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Favorite Composers


Alawyn-Aebt

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I figure there is one out there for favorite type of music and for favorite band, but this is a bit different

What are everyone's favorite composer(s) and why?

 

Myself I like many, long list incoming:

Prokofiev: odd yet quite beautiful

Debussy: sweepingly dreamy

Bartók: unique

Dvořák: dramatic and memorable

Liszt: showy

Chopin: flavorful

Wagner: dramatically bombastic

Beethoven: stunning but strict

Vivaldi: don't know, just like him

Tchaikovsky: emotional

Rimsky-Korsakov: atmospheric

Mussorgsky: atmospheric

Grieg: driving and turbulently emotional

(others too)

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I could list many that I like, but if I should be honest with myself there are not that many that I will actively listen to. I've always liked Tchaikovsky and I do listen to his pieces every now and then, but I think my favourite is Vaughan Williams, I can't really get over how beautiful The Lark Ascending is.

 

I suppose Hans Zimmer count as well, he's made a lot of stunning soundtracks.

 

 

... and here I broke my perfect post count, oh well.

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My absolute, hands down, forever favorite is Thomas Bergersen. Just the variety in emotion he can muster, from excitement and anticipation and action and bravery to solace and solitude... he's absolutely brilliant.

 

Hans Zimmer, for sure. ❤️ The man is contemporary genius, the mystery and the depth he can capture is stunning, and the imagery he incorporates... mm. So talented.

 

John Williams, of course! He did the soundtrack of Star Wars episodes IV-VI and the first Pirates of the Caribbean (until Zimmer took over) - he's very talented, and a lot of his work is really iconic.

 

Ramin Djawadi is a recent favorite, too. He does the GoT soundtrack, and I like how he incorporates a lot of different cultural motifs into his work.

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Mendelssohn for a Fingal's Cave based composition.

 

Bach for The Planets.

 

Bugs Bunny for Rhapsody Rabbit.

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51 minutes ago, Messen said:

Hans Zimmer

Well, forgot about him. I feel there are too many great composers to remember.

28 minutes ago, Gizamaluke said:

Bach for The Planets

I was pretty sure Holst did The Planets, maybe I am wrong.

 

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11 minutes ago, Aebt said:

Well, forgot about him. I feel there are too many great composers to remember.

I was pretty sure Holst did The Planets, maybe I am wrong.

 

It's been years since i knew who did anything.

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I'm not a great orchestral music fan, so it's more individual pieces, usually populist 

 

1812 Overture, Tchaikovsky 

Bolero, Ravel 

Ride of the Valkyries, Wagner 

 

There's more if I hear them 

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Shrug. I couldn’t tell you if I’m listening to a masterpiece or a kid playing the kazoo.

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(Creative name)

I've only been playing piano since February of this year (even though my parents wont by me a piano, I have a non-weighted keyboard that doesnt even have 88 keys) but over the course of these months I've really come to love classical music, it's actually my favorite genre of music now (and the only kind I listen to, now that I think about it). Here are a few of my favorite composers:

 

1. Franz Liszt - his peices are so insane its hard to even comprehend, but then once you learn them they are so fun to play

 

2. Fredrich Chopin - his peices are so emotional and in depth that there no way you cant love them

 

3. Rachmaninoff - His peices are super scary and intense but at the same time beautiful

 

4. Mozart - His peices are very simple and usually upbeat which leads to very memorable music

 

Peices I can play by memory (in the order I learned them):

 

1. Rondo Alla Turca (Mozart)

 

2. Liebestraum no. 3 (Liszt)

 

3. Tristesse (chopin) (side note I actually just finished learning it today so yay!)

 

Peices I'm currently learning:

 

Prelude in G minor (Rachmaninoff)

 

Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2 (Liszt)

 

My favorite peices (in order):

 

Liebestraum no. 3 (liszt)

 

Hungarian rhapsody no. 2 (liszt)

 

Tristesse (chopin)

 

Prelude in g minor (Rachmaninoff)

 

Suggestion Diabolique (prokofiev)

 

Rondo Alla Turca (mozart)

 

Many others but it would take way too long to list all them, it's Great to know that there are other asexuals (or just people on the ace spectrum) that love classical music

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There too many composers to count but my favourites are:

 

Ralph Vaughan-Williams: holy moly his pieces are so nice and vivid. The Lark Ascending is my favourite piece of all time.

Debussy and Ravel: Put them together cause they're dope and I love them for the same reasons; wonderfully colourful compositions with some much life. Clair de Lune and the String Quartet in F Major (Mvt. 2)

Penderecki: Please listen to him if you haven't, his pieces are unsettling to say the least but absolutely stunning. Polymorphia and The Dream of Jacob are my #1s

Thomas Tallis: This man really knows how to write for voice, nothing else to say. Spem in Alium has my vote

Bach: How can you go wrong with this champion? He is so good and I absolutely love The Goldberg Variations

 

Dave Brubeck: Dipping into jazz here, he has a very fascinating blend of jazz, classical and world music. Blue Rondo à la Turk is awesome (no relation to the similarly titled piece by Mozart).

Dizzy Gillespie: Just super duper cool music, his Latin Jazz stuff is revolutionary. Con Alma.

 

Michael Giacchino: Terrific film composer with a wonderfully earnest sense of humour in his music. Tie between his scores for Lost and Ratatouille.

Hans Zimmer: Nothing needs to be said. Dunkirk (and just about everything he's written)

Jonny Greenwood: The guitarist from Radiohead really knows how to write for movies, with some really out there music that is truly captivating, a legend in the making. You Were Never Really Here is my favourite of his and by far the best score of 2018.

Ennio Morricone: Final one, the absolute master of film composition, so great, so prolific, his music is so inventive and vivid. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly but The Hateful Eight is really growing on me.

 

That's it, thank you for reading.

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5 hours ago, (Creative name) said:

I've only been playing piano since February of this year (even though my parents wont by me a piano, I have a non-weighted keyboard that doesnt even have 88 keys) but over the course of these months I've really come to love classical music, it's actually my favorite genre of music now (and the only kind I listen to, now that I think about it).

Great for you! You have achieved much in your short time. I have played the piano for 13 years now and I always loved classical music since I first could play it. Too bad you have to use a smaller-than-normal keyboard, but any piano is better than no piano.

Honestly, if I can play a song on the piano that sounds good (not just repeating the same note over and over) the chances of me liking the song drastically increase.

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(Creative name)
17 hours ago, Aebt said:

Too bad you have to use a smaller-than-normal keyboard, but any piano is better than no piano.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly, but hopefully I'll get a better one for Christmas since its coming up soon.

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Squirrel Combat

What, no Schubert? That guy is my role model.

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I like many composers. It depends on the mood I'm in if there is a favorite at the time. I'm drawn more to darker pieces though than the light and airy ones. 

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I love so many composers! Too many to even list!

 

But here are my favorites.

 

-Ottorino Respighi (The Birds, Pines of Rome)

-Igor Stravinsky (The Firebird Suite, Rite of Spring)

-Sergei Rachmaninoff (Isle of the Dead)

-Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Swan Lake, The Nutcracker Suite, Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet)

-Antonio Vivaldi (Four Seasons)

-Frederic Chopin (Fantaisie-Impromptu)

-Camille Saint-Saëns (Danse Macabre, Carnival of Animals)

-Felix Mendelssohn (Rondo Capriccioso)

-Claude Debussy (Clair de lune)

 

I love them all so much.

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Here's a few, some I listen to but can't remember their names or know the pieces but not the compose. 

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Katchaturian ( misspelled) Stravinsky, Gustav Holst, Giannis Xenakis, James Tenney, John Cage, and this may be controversial but I love Trent Reznor's compositions. There are a lot more but those are the ones that come to mind. 

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Wow. Lots of great music posted.

 

I like a lot of it. I have WCRB (all classical all the time) on at home and in my car. They have played just about everything mentioned.

 

I will probably get yelled at for saying so, but regarding symphonies, I like Beethoven. He took that form to a completely new level.

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My favorite is probably John Mackey. He composes mainly for concert band and has a lot of really fun and energetic pieces. When my high school band played one of his pieces (High Wire) he actually came in and worked with us on it and guest conducted it, which was super cool. Some other really good pieces of his include Asphalt Cocktail (which is absolutely incredible, wow), Xerxes, and Foundry.

 

And a couple more good ones:

  • Gustav Holst, because I love the Planets and his Second Suite in F (the latter of which I played in my high school band and was really fun)
  • Frank Ticheli, the only piece of his I really know is Cajun Folk Songs, which I played in my high school band and starts with a beautiful sax solo that I loved playing. I know I've played some other songs of his at some point that I liked a lot, but I forget what they were.
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Ney Rosauro. His compositions made me fall in love with music and helped lead me down the path I walk today as a percussionist, ethnomusicologist, and educator. He's a bit of a cosmopolitan, and you can sense his mix of Brazilian, Baroque/German, and US-American aesthetics in his compositional style. His works have a sincerity to them; you can tell that he writes for the joy of making music, which makes performing and listening to his works an absolute delight. Ney's a wonderful educator, not to mention an all-around sweetheart with a very genuine and gentle personality, and I'm honored that I've had the chance to study under him. :) 

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Oh, and I love seeing how many 20th/21st-century composers are getting name-dropped on here. Xenakis, Cage, Penderecki, Stravinsky, among others all make my inner nerd sing, and I love so many of their works. I also have a soft spot for Milton Babbitt, Steve Reich, Jacob Druckman, Henry Cowell, Wendy Carlos, and I could probably end up trailing off and building a massive list, especially if I started listing off more percussion composers.

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Celyn: The Lutening

Tchaikovsky and Chopin are my two absolute favourites. 

 Debussy and Schubert are lovely to play.

I love baroque, particularly Gluck.

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no-longer-in-use

I love playing and listening to Bach and Debussy. Chopin is another favorite to listen to, but he's so difficult to play! I also love Vivaldi, and I haven't tried playing his stuff.

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1.Alexander Scriabin: He is just all around amazing, hands down he is my favorite composer. His early works are all just amazing works of the romantic era. His middle works are just an amazing take on romantic era music with a mix of his own take on impressionism. And his works toward the end of his life are my favorite for just sounds so alien and impressionistic. Poem of Ecstasy and Prometheus, a Poem of Fire are some of my favorite pieces ever.

 

2. Dmitri Shostakovich: He is an extremely close second for me. His music so unique. His fourth symphony is one of my all time favorite pieces ever; it's up there with Poem of Ecstasy and Prometheus, a Poem of Fire. And, I kid you not, the finale to his second piano trio was stuck in my head for two weeks straight; I could not stop listening to it. 

 

3. Ben Johnston. He's a modern composer; he writes microtonal music (look it up if you don't know what it is). And for most people his music is probably too weird for their tastes. So, his music might not be for everyone, but I still love it. The "With Solemnity" from his 7th string quartet just screwed with my head for the first 10 times I listened to it; it's incredibly harmonically dense and alien, but at the same time (to me at least), so interesting, I couldn't stop listening to it. I've listened to it probably over 100 times (keep in mind that it's about 16 minutes long) and I keep on noticing new that I've never heard before in it. I also love his 3rd and 9th string quartets, they're not as dense as his 7th, so they're easier to listen to, and they're both amazing.

 

4. Takashi Yoshimatsu: I just love how calming his music is for me. Probably my favorite piece of his is his piano concerto "Memo Flora". It's three movements long and each movement is an absolute masterpiece all on its own. Another piece of his that I really like is the Adante from his third symphony. Everything he writes is incredibly peaceful, and it helps relax me after a long, stressful day of school.

 

Edit: If I include jazz, hands down, Charles Mingus. I love crazy, chaotic music, and Charles Mingus has crazy and chaotic. Sue's Changes is easily my favorite song of his.

 

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Celyn: The Lutening
8 hours ago, Coddiwomple said:

I love playing and listening to Bach and Debussy. Chopin is another favorite to listen to, but he's so difficult to play!

What planet are you from? I find Chopin relatively easy but Bach nearly impossible. 

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I really enjoy Baroque music, especially Bach.  Some of Philip Glass's work is good, too.

I also like Austin Wintory's compositions.  He composed, among other things, the game soundtracks for Abzu and Journey.

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Robin Gibb!

 

Each of the Bee Gees composed some pretty good scores on their own (and as a group), but Robin's songs in particular are just amazing. I just love how the Bee Gees delved into so many different types of music; there are so many music genres that I never would have even considered listening to if the Bee Gees hadn't introduced me to them!

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Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman are my all-time favourites but with classical composers, it would have to be Franz Liszt,  Tchaikovsky, Grieg and Beethoven.

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Currently, I'd have to say Ravel is my favorite composer. I love Le Tombeau de Couperin - it's such a beautiful piece. I'm also quite partial to his piano concerto in G. I think there's something special about Ravel's music; it's sparkly and magical. His music reminds me of a forest at dusk, with glowing flowers and ponds filled with complex reflections that are somewhat indistinguishable, yet highly meaningful.

I also of course love Bach. As a performer, I love how free his music is to interpretation, and the level of depth within his music. I'm always grateful for opportunities to perform music by Bach, and it's refreshing and reinvigorating to listen to his music.

This is probably strange for a classical musician... but Stravinsky is part of what got me into classical music. When I was younger, I didn't really like baroque music (even Bach). Stravinsky's music was interesting and strange, unlike anything I'd ever heard before. I loved anything I'd listened to by him: the Rite of Spring, Pulcinella, Petrushka, the Firebird, etc. Each of these are great in their own way, yet so different from each other. Stravinsky challenged me to rethink the boundaries of classical music. 

There are many other composers that I love, but these are probably my favorites!

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