Classical Top Five

Top five in what respects? If I had to pick the single greatest composer it would be J.S. Bach, but, in terms of influence on other composers, one could argue his son C.P.E. Bach was more influential (pioneer in early classical form) with dad sort of stuck in the baroque.  I don't think Brahms was that influential either as a neoclassicist in the romantic period.

For personal favorites, Schubert would easily be in the top five.  I would hate to have to choose between the likes of Haydn, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Verdi, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, etc. for position outside of my top four: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert.

brownsfan,

I agree with you about Bach.  I was just raising an argument about what counts as greatness and whether influence of future composers can arguably be the main measure.  I also agree with you about the greatness of the St. Matthaus Passion, although I might still favor the B Minor Mass.  The only thing he didn't do was opera, but, his vocal works certainly show that he had what it took to do opera if he had thought it a worthy endeavor.  

It would be extremely difficult to speculate what Mozart would have done with more years; I would expect really great things, but, who knows?  Based on early accomplishments, Korngold should have been a musical giant; he was good, but not that good.  Given what he had done in his short life, particularly what he did in the last year or so of his life, I would say that Schubert's premature death was the biggest loss to the world of music.

It is often hard to ignore the historical context of any artist, so I can understand why Wagner is so reviled.  But, if one can just isolate the music, and how he melded the music to the drama, he is quite an important artist.  I don't think gg107 said that he was as great as Bach, merely that he has been under-appreciated.  If I were to attach the same kind of historic responsibility to the Passion plays of Bach and the B Minor mass, in comparing Bach and Wagner, I would have to conclude that the Nazi body count is pretty paltry compared to that of Christianity.