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Well, it is admirable not to make an effort to draw a conclusion without enough evidence.

While I was writing my previous post, it occured to me that it might have been the case that some of the worlds greatest musical geniuses might not have had a big enough stage to have their music preserved. So, you always have to consider the limits of your own knowledge, unless you have ultimate knowledge, which could almost be considered as asking a different question. So, there can always be a best according to the subset of knowledge that is the things that you know yourself, and it is this subset that we need to draw conclusions from.

It is the case that, just maybe [and arbitrarily], Pachelbel was the greatest composer of all time, but due to the lack or large scale orchestral music with wide verieties of harmony and dissonance, and his lack of familliarity with the equal temperment, he might not seem so.

A much more likely scenario is to judge pieces of music, rather than composers, to search for the ultimate genius. However, music is written for different reasons, and about different things- and to take all of these into account would surely have disastrous consequences for the one doing the meditation.

So I suppose that the only logical way to consider the question is subjectively, which gives rise to the seeming paradox that there is no exact answer, just as one cannot determine simultaniety in a relativistic system.

So, who is the best composer? The one who speaks to you most, I would say. Opening the doors for such subjective interpretation would surely exact some saddening answers from the majority at large- ones that aren't to be agreed with by the experts, and some that probably aren't even close to being true on a grand scale. The ultimate paradox, the uncertainty principle, ensures that we can't find a true answer ourselves, only one that fits our own reference point [and hence is true subjectively]. The ultimate answer cannot be examined from outside the box.

I well know about my mind destroying itself- today I caught the wrong train because I was too concerned about factorising as many numbers as I could before school. I'ts a geeks worst nightmare. I know my posts have become increasingly peculiar lately. I have aspergers syndrome [a form of autism], and it picks at my mind like that- it has just been stronger lately.

That's supposed to work against him?





Sorry for the off topic.

Well, I guess it just makes this forum cosier. I try not to tell people about stuff like that, but eventually I say something that even sounds odd to me, and then I usually tell people in an effort to save some face.

Every now and then I feel like I study and think too hard on subjects. I know it isn't healthy, but I have a lot of fun at first.

I thought it might be because you're an elitist on some level. I don't mean that in a bad way, of course. I think I do the same thing at times.

i would have to agree with beethoven being a music genius. he created the music in his head. he couldnt hear what he created with his ears, instead he heard it in his head and he made amazing pieces that way. how many other composers have done that? or could have done that??

That's an interesting piece of knowledge, I didn't know that.

And yes...it would be hell to have to write all of that down, in particular if you were at risk of forgetting some of it. (I don't know if he was or not)

It's hard to say with certainty who or what is better "of all time" or something along that manner. To me, being the relativist I am I tend to see things within their own context.

I guess you couldn't go wrong with using von Bulow's "Three B's" (Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms) as the greatest, but that could be easily contested.

If one looks at the environment of the time the composer was alive then it comes to no surprise why they are great then, and maybe not so much now. The age of Enlightenment that dominated the 18th century put rationalism and order as its paragon and thus the likes of Haydn and Mozart were highly regarded and the masters of the Baroque were put to rest because they were too irrational (the term Baroque was coined during the late 18th century to described the bizarreness of the period in terms of art and architecture and was later applied to music). Even Bach himself didn't get much love until Mendelssohn started conducting his works in the early 19th century. Bach when he was alive was considered old fashioned and somewhat of a pedagogue for his adherence to complex counterpoint and more rationalized composing.

When the Romantic movement rolled around, harbored by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars we got ourselves a new mindset that put introspection and self-expression on top. Beethoven matured in that era and made music to reflect himself and the world around him. Much of the other Romanticists after Beethoven (Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms) are forever under his shadow and tried to follow his ideal of both using the rational forms with more expressive input. Another school of Romanticism from France and led by Berlioz, Liszt, and later Wagner took the influences from opera and put more emphasis on chromaticism and less abstract forms. This dichotomy continued and had its flareups. Tchaikovksy, a firm member of the expressive school and a very typical example of the tortured artist, slandered Brahms, as being a "talentless b*****d".

Now that we have gone through many worldviews and stylistic changes, what can be considered the greatest? We aren't very sure, but we can still choose which were the best of their time (Pachelbel I think was highly regarded in his time as was Telemann, but today's lists won't put them in the top 50 of the greatest composers) and go from there. To say Beethoven is great is fine, but the greatest even up to our time could be a stretch of the truth considered that the Beethovenian ideal has pretty much died since the end of World War I.

But who are the greatest living right now? I'm not so sure yet. Some could point out Boulez, Part, Adams, Glass, Reich, Gorecki, Ligeti, etc. It's too fragmented today to consider how one can trump all others for the top spot.