Ten greatest composers of the 20th Century

[Guest]

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/20...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

[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.

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

[BBMmk2]

I am going to try and be objective in this.

Britten
Berio
Boulez
Xenakis
Stockhausen
Joihn Adams
Sibelius
Shostakovich
Messiaen

[Quarky]

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!