giovedì 13 gennaio 2011

THE TOP TEN COMPOSERS? What a question!

Who are the greatest composers? Some candidates: above, from left, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Mozart, Schoenberg, Haydn, and Stravinsky; below, from left, Schumann, Brahms, Schubert, Handel, Bach, and Debussy.

You know that a new year has truly arrived when critics stop issuing all those lists of the best film, books, plays, recordings and whatever of the year gone by. These lists seem to be popular.
Imagine if we could do the same in classical music, if there were ways to rank composers. The top 10 composers of all time.
This is the list we have secretly wanted to compile (not in order of greatness).

Do you agree?

1) Arnold Schoenberg
2) Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin
3) Johann Sebastian Bach
4) Georg Friedrich Händel
5) Claude-Achille Debussy
6) Franz Schubert
7) Franz Joseph Haydn 
9) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 
10) Wilhelm Richard Wagner