Top Five
Mon, Feb 18 2013, 9:52PM
#2
RE: Top Five
Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms and Haydn are easy choices for me. In the end I'll also go for Mahler but strange that I was not sure as I've always reckoned he was my favourite composer. Perhaps it is because he wrote relatively few works and there is more to explore in Shostakovich, Strauss, Janacek, Sibelius and Britten as my runner ups.
Mozart I've always admired without really falling in love with and Bruckner, great that he is, would be too much of the same. I never have enough time to get into Wagner but I almost picked him because floating around in space with nothing to do would at least give me the opportunity I've always craved!
Graham
Mon, Feb 18 2013, 9:52PM
#3
RE: Top Five
Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms and Haydn are easy choices for me. In the end I'll also go for Mahler but strange that I was not sure as I've always reckoned he was my favourite composer. Perhaps it is because he wrote relatively few works and there is more to explore in Shostakovich, Strauss, Janacek, Sibelius and Britten as my runner ups.
Mozart I've always admired without really falling in love with and Bruckner, great that he is, would be too much of the same. I never have enough time to get into Wagner but I almost picked him because floating around in space with nothing to do would at least give me the opportunity I've always craved!
Graham
Mon, Feb 18 2013, 9:53PM
#4
RE: Top Five
Sorry about the double post. I dropped my iPad.
Mon, Feb 18 2013, 10:08PM
#5
RE: Top Five
It's not easy coming up with five. One I can do with no thought at all: Vaughan Williams. The others are subject to daily change depending on my mood.
1. Vaughan Williams
2. Elgar
3. Mozart
4. Brahms
5. Bernard Herrmann
Mon, Feb 18 2013, 10:39PM
#6
RE: Top Five
Sorry about the double post. I dropped my iPad.
Name dropper! :-)
Mon, Feb 18 2013, 10:41PM
#7
RE: Top Five
It's not easy coming up with five. One I can do with no thought at all: Vaughan Williams. The others are subject to daily change depending on my mood.
1. Vaughan Williams
2. Elgar
3. Mozart
4. Brahms
5. Bernard Herrmann
Bliss - lovely call on Bernard Hermann. I have to say that the opening of 'North by Northwest' is one of the most exciting pieces of film music I know. Must have been a difficult choice between Hermann and Elmer Bernstein?!
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 12:30AM
#8
RE: Top Five
[/quote]
Bliss - lovely call on Bernard Hermann. I have to say that the opening of 'North by Northwest' is one of the most exciting pieces of film music I know. Must have been a difficult choice between Hermann and Elmer Bernstein?!
[/quote]
Yes, Bernstein's "To Kill a Mockingbird" music suits the movie perfectly, but I'm more familiar with Herrmann, having 36 CDs and 35 LPs (some duplicated on CD) of his film and concert music. One of my Herrmann favorites is a score he wrote for an episode of the TV program The Twilight Zone. It's called "Walking Distance."
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 1:20AM
#9
RE: Top Five
Big Herrmann fan here too - but hopefully we will also be able to take the films of five directors and so Hitch and Scorsese (what a score Herrmann wrote for "Taxi Driver") will be there.
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 3:07AM
#10
RE: Top Five RE: Top Five
1. With one exception, everyone has picked Beethoven. Surprised? I was......a bit.
2. The "early" Romantics - Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann - have done very badly. Not a single vote so far.
3. Other notable omissions: Tchaikovsky, Richard Strauss.......
4. No French composers!
5. Only one pick for Brahms so far??? (Just what does a guy have to do to get on the spaceship?)
All this seems correct to me - if a cull is really required.
The plight of the early to middle Romantics is something I've idly considered recently - really, they fall between the stools of clean, elegant Classicism and pungently emotive Late Romanticism. More recent polystylistic works combine the two elements in a way I find more satisfactory, by retaining the purity of the separate elements.
1. Mahler
2. Bruckner
3. Prokofiev
4. Shostakovich
5. Vaughan Williams
Note: I am the third person to omit Beethoven (after Arbutus and Bliss.)
What I really regret is having to leave behind the one-hit-wonders (some of whom had more than one hit): Kalinnikov's 1st, the best of Schnittke, the top Vivaldi concertos, Holst's Planets & military suites...
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 3:55AM
#11
RE: Top Five
One thing that you missed in your early "summary", Jane, is the observation that people soon will start missing what they left behind than enjoying what they took with them.
Parla
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 4:36AM
#12
RE: Top Five
Here goes:
- Beethoven
- Brahms
- Bartók
- Prokofiev
- Brubeck
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 9:50AM
#13
RE: Top Five
- Beethoven
- Brahms
- Bartók
- Prokofiev
- Brubeck
Surely, for consistency's sake, that should be Brokofiev?
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 11:40AM
#14
RE: Top Five
One thing that you missed in your early "summary", Jane, is the observation that people soon will start missing what they left behind than enjoying what they took with them.
Perhaps. But at least the rest of us will have our top five for consolation. You, on the other hand, will have nothing.
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 10:35AM
#15
RE: Top Five RE: Top Five
The plight of the early to middle Romantics is something I've idly considered recently - really, they fall between the stools of clean, elegant Classicism and pungently emotive Late Romanticism.
Stools as in "stool sample"?
Shocking. Today I would take him and say sorry to Dmitri Dmitriyevich.
http://haydnesqueIII.freeforums.net/