The top 10 greatest classical composers (4, 3 . . .)

(The complete list.)

4. Bach

Bach composed during the late Baroque, so he didn't forge a new style the way Haydn or Debussy or Schoenberg did. And the Baroque style itself is more limited than the music that would follow him. Yet he's so widely called one of the top 3 composers of all time that I feel slightly apologetic at ranking him "only" #4. Evidently, greatness is not just about originality. Bach transcended the limitations of his era and brought an intellectual depth previously unknown to Western music.

I think of him as generally mild-mannered and contemplative, but he was also capable of overwhelmingly intense emotion. Here's "Herr, Unser Herrscher" ("Lord, Our Master") from the St. John Passion, conducted by my favorite conductor, John Eliot Gardiner:



Bach's Cello Suites allow the cellist to explore melody alone, in a way no other composer has equalled. Here's Mstislav Rostropovich playing the Prelude of #4:



If you wanted to choose one little piece by anyone that perfectly distills the idea of pure, simple music for music's sake, it would be hard to do better than the 1st Prelude of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Sviatoslav Richter plays it here, followed by the 1st Fugue:




3. Brahms

Schoenberg famously wrote, in an essay called "Brahms the Progressive," that Brahms had been misunderstood as one of the more conservative composers of the Romantic era, and that in fact he foreshadowed the atonalism of the 20th century. Fortunately, we don't need to take a stance on this musicological issue to become immersed in the autumnal world of Brahms, where every note seems to be aching or yearning or striving for something. Brahms, who died in 1897, often sounds to me like he's saying a long farewell to pre-Modern classical music itself.

Here's one of the most beautiful melodies I've ever heard. Piano Trio #1 (Op. 8), first movement, played by Eugene Istomin, Isaac Stern, and Leonard Rose:



Here's the first movement of A German Requiem, where the non-religious Brahms put his individual spin on a traditionally Christian genre. Claudio Abbado conducts this performance; I recommend cranking up the volume on your computer, since the audio is on the quiet side.



Here's the first movement of Brahms's 4th Symphony (his last), conducted by Carlos Kleiber. I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say music just doesn't get any better than this.