I've been playing classical piano for a while now and I'm just in love with classical music so it's really hard for me to narrow it down to 5 composers but if I had to my list would look something like this:
1. Beethoven
2. Bach
3. Chopin
4. Dvorak
5. Tchaikovsky
To add to the conversation about Beethoven, Bach and Mozart all being considered the greats I think they really deserve it. To be honest, I never really understood the fascination with Mozart, but Bach and Beethoven made some pretty incredible accomplishments. I think a lot of it has to do with the historical context.
Bach was composing at a time where it was considered heresy to use a tritone in composition. He did some amazing things with counterpoint that really helped progress the form and manipulation of traditional music. The Art of Fugue is a perfect example of how he manipulated counterpoint to create these unbelievable multi-layered pieces. Not to mention he composed a massive amount of pieces for almost every instrument.
Beethoven is widely considered to be the founder of Romanticism. By analyzing the progression of his piano sonatas, it clearly shows his movement from Classical to Romantic. He started out with some innovative yet conservative sonata form movements and by the end of his time he completely broke sonata form down into extremely dramatic and powerful movements which Romanticism is known for. He was the first to write development sections that ran for the bulk of the piece and this continued onto later composers of the Romantic era creating pieces that seem like one big dramatic development.
So that's just my two cents on why I think they really deserve all the praise they receive.
__________________
|