Who are your favourite composers?

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I think I did a thing on Wagner in music class in 7th grade, but I don't remember. I like Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart.

William Byrd.

Joking JSB, of course.

mozart is of course a demigod of composition.
frank zappa is largely overlooked because he made so many joke songs that obscured the greatness of his musical essence. but i say mozart=1 zappa = 2

the rest are musical assemblers that make interesting combinations of notes that are pretty but not internally compelling.

That's not at all true. I would say that Mozarts music fits that description ("pretty but not...") far more than some of those that are listed in the poll. I can't say much about Franz Zappa because I do not know who it is. You can state a preference for Mozart but to say that no composer besides him has ever written anything 'internally compelling' indicates a lack of experience in the matter. Especially considering that he is so overrated and his music, en masse, so empty-headed.

I only object to the last sentence, obviously a preference for those two is perfectly justifiable.

Schoenberg is really one of my favourite composers, I think he was a musical genius. I don't know as much about Webern and Berg, although I tend to like them (former perhaps more than the latter). I know some of the Schoenberg operas, but nothing in the form written by the others.

And I like Glenn Gould also, he's one of the only musicians that can play Bach on the piano without sounding sloppy .

@ free hinter system

You are extremely knowledgable about music to be a 17 year old. When did you get turned on by classical music? Have you studied? Do you play an instrument?

I could listen to Gould play Bach all day, in-fact, a lot of times I do!

The members of Tool are underrated as composers of music. The stuff they do with mood, dynamics, themes, and layering, even before the addition of intellectually and emotionally brilliant lyrics, stands in my eyes with anything that the classical composers came up with. Most rock is too simple-minded to compare with the classics, but these guys are the exception.

Tool has been a "Gateway Drug" for a plethora of other, talented modern bands.
If you like Tool, you should definitely look into Porcupine Tree.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYyZxzoUnJE[/youtube]

As for the topic, my vote was for Paul Hindemith, though I also love Debussy, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartok, and Vaughan-Williams among others.

Good to hear Ambrose, I'll look into them. I am rather woefully behind the times on who's who since Tool stirred things up and raised the bar.

I voted Tchaikovsky, since he is definitely my favourite composer, and because I couldn't vote for more than one.

other good composers are Vaughan Williams (listening to at the moment), both famous Strausses, Elgar, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Sibelius, Rachmaninov, Grieg, Saint-Saens, Rimsky Korsakov, Prokofiev, Mussorgsky, Mahler, Holst, Lilburn (NZ composer), Britten, Gershwin, Dvorak, Brahms, Borodin, Bizet, Lizst, Beethoven, and Janacek.
I have more than 250 hours of this kind of music:D

I became interested in music a little over a year ago. Not very long, yes, but it is one of my "special interests" so I've focused very intently on it. I have played instruments as a student in the past because of parental requests (piano and violin), but haven't kept up with it for several years. I'm not really interested in performing music, it seems too much of an intellectual activity at this point.

Looking at your avatar, that doesn't surprise me one bit.

I also like Borodin, Rimsky and Khachaturian which are not included in the list. Their epic and pastoral works are delicious. They used eastern folkloric melodies and instruments in their compositions and the result is very nice.

I do not have a particular favorite, but I do have a bent towards liking the 20th Century composers. I particularly like Adams, Bloch, Debussy, Franck, Golijov, Kancheli, Ligeti, Mahler, Messiaen, Part, Rautavaara, Ravel, Schnittke, Shostakovich, Takemitsu, Tan Dun, Tavener, Villa-Lobos, Weill, Xenakis and Zimmermann.

great composer, I love his work on the Final Fantasy games!