Who is the Greatest (Not Favourite) Composer

Originally Posted by SSC

Hot dog, I didn't see that coming.

:>

I'm not the only nut out there. If you ignore the religous mumbo jumbo the rest is pretty much spot on.

YouTube - Sir John Tavener on Mozart

I think it is hard to judge most skilled just by what a composer wrote.

I mean Shostakovich wasn't as prolific as Mozart, but he was very "skilled" in composition.

He was able to reconstruct his entire Festive Overture in a few hours (I think it was that piece), winning a bet and a bit of money in the process.

Originally Posted by Corbin The Violist

I think it is hard to judge most skilled just by what a composer wrote.

I mean Shostakovich wasn't as prolific as Mozart, but he was very "skilled" in composition.

He was able to reconstruct his entire Festive Overture in a few hours (I think it was that piece), winning a bet and a bit of money in the process.

I respectfully disagree. I think you can judge skill by what people wrote. For example, if someone has a well developed vocabulary it shows in the way they speak and write. Having said that, Mozart wrote the overture to Don Giovanni in a few hours.

YouTube - Don Giovanniuverture

In terms of skill I mean that Mozart mastered every style of composition he attempted and this mastery is amply demonstrated in the operas where he demonstrates his full range, demonstrating depths of subtlety and expression never reached before or since. My personal favorite is the Magic Flute. Not much of a story but the music is simply breath-taking.

Overture:
YouTube - Mozart: The Magic Flute - Overture - Sir Colin Davis
Wonderfully overacted Queen of the Night:
YouTube - Queen of the Night Aria - Erika Miklosa
A totally different interpretation of the same aria (and equally wonderful):
YouTube - Natalie Dessay : "Der Hölle Rache"


Mozart was also an able poet as evidenced in this short rhyme (rerhymed in english for our consumption):

Besides, to people I'm tied
Who carry their muck inside
And let it out, if they are able,
Both before and after table.
At night of farts there is no lack,
Which are let off, forsooth, with a powerful crack.
The king of farts came yesterday
Whose farts smelt sweeter than the may [honey].

________________________________________________-

All fans of Beethoven (I am one as well) ought to see this:
YouTube - Dudley Moore Beethoven Sonata Parody

Hmmm....I don't see any Donald Fagen up there...

~Kal

It is cool.

Yeah I think Mozart was pretty skilled.

Hahaha.

It is just so hard to compare people from different time periods when the role of the composer changes so much.

But I see what you are saying.

I love the magic flute too

i dont think its really possible to compare composers, because if you say that a later composer is better than an earlier composer just because he was more skilled, its like saying Einstein was smarter than Newton because his theories were more complicated.

the time difference makes it hard to compare.

The above two posts are completely true imo. I love the music of Ravel and Debussy for example and although there is a high probability that if Mozart had been alive during the early 1900s, he would have equalled or perhaps even superseded the aforementioned composers, there is also a chance that he would have fallen flat on his arse. There's just no way of knowing!

I do however agree that he was immensely able and gifted.

YouTube - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21 - Andante

This is my personal favourite Mozart piece. Although I actually find a lot of Mozart's work to be a tad harmonically uninteresting (personal taste), the above piece is one of the few pieces of music that I would not change a note of (although I would love to write my own version of it).

As for Bach:

YouTube - 'Air' from Suite No.3 in D major - Johann Sebastian Bach

Hopefully this piece will live on forever...

famous composers usually arent famous for no reason.......

just saying......

I can't believe Tchaikovsky and Grieg received more votes than Schubert and Brahms!

^Well, Grieg is hard to believe, but Tchaikovsky is understandable.

I was disappointed by the lack of choices. In the end, I was forced to pick Mendelssohn.