The Easy List

Composers To Take A Look At

for beginning enthusiasts

Well, we all have to start somewhere, so I'm recommending some of the greatest composers to any of you who are interested.

You can be just interested in listening to soundfiles or movies, so simply all you must do is go to youtube and type in the composer's name, and a performance would generally appear infront of you. Or perhaps you are looking for good section or solo music by composer to purchase. Look no further!

The shortlist I'm giving is in order starting at the top being the most looked at (classical) music composer according to his works, and the rest are to follow.

Ask me or anyone here (community display) any questions you have on music or composer specifics preferably by creating a new thread in the Composer's Headquarters.

I ask anyone here (perferably who is familiar with the demands for sheet music) to list recommendations on various composers and(or) pieces that they believe to be valid via colloquial orchestral interest that may hold chance assisting a young composer in achieving new enlightenment. Even elaborate on my list!

This is a good thread to post some of your significant opinions, of general repertoire, that may influence guests or new members whom are as well beginning enthusiasts to seek these names from multiple sources. This is "The Easy List."

Here is my take at the greatest composers by popularity:

1. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

2. Bach, Johann Sebastian

3. Beethoven, Ludwig van

4. Brahms, Johannes

5. Schubert, Franz

6. Verdi, Giuseppe

7. Wagner, Richard

8. Debussy, Claude

9. Schumann, Robert

10. Mendelssohn, Felix

11. Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich

12. Handel, George Frideric

13. Chopin, Fr

This is a great iniciative.

There is a great lack on contemporary music however...

I agree with nikolas, and how can there be no Mahler? Google search results (by no mean conclusive I know) but Massenet has 1,000,000 less results than Mahler. Wagner also has 2 million more results than Mendelssohn. This does say something.

It's hardly likely that people will find a favourite in the list due to the fact that they are the accepted 'favourites' anyway, which is the only outcome you will get if you use sales and recirculation. I'd also take into account Torrents and eMule etc. Regardless of the legality they are a factor.

This is a great iniciative.

There is a great lack on contemporary music however...

Please elaborate :). I urge you to if possible.

I agree with nikolas, and how can there be no Mahler?

I do plan to extend the list when more of my research is complete. Gustav Mahler is not far from the top, though I am very certain the 30 I have posted are in their correct popularity ranking via this age's music sales. We don't have to agree that they are the 30 most influential, though I am certain of their popularity.

I do believe that it would be even more helpful if we could combine the influential aspect with the popularity aspect. That would make for an even more affective list. I'd rather not extend the list, but make it better as both of you have questioned it. Thank you for the idea, and expect the list to be altered quite soon.

I don't have the time right now.

But apart from Prokofiev and Shostachovich you pretty much have no 20th century composer. And yes Saint Saens lived to 1910+ (more than that), but still he is not exactly contempoary in any way.

As I said I can't put a list of my own and this IS a gbreat initiative! Just needs filling up!

What would be useful is to mention why you choose those 30 names in the first place. Sales only? Donizetti sells more than... Stravinsky? That's what I mean.

Also recomending names alone is not much help. Yes youtube has links, etc, and is an amazing tool (and this is why I said that it's a great idea), but it could further help to point out what one could do with this. Or provide ideas about more specific works. (I don't know any work from Donizetti really :D)

What I mean is that right now this is basically a list of composers, in a rather arbitrary sense and nothing else. Make it something else! You can do it! Provide further information about what to do with these composers. Rank them by era, provide famous works (cause not everything Greig wrote was amazing, nor any composer really), provide ideas on where to get scores maybe, what to do with the works.

What I just want to mention is that it's highly important to keep listening for ever and I still find it extremely useful.

And by no means I'm bashing to this great idea for a thread or the original poster. :)

I don't have the time right now.

But apart from Prokofiev and Shostachovich you pretty much have no 20th century composer. And yes Saint Saens lived to 1910+ (more than that), but still he is not exactly contempoary in any way.

As I said I can't put a list of my own and this IS a gbreat initiative! Just needs filling up!

What would be useful is to mention why you choose those 30 names in the first place. Sales only? Donizetti sells more than... Stravinsky? That's what I mean.

Also recomending names alone is not much help. Yes youtube has links, etc, and is an amazing tool (and this is why I said that it's a great idea), but it could further help to point out what one could do with this. Or provide ideas about more specific works. (I don't know any work from Donizetti really :D)

What I mean is that right now this is basically a list of composers, in a rather arbitrary sense and nothing else. Make it something else! You can do it! Provide further information about what to do with these composers. Rank them by era, provide famous works (cause not everything Greig wrote was amazing, nor any composer really), provide ideas on where to get scores maybe, what to do with the works.

What I just want to mention is that it's highly important to keep listening for ever and I still find it extremely useful.

And by no means I'm bashing to this great idea for a thread or the original poster. :)

I do find some of the facts odd (like Donizetti selling more than Stravinksy, but infact this is unusually true world wide) so I would rather make the list less unusual. I am going to reason with more qualitative statistics and of course the composers' influential aspects as well. And I will eventually organize this into multiple lists with an even number of composers per era. Thanks for your opinion and support on this idea, nikolas! ;)

I agree with nikolas, and how can there be no Mahler? Google search results (by no mean conclusive I know) but Massenet has 1,000,000 less results than Mahler. Wagner also has 2 million more results than Mendelssohn. This does say something.

It's hardly likely that people will find a favourite in the list due to the fact that they are the accepted 'favourites' anyway, which is the only outcome you will get if you use sales and recirculation. I'd also take into account Torrents and eMule etc. Regardless of the legality they are a factor.

This isn't exactly the best reasoning I can deal with, but it does account. My facts are based of off world wide statistics from an extensive variety of sources. I do believe it will be more affective for people to know about composers like Stravinksy and Mahler, and it is at my fault I have only taken into consideration the sales and recirculation of music and not the historical operation of many of the composers I should not have left out.

The list is being reessembled and thank you for correcting me. I was only dealing in numbers (and I wasn't taking google.com into that large of an account by the way.) I will take internet searches and illegal filesharing into more consideration than I had before, even though I believe their databases are somewhat limitted.

Though give me composers you think would suit the list of 30, and I'll take account everyone's opinions to make it better.

What about Schoenberg and Webern and Varese?

I don't understand this. This should as well be a list of all composers ever, since who the scraggy cares about popularity? That don't mean anything. You can organize it by any other arbitrary thing like, uh, age of death. Or of birth.

It's OBVIOUS that a lot of really cool people will go without mention if you go by popularity, and that scraggy ain't good.

So, yeah. Pretty pointless, this looks more like a personal preference list "hay guyz listen to this!!!!" list than an index of any sort. And really, you can get an index from just about anywhere that doesn't leave out Varese or Schoenberg. Even Satie isn't on the goddamn list!

If you ask me, a beginner composer should start off with stuff like Bart

I don't understand this. This should as well be a list of all composers ever, since who the scraggy cares about popularity? That don't mean anything. You can organize it by any other arbitrary thing like, uh, age of death. Or of birth.

It's OBVIOUS that a lot of really cool people will go without mention if you go by popularity, and that scraggy ain't good.

So, yeah. Pretty pointless, this looks more like a personal preference list "hay guyz listen to this!!!!" list than an index of any sort. And really, you can get an index from just about anywhere that doesn't leave out Varese or Schoenberg. Even Satie isn't on the goddamn list!

If you ask me, a beginner composer should start off with stuff like Bart

I really dislike all these "Greatest Composer", "Greatest Piece of Music", "Greatest Concerto" and stuff like that, it really does. As SSC says, they are pointless, and it would be far better if you asked for the "favourite" instead of the "greatest".

Plus, I don't understand why all these threads are located in the "composer's headquarters" forum instead of the "repertoire" forum.

Gusy relax.

The idea is simple.

Nobody will go on and study... every composer, alive or dead. There needs to be some choice. Popularity might be a good way to choose as any.

The OP proposed that we all chip in and create a better list, instead of moaning!

My take (I still dont' have time to make a list myself) is that one should cover every "era" adequately and then move on, or style.

So you get Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, extensively but probably get one work from Vivaldi no matter how popular. After all the guy wrote 500 times the same concerto! :D

Then you move to some other composers, but I'm not sure that Grieg is unique enough (even if I love him, totally and have played various stuff from him). There's not much worth of analysing. Chopin, yes, Schubert, well... maybe, Brahms, yes again. Move further you get to Mahler and Rachmaninov and before you know it you've reached the 20th century which is filled with different styles, so you go for individual composers.

Ravel, Debussy, Stravinksy, Prokofiev, Shostachovich, Schoemberg, Berg, Webern, List (whoops forgot about him, previously, although, again not much to actually analyse), Bartok, Ligeti, Penderevski, Lutoslawski, Boulez, and the list goes on.

Of course Haydn and Haendel is also somewhere in the list, and maybe a few more composers which I might be forgetting. But the idea is that if you study Mozart, then you kinda studied Haydn as well (not 100% of course). Beethoven is a completely new dog. Brahms comes close to BEethoven, dangerously close, but he is different in his own way.

And either way, 30-40 names is a huge list which would take literally years to complete, so it's far from an "easy list".

But that's my take to it.

Sibelius? Rimsky-Korsakov? Arvo P

Well I'm glad you guys are involved and don't think its a dumb idea. Though I do agree it needs some organization, Nikolas, but thanks for pulling through on it.

It would be better if one of the mods could give me their take on the "idea" not necissarily "my list," and then possibly create a bookmarked list somewhere entitled: "Hey, Check Some Of These Composers Out" or "New Composers Come Check Out These Popular Works."

Infact, I'm going to change it up a bit and make a recommendation on the suggestion board.

If you ask me, a beginner composer should start off with stuff like Bart