You pretty much nailed them for me as well. A special place for Vaughn Williams as a personal favorite more than for compositional chops. I’d add to your list Bartok, George Crumb, Webern, Berg and Steve Reich. Possibly Edgar Varese. My wife added Gershwin and Copland. As you can see I have difficulty limiting them. I must admit I do receive some of my most musical satisfaction from classical pieces. As much as I like jazz. Classical just moves me.
I suppose I just like music. As Duke Ellington has been attributed with the phrase:
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind … the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it’s successful; if it doesn’t it has failed.
This is the top 15 ranking in Phil Goulding’s nice book about classical music: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Haydn, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Handel, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Liszt, Chopin, Stravinsky.
He then goes on with a top 50.
That’s also my list, but I would rank Schubert in the top 5 and Chopin at least top 10.
The nice thing about his book is that he offers for each composer a « starter kit » of 5 works, then a top 10, then a master collection.
For me it would have to be (in no particular order) Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky. Not sure what that says about me, other than I enjoy melody.
I have not read Mr. Goulding’s book, but I know him to have been a fascinating man.
I enjoy occasional bits of Chopin, but do not think of him as significant or influential other than to have expanded the perceived capabilities of the piano.
Yes indeed, I vacillated on Glass, but second thought I’d have to agree. Top five or even ten, hard to say, I look at my collection and It would inform me that I do indeed enjoy Philip Glass.
I enjoy Dvorak, definitely, but like many of the other composers I enjoy, he falls outside my personal top five, probably because I haven’t explored his work much beyond his 9th symphony and his cello concerto. He’s certainly not short on melody, just exposure (to me).
And by naming a top five, I don’t mean to give any of the others, including Dvorak, short shrift - there’s not a huge gap between these five and #6, or any of the other composers in my collection, for that matter.
In no particular order:
John Adams
Magnus Lindberg
Sofia Gubaidulina
George Crumb
Unsuk Chin
Harrison Birtwistle
Pascal Dusapin
John Corigliano
Caroline Shaw
Tan Dun
Kaija Saariaho
Steve Reich
Jennifer Higdon
