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all of them were hans zimmer about himself

Well, I got 4 / 6 of the people who were insulted, but 0 / 6 of the people who were doing the insulting. That's a win in my book. Thanks @bkho, this was fun

Here are the answers: 1. "A dull fellow who composes the same form over and over." - A Russian about an Italian Stravinsky referring to Vivaldi (there's another supposed quote of him deriding Vivaldi for composing the same piece 500 times but that is likely apocryphal) 2. "I have played over the music of that scoundrel. What a giftless bastard!" - A Russian about a German Tchaikovsky referring to Brahms. Tchaikovsky was quite jealous of Brahms' fame though in their one documented meeting, they actually got along quite well. 3. "The prospect of having to sit through one of his extended symphonies or piano concertos tends quite frankly to depress me. All those notes.... to what end?" - An American about a Russian Copeland referring to Rachmanioff. 4. "A composer for one right hand." - A German about a Pole Wagner referring to Chopin 5. "His music sounds like Bach on the wrong notes." - A Russian on another Russian Prokofiev referring to Stravinsky 6. "He would have been a great composer if his teacher spanked him enough on his backside." - A German about an Italian Beethoven referring to Rossini Thanks!

Just for fun, here are some quotes (or alleged quotes) concerning famous composers hating on other fellow composers. Can you guess who they are? As a clue, I'll provide nationalities. Try not to use the internet to look them up. No cheating..... 1. "A dull fellow who composes the same form over and over." - A Russian about an Italian 2. "I have played over the music of that scoundrel. What a giftless bastard!" - A Russian about a German 3. "The prospect of having to sit through one of his extended symphonies or piano concertos tends quite frankly to depress me. All those notes.... to what end?" - An American about a Russian 4. "A composer for one right hand." - A German about a Pole 5. "His music sounds like Bach on the wrong notes." - A Russian on another Russian 6. "He would have been a great composer if his teacher spanked him enough on his backside." - A German about an Italian I'll post answers tomorrow.

The entire point of most art studies today, as I was saying before, is to suppress this and not build on it. Unique possibilities arise from a combination of older styles that are informed by natural beauty laws. These are rejected, for various political reasons, by the arts programs of basically everywhere. That's why something like the common practice period was able to produce music that was new, but was also good. It was an outgrowth of what came before it, but atonal and serialist stuff was not. It was a rejection of it and ultimately a dead end; that's why Mozart endures and Schoenberg is limited to the realm of pseudo-intellectual "academics". Teachers today, especially in visual arts but it's there in music too, actively discourage or even punish being in tune with the nature and past of all this, and so, no genuine creativity is allowed. Instead, they will champion modernist trash with "something to say" as being "progress" — even though all that stuff is exactly the same as all the other "progressive" stuff that has been churned out over the last 100 years.

I only know no. 2 is Tchaikovsky ranting about Brahms in his personal journal. The rest are a mystery to me.

1. Stravinsky on Vivaldi, I believe. Not sure about any of the others, though I've heard 4 and 5 before. The target of 6 might be Rossini, said by Beethoven, but that's just a guess.

I'll take some guesses. Some of these are pretty wild, so have mercy on me. 1. Tchaikovsky on Verdi was a good guess, but I'll go for something different... Borodin about Rossini? OK, from here on out, I'm going to try not to look at any of @Tónskáld 's guesses. 2. Rachmaninoff about Brahms? 3. Hmmm.... Gershwin about Rachmaninoff? 4. Brahms about Chopin? 5. Tough one. Shostakovich about Stravinsky? 6. Beethoven about Vivaldi?

I'll take a stab at these. They are complete guesses, so if any of them are correct, I'll be shocked, lol. The Italian could definitely be Vivaldi, but since I don't know of any Russian composer during the Baroque era (and since I'm assuming these quotes are about contemporaries), I'm going to say it is Tchaikovsky insulting Verdi. This sounds like something Prokofiev would say. But about whom is the question... perhaps Schoenberg? There aren't too many famous American composers, so I'll say this is Copland talking about Shostakovich. The US and Poland are in the same boat here—only a handful of famous composers. Perhaps this is Wagner disparaging Chopin. I don't... Prokofiev insulting Stravinsky. Or vice versa. Beethoven about... I have no idea who his Italian contemporaries were. Boccherini? I'm done now.