Who, in your opinion was the last truly distinguished classical composer to be born?

Very tricky to answer this one, I think.

Although I appreciate Part, Reich and Adams, Britten seems to be the most clearly "distinguished" of that group, so I didn't feel confident in naming anyone on the list after him. On the other hand I suspect that Thomas Ades (born 1971) may well fit the bill as a distinguished composer born later. On the evidence of his works to date, he is less of a one-trick pony than Part, Reich or Adams, although only time will tell whether he will really justify that tag.

If you won't accept Ades, I'll stick with Britten, although it is just worth adding that Leonard Bernstein was born in 1918.

I'd also give the nod to Britten, despite my love for Part and Reich. Their work will surely be appreciated for generations, and may grow, but Britten has the greates stature today.

No love for John Williams?

I'll go you one better and say Bear McCreary. Bach and Mozart would be scoring TV and Movies if they were alive today.

Not a popular opinion, but I'll stick to it.

Hmmm - Ligeti is clearly the best composer of that group by some distance, so he must win. And not an unworthy winner either, as he is maybe the best composer of the last 50 years period.

Of the ones still alive you missed, maybe Wolfgang Rihm impresses me the most, or Elliott Carter, or Sofia Gubaidulina, although its hard to tell while reputations are still to settle.... All stand head and shoulders above Part, Adams, Reich and Glass.

i'm gonna be a gadfly and nominate Zappa.

or maybe Stravinsky?

Malcolm Arnold 1923-2006

Best kept secret in classical music, great set of 9 symphonies plus commercial music for movies etc.
Composed in tonal style, like a more modern version of Sibelius

I voted without hesitation for Shostakovich. Then scroll down and even reading the arguments some put forth, my mind wasn't changed. And then...DA you got me thinking. And heck, maybe even Arnell could be in that list.

But then I remembered my Henry Pleasants and I'll stick to my choice. What Pleasants points out is that every "great" composer was accepted and loved in his own time. That could certainly be said of Shostakovich, but not of Arnold. There's very little of his music that the general music going audiences have heard, or want to here, no matter how much we might appreciate it. I think the Four Scottish Dances is one gorgeous work, but I've only encountered it once in concert. Same with the symphonies: I've only heard the 4th. And in both cases, I was in the orchestra playing the music to very small audiences.

Now Britten might be something to think about, except that I personally can't stand most anything he wrote save for a couple of operas. The War Requiem? Ugh! Still, I couldn't argue with people who voted for him.

As to John Williams, in the future, his music will be known only by the films he scored. He is a great film composer, but not a great concert composer, the bassoon concerto notwithstanding. The same fate has happened to many film composers: Tiomkin, Steiner, Waxman, Herrmann, Korngold. They all wrote a lot of concert music, some it very good indeed, but their legacy is the film music.

John Cage

John Cage

Haha. I don't disagree with ya.

x3 on John Williams. I heard some of his top soundtracks yesterday and they are all on a different league compared to most of the cliched stuff out there today. I will consider him a classical composer more than a pure movie soundtrack composer since his music literally tells the story by itself and can stand on its own.

Most people will agree that a "distinguished composer" is one who has a distinctive, easily recognizable style, and who has left a sizable body of admirable work. On top of that, there are two criteria that I would apply: these are perhaps arbitrary, so feel free to disagree.

1) The composer should make important contribution to a variety of genres. Granted, Mahler published nothing but symphonies and orchestral songs, but there is something lacking in a composer who had not written good orchestral works, concertos, chamber pieces, works for solo voice and for chorus. Arvo Part is too limited.

2) The composer should not be primarily known for the use of collage, quotations, or stylistic juxtapositions. Mixing different styles, especially classical and popular styles, is the cool, "post-modern" thing to do nowadays, and I too find some of the results a pleasing listen, but there is something du jour about the use of collage: the work does not make sense unless you know the cultural climate in its days of conception, and as the kinks and fetishes of the time are forgotten, the work's shelf-life expires. This criteria will rule out a surprisingly large chunk of composer-dom: Schnittke, Silvestrov, Ligeti, Kurtag, Kagel, the minimalists, and the two darlings of today: Tan Dun and Golijov.

Having said all these, my choice is Witold Lutoslawski, for his consistent, highly listenable output and his sensible intelligent use of (the then) new composition techniques like twelve-tones and aleatory writing. I pondered long about Messiaen -- after all you have to consider his contribution to the studies of rhythms and harmonies -- but his orchestration is often awkward.

And there are a host of "new" composers out there worthy of consideration -- shame that their works are so seldom performed or recorded: Hans Werner Henze: great variety of works in three or four artistic "phases", but when a record label trims down its catalog, his music is usually the first to go. His operas are legendary but almost never heard. James McMillan: only a handful of his orchestral works are making rounds, but he has a large repertoire of excellent choral and chamber works. I am not entirely a fan of Wolfgang Rihm, but given his large output, I wish I can hear more.

I'm comparing your opinion of Bach to this one:

"The immortal god of harmony"
-- Ludwig van Beethoven, 1801

Let me think about it for awhile . . . . . . .

No love for Terry Riley? I'm gonna say Steve Reich, just cuz it seems like around here the very idea of minimalism is undistinguished (?). Were there no minimalists on the list, I'd probably go with Ligeti, whose work is quite powerful.