Top 10 Composers
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Taking a detour from my usual topics, I was inspired by an article I saw on the NY Times website regarding the greatest composers. Being a fan of lists, I decided to take a crack at my own personal top 10 composers.
1. Ludwig van Beethoven
Nickname: The King of Composers
Why: When people think of great composers, he’s the first that comes to mind. His skill at crafting musical pieces is unparalleled; you can’t make it through grade school without having those opening chords to his 5th symphony stuck in your mind. He wrote in two different eras, Classical and Romanticism, and yet if you listen to all of his pieces, there’s not a humongous variation. Virtuosic with a piano, he helped usher in eras where composers challenged audiences moving away from lighter fare of the Classical period to the more rich Romantic era. I mean, the man took 4 notes and created an entire movement around them and routinely broke the form of the symphony.
Most Famous For: Coriolan Overture, Symphony #3 (Eroica), #5 and #9, Moonlight Sonata
2. Stephen Sondheim
Nickname: The King of Broadway
Why: Wait, this guy scores musicals. Why is he on this list? *says the snide critics* Sondheim, more than the other composers on this list can be attributed to changing an artform. Before he even came into his prime he wrote the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy, two classic musicals of the modern age. Once he really started composing (aka after he’d won a Tony for best score and musical) he challenged audiences with dark subject matter, intricate plots, and challenging musical compositions. Whether he’s chronicling the story of a bachelor and his friends (Company), presidentital assassins (Assassins) or a muderous barber and his enterprising compatriot (Sweeney Todd), Sondheim has never met a subject he couldn’t work with.
Most Famous For: Follies, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Passion
3. Hector Berlioz
Nickname: The King of Orchestration and Program Music
Why: It can often be said that music can tell a story. As one of the pioneers of program music, Berlioz knew that very well. His most famous works are based on either plays (Romeo and Juliet) or on liberetti distributed to patrons (Symphonie fantastique). Apart from understanding how music could take you somewhere, he’s often considered the first great master of orchestration. His Treastie on Instrumentation was used as a guide to develop the mega orchestras that many of his contemporaries would use. But his knowledge was more than just how many instruments, but the feel they could give a piece. Just listen to the final movement of his sublime Symphonie fantastique where at one point he has the string players turn their bows over so he can recreate the sound of bugs crawling.
Most Famous For: Symphonie fantastique Mvt. 4 and 5, Deris Irae, Overture to Benvunto Cellini
4. George Gershwin
Nickname: The King of the Jazz Infused Melody
Why: Gerswhin, perhaps more than the other composers on this list, heavily relied on the popular music of his era to craft his masterpieces. What’s so astounding is that he mixed a style of music, jazz, that’s based on not conforming to set rules, with classical and Broadway music. His compositions have held up so well that many of his songs have been reorganized to create new Broadway shows and still maintained a semblance of being part of a single score. His peak was porbably the folk opera Porgy and Bess, which has yielded many standards and is the most famous American opera.
Best Compositions: Rhapsody in Blue, Porgy and Bess, An American in Paris
5. Peter Tchaikovsky
Nickname: The King of Ballet
Why: Everyone knows his compositions, even if they’ve never been to a ballet. Christmas wouldn’t be the same without his Nutcracker suites and Natalie Portman owes her Oscar to the inspiration Darren Aronofksy had from Swan Lake. What’s so interesting about Tchaikovsky is that so much of his creative output came from scoring ballets. Since there is no dialog in most ballets, tchaikovsky was routinely challenged to create soundscapes that lent themselves to dance while not boring patrons. He explored changing harmonies, orchestration and instrumentation in each of his works.
Most Famous For: The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, War of 1812 Overture, Romeo and Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty
6. Richard Wagner
Nickname: The King of Bombast
Why: Wagner is on the list because he discovered that classical music didn’t have to be timid. You could challenge audiences with mega orchestras and long operas and still be popular (questionable politics aside). Wagner really had a grasp on musical techniques like leitmotif and chromaticism, and wrote his own liberetti, turning operas into Gesamtkunstwerk aka “a total work of art.” His impact on 20th Century artists was profound and his Ring cycle inspired The Lord of the Rings stories. Wagner, along with Berlioz, helped usher in the era of the mega orchestra (100 musicians for one opera!) earning him the reputation for trying to bludgeon people with sound.
Best Compositions: Die Walkure, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde
7. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Nickname: The King of Popular Classical Music
Why: He’s the grandfather of the Western musical tradition, ushering the Classical age with aplomb. He’s written music for every possible genre: operas, symphonies, overtures, choral music,etc. He was also the first real composer for the people, writing his famous opera The Magic Flute in German, something unheard of at the time. His music is so recognizable because of his focus on homotonality and classical structure.
Most Famous For: The Magic Flute, Requiem, Don Giovanni, Symphony no. 25 in G Minor
8. Alan Menken
Nickname: The King of the Animated Musical
Why: Did you read the Most Famous For line yet? I mean aside from being one of the revitalizing forces for the Disney musical (and Princess brand), he shaped childhoods while never sacrificing artistic merit. It’s incredibly difficult to create a good movie score, much less add songs to it and yet Alan has never failed. Unlike his main rival in glory John Williams, each of Menken’s scores feels uniquely his own.
Most Famous For: Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Newsies, Aladdin, Pocahantas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Enchanted, Tangled and Little Shop of Horrors
9. Guiseppe Verdi
Nickname: The King of Opera
Why: He was incredibly prolific in perfecting one of music’s highest forms, the opera. Along with Wagner, he really pushed the development of the opera and the singers who performed them. Rare is it that you will get an opera season at a recognized company that doesn’t include one of his works. It’s a testament to his lush music and lyrics that he’s so popular. His works are a test of any opera singers mettle with their endless recitatives and drama filled (yes even the comedies) plotlines.
Most Famous For: Aida, La forza del destino, Il travatore, La travieta, Nabucco
10. Felix Mendelssohn
Nickname: The King of the Concert Overture
Why: Few composers can make you feel as though you’re visitng a new location, but Menelssohn compositions do just that. While his music isn’t as challenging as other compoers, he has the rare ability to transport listeners through music. His trip to a cave yielded the Hebrides overture, a stunning piece of music that reflects his understanding of the power in the 2nd instruments in an orchestra. Especially with string instruments, Mendelssohn had a gift for rich harmonies a feel for the timbre that an orchestra should have.
Most Famous For: The Hebrides Overture, Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Italian Symphony
Alternates: Gustav Mahler, John Williams, Anton Dvorak, Leonard Bernstein, J.S. Bach
Ultimate Playlist
1. Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mendelssohn
2. Be Our Guest, Beauty and the Beast, Menken
3. Sunday, Sunday in the Park with George, Sondheim
4. Wotan’s Farewell, Die Walkure, Wagner
5. March to the Scaffold, Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz
6. Mvt 1, Symphony #5, Beethoven
7. Der Hölle Rache, The Magic Flute, Mozart
8. Pace Pace Mio Dio, La forza del destino, Verdi
9. Summertime, Porgy and Bess, Gershwin
10. War of 1812 Overture, Tchaikovsky
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