NationStates Jolt Archive

Dmitri Shostakovich, of course!

First Symphony
Fourth Ballet Suite
Fifth Symphony
Thirteenth Symphony
Festive Overture
Novorossik Chimes for Orchestra
An ardent anti-Communist

the list goes on and on...

No one disagrees, I take it?

No one disagrees, I take it?

I would. I would probably say one of the three biggest (Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven) would all be stronger candidates than Shostakovich.

Then you're wrong.

I've never even heard of Shostakovich.

My favourite composer is Mussorgsky... No, Holst... Wait, Saint-Saen... Argh, no... Ravel! ...wait... ugh... Bah, I don't appear to have an opinion...

Then you're wrong.

Care to elucidate?

Shostakovich?!!

Try Ravel

Shostakovich was very good and his work was clever but never really wrote beautiful music.

Fifth Symphony

A fair response to just criticism.

Greatest composer ever is a slippery notion to try to achieve. Shostikovich made some pretty important pieces, how are you defining greateness? Astheticly pleasing? Command of theory? Both probably would go to wunderkind Mozart, but those are two of the biggest reasons I don't like Mozart. He was a mathmatician, his music worked perfectly because of his pure understanding of theory. To me that's boring.

Beethoven would mock Mozart later, I agree. Beethoven probably caused the greater change of direction, at least since Bach. Ah, Bach-more or less codified the language.

But Shotikovich was one part of a larger movement in composers. Prokofiev and other Russian composers where there with him. And then there's Ives in America and early pre-Fanfare for the Common Man Copland. Stravinsky.

But of all of those, the one who went the furthest off the rails was Cage.

So while I enjoy Shostikovich, and disagree that there really can be a greatest composer ever, I can't think of a way of sorting composers that would place him there.

Personally, I'm a fan of Tchaikovsky

I dunno, I've always been partial to Vivaldi. His Four Seasons is simply beautiful.

Rahcmaninoff, you fools. His Vocalise, Op.34 No.14 will be played at my funeral if I have anything to say about it. And I will.

what about john phillips susa (sp)

I'm gonna cheap out and say J.S. Bach. Fernando Sor can be nice to listen to on occasion, apparently he hated performers (or so my musician friend keeps telling me).

Rimsky-Korsakov!

SHEHARAZADE.

I loved that piece...it's so beautiful :cry:

I can play his Barcarole!
(Which means his stuff is not too difficult)


I get hypnotized by Beethoven's piano sonatas; they are perfect, whole, complete, elegant little masterpieces each one.

there was this one in b minor i could play...it was really cool...forget...something in b minor lol.

Rimsky-Korsakov!

SHEHARAZADE.

I loved that piece...it's so beautiful :cry:


Ditto...No better tone poem on the planet. You havent heard good music until you've heard Scheherezade.


As for all you people who posted Beethoven and Mozart...I cant stand that stuff for more than 5 minutes, its so repetetive and I can guess what the next strain will sound like before it even beings. If you want good classical you have to look past the "Classical" era and into the "Romantic" stuff.

Bach, childer,and seinor.

Beethoven. Someone who creates the greatest piece of music of all time (9th symphony) while they're deaf deserves the title.

Personally, I'm a fan of Tchaikovsky

I second that. Who doesn't love the 1812 Overture? There are cannons!

Britney Speared!!!

Mozart, methinks.

Bach, I would say.