[aroldan]

Zelenka. His harmonics are beautiful.

 

[mike1127]

Quote:

In my comparison to Mozart I meant he used blocks of ideas and sewed them together, a snippet from a string quartet, a run from a concerto can all be found in other pieces. Like Bach too, almost like recycling ideas. Re-using them to better more progressive effect. His phrase lengths I agree are far from Glass's Mechanistic signature pulses.   

Hmm. Well Mozart did have a lot of "signature moves." True, there are ideas at the micro-level which are recognizable across many pieces. What never ceases to amaze me, however, is the invention Mozart shows as well. Especially in his later pieces there is almost always some shocking contrast of ideas which act as a perfect foil to each other, or there is some very clever use of a "signature move" that is unlike how it is used in any other piece.
 
In any case, I adore Mozart. Everything about Mozart. As a composer myself, I find my temperament to be a bit like Mozart. My pieces tend to be a stream of constantly renewing ideas, rather than tightly organized around one idea.

 

[LugBug1]

Quote:

Hmm. Well Mozart did have a lot of "signature moves." True, there are ideas at the micro-level which are recognizable across many pieces. What never ceases to amaze me, however, is the invention Mozart shows as well. Especially in his later pieces there is almost always some shocking contrast of ideas which act as a perfect foil to each other, or there is some very clever use of a "signature move" that is unlike how it is used in any other piece.
 
In any case, I adore Mozart. Everything about Mozart. As a composer myself, I find my temperament to be a bit like Mozart. My pieces tend to be a stream of constantly renewing ideas, rather than tightly organized around one idea.

That makes a lot of sense, and in any artistic endeavor (or life). A slow constant progression rather than "right, I've finished that, what should I do now?" way of working or thinking.  I love Mozart too, have for many years. It's his opera's that constantly amaze me. I dragged my wife (kicking and screaming!) to see Don Giovanni last year and she ended up loving it! Her first opera, she then agreed to go and see Das Rheingold with me... which she has never really forgiven me for haha. Mozart's music has universal appeal, he makes it sound so flowing and natural. It's never hard work to take in, and yet it has so many layers when you look closer.   
The greatest opera ever written in my humble opinion is "The Marriage of Figaro" it's pretty much perfect.

 

[mpsipos]

So hard to decide, but here's my top 20 (in no particular order) (and not including opera composers like Puccini, Wagner, Verdi)
 
- Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms
- Tchaikovsky, Schumann, Bartok, Mendelssohn, Dvorak
- Handel, Haydn, Chopin, Debussy, Ravel
- Stravinsky, Mahler, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev
 
And I still missed a lot of greats!

 

[bigshot]

That's a good list. (just add Tchaikovsky)