liaisons:_Re-Imagining_Sondheim_from_the_Piano

I bought the CD of the same (played by Anthony de Mare) when it came out, but was somewhat disappointed with the lack of what Prévin would call 'tunes', and didn't have any inclination even to sight-read through any of the stuff.

Unlike his great collaborator/rival Lennie, Sondheim's priority seems to be to show just how clever he can be....at the expense of said tunes, catchy rhythms and luscious harmonies.

BTW, I've seen Sweeney Todd in the theatre, and thought it was OK as a musical but hardly memorable for anything that would stay in the memory, unlike West Side Story.

Or even Phantom of the Opera....

Incidentally, BBC Music Magazine did not specify 'classical composers', and a few poppers and jazzers were nominated by the 174 composers, including Björk, Kate Bush, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and Duke Ellington. Even non-homo sapiens "blackbird" and "Mother Nature" were nominated. But each of them got no more than one or two votes, thus fell behind even poor old Anton, let alone poorer old Rach........

I think if you heard the original versions of a lot of the pieces in that book you might change your mind. Most of the selections in that book are less like arrangements and more like new compositions based on the Sondheim songs. For me, Sondheim is full of "tunes, catchy rhythms and luscious harmonies". Many of his shows have been both commercial and critical successes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOnWMb4jqVo

Brief but extremely well said. Really, I think that totally says it all.

That's exactly how I took it, although I didn't consciously articulate it to myself.

Well maybe it doesn't say it quite all.
Like, it tells me that probably there's more indeed to composers like Stravinsky and Ligeti (etc.) than I've realized.
But I'd say indeed that it's mostly what you said.

Don't all lists of this sort do the same?

If concert pianists were asked to vote for their 50 Greatest Composers, it's evident that the list would have all the great piano composers - even Liszt, Balakirev, Prokofiev, Scriabin etc - quite high up. Sondheim, probably Saariaho too, would be nowhere.

But if concert violinists were to vote.....

Balakirev would be well in the low end of the list, with one famous and one semi-famous piano piece; the former of which is not even liked by half the pianists.

Piano composers, yes... but not all pianists have such narrow interests. Many may have dabbled in composition/jazz, or otherwise ventured beyond Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt. Pollini's list would have Schoenberg, Berg and Poulenc quite high up; Matsuev could have something unpredictable, and Hamelin would have god knows what up there.

Because by your logic, would Oboe players' list begin with:

1) Pasculli (ok, or maybe Bach)
2) Marcello
3) Albinoni

Even before Mozart and Beethoven?

He exerted a huge influence on Tchaikovsky, as well the Mighty Handful, not to mention the resurgence of Russian nationalism and its particular brand of music.....


Pollini likes Poulenc??

Boulez, Stockhausen, Manzoni - yes.




Oboists would give high priority to the composers who wrote good oboe and wind parts in orchestral music - not just Mozart, Mendelssohn etc but also the likes of Dvořák.

Clarinettists would almost certainly vote for Mozart above Bach.......

Interesting - could it be that the difference in views is to do with 'being on different sides of the pond' because of the different amount of exposure for each composer? I rarely heard anything by Sondheim when living in the UK, the only thing that came to my attention being 'Send in the Clowns,' whereas Lloyd Webber music was well-known - in fact, inescapable at times. I haven't watched the whole of the link, but the first thing that struck me was that I'd never heard of any of the show titles at the beginning. For UK stuff, to get to Broadway was often a target, but I suspect that American composers didn't see getting to the West End as a high priority.

No, when people like us do it, the lists are just the correct answers, very clear and simple.

@Mark_C:

Yes, as you are right!

Extra note:

Since I now own the AvantGrand N2 have started a new thread on the topic, here:

Yamaha AvantGrand N2

Have a great day!

Gubaidulina, Xenakis, and Penderecki are my favourite "modernists". Oh and Schnittke.

No, there's less!

(for Ligeti anyway, )

"Seinfeld" link that this brought to mind (cue to time 2:11):

You'll be interested to know that I immediately thought of the Seinfeld thing when I saw your line, before you mentioned the Seinfeld thing.

BTW, there are dozens of lines I might hear that would immediately bring to mind a Seinfeld thing.

A small sampling:

"Well it really should be!"

"It would almost be stupid not to!"
(I see that the actual Seinfeld line was "It's almost stupid if we didn't" but I like my version better.)

"That's what makes this so difficult."

" [shrug] It's a thing you say."

"No soup for you!" (of course)

" [without feeling] That's a shame."

".....took it out" (took anything out)

"Not that there's anything wrong with it."