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

Originally Posted by kvitske

Brahms!!! Definately Brahms! There are billions of composers I haven't heard yet, but Brahms is the only one that makes me fall asleep. If I were a Furby, I'd say: "Booooring!". I'm not a Furby but I still say "Booooring!" to Brahms...

Totally agree!!!!! I get really anoyed by all those music afficionadoes that consistantly push for the three "B"s of music: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. He has some terrific stuff, but it lasts for 8 bars and then dies away lingering for 15 minutes. Shame. Mahler did the same, but came to life instead of dying away. (Cite any Adagio Mahler wrote.)

Originally Posted by MoonWoman Cuts the Circle

Yes, I'm sure you could teach Beethoven what music's really about....

I'm sure you could do an equally good job teaching Beethoven about music.

Justin! I disagree about Brahms. Some of his music is a little meandering, but then again some of his other stuff grabs you by the balls! I'm tempted to post a youtube video to back me up!

I recognise Williams' obvious sources of inspiration, but I can't say that the entire Star Wars score is derived from older works. The obvious bit is the end of Mars, and I'm sure lots of other bits of the score are inspired by this piece. But, some of the more abstract pieces like 'Attacking a star fleet', and 'The Asteroid Field' (think thats the one) don't sound particularly like anything that's been written before. (Ok, may be in the same/similar style as the golden age composers, but to me that's definitely a good thing).

I agree that Hermann, and Newman wrote some incredibly emotional, and incredibly competent music. For me, Williams is a bit of a mixed bag of a composer. Some of his stuff is as good as the great film composers (imo) but a lot of it isn't. However, the fact that he wrote the Star Wars score, ET, close encounters proves to me at least, that he is an exceptionally talented composer.

Btw, if you like 'golden age' composers, you should listen to some of Georges Auric's stuff and definitely listen to the score for on the waterfront.

PS. if you're going to talk about film composers ripping off other works, have you heard that podcast about James Horner? He actually lifts whole passages, mainly from Prokofiev it seems.

Brahms is absolutely utterly totally amazing! Many angry emoticons to those who disagree!

Originally Posted by Gardener

Brahms is absolutely utterly totally amazing! Many angry emoticons to those who disagree!

YouTube - Brahms - Piano Quartet No. 1 - IV - Pierre-Laurent Aimard

Worth watching, despite the crazy camerawork which actually makes it kind of hilarious in parts... Probably best to just listen then!

Ok. I'm caught on that argument about Brahms. I havn't really listened to all that much of him. But what I have heard was boring.

For Williams, I'm going to go back to the scores and listen to those and see what my view is. 'Till then...

He may be tallented, but that goesn't make him great or even good. I quote Mahler: "The longer you live and the more you learn, the more clearly you will feel the difference between the few men who are truly great and the mere virtuosi."

Originally Posted by Gardener

Brahms is absolutely utterly totally amazing! Many angry emoticons to those who disagree!

*Fistfight ensues*

Originally Posted by Justin Tokke

No. As said above, Williams was not original.

That really flew above your head, didn't it?

Originally Posted by SSC

*Fistfight ensues*

I'll gladly step into the ring both for Brahms and Koopman! I'm sure there were more than those we wanted to fight about but I forgot who.

Originally Posted by Justin Tokke

Disclaimer: THIS IS AN OPINION!!!

I have listened to his score, almost the entire score from the Star Wars series. I write him off because he is ridiculiously unoriginal. Everything he writes was written before. Personally, the scores of Hermann and Alfred Newman are much richer and have more depth than Williams. Even Miklos Roszca (sp?) did more interesting stuff. A good composer takes something else and reworks it to make it sound new and fresh even though it may be the same thing, just in a different lens. Williams did not do this. He just copied the score from Mars, put it in 4/4 and got his check in the mail. Lucas should just have bought a CD of the LSO playing the Planets and used that. He would have saved a heck of a lot of money and 98% of movie-goers wouldn't have known the difference.

I love the way people base their entire opinions on Williams' music on Star Wars, as if that was the only thing he ever wrote.

I can literally say I have heard just about every single note John Williams wrote, both for the screen and for the concert stage. And to base an opinion on that single series of soundtracks is as faulty as basing an assessment of Webern on his Passacaglia opus 1 for orchestra.

And going by the age of many of the users of this forum, I suspect too many are basing their "star wars" opinions on the prequel trilogy soundtracks, which are, in my opinion, among Williams' most feeble attempts at film scoring.

By the way, Williams did far more in the Star Wars scores than copy a few measures of Holst and change the time signature. Saying anything like that is simply a sign of pure ignorance on the matter.