Top 10 Composers: The Vienna Four
After listening to a favourite "Trout" music by Schubert, today I decided to further tidy up one of my older folders of classical music. I found this note from a fellow writer and friend Karen Lotter who passed on this information to me, an article she found from New York Times, some 2 years back. Certainly, nothing much has changed really. It is, and has always been these same "Vienna Four Composers."
Many attempts have been done to determine the top classical composers in history, articles and books, opinions and reviews. I've always maintained Mozart as my top composer, followed by Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert, in no order. Not that I don't love many more, including Tchaikovsly, Bach, Mendelssohn, Handel, Brahms. My list is endless. And naturally, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion.
I find the insights from this article by Anthony Tommasini interesting, one reason I've kept the link handy through time. According to Tommasini, "if such a list is to be at all diverse and comprehensive, how could 4 of the 10 slots go to composers - Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert - who worked in Vienna during, say, the 75 years from 1750 to 1825? What on earth was going on there to foster such achievement?
Here's Tommasini's article (accessed Jan 10, 2011): Top 10 composers: The Vienna Four
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