Greatest Composer

ok...since there has been mucho mentions/discussions on the 'Greatest Male Songwriter' thread regarding composers/musical theatre writers/lyrisists�and the like, why not give them their -own- forum, eh? :)

so....yeah.....thus far here are my picks:

~stephen sondheim. 'a little night music' melt. 'into the woods' good cwazy fun.

~irving berlin. you can't just think about 'god belss america' here, people. he has done SO much more and -so- much better than that!

~george and ira gershwin. the power-brothers!

~richard rodgers and oscar hammerstein II.� though they -do- lose points for 'flower drum song'.�but 'carousel' is one fine work o' musicality.

~also put rodgers and hart in there.� just dinna wanna take away-o oscar's thunder by mentioning them all on the same mention� :) {theatregeek}

~kander and ebb. chicago. cabaret. mmmmmmm.

~alan menken and howard ashman.� 'somewhere that's green'.� *melt*{and a whole lots more}

~johann sebastian bach �fo sho.

~wolfgang amadeus mozart.�

{the two original�3-name divas� :)� }

~george m cohan

and...lest y'all stone me......

~sir andrew lloyd webber.� coz....-some- of his stuff's good.� i mean....i think 'evita' is one of his best....'aspects of love' is also great.� son't just think of the cheezyness of 'cats' and the perceived overblowing' of 'phantom'....�

again...sure i missed more that i'll be upset aboot, but, again...there's always more postin to be done� :)

Webber? WEBBER??? You deserve to be stoned, NO,WAIT! You deserve to be NOT stoned.

vivaldi.

handel.

chopin.

debussey.

teleman.

like, hi. (:

�-= george =-

*Scans post*

Um....where's Ludwig von Beethoven? Seriously, he needs to be up there.

van

and a good thing he is nowhere near all those North American Schmarms. Poor Bach and Mozart must be decomposing in disgust at being mentioned in the same breath.

Excuse me, I seem to have run out of smilies. Ah, there is one, quick, catch it before it gets away. -----> :)

Ah well, at least Bach deserves it. ;)

London to a brick, you confused him with Bacharach.

i forgot beethoven...AND cole porter...

TOLD y'all i knew i'd forget someone!!!

cole porter as a composer? gordon and i were just discussing this; we'd definitely classify him more as a songwriter. because. well. he wrote songs. :)

I second the motion. He is one of the greatest songwriters, which is why I put him on my list. It is really only since Dylan that it became expected for a singer to write his or her own songs.

Gershwin was both a composer and a songwriter, Richard Rogers too.

I pick Johann Sebastian Bach, because playing his stuff is like *living* mathematics. I love him to death, and probably always will. He's so... orderly :D

Regarding Webber... seriously. If you have to argue "-some- of his stuff is good", then obviously he doesn't fit the thread of "Greatest Composer". Only some? And not great? Not wonderful? Not intricate, brilliant, superb, flawless, heartbreaking? Then seriously, many, many other composers (many, many of whom you have listed) deserve to be mentioned here.

• Beethoven


• Mozart


• Bach


• Tsaichovsky

Lots of others but those are the big ones for me.

Worst composer with no peer: John Cage

I once performed Cage's Silent Symphony.� *curtsies*

Wow...I've heard that's a really tough piece. What part did you play? ;)

Don't you mean 4' 33"?

dave grohl! dave grohl! *ducks* :D

i'd go with someone like�mozart or beethoven because their music is so good and exciting and everything, but the thing about them is that you can instantly tell their works because most of their stuff sounds the same.

in my opinion, as much as i'm not really into his music, bach is easily the greatest composer. his music, particularly his harmony,�was way ahead of his time. :)

Dave Grohl is shit next to whoever wrote for Color Me Badd, dude... remember "I wanna sex you up"? Have you ever heard such a romantic, swoonable song?� Now, that person, is the best composer ever.�

'nuff said

I am going to vote for Mozart and Beethoven.

For more recent guys, I'm all about John Corigliano...sooo so good.�

I forgot to list Wagner. My father would be ashamed of me.

What opera composers do you like?

Verdi.
And a bit of Mozart.

yes, verdi. and wagner, especially for fun brass parts.

I read that as "fun bras parts."

Brunhilde's bras are so much fun.

Danny Elfman.

We arn't talking about his work with Oingo Boingo either.� We are talking his scores!� He Rocks!

No doubt about it.

Agreed. And while some may find his Faith No More symphonic work to be superior, I tend to prefer his works with Mr. Bungle, which have a more structured and debonair tone. Listen to the superior chord voicings and arrangement of Squeeze Me Macaroni, and the movement and sophistication of The Girls of Porn.

Danny Elfman

how can you beat the Breakfast Machine from Pee Wees Big Adventure

..or the score to Batman, Beetlejuice, and the opening to Scrooged.

or Edward choppy hands��

John Williams- The Lennon/McCartney of film composition. Peoplw will tell you that his best work was Star Wars. But I beg to differ with a copy of Superman: The Movie.

Danny Elfman- A dark genius in composing, with Batman as powerful as "ride of the valkyres", more or less miss rather than hit as of late.

Howard Shore-my favorite current score cd is "The Fellowship of The Ring". Soft at times and awe inspiring at others.

If John Williams is the Beatles, then Danny Elfman is the Rolling Stones.� No one comes close to those two.

I think that Starwars wasn't William's best workthat year. I prefered Close Encounters. I loved the prolongued variations on a theme that formed the centerpiece of the film.

His best from a cinematic viewpoint was Jaws. You just have to hear those few notes and the entire film is evoked.

Beethoven is certainly #1.� One thing about him is that his music evolved over his short lifetime while Bach, Mozart, Mahler, really did not.� Not that I'm saying they're bad, they're still amazing, but Beethoven moved the classical music genre out of the classical era and into the romantic era all by himself.�

Stravinsky also gets an honorable mention for turning classical music on its collective ear.� Pushing the envelope as far as it could go until "20th Century" music pretty much shredded the envelope.

I don't think we'll ever know though what music will be considered the greatest of our time until we're all dead and gone.� The ones that stick around (Or perhaps ones that make a comeback, like Mahler) will be the ones that are considered the greatest.

yup, beethoven is really an era unto himself.

I have to disagree about Mozart. His final three symphonies, Don Giovonni, and the Requiem were quite different than his earlier works. Just as early Beethoven can sound like Mozart, late Mozart can sound like Beethoven. They are more dramatic and less courtly than the works of his youth.

*does a dance*

I get to see Rite of Spring and Oedipus Rex @ the Met in October!� Yay!

Mmmm Rite of Spring....

Mmmm riots when it first premiered......

I would have to say:

~Beethoven - His Violin Concerto is my second favorite piece of classical music and his range of other works is very impressive for a semi-deaf guy.
~Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue is my favorite
~Chopin - I just love piano and his Etudes just strike me as great.
~Ravel - I only really know Bolero but the way that it starts out soft and progress into an crashing crescendo is simply amazing
~Scott Joplin - so many great piano rags, so little time.
~Duke Ellington - lots of good jazz standards.

~Stephen Sondheim - He demostrates a great range from the cheerier melodies in Into the Woods to the haunting songs in Assassins. He's my favorite musical composer.
~kander and ebb - Chicago, Cabaret, and Kiss of the Spider Woman...great musicals.