BLACKSPANIARD

The Classical Guitar player? I didn't know he wrote music.

Finding out about new composers is very difficult. I was hoping that this forum would help, but it seems people here think that composers like Barber or Copeland or even Schoenberg are still "modern"! Yikes..... Most of the greats of the last century are recently dead or very old. Part, Feldman, Reich, Glass, Carter, Ligeti, Penderecki, Boulez, Grisey, Stockhausen, Berio etc. The 50's and 60's was really the last, and probably one of the greatest, eras of "Classical" music. These days composers are quick to jump into film composing instead of producing works of art, so I think the game is over.

Schubert is cool....when quoted in George Crumb's Black Angels! haha... Schubert is a great melodist and harmonist, but large scale form - not so much. And really, enough with the age comparison to Beethoven. Schubert died at age 31. By age 34 Beethoven single-handedly changed the entire course of music with his 3rd Symphony. 3 years - big deal. There is no comparison to Beethoven. Period. As for greatest string quartet - without a question the C# minor quartet, op.131. by Beethoven. The greatest single piece for SQ would easily be op. 133, the Grosse Fuge. Beethoven's late works are just a completely higher level than anyone else's works, with the possible exception of some of J.S. Bach. Other quartets that seriously kick donkey.......... Morton Feldman's Quartet #2 Elliott Carter's Quartets 1-4 Lutoslawski Quartet Phillip Glass #2 Schoenberg 3 & 4 Bartok (ALL) Beethoven (Middle and other Late Quartets) And honorable mention to Haydn for inventing the genre and for his late quartets. Gotta love Papa Haydn!