Talk:List of classical music composers by era

Alphabetical list

Text had this as alphabetical, which it may once have been. An alphabetical list is needed. algocu (talk) 13:24, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Why the 1879 cutoff?

Why are there no composers listed that were born after 1879? --67.150.123.5 (talk) 00:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Don't know, but there's a smaller graphic at Classical composers time-line which covers only the most important composers since about 1440. We wanted one graph and realised that going back to 1150 would probably make the graphic far too wide and/or tall for most browsers. Comments welcome there. We also need to decide on the relevence of having two different timeline articles covering very similar things. Thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 22:38, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

That page seems to be distinctly overlapping with the initial section here.

(That section is an embedded copy of Template:Timeline Classical Composers Famous (not currently used anywhere else, though it could potentially be used at Outline of music and Portal:Music and other places...?)).

I'd recommend merging that new article into the template. -- Quiddity (talk) 01:00, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree, we need to include composers after 1879 - not only does the overview omit them, but there is no timeline for the last section of the list either which adds to the problem. Regarding the overview, I made a few changes to the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical era entries a few weeks ago, but would want to consult before attempting to remedy the later eras. Perhaps I should weed out one or two of those designated 'Romatics' and substitute one or two later ones to begin with? Initial suggestions for deletion/addition to the overview template please.... --(RT) (talk) 12:13, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I have now extended the overview timeline to 2000. Further suggestions welcome. --(RT) (talk) 20:29, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

TfD of Template:Timeline Classical Composers Famous

Note that the overview timeline discussed above has failed TfD. --Jubilee♫clipman 17:25, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Gustav Holst

The composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934) seems to be omitted from the list. 203.56.168.143 (talk) 22:12, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I added Holst to Template:Timeline Classical Composers Romanticism Late. MichaelMcNeilForbes (talk) 16:36, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) appears to be missing from the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.158.146.227 (talk) 16:07, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Andrea Gabrieli should be translocated between Lassus and de Wert

In the RENAISSANCE ERA list, the composer ANDREA GABRIELI (b 1532/33) should be translocated between ORLANDE deLASSUS (b 1530/32) and GIACHES deWERT (b 1535). ANDREA GABRIELI, among the prominent founders of the Venetian School, was a contemporary and friend of deLASSUS, who in the present list appears 20 years after ANDREA GABRIELI. Antoniouwik (talk) 11:05, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I think you mean the Renaissance composers timeline displayed here. Andrea Gabrieli's dates and position are now amended. (RT) (talk) 17:52, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

   REGARDING ANTONIO BERTALI

Is there still room for ANTONIO BERTALI (1605-1669), born same year as CARISSIMI, in the Baroque Era Composers timeline? His MISSA RESURRECTIONIS has been recorded live by Yale's Schola Cantorum in a fine atmospheric production (Dec 2005), whereas recordings of several other works of him are also available. Antoniouwik (talk) 09:08, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'm familiar with a number of recordings. Bertali is in the much longer List of Baroque composers (see the middle section)—this list links there. I believe there is a technical limit how many names can be included in a single timeline but it is certainly possible to add to any of them. (RT) (talk) 19:41, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Editing and typo

How exactly is one supposed to edit this page? Anyway, "Antonin Dvorák" should be replaced with "Antonín Dvořák". Toccata quarta (talk) 20:10, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Each of the timelines are embedded templates—presumably as, in some cases, they are used in more than one article. I have now edited Template:Timeline Classical Composers Romanticism Late to correct Antonín Dvořák. You might find Help:EasyTimeline syntax useful if you want to make substantive changes. (RT) (talk) 20:56, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not smart enough to figure out how to correct it myself, but John Cooper (end of Renaissance Era) links to the John Cooper disambiguation page rather than http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cooper_(composer).

Fixed (I fixed the link in the template). Thank you for pointing it out. Antandrus (talk) 17:39, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Ommited composers

Is Georges Bizet not important enough to get into the list? I really don't think so. Other composers like Fučík, Porumbescu, Michna etc. are also left out. --Highschoolpuppettier (talk) 12:12, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Bizet should probably be included, but I don't think the other composers are significant enough. --Toccata quarta (talk) 13:17, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Done! At long last after two years, inertness has become inertia. Willem (talk) 02:12, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Really? Fučík's most famous piece, Entry of the Gladiators, has over one million views on youtube. --Highschoolpuppettier (talk) 18:44, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Orlando Gibbons is also missing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.23.135.59 (talk) 22:33, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to see John Barry in the 20th century list I think he is definitely suitable86.188.253.206 (talk) 08:16, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I can't find Cui, Mussorgsky, or Balakirev, despite their being three out of The Five --krutulism (talk) 05:36, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

I can't find Manuel de Falla. Is there anyway to make this page searchable? To locate a composer you really need to know their date of death.

Leopold Koželuch from the late Classical period is also missing 78.30.15.184 (talk) 10:35, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I know that I could participate myself but I barely understand how I even added my message here, and suggesting yet another composer here after 4 years feels awkward, but I was looking for Enescu George Enescu and he was not there. It feels he became quite important for the 20th Century, maybe it would be good to consider his name in the list. Thank you to anyone with better wikiknowhow! 180.150.109.164 (talk) 09:10, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Prokofiev

I don't see Prokofiev — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:7:8500:982:7C4A:9236:C2C6:D9E3 (talk) 05:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Frank Zappa

You have to be kidding me. Frank Zappa. Even A-ha wrote better music than him — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.60.215.192 (talk) 10:23, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

LINK PROBLEM

When you click "Johann Fuchs" in the second section of Romantic era, you will access to a German sprint canoer page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Felix Modernssohn (talk • contribs) 10:16, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Sorted.

Overview

Somebody decided that Fazil Say was noteworthy enough to be included in the overview timeline. I disagree and took it upon myself to remove it. If someone really wants to add someone born after 1950, the best-known and most noteworthy candidates would probably be Tan Dun, Thomas Adès, or David Lang. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MargotThe (talk • contribs) 07:30, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Once again there's been a strange addition at the end of the overview list, which I decided to remove. I still say that the three composers I mentioned above are probably the most prominent representatives from their generation. — MargotThe (talk) 02:26, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

It also occurred to me that the overview was becoming so detailed to the point that it wasn't much of an overview any more, so I've cleaned it up:

Deleted Ortiz, Galilei, Guerrero, Frescobaldi, Gibbons, Biber, Marais, Torelli, Jacquet de La Guerre, Tartini, Graun, Dittersdorf, Boccherini, Kozeluch, Pleyel, Woelfl, J Strauss I, Bruch, Widor, Lyadov, Shebalin, Sviridov, Henze, and Denisov. Honestly I only kept Cavalli and Froberger because of a large gap between Schütz and Lully. I would be happy to see this overview cut down even more but I decided to focus my deletions on names I thought most people would agree are quite minor figures.

I also deleted unnecessary first initials or names, while keeping those that distinguish composers with the same last name.

Changed classification of Ysaye, Delius, Cage to romantic, romantic, and avant-garde, respectively.

— MargotThe (talk) 01:48, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

This list is not searchable.

I don't know if there's a way to easily make this searchable without drastically altering its structure, but ctrl+f doesn't search the composer names. Jacq 06:46, 1 June 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jajobi (talk • contribs)

Agree that making the "graphs"/lists searchable would be an improvement, if keeping (or improving, although that's subjective) the current visual layout. I don't know whether that is possible though, sorry. --Treetear (talk) 21:32, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm joining this plea, list definitely should be searchable, please. --109.81.215.30 (talk) 08:48, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Me too. You provide a list of composers, but then you can't search the list for a particular composer. So, let's start at the beginning of the list and slowly work our way down...Nei1 (talk) 16:36, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Outdated template

The template for "Lists of classical music composers by eras" that appears at the upper right of this article/list is partly out of date. Lists now exist for composers of the Modernist and Postmodern eras, and these need to be added to the template. The 20th and 21st centuries don't really belong on this list as currently titled, but can be retained along with Modernist and Postmodern if the title is modified to read "Lists of classical music composers by eras and centuries". I would update the template myself if the customary V.T.E. buttons were at the bottom, but they are missing and I know of no other way to do the edit. Maybe some editor or administrator is trying to protect the template from being updated even by registered users like myself. ~ChrisCarss Former24.108.99.31 (talk) 09:03, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Editing failure

I attempted to add Wanhal to the Classical era template, but merely broke it and so had to revert. I don't know what went wrong; the reported error was in a section of the file which I hadn't touched. (If that edit had been successful, I was also planning to add Vieuxtemps, Balakirev, Bruch, Massenet, Moszkowski, Chaminade, Vierne, Reger, Dohnányi, and Myaskovsky to their respective periods. But now I don't dare.) JBritnell (talk) 04:03, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Should we add Medieval composers to the overview?

One of the biggest benefits of doing so would be to have Hildegard of Bingen included, as well as some other medieval composers who aren't as popular as her but are still significant. Also, the Medieval era preceded all of the other eras in the overview and thereby had influence on them.

However, the medieval era is less known than every subsequent era, and will span back the overview by at least hundreds of years (depending on who you start with), up to potentially twice the overview length.

So what do you guys think? Should we do it? Wikieditor662 (talk) 01:55, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I added a sandbox so we can see what it's like. It's far from perfect but just for the example I added a couple of composers as well as one transitionary composer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wikieditor662/sandbox Wikieditor662 (talk) 22:13, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Some more potential composers to remove

@Gor1995 I already removed some composers who should definitely not be there, but the others I'm not so sure about

Perhaps some Renaissance composers, I'm not sure if all of them belong there

I don't know if Luigi Cherubini should be on there, his music isn't very well known although he may have been somewhat significant

Granados's music is more well known than the others we may need to remove not as well known or significant as the other people in his time period

Boulez and Messiaen are no doubt significant for their contributions for things other than their pieces, but are their pieces are significant enough to be on there?

So what do you think? Wikieditor662 (talk) 15:22, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I think the inclusion of Cherubini and Granados is appropriate, and I have no issues with the Renaissance composers listed as it stands right now. The two figures that seem most out of place to me in the overview are Tárrega and Ysaÿe. Certainly arguments can be made for eliminating a couple dozen names that aren't quite as important (including Cherubini and Granados) but those two seem the most egregious.

Also, regarding the possibility of adding Medieval composers to the overview - while their inclusion on the timeline gives a visual sense of the relative anonymity of composers of that era and their chronological distance from composers that followed, I think that the overview is more about the relation of names in close proximity to one another rather than the relationships of the eras - in other words, for me personally, including those names is distracting to the rest of the overview timeline. MargotThe (talk) 23:06, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I removed Ysaye.

I am very confident that we should not remove Francisco Tárrega as his pieces are pretty recognizable and far more well known than some of the other composers on there, especially that of ones like Luigi Cherubini. He also has his significance when it comes to classical guitar pieces. I don't see a single good reason to remove him. Wikieditor662 (talk) 15:41, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Also here are some composers I consider adding (the ones I'm certain about I'll do without asking, if you guys don't mind)

Johann Strauss I - father of Johann Strauss II, and more importantly, his Radetzky March is pretty well known.

Enrico Toselli is known for his Serenata 'Rimpianto' Op.6 No.1, which is pretty recognizable.

We could also add Franz Lehár, Alexander Scriabin and Krzysztof Penderecki; they and their music are somewhat well known (in the classical music world, probably not for the average person) I suppose.

As for movie composers (and other things which are only somewhat classical), for a compromise I think we should only have the biggest ones on here like John williams and Hans Zimmer. If you want to include more, we could add ones like Alan Silvestri, Danny Elfman, Thomas Newman - who also wrote tracks for movies nearly everyone knows, and others.

P.S. we should also consider removing composers like Alfred Schnittke Wikieditor662 (talk) 23:08, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Additionally I removed La Monte Young as his music is not at all recognizable, but perhaps we should consider bringing him back as he had somewhat of an influence on Minimal music Wikieditor662 (talk) 23:15, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Great ideas, Wikieditor662. I'd like to preface my thoughts by saying: I'm coming at the overview section from a perspective that the inclusion of a composer in the overview is more about the historical/musical significance of their body of work rather than the recognizability of some of their pieces. So to use the examples that we've been discussing...

I would say Tárrega only has significance when it comes to classical guitar pieces, and his influence on wider classical music is minimal. Because of this, I don't think he merits inclusion in the overview (in contrast to Fernando Sor, for example, who wrote in other genres and expanded idiomatic writing for the guitar in the same way as Paganini or Liszt - though for what it's worth I include Sor and Paganini in the dozen or so "names that aren't quite as important" I mentioned earlier).

Cherubini doesn't have any particular pieces he's well-remembered for today but he was a very influential figure of his time period (which, by the way, is more than I can say about another name that is included, Bortniansky) - I think it's important that Cherubini stay in the overview.

I would recommend against adding Johann Strauss I and Enrico Toselli - their influence even in Viennese and Italian music is negligible and in my opinion including composers that wrote one or two well-known pieces is not useful for the overview section.

But I think the inclusion of Lehár, Scriabin and Penderecki would be warranted, and I'm actually surprised I didn't notice their absence in the overview. Each of these three composers represent a particular style that has had a large impact on the development of classical music and are very useful to have in the overview.

As for movie composers... I think including Hans Zimmer would really be stretching the definition of classical music, so I'm against including him. Bernard Herrmann and John Williams are already fair compromises for inclusion in terms of both style and influence and I think that's plenty (I'd even argue for potentially removing Rózsa and Goldsmith).

As for the avant-garde composers... I would say Penderecki is more influential than Schnittke, but I'd argue Schnittke could be included and we could even include Babbitt, Berio, Carter, Crumb, Takemitsu, or even Peter Maxwell Davies. Their work is frequently included in anthologies of 20th-century classical music. I think removing La Monte Young is fine, as far as I can tell, he didn't have nearly the impact as the composers I've just mentioned.

As for the composers you added recently... I favor not including Einaudi - perhaps his music will be more influential to classical music in the future but right now I'd argue that his work is more in the popular sphere than the classical sphere. In the same vein, Yiruma is firmly in the realm of popular music and his body of work isn't even as influential as someone like Einaudi. MargotThe (talk) 21:31, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

P.S. And I would also keep Boulez and Messiaen on the list. MargotThe (talk) 21:32, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, it's nice having other people considering this along with me.

I would argue that recognizable musicians or ones with well known pieces are also more likely to be influential, as other composers are influenced by a piece that they would recognize. To use an extreme example, even if Mozart didn't have a broad direct influence over later composers (he did, this is a hypothetical), he should still be added to the overview.

As for Tarrega, I don't see the distinction between him and Sor or Paganini like you mentioned. (Liszt did much more than piano however, he influenced a number of composers such as Wagner) Another example would be Chopin, who wrote exclusively for piano, yet there is no debate as to whether he should stay in the overview.

I don't mind not adding Strauss I and Toselli. I added Lehár, Scriabin, and Penderecki.

I removed Rozsa and Bortniansky. I'm not sure about Goldsmith, he also inspired John williams. As for Hans zimmer, I don't see why we should williams but not him: Williams was definitely more recognizable, but Zimmer was still significant. I also don't see why Einuadi/Yiruma can't be both popular and classical.

Another thing is that I'm not sure if we should add composers who were significant themselves but who's music was not so influential. If we did this, then we would also need to add some other composers such as Ignaz Moscheles.

Also I labeled Moondog, Terry Riley, Arvo Part, Steve Reich and Philip Glass as transitionary from Avant garde to Minimalists because their work include both movements. Do you think that makes sense or should they be exclusively minimalists?

P.S. I would greatly appreciate it if you could link to the composers you mention so that I can find them more easily. Also, do you know any other contemporary composers (born after John Adams) that we could add? Thank you :) Wikieditor662 (talk) 22:39, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

My point with Tárrega is that he wrote pieces for guitar that are known by classical guitar players and audiences but have not become widely influential in classical music in general. Sor and Paganini both had a wider influence on the music written for their primary instrument and a wider influence on other composers (see, for example, the number of variations of Paganini's Caprice No. 24) though I think it's fair to say that Sor is less influential than Paganini. Chopin's is an excellent example of what Tárrega is not, because his influence is enormous: not just for his expansion of idiomatic repertoire for the piano (which was also a much more influential instrument in classical music history than the guitar) but for his particular musical expression and command of (and innovation in) classical forms, as well as being an important figure in musical nationalism - so he was a huge influence on his contemporaries and music history in general. Tárrega doesn't have any of that going for him to be included in an overview of classical music. He wrote some pieces that some people know, but that's not enough of an influence to be significant to his contemporaries or to music history. Chopin wrote many pieces that quickly became preeminent examples of their genre in music history and changed the way people thought about writing for the piano, and how they thought about harmony and form. Paganini was the first major instance of a virtuosic performer/composer and redefined what people thought was possible on the violin. Many classical musicians since have been influenced by Chopin, some have been influenced by Paganini, but very few have been influenced by Tárrega.

I think we should include Williams but not Zimmer in this overview because Williams writes classical music and Zimmer does not. Zimmer has certainly established himself as one of the most famous composers of our time, just not of classical music. Goldsmith also generally wrote classical music, but I think he has had less influence on classical music of the 20th and 21st centuries than Herrmann or Williams.

Riley, Pärt, Reich, and Glass should be exclusively minimalists because, along with John Adams, they essentially define the genre. Moondog is an interesting case because he was an influence on the New York minimalists, though I wouldn't say that makes him a transitionary composer. Moondog was kind of doing his own thing influenced by a few different musical traditions, and certain elements of that were influential on the minimalists. Frankly I wouldn't include him on the overview because I don't think he's that significant, but at the same time he's unique enough - without really being avant-garde - that I can easily see why people would want him to be included.

I think the significance of a composer, for the purpose of an overview, is intrinsically tied to their influence. How often was/is their work performed and recorded, relative to other composers of their era? How often is their work referenced when people write about the development of classical music? A composer with a well-known piece or two doesn't have nearly the significance in these contexts as a composer who was/is frequently performed and whose work changed the way musicians and audiences thought about music.

Einaudi certainly *could* be considered both popular and classical someday, but for now he's not influential on the classical side of things. And Yiruma certainly isn't part of the classical world. He writes for solo piano rather than electric guitars and synthesizers, but they're essentially instrumental pop songs, and I'd argue his work has barely any influence on the people writing, performing, and programming works in the classical tradition.

For me personally, the list is complete ending with John Adams anyway. In my opinion, composers born after 1950 haven't been around long enough to be "canonized" into an overview of classical music. MargotThe (talk) 17:49, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I generally agree with @User:MargotThe, although I am somewhat uncomfortable with arbitrary time-based cut-offs and with the somewhat arbitrary nature of the list in general. Here is where a survey of histories and their indices in combination with some algorithmic approach to the literature as a whole might be useful. But all of that would be taxing, in poor taste, and inevitably unfairly privilege some music. The approach in the case of commercial pop has been simply the number of listens in the age of recording and streaming, which is simple enough. And in fact there are similar lists of classical music on Spotify, in which, naturally, the Romantics would be most represented—Mascagni over Lully, for example. There would be surprises, like Webern receiving more streams than Berg. The most likely conjecture is that concise, often analyzed music is more repeatedly listenable than long German operas. I suppose English Wikipedia page views are another possible criterion, which might be contentious but arguable. Any method would be questionable.

Some recent histories have also innovated in various ways, focusing on modernist innovations or women, including composers based in Asia or South America amid globalization, polemicizing (sometimes very fundamentally) against the historiography previous histories, and so on. These raise important questions. There is often an implicit geographical bias, now usually US v. European but sometimes still rather national, that pervades all literature, which is often simply down to the contributors' locations. Both academic literature and concert repertoire are influenced to some degree by funding, the former by innovation, and the latter especially by funding (often ticket sales in the US compared to more state subsidy in Europe) and also by genre (symphonic or quasi-symphonic and operatic music is often better covered or treated as more significant). Some of this is perhaps readable in the list as it stands. There's always a certain reductionism to movements, too, from which mavericks, outliers, or isolated individuals typically emerge diminished, if they somehow survive at all.

In general, this is messy, as anyone might tell from reading about music Pulitzers and other prizes. It's probably doomed to poor talk-page consensus, largely because many informed people probably don't care to waste time on this (there is so much other work that could be done), even as it's assigned mid-importance.

In the present list, I'm surprised to find Lehár but not Puccini. That's a particularly glaring omission.

I don't think you can have a coherent history without Messiaen or Boulez, and this may be the most important thing in considering a general tradition (even one reacted against). Also, it is very difficult to get away from nationality, which is not just some question of land, but of identity, language, religion, culture and diffusion, institutions, subsidies, and shared experiences and ideas. So for coverage of the Soviet Union, I think you need Schnittke and Gubaidulina (who was removed, although she is often covered and relatively often performed among living composers). Among those born before 1950, I am a little surprised at the omission of Babbitt and Carter (relative to Boulez and Stockhausen), Grisey and Murail as well as L. Andriessen (somewhat relative to US minimalists), Crumb (perhaps that's as US-centric as Ives or as English as Vaughan Williams, which is to say, what does it matter), Lutoslawski (comparable to Penderecki), and Ferneyhough (New Complexity). Maybe Birtwistle.

I tend to favor inclusiveness, and I don't particularly like that composers born between 1950–1970 (50+ years ago) are excluded. Would there have to be many of them at present, given the wide and divergent scopes of interests in the literature and repertoire? There's the question of practicality, I suppose. Nonetheless, Rihm, Saariaho, Neuwirth, and Chin spring to mind as unfortunate and arguable omissions by this unfortunate measure. I'm sure there are others.

Anyway, maybe this is helpful for building consensus here. Anyone who argues their point is be unlikely to change another's opinion. This is doomed to be perspectival, even if you resort to a method or algorithm (which itself would be arguable). In this comment, for example, you can see that I favor the inclusion (or restoration) of more recent, US, and neither simply tonal nor simply dodecaphonic composers (which is something of an unfortunately polemic binary, in my opinion), as well as Puccini. I think that's more representative, balanced, and helpful or informative to the reader who comes across this list.

I also think that the larger the list, the fewer people would complain and all get along. But I may well be wrong, because it would probably just invite more opinions ("such and such is an unimportant [bad] composer"). MONTENSEM (talk) 04:40, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Actually, Puccini is there, sorry. It's not a very user-friendly list in some ways. MONTENSEM (talk) 05:28, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

There are other curious omissions, though. Bellini is not listed, but Donizetti is. This is defensible in a way, but should we choose between "Casta diva" and "Regnava nel silenzio"? Why omit the composer of Norma, Puritani, and Sonnambula? Would we have the same Troyens, Rigoletto or Traviata, Lohengrin, parts of Rheingold, or Walküre (the love duet)? The same Liszt transcriptions? The same Liebestod without the final passage from Norma? Would Chopin have written the same florid, vocal passages with only Fields, Rossini, or Donizetti, and not also Bellini?

Same for Berg, the composer of Wozzeck and Lulu, the Chamber Concerto and Lyric Suite, and one violin concerto, all enduring 20th-century landmarks. His oeuvre is small but consistently high-quality, and his influence is considerable. Without Berg, would we have the same Bartok quartets (Nos. 3–4), Lady Macbeth or Nose, Porgy, Grimes and Turn of the Screw, Volo di notte or Prigioniero, Henze Whispers, Boulez Èclat, Soldaten, much of what characterizes Carter's style, Jakob Lenz, so much Nicholas Maw (e.g., Odyssey), American Lulu (Neuwirth), Alchymia (Adès), or the same Perle music and his theory of interval cycles? And that's not all.

In my opinion, when there are gaps like this, it makes the tradition less coherent, less concrete, and less specific. MONTENSEM (talk) 21:08, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Since I'm not very active anymore, you guys can do as what you think is best. Personally, I think including too many composers can actually have the opposite problem and lead to people adding random composers... And then there could be as many composers in the overview as there are in all of the other sections combined which would make the overview meaningless and / or very difficult to read Wikieditor662 (talk) 03:38, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate and would like to hear your thoughts @Wikieditor662, @MargotThe, @Aza24, or anyone else. This is an area where some discussion and explicit consensus would be helpful: it is very broad. I agree that the overview timeline should not approach the period timelines in detail. I can't say that I think it does, though. I wish there were some comparable overviews to use from authoritative sources, if anyone has ideas.

My overall orientation or informal algorithm in approaching the overview is to try to consider it from the usual scholarly (but not uncriticized or necessarily ideal) perspective of [stylistic] history (documenting continuities, variations, notable distinctions or exceptions, innovations, and so on). The goal then would be to have a fairly incremental historical overview that is pluralistic but more cohesive than arbitrary. Maybe some selected names among the overview could be bolded for emphasis or as a nod to their fame or special importance.

There is a seemingly infinite number of composers now and in history (granting the anachronism of the term in some contexts), many of them well represented in recordings and literature. I kept wondering where more names had gone from the Baroque and Classical periods and was surprised (or disappointed) to find that many had been culled by @MargotThe. It looks like this list was at one point more detailed until then, when Frescobaldi, Gibbons, Biber, M Marais, Tartini, Graun, Bruch, and Delius (among as many others). I have to say, at least these don't strike me as small names, and I wonder about restoring them. Cavalli, Keiser, and Meyerbeer are three I might like to add. Lèhar, too, given his importance to operetta's "Silver Age" after Offenbach. (I'm also not sure how to edit the individual period timelines, where some of them are missing and could perhaps go.)

In other words, I don't think this should be about current fame or status in the symphonic concert repertoire (this is liable to be a particularly poor and often regionally fluctuating index). Sometimes a composer's music does not survive or is not currently much in the repertoire of symphony orchestras or operas, but their musical contributions are nonetheless important from a scholarly or stylistic-historical perspective. Reputations often fluctuate over long or very short intervals (even JS Bach's has varied historically; Rameau has been sort of saved from the dead fairly recently; Meyerbeer and Spohr were dropped from the repertoire after their deaths; nothing is permanent). Sometimes a composer's inclusion is an effective gateway into a particular period (for example, Cacchini and monody leading into Monteverdi, which is why initially I positioned Cacchini at the top of a column). MONTENSEM (talk) 23:13, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate your thoughts too. To get to the individual timelines, you have to edit the template. For example, Template:Timeline Classical Composers Baroque. I do think that these templates are pretty difficult to get to though.

Personally, I would strongly recommend to only include the most significant composers to the overview. I don't think someone like Delius would qualify, but I could see the argument for Meyerbeer or Ignaz Moscheles. And I think many (if not the vast majority of even all except the Medieval) of the composers recently added should be removed. Also, Rameau influenced many other composers, and his significance doesn't only occur for recent times.

Although Giulio Caccini and other composers influenced or even led up to Monteverdi, the latter's influence over the creation of the baroque era was arguably far greater than anyone else's. Same goes for Dufay for the Renaissance, (Classical era was murged with the baroque, if it wasn't then Haydn for it [With Gluck for its opera]), Beethoven for the Romantic, and Debussy for the Modernist era. That's not to say there weren't others who played a role, but those were the most significant ones, which is why they should be at the top of their lines if we sort them by eras.

P.S. are there any other articles similar to this which are featured or at least GA? Maybe we can use that to figure out what to do.

Thank you all,

Wikieditor662 (talk) 04:14, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

To clarify briefly on Rameau, yes, we agree as to why he should be included. (My point was that his case is one of the great examples of the weakness of repertoire as an index.)

The goal here is to provide an overview from the individual timelines. It is necessary to omit the vast majority of notable composers to provide an overview. To do an accurate overview (to reliably represent the vast majority of notable composers of the period with any accuracy) requires selecting figures of noted historical or stylistic distinction or importance from among the given periods. But it exceeds the purpose of an overview (and ventures into contentious territory) to determine who among the vast majority of notable composers are most significant. To include only those who are "most significant" would diminish the overview's historical and stylistic coverage and general reliability. MONTENSEM (talk) 01:31, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think I agree with the last part. You could reserve the other composers who are significant but not extremely significant to the era's timelines. For example, a significant romantic composer like Amy Beach would be in the romantic timeline, and an extremely significant romantic composer like Schubert would also be in the overview.

We should first establish where the cutoff is -- which could be difficult, but once we do that the rest should be more manageable. Wikieditor662 (talk) 04:11, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Almost any cut-off will work better the more examples there are. Consider this. Are the Schuberts, Beethovens, Mozarts, Haydns, Bachs, Brahmses, Tchaikovskies, Stravinskies, Bartoks, and Schoenbergs sufficient to form an adequate overview of composers, or do you need more to do it justice, especially in terms of history and style? What are you missing with only those? If you need more, then you cannot limit yourself to those who are "most significant" (which may well be undefinable and gets into contentious canonic status disputes). This is an overview, not a canon. (Even the idea of enduring musical as opposed to theoretical "significance" in this way is something very much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, though it has its merits.) An overview should be representative. Concision is necessary but insufficient, and omissions can be harmful. It's not necessary or helpful to omit Bellini simply because Donizetti or Rossini are present, for example.

There are studies, approaches, and algorithms out there on this topic, but they are all limited, highly speculative, and unavoidably problematic as I outlined initially: there is no method for this that would not be arguable. Mostly, in fact, the most algorithmic ones are derivative curiosities with strange results compared to more scholarly treatments. The most durable model in scholarly treatment and in compositional practice has been the stylistic-historical one. It's often supplemented with distinctions of nationality and more recently race and gender in order to be more representative.

In general, the more you include, the better your overview will perform, and the less question there will be of its inadequacy to the task. For our purposes, it is probably enough that the overview in form not exceed and at least comprise a certain number of composers (probably around 200, or 175–250), and that each period receive some minimum allotment c. 20–50 composers (medieval, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, modernist, contemporary, probably trending toward increased numbers the later in time esp. since the 19th c. for a variety of reasons, including the increased survival of composers' works, increased population, and globalization). The greater the numbers, the less dispute about who is or is not "most" significant. But in terms of content, mere significance alone is tricky because it is an inherently relative concept, and distinctions come in many kinds. A good way to establish relevance and representativeness would be to anchor composers against some larger trend, distinction, or milieu they represented, e.g., Lehár for operetta's Silver Age. MONTENSEM (talk) 18:29, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

In essence, I think of the overview as a map. The larger and more detailed the map, the more readable it is, the less granular and lacking it is, and the better and more usefully it represents the territory. I am more interested in a useful, representative map of an overview as a summary of the stylistically-historically periodized timelines, not as a concise, contentious list of the biggest names and inevitable (even more?) arguments over significance and exclusivity, and to what end? MONTENSEM (talk) 19:00, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I fail to see how adding a very large number of composers will get rid of the problem you mention. Are you suggesting that we shouldn't have any standard for how popular a composer is? If so, then what's preventing people from adding thousands of composers? And if you say that we should have a standard, then how will we decide which composers manage to make the cutoff? Also, if the cutoff point is very low or nonexistent, then what is the point in an overview when there are already large timelines for every single era?

I would actually argue that raising the bar for how significant composers have to be would actually help with the problem. To use an extreme example, if we could only have 3 composers on there, then it would be easy: Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. If we had 4 composers on there, we'd have these 3, and there would only be a few options for the fourth one. However, if we had 200 composers on there as you say, then the majority of them would be controversial, as well as hundreds of other composers. As you can see, having to debate over whether to include each and every one out of hundreds of composers is nearly impossible to do, but the number would decrease the less composers we have on there. Wikieditor662 (talk) 22:43, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

One could attempt something of a notability-anchored survey of scholarly surveys like at List of prominent operas as I mentioned earlier (and I wouldn't say that it would be measuring popularity, no), but it would still be perspectival, arduous, and arguable even if one took such an algorithmic approach. Maybe someone will. I don't particularly want to myself. Justin London's "Representative Corpus" (https://cdn.carleton.edu/uploads/sites/721/2021/12/London-2013-MP-Representative-Corpus.pdf) attempts something like but not quite this approach and has major weaknesses.

So the interim approach would be to impose arbitrary formal restraints in terms of quantity and to treat this more like a historical, stylistic map of composers. Then the overview would be more useful, informative, and representative, at least covering the necessary terrain as most people would, albeit with more loose ends and divergences which would shift here and there, probably with no more or no less controversy than would be the case if the overview were too limited. It would satisfy the function of an overview.

Past a certain point, most people care less, so long as a sufficient territory is covered. Whether there is someone wanting to add or remove a composer, there may be debate. I imagine fewer contentious debates over content (and quality), given sufficient space (quantity).

Given the entire range of about one thousand years of history within the tradition, even ~175–200 is quite a selective cut-off. That's about one composer every three years since 1400. The timelines are maybe three or four times as large (seems like about 600–700 at a glance) and could use more (and more stylistic-historic subdivision); other composer lists across Wikipedia are several times as large. There will always be more composers than anyone can ever know (and more music than anyone can ever listen to). Something like 100 would be fair but quite impoverished. MONTENSEM (talk) 23:58, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

The thing about the "map" sounds good in theory, however I'm not sure how we would implement it as there are so many influential composers in so many different areas.

Are you suggesting that we leave it the way it is now? Because I would argue that there are way too many composers in the overview currently. Wikieditor662 (talk) 20:38, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Why do you think that, and what is your argument? MONTENSEM (talk) 21:05, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I explained my thoughts a couple of posts ago. This seems to be a difficult problem on which we cannot agree, perhaps we should go to dispute resolution to see what other people think? Wikieditor662 (talk) 22:23, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I have considered, repeated, and elaborated my thoughts in many ways, many times for clarity and understanding, my own as well as others'. I think we owe it to one another (and to others' time) to do this, because my impression is that dispute resolution involves more or less this very same process. (Also, there is some precedent as to how we may proceed in List of prominent operas.)

I'm also not really sure what dispute there is to resolve yet, because I am still trying to understand you better and to help you understand me better. I am not asking questions like "why do you think that" and "what is your argument" that to waste time or to try to defeat you, but to try to better understand you and find common ground. I was hoping for less strict, specific contention and more for ideas how to improve this entry more generally. That's why I tagged people who had recently edited the list.

As far as I can tell, you contend that too many composers in the overview will encourage the addition of still others to the overview, who you contend should not be there. I have suggested that a simple ceiling would suffice, within which the content could shift here and there in the interim, because it is difficult to determine more durably who and who should not be there absent an algorithm that is connected to scholarly literature. My interim concern, as far as removing composers, is that too few composers in the overview will undermine the utility and function of an overview, making it less cohesive and summative, and leaving it with significant gaps. Essentially, the overview is merely arbitrarily summative with only consensus to guide us so long as there is no standard, as you say, or defined algorithm.

So if you want to remove some of those composers, go for it. From a consensus-based perspective (correct me if I am wrong), it is my understanding that you should not remove composers who a majority of editors have added or re-added. So, if only I added them, you're free to remove them. If two people have added them, then my understanding is that it would take at least two people to remove them. This is what I alluded to when I mentioned that without an algorithm, such matters would be doomed to poor talk-page consensus. (Of course, to even an agreed upon algorithm, there might be exceptions, even defined ones.)

You also appear to contend that the "recognizability" (elsewhere you have mentioned popularity) of specific music that a composer wrote is your among your chief criteria for inclusion, even over or prior to influence, history, or style. How would you define and determine recognizability? I ask this because—

My overall sense is that disputes as to who should be included are not something that will be resolved in any durable or stable way absent someone taking an approach like at List of prominent operas, which uses a defined algorithm, or to use your language, a standard. (Otherwise, there will always be endless back and forth and looseness, which would be more permissible or less meaningful were the number of composers in the overview not so strictly delimited as you appear to envision.)

If we were to take an approach based on recognizability, it should be explicitly defined and stated. Perhaps the title of the article could then be "List of prominent classical music composers by era", with a proviso in the overview defining a method, standard, algorithm, or what have you. Then you can proceed in a way that is more durable. One could even build on other lists, like List of prominent operas. But I can't think of how to do that without running into surveys of genre, thus restricting the overview to composers writing in prescribed genres and privileging them. I have already alluded to the problems of trying to use concert repertoire, number of streams, and so on. This is a very difficult task.

I can imagine using some algorithm involving period-specific (e.g., pre-, intra-, and post-common-practice) as well as general scholarly history surveys. It would be very time-consuming and still arguable as a matter of consensus. MONTENSEM (talk) 00:37, 3 September 2024 (UTC)