What is so special about bach, beethoven, and mozart?

Question

I've heard their music and I have to say....I've heard alot better. Maybe not "alot" better but something certainly nicer from composers who have little to no fame!
Try listening to "twilight over thanalan" by nobuo Uematsu
Also "sabers edge" and "nascent requiem" by my favorite composer, Masashi Hamauzu.
(please try to listen to the songs. If you don't have time or just don't want to then that fine)
You can try youtube...

What does beethoven and mozart have that masashi and nobuo don't?

Why are these fossils so famous?

Answer 1

If you've heard Bach's Art of Fugue, you won't say this...



For music, it's not just the more tuneful, the merrier.

Answer 2

Well, all of the composers that you listed were brilliant. I'm not sure that everyone would say Mozart was way better than the others you listed - a good part of that, is personal preference. For me personally, I respect all of those composers for their creative ability - out of nothing, out of thin air, they created something so lovely that we are still talking about it today, and it is celebrated well beyond their own time and their own culture. That's pretty special, if you think about it. Mozart specifically is also noted because he was a child prodigy - he started composing at age 5, and by the age of 13 had composed some of the works that are still celebrated and famous today. In addition, Mozart's ability to combine graceful, awe-inspiring beauty with technical perfection was unique. Not many composers were able to do that. I think that a person may need to be very well educated in the technical side of music and music theory, in order to appreciate that aspect of his work. Anyway, that's about all I know about him. Without question all of the composers you mentioned were incredible, but Mozart may be preferred by some because of the reasons listed above and others. Hope that helps!

Answer 3

I was in the same boat too. 2 yrs ago, my piano teacher derided Uematsu's To Zanarkand as "commercial music". I was offended, thinking that Zanarkand was more than just commercial music. In the present day, I wondered what made Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven so great, so I just looked up Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven... and fell in love with classical. I'm no music theorist, but I do play classical clarinet, but the rhythms in Mozart are vastly more complex than Zanarkand. If you listen to symphonic arrangements of Uematsu's work, they sound "classically". I still think they sound pretty, but they are one-sided. Classical, if you listen hard enough, have harmonies that accompany the melody. In Uematsu's symphonic arrangements, everyone plays the same melody; there is no underlying harmony, or at least not to my memory.



One poster said that classical demands greater intellectual effort, and he/she is right. Actually listening to classical takes some effort than simply playing music in the background.



What makes Mozart so famous? How many people do you know can compose symphonies in a day, a small library's worth of music, master the violin at 4, and master the piano at 6 or 8? Mozart is famous for his sheer genius. The same reason why Einstein, da Vinci, and Shakespeare are all famous: these fossils were unbelievably prolific by any standard.

Answer 4

Like most modern music, composed by film composers or video game composers (the second, of whom I have never liked), it is comprised of intense battle music, no complex melodic intervals to add variety and a super fast rhythmic beat to keep its listeners completely on edge. While Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven were sitting at a table, thinking through each note and which one would elicit the most genuine sound, the composers of today are sitting at a computer, making slight alterations to GarageBand loops and letting the iMac generate the sound of a symphony orchestra mixed with heavy metal rock band. Music of today, excluding some of the modern neo-classical composers, takes no brains to write and it's mostly electronic. If you like modern composers, try John Rutter (emotional), or Krzytof Penderecki (intense, but smart). But the genius of someone like Bach, for instance, comes from the meticulous, mathematical form--a mathematical pattern--while still drawing out an emotional response. When Masashi Hamauzu sat down at his computer, what most likely went through his head was "Hmm...how can I make the music sound cool and fast for some random battle scene?" :-\ Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven have been around for centuries. I have a sinking feeling that video game composers won't last long...

Answer 5

Even people who say they aren't fans, or they hate classical music--know who Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart are. I have no idea who the others are. The only way we'll ever know if your argument really stand up is if we could all live at least a two or three hundred more years to see if anyone still listens or plays the music of your favorite composers. I have no doubt in mind that the music of those old "fossils" will still be very much played, listened to, and loved.





They just write for video games? Oh puhleeze! Yeah, those stay around forever, don't they?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSs3PWIu-Nc



As video game composers go, they aren't even considered the "best" in that genre!



It's okay to like your music, but you want to try to make it more than it is.

Answer 6

Well, everyone has different tastes. I happen to love Bach, Händel,Corelli and Chopin, while Beethoven and Mozart mostly leavef me cold. But for 'fossils,' they have been remembered for centuries. A hundred years from now, maybe your favorites will also be remembered for their works. No one knows which contemporary composers will stand the test of time.

Answer 7

Please go back to the football section. I like you a lot better over there lol.



You heard Bach Beethoven and Mozart but have you heard the music from the romantic and modern greats? Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Liszt, Prokofiev, Shostakovich? I sometimes find the romantic era and even some Shostakovich/Prokofiev much more amiable to newcomers than the classical and baroque period which are more refined, more organized, and in stricter form generally than the romantic era music.



As for your original question I have to agree with Petr, of course. I do urge you to really explore classical music even more. You have the curiosity to come this far to ask questions, don't stop now. Classical music takes a lot of time for the contemporary music lover to finally enjoy and appreciate. When they do start to understand classical music, they rarely ever revert back to their old tastes.



It really makes me livid how people can even compare Nobuo Uematsu to the greats of the past but I understand the huge gap of ignorance in understanding music today and really want to try and fix it. If you truly want to understand why Bach Beethoven and Mozart are superior to most of the music written now than you are going to have a lot of work to do to understand the concepts of harmony and counterpoint as those aspects of music have been nearly left out altogether in most all the music you have ever heard.



So many misconceptions, false stereotypes, and ignorance are around that it is so hard to dispel all the myths/social opinion around classical music. Understand that classical music is music at its greatest and also most innocent form of art. Contemporary music and film music are most certainly music, and some of it is very good, but never to be misunderstood or categorized along with classical music as it's intentions and effects are TOTALLY different.





To be brutally honest though. In truth, nearly all the contemporary music written is so musically barren and simplified that it would be flat out impossible to create an amiable, yet innocent rendition in classical or sonata form without having to add or create much of your own content to fill in the blanks. This is to say that the actual musical content or complexity of contemporary music is generally so simple that it would be almost impossible to elaborate off of these ideas to even create something similar to classical music. This is another reason why classical music is defined separately than Nobuo Uematsu and I am sure Nobuo Uematsu himself would stand by every thing I have told you.

Answer 8

I have heard masashi before and I still think that beethoven's 3rd symphony is better than most of his work. However everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I guess Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven were just in the right place with a good enough amount of talent at the right time so people warmed up to them and shut most other composers out.

Answer 9

Those "fossils" shaped music and were key figures in music's evolution from Renaissance to Romantic, Baroque and early forms of the music we have today. I have not listened the composers you have mentioned but I know that if you listen carefully to some of the older composers you will find similar techniques and styles used by the ones you have mentioned. Very rarely do you find any new music that has not borrowed, or been inspired by something of the old. As far as fame goes, I can't say much, many artists and musicians were not recognized in their own time.

Answer 10

So you like cotton candy more than Turkey, steak, fish or tasty veggies.



That's all.



No one is ever going to rate cotton candy over seriously good food.



That's what your composers are, film music, video game music, pop music sweet, one-dimensional 'exciting' or sentimental. They are very fine craftsman who write popular music.



They are classically trained, and like many a film composer, they write music which is almost entirely derivative, though technically 'original' - theirs are not the voices of a profound original artist earnestly writing 'art music.'



Classical music, past and present, is based on a premise of being more intellectually demanding and challenging - not to be elitist but to state a fundamental difference between the genres of classical to 'other' musics, including those you name which have a lot of the outer characteristics of some classical music.



Your named composers are not better than the 'great' composers, they are not even attempting to write to that end, with the intent to be considered classical, and would probably, in person, be the first to tell you that.



They are certainly not better than other contemporary classical composers, who are no more fossils than are your video game / film score / popular orchestral instrumental composers.



They cannot compare, to keep your nationalist priority going, to the recently deceased Toru Takemitsu, whose music is internationally renown and highly respected within the classical music community

Toru Takemitsu ~

Green, for orchestra

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-cC8lWzWfo

The Dorian Horizon, for seventeen strings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4hMYQ_D7GQ



... or the living contemporary classical composer,

Takashi Yoshimatsu:

Threnody to Toki

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1THvmUseQ1M

Symphony No. 5, third movement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keyeBz_Se3Q&feature=related



Your choices compose 'pop' or 'light' symphonic music and you like pop symphonic music, that's all. They are commercial composers who also compose 'to order' any way that is required of them as per the job demands, a bit of jazz, a bit of quasi-contemporary classical, etc. That type of composer, with many equal counterparts in commercial music in the west, rarely has a style of their own one could call an individual or unique 'voice.'



Now, expect the world to bow to your taste as the highest and most refined? Then you've got a bit of an ego problem. Casual and devoted amateur fans of light fare do not get to choose who go in the history books of the great and earnest artists, past or present.





Best regards.



P.s. "I went to Y/A and got told by Petr." LOL! Don't know if I like that, but it is really funny. Hope you like the other music by Takemitsu and Yoshimatsu!



P.p.s. You can safely bet 10,000 Yen that Nobuo Uematsu and Masashi Hamauzu know of both Takemitsu and Yoshimatsu and hold the work of both composers in the highest of esteem. Neither Uematsu or Hamauzu would ever expect Yoshimatsu to have any great respect for their work because they know exactly where their work stands in the overall scheme of 'great music.'

Answer 11

each of these composers are famous for being innovative and masters of their craft in their era.



Bach is known for his prolific composing- he composed over 200 sacred cantatas. He also helped create the idea of tonality in music (key signatures) with his Well Tempered Klaviers (books that used all the keys- major and minor). He helped create certain genres, styles, and forms of music. Known for his cantatas, fugues, and the creation of the invention style studies.He is well known as the epitome of style for the baroque era. He works are incredibly complex and need very refined players to master them. Try listening to Cantata 51 by Bach, Brandenburg Concertos, Mass in B minor



Mozart was the rock star of the classical era. He is incredibly famous for his sheer virtuosity as a composer and musician. He was able to write symphonies and concertos from an incredibly young age. He also had the ability to perceive music in his head and write it down perfectly (no mistakes for Mozart). He was also the rock star of his era and did many knew and obscure things with styles. He was one of the first to write an opera in the language of his country (germany) and wrote operas that spoke of social/status injustice. He mostly famous for doing this all in less than 35 years. Listen to pieces from his Requiem, arias by the Queen of the Night in the Magic Flute, listen to his oboe, clarinet, or piano concertos.



Beethoven is perhaps the most infamous. He is well known for taking music of the classical era and putting it on its head! He took the strict forms of the classical era and completely shifted them using the ideals of the French Revolution. He did things that no other composers of his time thought of and these ideas would later become common practice (cyclic method, song cycles, chorus in symphonic works, longer movements in symphonies). He did all of these wonderful things with almost no hearing. Beethoven went deaf in his twenties and composed most of his works (that would all greatly influence the rest of composers) with no hearing and all in his head. I suggest listening to his Sonata Pathetique, Symphony No. 9 (4th movement) and listening to ALL of the movements of moonlight sonata (the first one is boring!)



These composers were innovative and different in their time. To many in our modern age they seem stuffy, but back in their time and place they were running beyond all norms and boundaries. That's why they are so special

Answer 12

Personally I don't care about Bach or Mozart. But, omigod. The moonlight sonata (1st movement).. listen to it. It's amazing. If you haven't heard it.

One of my favorite pieces.

Answer 13

It's a great question

Answer 14

What does beethoven and mozart have that masashi and nobuo don't? They don't have video games! What they have is.......musical genius!



Please see the note on terrific game music composers!



The mid-to-late 1980s software releases for these platforms had music developed by more people with greater musical experience than before. Quality of composition improved noticeably, and evidence of the popularity of music of this time period remains even today. Composers who made a name for themselves with their software include Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy), Koji Kondo (Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda), Koichi Sugiyama (Dragon Quest),[8] Miki Higashino (Gradius, Yie-Ar Kung Fu, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Hiroshi Miyauchi (Space Harrier, Hang-On, Out Run), Rob Hubbard (Monty On the Run, International Karate), Hirokazu Tanaka (Metroid, Kid Icarus, EarthBound), Martin Galway (Daley Thompson's Decathlon, Stryker's Run, Times of Lore), Yuzo Koshiro (Dragon Slayer, Ys, Shinobi, ActRaiser, Streets of Rage), Mieko Ishikawa (Dragon Slayer, Ys), and Ryu Umemoto (visual novels, shoot 'em ups). By the late 1980s, video game music was being sold as cassette tape soundtracks in Japan, inspiring American companies such as Sierra, Cinemaware and Interplay to give more serious attention to video game music by 1988.Wikipedia

Answer 15

"I've heard their music and I've heard a lot better."

Err, no you haven't. The crappy music you are so enamored of, is inconsequential and in no time will be forgotten. Your opinion is not based in sound criticism or educated reasoning

It is mostly videogame music which has little if any artistic merit.

The music you are referring to is mostly instrumental and consequently are not "songs."

Answer 16

fossils. LOL