Who is, in your opinion, the world's worst reputable composer?

Schoenberg, Glass, Cage, Berlioz, Chopin, Schumann.

No particular order.

wow, I understand that some of you may not like Mozart but can anyone here really call him the world's worst reputable composer? I mean, like him or not, he is generally considered one of the best composers who ever lived. That has to count for something!

Originally Posted by walkingwikipedia

To me, the genre of film music is a slightly shoddy one. I would consider around 5% of scores to be genuinely original. Film music is music made to the dictates of the mass-markets and can be said to have crowd-pleasing as a requirement. Artistic vision is limited, and the music must not be too stimulating so as to distract from the film, rather it must support it.

Why does that make artistic vision limited? These kind of contrainsts can require more artistic vision than just putting together a piece of music that'll be performed in the concert hall.

Furthermore, it takes just as much skill to compose a very good film score as it does to compose a very good symphony and it could be argued just as easily that only 5% of symphonies ever composed are genuinly original with many based on old styles, tried and tested techniques, understood orchestrations etc. (see, I can pick numbers out of the air as well, fun isn't it?!)

And as for being crowd-pleasing, what on earth is wrong with that? I personally think a well-composed piece of music, whether for film or for the concert hall, that captures an audience's imagination is more successful than a well-composed piece of music that doesn't. But then I'm weird like that.

In order to fit with these demands, a film composer must inevitably compose in a style different from his own, borrowing from others to best fit his desires. John Williams may "get the atmosphere exactly right", but this (like other film composers) is all too often done by essentially rewriting an existing piece of music to make it sound similar, but original enough to avoid copyright

Tosh. So are you telling me that if you hear a piece of John Williams' music you're unfamiliar with you won't recognise it as John Williams. I think he has a very distinctive style. As for rewriting existing pieces of music; Williams is one of the best composers of a melody there is and you're doing him a huge injustice with your claims.

The fact remains that film music may be a different medium to concert music, but to me it is clearly an inferior one, and one that gives a lot less intellectual satisfaction to the listener

Again, you're trying to compare apples with oranges and missng the point entirely! Film music isn't meant to give intellectual stimulation, it doesn't pretent to and it is therefore not failing in its function.

You'd be mightily peeved if a film composer tried to be too clever by writing music that gave intellectual stimulation and ended up writing a score that ruined the film.

Again, please don't compare film and concert music; they're written for such completely different audiences and purposes that it does your point no good to continue comparing them.

Despite this, it is for film music that composers choosing to write orchestral music receive the most accolades and respect from the general public. This annoys me because I feel it is being unjust to genuine concert music that is so much more so about the artistic vision and intellectual stimulation of a composer. It also annoys me because often it is giving them all the credit for music often half written by someone else, long diseased and unable to protest.

Again, I disagree with you on this point. You're making film composers out to be little more than plagarists and that really bugs me, especially since borrowing of ideas isn't unique to the field of film composition. I know you don't like me saying this but it does strike me that you don't know what you're talking about when you say things like that.

As for the accolades, well that's only natural. As long as top concert composers write music that will only appeal to niche audiences (music that is very intellectually stimulating), then they can't expect to gain mass recognition. They can't have it both ways and I don't suppose they'd want to becuase part of the appeal of "difficult" concert music is that it isn't mainstream.

Furthermore, the lack of accolades for concert composers isn't film composers fault in the slightest. Do you honestly think if John Williams wasn't writing blockbuster film scores, there'd be a mass of people going out buying CDs of Ferneyhough?

Your bitterness on behalf of concert composers isn't helping your point in the slightest.

This is why, despite the respect I hold for film composers, I feel the need to nominate them here, as their music simply cannot hold up, as music, against concert music.

A Shostokovich Symphony would make a shite film score. An Elfman film score wouldn't work on stage without being rewritten becuase of structural problems. Again you're comparing apples and oranges and I'd urge you not to.

As for whether it holds up "as music", that's such a ridiculously subjective argument it's hardly worth getting into. I can quickly get bored listening to an overly-long Handel aria, but could listen to the textures and sounds of, for example, Bernard Hermann all day long.

As a side note, I am nominating composers who write mainly film music (NOT Vaughan Williams, Prokofiev, Copland, Shostakovich, Glass, Walton, Bernstein and Arnold etc...!!! - though I've never viewed their film scores as their greatest works, far from it), because while others write film scores as necessities when they need financial support, or where they find an opportunity to genuinely follow their artistic vision, these composers actively choose to specialise in the area of film music (so I guess you can exclude Korngold from my grouping of nominees).

That doesn't really answer my question. Do you consider film scores by the afforementioned composers as genuine compositions or not?

What about VW's film score to Scott of the Antarctic which later became his Symphony Antarctica? Is that score not a genuine composition? Becuase you did say, along with regarding film composers as the world's worst repuable composers that you "don't regard film scores as genuine composition".

Tosh. So are you telling me that if you hear a piece of John Williams' music you're unfamiliar with you won't recognise it as John Williams. I think he has a very distinctive style. As for rewriting existing pieces of music; Williams is one of the best composers of a melody there is and you're doing him a huge injustice with your claims.

Jaws bears no resemblance to Dvorak 9 at all.

Even though the music for the sand people had Stravinsky Rite as a substitute (By Lucas), it's total coincidence that Williams music is almost the same.

Strange how Dvorak 9 (scherzo) has the same Motif as Duel of the Fates.

Weird how the first 5 notes of Mussorgsky's Pictures appears as the first 5 notes of a SW track.

Has no resemblance of Prokofiev at all either.


Ooh, I just checked wiki:

Star Wars music - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

they say the same.

The fact remains that film music may be a different medium to concert music, but to me it is clearly an inferior one, and one that gives a lot less intellectual satisfaction to the listener

Williams music... is actually quite complex....

A Shostokovich Symphony would make a shite film score.

Depends on the movie..... it wouldn't suite a Disney film, but there are some it would.

Film music is music made to the dictates of the mass-markets and can be said to have crowd-pleasing as a requirement.

How dare music be memorable and pleasing. And no. The mass market prefers pop music - not classical.

Furthermore, it takes just as much skill to compose a very good film score as it does to compose a very good symphony and it could be argued just as easily that only 5% of symphonies ever composed are genuinly original with many based on old styles, tried and tested techniques, understood orchestrations etc. (see, I can pick numbers out of the air as well, fun isn't it?!)

5% is a little too little but, I agree. There are countless symphonies we will never know.

*can't edit*

oh, Gershwin - he make poor "jazz"/broadway, whatever he wants to call that.
And is not classical music by a long* shot.

*I mean loooong shot.

Originally Posted by walkingwikipedia

Film music is music made to the dictates of the mass-markets and can be said to have crowd-pleasing as a requirement.

You mean like opera or church music?

Originally Posted by walkingwikipedia

P.S. to Qccowboy...
I question the need to reply to my opinions not with rebuttal/opposing opinions but rather with statements suggesting I don't know what I'm talking about. To me this is mildly offensive and I respectfully ask for you to offer healthy debate (even briefly)/constructive comments, or stay silent.

if you had somethig to rebutt or oppose other than your banal statement regarding John Williams, then I might have.

I didn't say you were wrong about FILM music, I said you were limited in your assessment of John Williams as a composer, who HAS composed concert works (concerti, etc...).

I happen to have the highest regard for many of his concert works (and I don't mean "olympic fanfares" and his other incidental concert works, which bear more likeness to his filmscores than to his true concert works).

I DID say that it was "ill advised" to simply dismiss film composers in the manner you did. It isn't all second rate music. I wouldn't give it to any of my students to study; however, it suits its purpose effectively. I liken (good) filmscores in many ways to opera and ballet.

Originally Posted by demonic_advent

No. I do not hate fugues at all. There is sense and order in fugues. There is nothing but purposely flouting all standard senses of music in 12-tone theory.

If you can't hear sense and order in pieces by, say, Webern you obviously have never really listened to them... And it's not about "purposely floating all standard senses of music" (aside from the fact that the term "standard senses of music" is highly dubitable). Contrary to popular belief the 12-tone system wasn't just "made up out of the blue", but is merely an attempt to formalise a kind of very expressive music that had developed for quite some time, to structurize it.

The point why I brought up fugues, is that they are clearly much more "mathematical" than dodecaphonic music. The compositional freedoms in 12-tone music are generally greater than the freedoms in a fugue, which is very much determined by strict rules. Both are highly structured systems, both only serve the music in the end. It (partly) is the beauty of the structure we enjoy, both in a Bach fugue and a piece by Webern.

(True serialist music, as it appeared in the fifties is of course a slightly different matter, as it is much more goverened by strict rules than Schoenbergs 12-tone music. However, even there deciding on the musical rules is a highly individual process.)

And your example of why Schoenberg's music is random astounds me: Purposefully evading tonality is random? How can a purpose be random? If Schoenberg had wanted to write random sounding music he clearly would have used dice, right? I have several times listened to actual random music (written with dice, computer algorithms etc.), and I assure you, it sounds nothing like Schoenberg.

Walkingwikipedia; What do you mean by "rewriting pieces"? Can you give me examples of this?

Originally Posted by Gardener

If you can't hear sense and order in pieces by, say, Webern you obviously have never really listened to them... And it's not about "purposely floating all standard senses of music" (aside from the fact that the term "standard senses of music" is highly dubitable). Contrary to popular belief the 12-tone system wasn't just "made up out of the blue", but is merely an attempt to formalise a kind of very expressive music that had developed for quite some time, to structurize it.

The point why I brought up fugues, is that they are clearly much more "mathematical" than dodecaphonic music. The compositional freedoms in 12-tone music are generally greater than the freedoms in a fugue, which is very much determined by strict rules. Both are highly structured systems, both only serve the music in the end. It (partly) is the beauty of the structure we enjoy, both in a Bach fugue and a piece by Webern.

(True serialist music, as it appeared in the fifties is of course a slightly different matter, as it is much more goverened by strict rules than Schoenbergs 12-tone music. However, even there deciding on the musical rules is a highly individual process.)

And your example of why Schoenberg's music is random astounds me: Purposefully evading tonality is random? How can a purpose be random? If Schoenberg had wanted to write random sounding music he clearly would have used dice, right? I have several times listened to actual random music (written with dice, computer algorithms etc.), and I assure you, it sounds nothing like Schoenberg.

First of all: I never said that the 12-tone system was made up out of the blue. However, it's ultimate purpose was to use mathmatical forumlae to ensure that the music produced had absolutly no leaning into one tonality. Thus, it is trying to keep the music random, by avoiding all tonalities and making sure all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are used in equal distribution. At least, that's what true 12-tone theory states. Some have obviously modified it to their own needs. Also, I have no issues with atonailty. My favorite composer is Scriabin, and I like his late atonal works the best.

Regarding fugues: They do have strict rules. However, if you abide strictly by those rules with no freedom of expression, you get the crap that 19th century composers turned out in fugues. You need to have some freedom to it. That's what makes Bach the ultimate master of the fugue. He knew how to control it to his advantage, taking the rules and bending them to his needs.

To have a purpose is not random. However, that purpose can be random. Making sure that all 12 notes are used equally, to avoid any standard views on tonality is trying to be as random as possible. It might not be random in the sense that it's very structured, but the purpose of it is to make the music as random as possible, to the ears of the listener.