Ian Sidden

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10 Greatest Composers

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“I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.”

–Richard Strauss

At the New York Times, music critic Anthony Tommasini is compiling a list of the ten greatest composers. He acknowledges that:

…the resulting list would not be the point. But the process of coming up with such a list might be clarifying and instructive, as well as exasperating and fun.

Mr. Tommasini’s basic guidelines are that the composers be from the late Baroque and before our lifetime. So neither Josquin nor Barber could be considered. As justification, he says in the comments:

I find it almost possible to compare the achievements of, say, Schumann and Beethoven. How do you compare Schumann and Dufay?

If composers before Bach could be considered, I’d find room for Monteverdi definitely and possibly Josquin and Palestrina. But then we do get into a mess because you could make a good case for Phillipe de Vitry, Leonin, Machaut, Dufay, and Perotin. Hmmm.

The limitation is essential for this.

How to Decide

So what would be your list? And more importantly, what would you use to decide?

I would have to balance quality and influence. Of course, then you would have to decide what having “quality” means (see Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) and how to measure influence. Is it influence on myself or on other people regardless of my feelings about that composer’s music?

Mr. Tommasini’s starting point is J.S. Bach. Certainly most of us could agree on that, yes?

Then we begin stating obvious choices…Mozart…Beethoven…Haydn? Handel? Brahms? Where is Wagner, Verdi, and Schubert? How about Berlioz and Gluck? Does Debussy stand on his own? How about Ravel? And the Russians, where are they? How about pianists like Chopin and Liszt? Does the vast output of Telemann put him in this league?

My Current List

So here’s my – if you had a gun up to my head – 10 Greatest list. This is not necessarily in any order either:

  • J.S Bach
  • Mozart
  • Beethoven
  • Wagner
  • Schubert
  • Debussy
  • Brahms
  • Verdi
  • Haydn
  • Tchaikovsky

I defined quality through a mixture of conscious understanding of technique and my own emotional reaction to these composers’ music. I’ve picked pretty obvious composers – I believe – so their influence is understood if not totally fleshed out here. Since I’m a singer, I am biased toward vocal music composers.

My analytical brain really questions Tchaikovsky, but I’m not sure who would replace him (Mahler maybe? Schumann?). Besides, I just love listening to his stuff.

It is unfortunate that there are no English (Britten and Purcell are both disqualified) nor American composers nor any women. Most come from the Germanic countries and Vienna in particular. I don’t know what to do about this though. If Mahler and Schumann were added, then this skew would be further exaggerated. Alas.

I would love love love to know if you’re putting together your own list and how you would do it. Let me know what you decide.

Weekly Gathering: July 10-17

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There were lots of good articles this past week! Perhaps there was some built up energy from the July 4 festivities.

Pianist and scholar Robert Levin speaks at Curtis Commencement on May 16, 2009. If you click on nothing here, you must listen to this if you are a classical musician. It takes about 15 minutes. It’s worth it. [It’s not from the time period specified in this post’s title, but it’s still great.]

Make Your Audition Pianist Happy by Billie Whittaker on her blog Good Company is an informative and funny article. It is specifically written for singers, so you should definitely check it out.

Sitting Quietly, Doing Something from the New York Times bog Happy Days is about the science of happiness. In particular, it is about a Buddhist monk who is demonstrably the happiest man in the world. Turns out that happiness is trainable. There’s also an embedded video that is very interesting.

I Don’t Know How they Do it by Jessica Duchen at Standpoint. This is an appreciative article about Joyce DiDonato who sang Rosina in Barber of Seville with a broken leg. It goes on to ask for pity for singers who cancel due to health concerns.

Coffee Breakdown: Is there a Link between Caffeine and Hallucinations? from Scientific American. As the name suggests, this article describes the effects that caffeine has on stress…and they aren’t good.

Music Review-‘Prima Donna’: The Diva has Issues from New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini is a gentle mixed review for the first full opera by Rufus Wainwright. I love Rufus’ music and would love to hear his opera.

Youtube: Where Customers Get the Last Word from Small Business Trends discusses the recent case of professional musician Dave Carroll whose guitar was badly damaged on a United Flight. He countered with some hard hitting songs on YouTube, and now United is listening. [By the way, if you are a voice teacher or singer, then you are a small business. This is a great blog to follow.]

And yet…You Tube Pulls Audio from Greatest Music Video Ever from CNET is about the audio track being pulled from the parody version of “You Make my Dreams” by Hall and Oates. It featured the “keyboard cat”. Weird. Read the comments too (in the article, those on YouTube are totally R rated in protest). Turns out audio tracks have been yanked from personal videos because a copyrighted song happened to be playing in the background.

The Capacity for Honesty from Once More With Feeling is a good “musing” on the difference between artists and performers as well as honesty and artifice as related to repertoire decisions.

Finding Ways to Communicate: Fitting Your Audience’s Style by Rachel Velarde has a lot of good social media tips.

Learning to Sing: Deciding When to Start from Finding my Singing Voice offers some excellent advice for teachers of young singers and their parents.

Weekly Gathering

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Sometimes the posts listed here will be from non-music sources, and I think that’s just fine since we as singers need to develop all of ourselves to improve.

The Healthy and Fit Algorithm

from Zen Habits is a good reminder about the little steps it takes to remain healthy.

Prospective, Upcoming, And Current Music Majors -Here Is A Great Little, Free, Ear Training Program

from MusTech.net has a good looking ear training program. As the author reminds us, ear training is often a killer in college programs.

Employee or Entrepreneur? The Pros and Cons of Self-Employment

from Get Rich Slowly is a good piece that discusses the personal gains and losses from entering the self-employed life. For anyone who wants to teach a private studio or work as a solo artist, there are some good points to consider here.

Tapering for Performance

on Music Teacher’s Helper: Blog is a good piece about the changes to a teacher’s strategy when a student is approaching a major performance, such as a recital.

Eating to Fuel Exercise

from the Well blog on the New York Times site is a good reminder about when and how much to eat. As someone who has definitely eaten too much before a performance (and not enough), I found much of their advice to be applicable to singing.

Music Review- ‘Traviata’ – Renee Fleming Casts Caution Aside as Violetta

by New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini is interesting for what the author values most: the acting. He excuses some vocal faults due to the intensity of Fleming’s performance.

Weekly Gathering

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The Weekly Gathering (named after a singing concept taught to me by my current teacher) will feature some of the better singing and music articles I’ve found around the web in the previous week.

From Classical Singer Magazine: The Legacy of Richard Miller

NPR’s Report on Better Breathing: Baby Steps to Better Breathing

Vocal Advice’s Article on “Would-be” teachers of singing. It’s calm but hard-hitting: To ‘would-be’ teachers of singing: on inexperience and charlatanry

And vibrato.

Rachel Velarde’s article at Music Teacher’s Helper on Applauding Guidelines: “To Applaud or Not to Applaud, that is the Question”

Rachel Velarde’s article on her own blog about voice studio promotion: Promoting Your Studio-Ideas

From the Well Blog: 11 Health Myths That May Surprise You

From Finding my Singing Voice: Can music make us more empathetic?

From the relatively new but very promising blog MusicEdMajor.net: 5 Low-Stress Ways to Stay Musically Active Over the Summer