The Times Critic's Top Ten

Anthony Tommasini, music critic for the New York Times, published his picks for the top ten composers (excluding living composers) of all times.

1. Bach

2. Beethoven

3. Mozart

4. Schubert

5. Debussy

6. Stravinsky

7. Brahms

8. Verdi

9. Wagner

10. Bartok

But where is Haydn? Handel? Dvorak? I'm afraid the last three--maybe even the last four--wouldn't have made my list.

Some Constellation

“Classical” music, strictly speaking, is music written between 1750, the date of J.S. Bach’s death, and the end of the eighteenth century, when Beethoven walked through the front door of the palace and ushered in the Romantic period of music.

Bue “classical” has become a catch-all term for music which doesn’t easily fall into other categories. People have tried calling it art music, un-popular music, longhair. It’s a bit like the word “germ” for a doctor, who will want to know what kind of germ we are talking about. Or “baby grand” for any horizontal piano measuring five to nine feet from tail to keyboard, each piano having a particular descriptive name, none of them including the word “baby”.

The Classical or Rococo period. Mozart, Haydn, Clementi. Geniuses all, and treated as glorified domestic servants in livery under the fickle patronage of various noblemen. Yet music was their day job. They didn’t have to teach, doctor or sell insurance.

Instead, they invented the symphony (Haydn), produced deathless diamonds of melody which would support generations of musicians and transport their audiences (Mozart), write a music method book which would teach geniuses such as Chopin and Debussy (Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum or Steps to Parnassus).

My Keyboard Literature teacher, Sylvia Jenkins, said that the Classic view of God was that of a divine clock-maker, that God wound up the universe and let it run all on its own. Accordingly, people of the late 18^th Century loved music boxes and clockwork toys. Musicians including Mozart wrote pieces for wind-up players. This concept of God and music was different from that of Bach, who believed that all music came directly from heaven, or from that of Chopin, who believed that music was a purely human creation.

The musicians I call musicians mostly started their job training as children. By the time they were adults, they had logged thousands of hours of practice time, which meant they were probably not good at sports. They can count beats and rests, can play in more than one key, can transpose without electronic assistance. They understand Italian musical terms and know the difference between a da capo and a dal signo.

Most of them have to teach whether or not they are good at it, just to pay their bills. The orchestra players have to play in several orchestras. The singers spend their lives auditioning and looking for an accompanist. The lucky few get studio jobs, shows and casuals (parties, weddings) to keep body and soul together.

And yet being a “classical” musician is a rare privilege and a constant consolation. As my piano duet partner John says, “It is some constellation.”