The top 10 greatest classical composers — honorable mentions

Now that I've posted my top 10 list of the greatest classical composers, let's look at some people I left off whom others might have included.

Mendelssohn could have easily been in the top 10. His Octet (for the equivalent of two string quartets) is some of the best music I've ever heard by anyone. The achievement would be hard to fathom if he had written it at any age. He was 16 when he wrote it. Here it is played by Janine Jansen on violin and others (click through to YouTube for all the musicians).




Many top 10 lists would also include Schumann. I like his manic Toccata (played here by Do-Hyun Kim).




I noticed a lot of support for Tchaikovsky once the NYT series started. The Nutcracker Suite always puts me in a good mood. Here's the "Waltz of the Flowers" from that suite, which is supposed to be played by orchestra but is redone here by the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet:




Going back in time to the Baroque, there's Handel. Here's the obvious choice (for more Handel, check out his Keyboard Suites, like this one):




Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas (often played on piano, as in this performance of K. 141 by Martha Argerich) are strikingly individualistic and out of sync with the late Baroque.




How about the 20th century? Bartok would be a leading contender. Here's his audacious String Quartet #4, played by Quatuor Ebène:




I love Shostakovich, who wrote under constant fear of his own Soviet government. Here's his 1st Symphony, which he wrote as a conservatory assignment when he was 19 years old (conducted by Gianandrea Noseda). This is relatively cheerful for Shostakovich (for something more characteristically bleak, try his 8th String Quartet):




Another Soviet composer is Prokofiev, who wrote some hard-edged, dissonant music, but also popular fare like Peter & the Wolf and Romeo & Juliet. I especially like his piano music, such as the 5th Piano Sonata (played by Boris Berman):




You could include Schoenberg on the list, but would that be mostly a gesture of recognition that he did something new? That's important, but I care more about: "If I could only listen to 10 composers for the rest of my life, who would they be?" I wouldn't put Schoenberg on that list. But if you had to listen to choose just 10 classical compositions to have on a desert island, you might want this haunting early piece, Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) (played here by the NEC Contemporary Ensemble Concert, directed by John Heiss):




There are some giants I still haven't mentioned: Verdi, Wagner, Mahler. I like opera, but I'm not enough of a fan of it to put Verdi or Wagner in the top 10. I've never found the historical significance of Wagner to be viscerally exciting, as opposed to an academic observation (in contrast with Beethoven or Debussy). And I've never understood the passion for Mahler. I prefer the similar but more introverted and enigmatic Bruckner. Here's part of Bruckner's 9th Symphony (unfinished), conducted by Leonard Bernstein:




What about Vivaldi, with his hundreds of masterful Baroque concertos? Here's "Summer" from The Four Seasons, which has no resemblance to summer unless we're talking about a thunderstorm:




The top 10 format might be skewed against Ravel, since most people would put Debussy ahead of him, and the one impressionist seems like enough for a short list. Here's his Piano Trio (the first two movements), played by Henry Kramer (piano), Arianna Warsaw-Fan Rauch (violin), and Meta Weiss (cello):




Then there's Sibelius. Here's the first movement of his overlooked 6th Symphony, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen:




We could keep going like this and end up with a top 50 list of excellent composers. There just isn't room for every worthy composer on a top 10 or 20 list. A top 10 list gets attention because it's restrictive; disappointment is built into the concept.

If you're looking for a fuller guide to classical composers than I could give here, I recommend Jan Swafford's Vintage Guide to Classical Music. He has long essays on the music and lives of the great composers, and shorter blurbs on lesser-but-notable composers. I particularly recommend this over Phil G. Goulding's Classical Music, which ranks "the 50 greatest composers" in order (unlike Swafford's book). Goulding's format is entertaining and eye-catching, but he makes some bizarre choices: he doesn't include Schoenberg or any American composers (no Copland or Ives), yet he includes relatively forgettable composers like Rameau and Donizetti. In contrast, Swafford's choices about which composers to emphasize (including some less obvious choices like Palestrina and Hindemith) and which ones to discuss briefly (Corelli, Scriabin, Poulenc) are close to perfect.