Beethoven is MY man too.

If we are to talk productivity and influence beyond the 19th century, I woud definitively include my ‘modern times’ fave, Irving Berin.

knows very little about music, or indeed

about reality. It’s absurd to claim that

such a complex thing as evaluating the work

of composers, many of whom were amongst the

most complex and intelligent men who ever

lived, can be reduced to an ordered list.

The most one can hope to do is to list those

you personally admire.

It’s also absurd for people to argue that

Bach was “better” than Beethoven, or vice

versa. Both were giants, as indeed was

Mozart.

My personal list of favourites would reverse

the order here, not because I think

Beethoven was more talented than the other

two, but because I like his music more. He

may not have been a better speaker than

Mozart or Bach, but he had more to say. He

was a more complex man, and a more powerful

personality, and his music was more

ambitious in its scope and in its depth than

that of the other two.

The string quartets, the odd-numbered

symphonies (3.5.7,9), Fidelio, the Missa

Solemnis, the violin concerto, the

Hammerklavier, and the 4th piano concerto

are works of great power and utter magic,

and are imbued with a fire and depth that

the stolid Bach and frivolous Mozart could

not, and did not, match.

Coming to the other two, you cannot

appreciate the genius of Mozart’s music

without knowing his operas, which are only

approached (and not surpassed) by those of

Verdi, who in my view should be number 4 on

this list. He wrote some attractive

concertos, but the symphonies (like Haydn’s)

are pale shadows of those of Beethoven and

the Romantics.

A lot has been said already about Bach. His

music was indeed close to perfect, often

profound, musically complex but also

accessible. With Beethoven’s temperament,

he might have equalled or surpassed

Beethoven, but he was content to take what

was there, and perfect it. He was not a

great innovator.

I have mentioned Verdi, but Handel too

should have been much higher up the list.

The complier is clearly not a great admirer

of opera, but he can’t deny that many of our

greatest composers worked in that medium.

The inclusion of Schumann and Liszt is

quirky. Chopin deserves his place, because

although a one-trick pony, what he did was

superlative.

Those who mention some modern film-score

composers, or pop-musicians, need to listen

to more music. Proper music.

Thank you.