Who is the best composer of all time? Look inside please!

Franz Schubert... i love complex music, i mainly write jazz and progressive music (fusion, film scores) but to me, schubert is the balance between catchy and complex melodies...

First of all.. the fact that he really loved beethoven´s music, managing to create his own romantic development but never betraying his love for classicism...

He was truly a romantic.. not only in his writing but in his way of being... his forms, his character.. he was a great improviser!..

Also, he developed the "song" or "lied" writing style, writing more than 600, that proves how much melodic themes he had in his mind...

i would call him the "theme" master... a song maestro... his symphonies are so inspiring!.. sarcastic in moods, from anger to suffering and happiness..

the best of all times!

I absolutely LOVE Tchaikovsky. He's written music for some famous ballets also. You mostly hear him around Christmas time, like in the Nutcracker. The music is so beautiful and gets me in the best mood!

Well this is really hard too me, there's a lot of composers i love.

My top two i know, Shostakovich and Arvo Pärt, Shosty being number 1.

But i will say Arvo Pärt, for being so original, not afraid to do simple music with heart and soul, music that can be well...almost a revelation of God (i'm not even religious)
Humble simple man and yet very popular.
He reminds us that indeed, sometimes less is more...and to me, a living genius.

For me, the greatest composer is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

To me, he embodies musical perfection. While I also rank Bach, Handel, and Beethoven highly, Mozart to me is on a different scale altogether. Bach's music is great because it is well-constructed, but one can see how it was constructed. It even sounds constructed. Hence, his technique can be learned and reproduced, as evidenced by the colossal number of truly brilliant fugues posted on this site. However, with Mozart, it is as if everything just happens to fall into the right place. It is as if he sees the music on a higher level. Like Bach, he has shown himself to be a master of technique, such as in his choral works, late symphonies, and works for mechanical organ, but, to me, his music also possesses a Handelian warmth and Beethovenian emotionality that Bach lacks, as well as a natural melodic elegance that all three of the above lack. Every aspect of his music is in a delicate balance, and yet he excels in all of them. For this reason, I feel he reached musical sublimity.

Hane Htut Maung

*high-fives Nikolas, and promptly ignores the now non-existent post where some guy tells Robin to listen to more Beethoven*

Also, I'll use this to sneak in another 'Greatest Composer' ...

Kenny Wheeler - genius, another unsung hero of jazz composers. Won't go into detail (don't want to break the rules too much ) , but please, listen at least to the opening to his suite on Large and Small Ensembles; another of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed: listen (damn, I wish it wasn't so short).

I think the best composer of all time is Bela Bartok.

He collected so many undiscovered folk tunes and added unusual quirky twists to them that make them surprising and unique to listen to and play. His sound is also very different and interesting. His music speaks to me and that is probably the highest compliment I can give to a composer. Since I mostly play folk tunes its always fascinating for me to hear what you can do with them. Debussy and Bach were close behind in best composer but I just don't have the same connection when I listen to their music that I have with Bartok.

György Ligeti

Few other composers have been able to express a scope so broad. Ligeti had the impressive ability to see both the traditional and avant-garde in each musical technique he used, which enabled him to produce highly listenable pieces like his Concert Rômanesc, as well as highly art-driven and difficult-to-hack pieces like Atmosphéres and the Requiem. I believe this open mind and broad approach to musical techniques is something to be admired and acquired.

So I need to give an exceedingly restricted opinion AND justify it in some way shape or fashion? All right, bearing in mind that by selecting just one I am by definition lying to you all, I choose JS Bach (Pikachu, I choose you!) for the reason that I have heard so many people interpreting Bach and it always sounds different, yet the original composer shines through. I find joy in rearranging material from the Well Tempered Clavier: it doesn't seem to matter what I throw at it. If it sounds less than ideal, I need to work harder. If it sounds good, I am allowing what is already in the music to shine through. The other composers mentioned here are great, but the quality I will call inevitability shines through the best in Bach. What he wrote had to exist. Maybe the world might not have produced a Shastakovitch or a Mussorgsky but it HAD to create a Bach. There! Now you have a set of truthful lies. OK?

Igor Stravinsky

I think he's at least the best composer in the last century. His scope of musical styles is amazing. He's more than capable of laying on that scrumptious Romantic jam (viz. Firebird), but with The Rite of Spring etc he also proved (to me anyway) that dissonace can sound nice! Just looking at my score for the Rite mates me go weak at the knees

I'm going to say Dvorak.... Mainly becuase he is my inspiration. he came from a small town in Czech... His father was a butcher and the last thing his father wanted him to do was study music... Despite his father's wishes he started learning violin and soon several other instruments.... He entered a composing contest and Brahms (sorry bout mentioning another composer...) was on the judging pannel and reconized his talent soon he had several slavonic dances that were published and a sucess.

For his music... I love how he incorporates several different thoughts together so quickly and then uses them again later but so that it isn't just alike but is still familiar. He music also motivates me to compose music that is dynamic and not just repeating itself