Ten greatest composers of the 20th Century

[Daring Tripod]

There is an interesting article in the N.Y.T. which mentions 5 of the names the author selects who should be on the list http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/top-10-composers-which-20th-century-masters-will-make-the-cut/?ref=music.
The difficulty, I found, was to select the other five:
Shostakovich, Messiean, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Vaughan Williams?
Any views?

[Uncle Monty]

These things are always impossible! The greatest, or the ones one enjoys most? This would probably be my list (today, at least) :

Mahler
Sibelius
Shostakovich
Vaughan Williams
Debussy
Bartok
Ravel
Prokofiev
Webern
Poulenc

The last two slightly eccentric choices, I know, but I find Webern so cool, always such a palate-cleanser. And Poulenc makes me laugh :smiley:

[Suffolkcoastal]

This sort of thing is very difficult indeed, as head and heart would give somewhat different lists and if depends which genre of 20th century music you prefer, and some composers have composed works outside of the 20th century and I have difficulty keeping it to 10 so 12 will have to do! Though these 12 do not include all of my favourite 20th century composers, I have well over 50, these are the ones I admire presently.

Stravinsky
Shostakovich
Prokofiev
Vaughan Williams
Britten
Copland
Carter
Bartok
Martinu
Sibelius
Nielsen
Tippett

[rauschwerk]

This sort of thing is utterly pointless as far as I am concerned.

[Sydney Grew]

The list we first thought of differs entirely from the twelve of Member Coastal! - so let us add Sibelius as a thirteenth so as to have at least one name in common . . .

Zemlinsky
Szymanowski
Tubin
Schönberg
Dvorak
Schreker
Delius
Elgar
Alwyn
Scryabine
Roslavets
Goehr
Sibelius

[Chris Newman]

I could not limit my appreciation of 20th Century composers to 10. Beginning with the lists so far from boarders I would need the following:


Bartok
Britten
Carter
Copland
Debussy
Delius
Dvorak
Elgar
Mahler
Martinu
Messiaen
Nielsen
Poulenc
Prokofiev
Ravel
Schönberg
Schreker
Shostakovich
Sibelius
Stravinsky
Szymanowski
Tippett
Vaughan Williams
Webern
Zemlinsky

I would also wish to have the following as composers I regard as of great importance:

Arnold
Ferneyhough
Grainger
Gershwin
Ireland
Ives
Janacek
Lindberg
Puccini
Strauss, Richard

Just to show the pointlessness of such exercises I add the following who just happen to have names beginning with the letter "b". I could add another twenty five or more whom I admire and enjoy.:doh:

Bax
Beamish
Benjamin
Berg
Berio
Bingham
Birtwistle
Bliss
Boulez
Brian
Bridge
Busoni

[Threni]

It's obvious who my favourite composer is, but I am going to add two very neglected 20th Century composers who I admire greatly:

Schnittke
Kabalevsky

[salymap]

Shouldn't they be born and die in the 20th century? That makes it a lot harder.

[ahinton]

Shouldn't they be born and die in the 20th century? That makes it a lot harder.
That might well help to narrow the field but would surely still leave it very hard to choose just ten; in any case, perhaps creative active mainly in the 20th century might be fairer (even though it cuts Mahler out), otherwise the earliest years of the century would fall out of the choosing process. If that approach is adopted, I still have no idea how I'd choose just 10. Here's a handful, nonetheless, in no particular order, of whom the first seven were born before the beginning of the 20th century and the last is still with us and still writing in this one:

Sibelius
Nielsen
Busoni
Schönberg
Szymanowski
Varèse
Sorabji
Shostakovich
Xenakis
Carter

That took ages!

[MrGongGong]

Shouldn't they be born and die in the 20th century? That makes it a lot harder.
if thats the criterion then

Shostakovitch
Cage
Stockhausen
Berio
Lucier
Britten
La Monte Young
Ligeti
Feldman
Xenakis

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Britten
Shostakovitch
Walton
Bartok
Elgar
Vaughan Williams
Puccini
Strauss
Stravinsky
Sibelius

[Brassbandmaestro]

I am going to try and be objective in this.

Britten
Berio
Boulez
Xenakis
Stockhausen
Joihn Adams
Sibelius
Shostakovich
Messiaen

[Oddball]

The word "greatest" implies to me some degree of objectivity in the choice. However I note from the various choices that the Second Viennese School does not figure very highly, although their music must be considered objectively as one of the great advances of the 20th Century. May be they were just too serious.

Anyhow this is my list of 20th century composers I most enjoy:

1. Stravinsky
2. Shostakovich
3. Debussy
4. Duke Ellington
5. Schoenberg
6. Messiaen
7. Ligeti
8. Schnittke
9. RVW
10. Ravel

[rauschwerk]

The list we first thought of differs entirely from the twelve of Member Coastal! - so let us add Sibelius as a thirteenth so as to have at least one name in common . . .

Zemlinsky, Szymanowski, Tubin, Schönberg, Dvorak, Schreker, Delius, Elgar, Alwyn, Scryabine, Roslavets, Goehr, Sibelius

Mr Grew neatly shows the pointlessness of this exercise with his entertainingly perverse selection. Since the phrase 'of the twentieth century' is undefined one can hardly argue with inclusion of Dvorak since his composing career did extend four years into that century.

[ahinton]

if thats the criterion then

Shostakovitch
Cage
Stockhausen
Berio
Lucier
Britten
La Monte Young
Ligeti
Feldman
Xenakis
But several of those listed above did not die in the 20th century!

[MrGongGong]

OK

So what IS the definition of the 20th Century ?
its still an interesting diversion which reminded me of the question my daughter was asked when doing GCSE music about what was the piece that most characterised the 20th Century ......... fwiw my suggestion was Crumbs Black Angels as it draws on the past, uses electronics and couldn't have been composed without a global awareness that one doesn't find in earlier music

[Daring Tripod]

Ladies and Gentlemen, kindly refer to the article in the NYT where the author mentions the first 5 composers and why. It is in this spirit that I launched this thread. I believe we should be looking for composers who appreciably changed the direction contemptorary classical music was going.

[ahinton]

OK
So what IS the definition of the 20th Century ?
I don't know about a "definition" per se but, for the purposes of this probably rather pointless listing exercise, I guess that we should be looking composers' works written during that century rather than the matter of whether those composers also lived and possibly also worked in the previous or following one.

[ahinton]

contemptorary classical music
As Freudian slips of the finger go, that's as good as any...

[Thomas Roth]

Hindemith
Stravinsky
Tippett
Vaughan Williams
Ravel
Debussy
Sibelius
Roy Harris
Copland
Britten

[Don Petter]

<< Originally Posted by Daring Tripod
contemptorary classical music >>


As Freudian slips of the finger go, that's as good as any...

You mean he hasn't a leg to stand on?:winkeye:

[Don Petter]

Hindemith
Stravinsky
Tippett
Vaughan Williams
Ravel
Debussy
Sibelius
Roy Harris
Copland
Britten

Seems an excellent list to me. I wouldn't argue against any of those. Roy Harris is not one I'd have thought of myself, but that's probably my lack of exploration which ought to be rectified.

Who would I have chosen in his place? Probably Shostakovich, I think.

[Oddball]

kindly refer to the article in the NYT where the author mentions the first 5 composers and why. .

If this thread is to have any meaning and value, I would suggest that those that have proposed lists should also give their reasons for their choice. Otherwise it requires supernatural powers on the part of the reader to appreciate the choices made.:erm:

[MrGongGong]

"composers who appreciably changed the direction contemptorary classical music was going." (with the slip !)
does imply that music "goes" somewhere which is only one way of looking at things !
but if that's the criterion (and it's confined to composers active in the last century) then
my revised list is now (with a couple of reasons !)

Schoenberg: obvious really , Serialism completely redefined music and the process of composition (whether you like it or not !)
Cage: Completely changed the way that we listen
Stockhausen: Pioneering live electronic music and having extraordinary large scale vision
Lucier: As an influence on a huge range of composers in creating music from beautiful (and sometimes ugly) sonic phenomena
La Monte Young: more than anyone redefined the way that time (and tuning ) is perceived in composition
Ligeti: for taking elements of "folk" musics and creating new ways of composing and listening
Webern: for an intimate focus on detail
Messiaen: for integrating the natural world in composition
Xenakis: for developing musical architecture
Pierre Schaeffer: for influencing many in the use of electronics though most of his music is relatively unknown outside the electroacoustic world

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Choosing the 10 most influential composers might be a more realistic way of look at this. Choosing the 10 "greatest" is surely impossible. (Except in Gramophone.)

[MrGongGong]

Choosing the 10 most influential composers might be a more realistic way of look at this. Choosing the 10 "greatest" is surely impossible. (Except in Gramophone.)
indeed which is why Cage and La Monte Young are there and not Elgar

[visualnickmos]

Yes rauschwerk, I agree. Yet another of the "list your favourites, and the rest are rubbish" questions, I fear.

[Dave2002]

Anyone mentioned Ives yet? Doesn't he have strong claims both for his role in the American repertoire, and for his somewhat original approach to composition.

Minimalists - not sure if I can make choices between them, but don't Reich, Adams and Glass all have fairly strong claims to be representative?

Perhaps too early to tell about some - such as Taverner, Maxwell Davies or even Turnage and Thomas Ades. I don't like much of their work, but some is undoubtedly very original.

Are we looking for quantity as well as quantity? William Walton does very well on quality, IMO but his output was limited.

Influence? Does it really matter?

Mahler surely deserves recognition - was he influential?

For opera note that Puccini qualifies under some of the rules [it's stretching things too far to include Verdi, who died in 1901] and with Richard Strauss must surely feature. Also Janacek, for opera and other works, and then we have to include Berg for Wozzeck.

[Brassbandmaestro]

Thomas Roth, I am intrigued by Roy Harris and Copland?