Best classical composer of all time? (2023)

Who is the greatest classical composer of all time?

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)

The German composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven is widely regarded as the greatest composer who ever lived.

Beethoven's music is superior because it has all of the structural perfection of a Mozart or Haydn, but also fiery emotion that has more direct impact than either. Thus, his music is more emotionally complex while structural brilliant.

In musical circles there is no debate, the answer is Beethoven. His string quartets the richest, his ninth symphony the pinnacle of symphonic achievement, the majestic Missa Solemnis, his piano works, his concertos and so on. He died in 1827 aged 56. Of the four only Bach lived longer dying in 1750 aged 65.

Beethoven, by comparison, fell in the middle of the pack, with a score between 135 and 140, or smart enough to join Mensa. Still, I calculated the correlation between estimated IQ and eminence for just these 11 composers to be .

Beethoven describes Mozart performing

In one form or another, the teenaged Beethoven and 31-year-old Mozart almost certainly crossed paths in 1787, but whether they actually met, possibly, probably even, but no one truly knows.

Still, his genius prevailed — a strong pianist, an inspired improviser, a violinist, a conductor, Beethoven also wrote hours upon hours of marvelous music, bursting with energy and invention, and was famous before he was 30.

165. That's the number music scholars and scientists have landed upon for their best guess as to J.S. Bach's IQ. While we can't measure exactly what Johann Sebastian Bach's IQ was, the IQ score that is widely accepted amongst studies is 165.

Does Mozart like Bach?

Mozart loved Bach's music. He made arrangements for strings of several fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier and composed original preludes to go with each.

In the world of classical music, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms are known as the Three B's.

The number one is, of course, Alfred Newman. The American composer, passed away in 1970, won 9 statuettes, the third highest number of Oscars ever won by an individual (Walt Disney won twenty-six, Cedric Gibbons won eleven).

Bach, born on March 21, 1685, and known as the father of classical music, created more than 1,100 works, including roughly 300 sacred cantatas. His output is unparalleled and includes about every musical genre outside of opera.

In the end, it is impossible to say definitively who was the smarter composer. Both Bach and Mozart were geniuses in their own right. Scholars and scientists have estimated Bach's IQ to be 165, a figure widely accepted. A 165 IQ, according to Bach, would put him among the top 0.25 percent of the population today.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) It's hard to imagine that someone who composed the blockbuster Carnival of the Animals, Organ Symphony and Danse Macabre could actually be called 'underrated', but Saint-Saëns' music is so much more important than those few works suggest.

The mother of classical music is Anna Magdalena Bach.

Is Beethoven the greatest of all time?

Beethoven is widely regarded as the greatest composer who ever lived, in no small part because of his ability—unlike any before him—to translate feeling into music. His most famous compositions included Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67 (1808), Symphony No.