After thinking about this, I decided to change my post.

I listen to all different kinds of music, from 3 chord blues/rock/country to symphonies to "foreign" (to me) and I have many hundreds of CDs and LPs.

And after thinking about this for a while I realized that the most difficult thing to compose must be a great symphony. Establishing themes, developing the themes, and coming out with a work that lasts hundreds of years is a feat most mere mortals cannot do.

1) Antonin Dvorak. I played his 9th symphony in a symphonic band, wore out an LP or two and had a few CDs. One day after hundreds and hundreds of listening I recognized a spot in the fourth movement where he combined big fragments from the major themes of all four movements and combined them into one part using the fragments as melody, countermelody and foundation. Eargazm!!!

2) Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky because he has such a great sense of melody and wove such wonderful parts under them. "Romeo & Juliet", "6th Symphony", and so many others, extremely emotional and even when sad the beauty of the melodies soar above the sadness

3) Sergei Prokofiev. His symphonies are wonderful, but his ballet suites like "Stone Flower" and his take on "Romeo and Juliet" never fail to give me chills. Also his intelligent use of dissonance always sounds like it belongs and was never just stuck in there because he could

4) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov If he had written nothing else other than the "Russian Easter Overture" and "Capriccio Espagnol" it would have been more than enough, but there is so much more

5) Dmitri Shostakovich one of the most prolific symphony composers and he created so many different worlds with them

For those familiar, I like the dark, brooding "blues" end of the classical spectrum.

Runners up would be Josef Suk, Manuel de Falla, Camille Saint-Saëns, Ottorino Respighi, Leos Janacek, and a few others that will pop into my head as soon as I hit submit.

Now I don't want to dis Muddy Waters, Jeff Beck, k.d.lang, Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Tom Jones, Terry Kath, Otis Redding or any other pop stars, but what the symphony people can do is definitely super-human to the highest degree.

Notes


Last edited by Notes Norton; 04/16/18 02:46 AM.
Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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