Who is your favorite Classical composer?

Question

Ok, technicly classical is starting in 1700s, but I am refering to classical in the popular general sense of western music from 800 AD to the present using an ochestra and or traditional ensemble or with traditionaly trained voice. My favorite is JS Bach, who is baroque. I also like a lot of 19th /early 20th century composers from england and france, such as Vaughn Williams, Berlioz, Debussey, SanSiens, Elgar, etc.

Such great answers, so far I am having trouble figuring out who is the best conveyer of the composer flag! I think I shall wait to see at the end. And best of all, I am glad to know there are more of "us " on Y!

Answer 1

Bach

Answer 2

I do have to confess to a taste for the avante garde. Penderecki is a particular favourite of mine, with pieceslike threnody and fluorescences being notable as particularly moving works. I think I would probably say that "St Lukes Passion" is a contender for the most powerful piece of music ever written by anyone in any genre. You can really hear the struggle between his religious beliefs and his desire to create genuinely avante garde music. The things don't compliment each other well, so you are left with an incredible piece filled with tone clusters and atonalities. To some extant it is even quite difficult to listen to, and has you right on the edge of your seat all the way though. The finest moments of the piece are the two occasions when the music suddenly resolves itself into a good old fashioned major chord (one D major and one E major). Both times this hapens you actually find yourself actually falling back into your chair with a palpable sigh of relief. I love a lot of Pendercki's later work as well. Even though he turned his back on the avante garde (to some extent) in later life, you can still hear it in his later works, so these at times are equally moving and occassionally shocking.

I'm not sure if Steve Reich counts as classical music, but if he does, then I'm also a big fan of his. The Tokyo/Vermont counterpoint is very well worth a listen, and guitar phase (an adaption of the earlier piano phase) is strangely hypnotic and wonderful for falling asleep to.

Answer 3

Nettlebed...you are my hero. I, too, have a taste for the avant-garde. Penderecki ain't too shabby. But my personal favorite (it's really so hard to decide)...is Gyorgy Ligeti.

He was such a freaking genius it blows my mind. His music (along with Penderecki, Lutoslawski, and others) pushed the limits of what people consider to be music - and not in a hokey way or a John Cage sorta way...but in an incredibly complex way that involves tonal, structural/formal, and rhythmic experimentation...as a composer - it is difficult to place him in one genre (which I think is sooo cool)...he has dabbled in minimalism, african music (which includes crazy polyrhythms), sound mass/micropolyphony, electronic media, Hungarian folk music, and even loosely some jazz. His piano etudes challenge human capabilities and his opera (or anti-opera as he calls it) is a dark twisted yet comical masterpiece.

Please listen to some of his music...it truly changed my life and perception of what music is and can be.
Try his Piano Concerto.

Answer 4

I trust you...Shostakovich is tremendously plenty staggering. I play piano, so i think we'd desire to pay attention different products, yet his piano products are stable, too. Do you propose composers of the classical era or merely classical song frequently? From the classical era, my famous composer might actually be Mozart. inspite of the reality that a number of my acquaintances accuse his compositions of being too "chipper" and satisfied, there is an underlying style of attractiveness. i myself like tremendously plenty maximum of his sonatas. My all-time famous era might actually be the romantic era. I quite ADORE Rachmaninoff. you may completely sense the emotion and keenness (i be conscious of, that is cheesy yet real) at the back of his products. I each and every so often conflict with placing my emotions into my enjoying, yet with Rachmaninoff, it got here clearly. It sounds loopy, yet when I play his products, i'm getting those weird and wonderful chills (in a stable way:) because of fact the song's so desirable, and that is surely coming from my arms. My famous products of his might probable be Elegie, Op. a million No.3 and Prelude in C sharp minor. Elegie, quite, is haunting. i might say that it became attractive, although that is too useful to be merely attractive. i'm hoping I helped, and sorry for the long spiel!

Answer 5

My favorite type of classical music are piano sonatas and concertos, Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, and Liszt. My mom was a piano teacher at our house for 58 years so I really had no choice, but that's ok. Great music.

Answer 6

JS. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi.

Answer 7

Franz Schubert. But man, all of those great composers are hard to choose from. They are all good, especially W.A. Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Johaness Brahms, etc.

Answer 8

Just one? That's tough. I'd pick Chopin, but actually any of the Eastern European/Scandinavian composers are my favourites - Glinka, Grieg, Smetana, Sibelius, etc. There's something about 19th/20th century east-europe and scandinavian music which just draws me to them.

Answer 9

After many years i feel as though I have OD'd on Beethoven. My preference now is Bach.

Answer 10

Mozart. But the Bruch violin concerto is a favourite.