Omissions and Favourites
 

I would count all five of the composers in my previous post above any visual or literary artist.

Mozart has been omitted even though his Operas are damn wonderful and there is some interesting work on the Symphonic allegro in both his symphonies and later piano concertos. I think the crisis in the development of the first movement of the G minor is very beautiful, but while excelling at everything he fails to match the strengths of any of my top 5 and is way behind Beethoven.

Mahler limited himself almost exclusively to the Symphony. I sometimes feel trapped inside his oeuvre.

Liszt, Schumann and Chopin made profoundly transcendental investigations, but not enough range from either of these.

I have no words to justify my omission of Wagner or Brahms. Parsifal and the late Clarinet Quintet take me to places I have no right to go.

My favourite composers are

Roslavets

Schnittke

Hindemith

Brahms

Lutoslawski

I like dense counterpoint, close harmony and poetic conception.

Really, you could spend a life time with that CD!

But, try these - all available on youtube!

the allegretto (2nd movement) of Beethoven's 7th Symphony - one youtube version has a visualisation.

Chopin waltzes

Delibes flower duet from Lakme

Prokofiev - the Knight's dance from his ballet Romeo and Juliet

That reminds me that Prokofiev should figure in either of my top fives. The 5th symphony is better than any of Shostakovich's and the 1st violin sonata is a short but spectacular journey.

5 favourite individual pieces
 

5 - Shostakovich - Symphony No 15 - a despairing, apocalyptic vision of the present. He ridicules the attitude of the Soviet state and I would also say the vast majority of people with incongruent excerpts from the William Tell overture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i71RLbflINY

4 - Nielsen - Symphony No 5 - seems contrived equally by emotional intent and by forces of nature themselves. Beauty tinged with pessimism and longing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6o3JnyVRCw

3 - Hindemith - Piano Sonata for duet - especially the slow movement which is ruled by foot-tapping syncopations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uisa3DhllGU

2 - Rachmaninov - Symphony No 2/ arr '5th piano concerto'. Not the greatest pieces ever written but certainly one of the most passionate - a guilty pleasure, indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfWFlMyfGYw

1 - Janacek - Sinfonietta -a poem to the glory and endless inspiration offered by nature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbncXDimwbQ

My personal favorite top 5 composers are (in order)

Tsjaikovski
Mozart
Camille Saint-Saëns
Debussy
Beethoven

Here's my top 5 classical composers list (print order):

Vivaldi
Bach
Mozart
Tchaikovsky
Strauss
*::: I agree

Top Five
 

This is hard!

1=
Bach
Beethoven
Mozart
4 =
Handel
Verdi

1.Beethoven
2.Mozart
3.Tchaikovsky
4.Chopin
5.Vivaldi

That list needs Bach:

5? Can't do it. Too difficult to narrow it down to so few. So I'm going to be a bad boy rule breaker and give 10.

In no particular order:

Mozart
Beethoven
Tchaikovsky
Mahler
Bach
Schubert
Chopin
Handel
Haydn
Brahms

Reckon I can get it to six... though I know they're not all strictly classical classical - what can I say, I'm loving the 20th century right now :P hey ho

Debussy
Shostakovich
Bach
Kabalevsky
Gedike
Tchaikovsky