And your favorite composer is...

I like alot of composers, but for favourites it's a tie between Mozart and Beethoven, even though there are works by both that I don't like.

Originally Posted by Qccowboy

A number of years back, I was teaching in a music camp. The camp orchestra and chorus sang a Vivaldi "Gloria".

One of the other piano teachers and myself (I was teaching composition) did a little comedy sketch called "Vivaldi in the age of Xerox"... we had a pile of paper at the piano, one of us played the opening phrase of the Vivaldi Gloria... over and over and over again, as the other one turned a single page at each repetition of the main theme.

You'll be shocked to find that I despise his Gloria and always have from the start.

Okay, well, not really. But the first (and therefore second to last) movement of the Gloria (RV 589) is terrible. I prefer the inner movements, save for Propter Magnam which is a badly-written fugue.

M-ozart.. not to be confused with Mozart.

I would have to say, Yasunori Mitsuda, Mozart, Nobuo Uematsu, Beethoven. That's who I can think of right now.

God is my favourite composer.

Ah the controversy begins.

Well, on a human playing field, George Gershwin.

Stravinsky. Totes.

At the moment it's Grieg or Brahms.

Oh please, Vivaldi only repeats the opening gloria movement 4 times, with different instruments, and then uses it as a bass line... Might I also mention that the first statement of the opening theme is not like the others (ok, it's similar, but it ain't exactly the same). It's certainly not as bad (if you can call that bad...) as his op. 3 no. 5 first movement.... where the entire orchestra plays an A lord knows how many times.

Might I also add that the propter magnum is not really a fugue, it simply uses fugual entrances... vivaldi wasn't a stickler for strict counterpoint, although he could write in strict counterpoint very well, take for instance op. 3, no. 11, the 3rd movement.

As for my favorite composers, the great two are Handel and Bach, with some preference for Handel.

My first real and meaningful encounter with classical music was with Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto, so he will also hold a special place with me. Also Beethoven (what a glorious composer - you know those little works the 9th symphony and the Missa Solemnis?--- I just think it's amazing that he wrote such wonderful music.. especially when he was deaf!) also Ravel. (And almost every other composer I have heard)

For me it's definately Pyotr Tchaikovsky; I especially love his Sixth Symphony.


Aaaand I forgot Nobuo Uematsu. Silly me.

Shostakovich is good too.