Why?

I intended to post this in the "Composer Depot" forum, but that one is read-only, and the Mozart and Rachmaninov sub-fora won't work, but here goes:

I think there should also be forums for the following composers:

Leonin

Perotin

Guillaume de Machaut

Gilles Binchois

Guillaume Dufay

John Dunstable

Johannes Ockeghem

Martin Praetorius

Heinrich Schütz

Claudio Monteverdi

Giovanni Palestrina

Orlando di Lasso

Georg Frideric Handel

Johann Sebastian Bach

Joseph Haydn

Carl Maria von Weber

Gioacchino Rossini

Franz Schubert

Robert Schumann

Franz Liszt

Antonin Dvorak

Giuseppe Verdi

Anton Bruckner

Gustav Mahler

Carl Nielsen

Igor Stravinsky

Sergej Prokofiev

Aram Khachaturian

Erik Satie

Claude Debussy

Maurice Ravel

Charles Koechlin

Dmitri Shostakovich

Paul Hindemith

Arthur Honegger

Francis Poulenc

Darius Milhaud

Edgard Varèse

Olivier Messiaen

Bernd Alois Zimmermann

Gy

What an amazing list! I don't think you left anyone out! Oh...you should have CPE Bach in there. He was the most talented of the Bach sons, and a real rabble-rouser.

...having dedicated sub-fora for certain more (Beethoven) or less (Rachmaninov) talented composers looks rather silly to me.

This is subjective, surely. Rachmaninov's "Vespers" alone makes him as worthy of a place on the list as half the other guys you have there. It's the crowning glory of Russian Orthodox liturgical music, and no one before or since has written anything better - not even Bortniansky (whom I greatly respect) or Tchaikovsky. I can't even bear to listen to it sometimes, it's so indescribably beautiful and deathlessly great.

Once I think of more, I'll add them... Seriously, why a sub-forum for Rachmaninov? There are dozens of composers more important and more competent (and more deserving of a dedicated sub-forum) than him. I like the idea of the "Composer Depot" itself, but having dedicated sub-fora for certain more (Beethoven) or less (Rachmaninov) talented composers looks rather silly to me.

Ok, I was doing some thinking. This category of "composers" would be to hard to upkeep. I mean, there are just way to many composers, and I have a feeling there would be many blank topics. I am thinking about changing this category to just plain old "repertoire" to narrow down the subcategories big time. There would be hundreds of subforums and this is going to look pretty messy. Sometimes I have to lay out things in order to see if it will work, or not work...and I see that this category isn't going to work. But don't worry. I will keep the same idea, just it will be alot less messier.

I want one more category: chamber music.

This recategorisation is an experiment to see if we can increase the post rate even more. While it runs the risk of further fragmenting posts, devoting subforums to more specific topics may prompt people to come up with new ideas and start more discussions. If it doesn't go well, we'll go back to how it was before. :)

Originally posted by J. Lee Graham@Jul 20 2005, 05:31 PM

This is subjective, surely.  Rachmaninov's "Vespers" alone makes him as worthy of a place on the list as half the other guys you have there.

* goes hunting on Google *

I want no categories!

I guess you should go back to the way it was before, no one seems to use these forums! :)

You seem to be forgetting some of the mighty Opera composers...

Puccini

Bellini

Saint-Saens

Offenbach

Delibes

Leoncavallo

Strauss (R and J for that matter)

Wagner

Massenet

Gluck

Ponchielli

Giordano

Donizetti

...who am I missing?

...who am I missing?

These come to mind:

Gioacchino Rossini (oh my GAWD...how could anyone leave him off? At least as good as Donizetti in the early 19th Century Italian School)

Luigi Cherubini (pathetically underappreciated)

Domenico Cimarosa (ditto)

At this juncture, I need to inject some humour:

Rossini, in addition to being a great composer, was also a gourmet chef and a gourmand (a person who loves to eat), as well as being a very funny/witty man. Here are some quotes attributed to Rossini:

"In my whole adult life, I have only wept twice: once when I heard Paganini play the violin, and again when I saw a truffled turkey fall into the water a boating party."

"You know, this fellow Wagner has some wonderful moments, but some incredibly dull quarters of an hour." (Rossini lived long enough to hear some of Wanger's operas, and many of us echo his sentiments)

Trivia: Rossini (in his capacity as gourmet chef) is reputed to have created the classic dish "Tournedos Rossini" (tenderloin of beef with truffles and pate de foie gras on toast rounds...it's delicious).

Another humourous quote, this time from Donizetti about Rossini:

When told that Rossini had written an entire opera in 10 days, Donizetti replied dryly: "That bastard Rossini always was a lazy son of a scallop."

Originally posted by J. Lee Graham@Aug 5 2005, 03:17 AM

These come to mind:

Gioacchino Rossini (oh my GAWD...how could anyone leave him off? At least as good as Donizetti in the early 19th Century Italian School)

Luigi Cherubini (pathetically underappreciated)

Domenico Cimarosa (ditto)

"You know, this fellow Wagner has some wonderful moments, but some incredibly dull quarters of an hour."

Harrison Birtwistle? sure, 'The Triumph of Time' is okay, but...

Here's a few composers that I have been particularly fond of whose absence from your list has filled me with shock and dismay!

Ernst von Dohnányi (my favorite)

Kaikhosru Sorabji

Robert Simpson

Havergal Brian

John Corigliano

Lowell Liebermann

Welcome, Matusleo.

I wasn't overlooking Rossini, he's actually on the original list

Sorry Jonathan! :o Mea maxima culpa!

Another anecdote about Rossini - one that probably gave rise to his reputation for laziness (relatively speaking):

Rossini used to compose in bed a lot. He'd just sit there in bed for days and compose. Once, when a page he was writing on fell off the bed onto the floor, he sighed, looked down at it, shrugged his shoulders, and started over from scratch on a new sheet rather than expend the energy to pick it up off the floor!

Originally posted by J. Lee Graham@Aug 5 2005, 03:47 PM

Rossini used to compose in bed a lot. He'd just sit there in bed for days and compose. Once, when a page he was writing on fell off the bed onto the floor, he sighed, looked down at it, shrugged his shoulders, and started over from scratch on a new sheet rather than expend the energy to pick it up off the floor!

Reminds me of a quote from the TV cartoon family guy:

"I'd be apathetic if I wasn't so lethargic."

Originally posted by J. Lee Graham@Aug 5 2005, 05:47 PM

Rossini used to compose in bed a lot.

Oh dear! That's funny...yet sad at the same time. If it's true, it shows that Rossini could be a jackass to a fellow musician like Mozart could...and apparently quite a few others. I hate to hear that, because it lowers him in my estimation. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: genius does not give anyone carte blanche to be cruel or unkind. Very unbecoming.

I don't see why not...

There's also the anecdote of Verdi needing to lock up his librettist, Temistocle Solera, in a room to get him to finish the bloody words. One time, Solera discovered he had been locked in the room containing Verdi's wine cellar.

I like to imagine Verdi opening the door later to get his libretto and going: 'Oops'.

Aside from that, the lists have forgetten Biber, Berlioz, Britten, Orff (who believe it or not wrote things OTHER than that bloody Carmina Burana), and, of all people, Purcell. Fie on you all.

Nice list here, but....

:o :) Just where exactly is Jean Sibelius?

Seriously now, people, I just stumbled upon this awesome forum and am frightened by the lack of love for (or perhaps interest in?) the great Finnish composer. I listen to more of Sibelius' works than any other composer on that list--including the "masters"--and i've collected the scores of most of his tone poems and symphonies (which are all fantastic and highly original, but also approachable). Imho, the emotion and organic logic one hears in a single sibelius symphony (No. 7 :excl: ) blows the works of most other composers out of the water. :)

All right I've finished my rant, carry on. :P

I'll support that RANT!

Late Romantic composers seem to get ignored because their works are just too big for many people's attention spans. Until recently, I seemed to be the only Brahms aficionado around here. Also, Borodin is criminally neglected.

True, I can understand that being the case with most other late-romantic composers. Sibelius, however, should be something of an exception. Compared to Mahler, Sibelius' orchestra is tiny and his symphonies rarely exceed a forty-five minutes in length (most average about thirty minutes total, and his tone poems half even of that).

Ah well. Either way I always classified Sibelius as a "modern" composer rather than late-romantic, though many will argue about this. In addition to practically creating Finland's musical voice, he helped expand the concept of the symphony and the organic development of (often highly condensed) themes. I'd say he's had more of an influence on my composing than more contemporary composers such as Stravinsky, Shostakovich, or Glass/Adams. Of course, it could just be the Finnish blood in me. ;)

Interesting... I will give Sibelius credit for what he did with the symphonic form, but I always considered Brahms to be the first great master of organic development of themes.