Giuseppe Verdi

Italy’s greatest opera composer. Verdi’s operatic output is staggering, with 28 operas, many of which contain arias that have made their ways into popular culture and become mainstays. His mature period produced “Nabucco,” “Ernani,” “Macbeth” (after Shakespeare),” “Luisa Miller,” “Rigoletto,” “Il Trovatore,” “La Traviata,” “Un Ballo in Maschera,” “Don Carlo,” his most famous works: “Aida,” “Otello,” and “Falstaff” (both after Shakespeare). But his finest hour came with the “Messa di Requiem per Alessandro Manzoni.” Verdi, devoutly Catholic, composed in this, some of the most deeply religious, majestically glorious, and terrifying music ever heard. The most famous section, and rightly so, is the Dies Irae, or Day of Anger, which depicts God’s wrath inflicted upon Mankind in Armageddon. This is the most furious incarnation of melody and harmony ever put on paper. The Tuba Mirum, which follows, is the loudest un-amplified music ever written. The score calls for a bass drum played “fffff,” five fortes.

Johannes Brahms

Brahms was one of the finest craftsmen in music history, refusing to write retrogressions, and adhering very strictly to form. He wrote 2 piano concerti, of which the 2nd is the most titanic concerto for piano ever composed. It is not as technically difficult as Rachmaninov’s 3rd, but the piano is required to overpower the entire orchestra much of the way through, and this demands a Hercules at the keyboard. He wrote 4 symphonies, all outstanding, a Requiem in German, his finest work, and one of the greatest violin concerti in history. He was a superb fugue composer. His finest works are: 2nd Piano Concerto, Variations on a Theme of Paganini (the same theme Rachmaninov chose), Variations on a Theme of Haydn, A German Requiem, and his Violin Concerto.

Franz Liszt

The greatest pianist of all time. Liszt sight-read Grieg’s Piano Concerto, playing it perfectly the first time he saw the music. He wrote hundreds of short pieces, songs, preludes, etudes, two piano concerti, symphonic poems, and was an all-round master of every genre in which he composed. Most of his piano works are among the most technically demanding, almost impossible, to play, but of note are his Transcendental Etudes, designed for the piano student to master all forms of piano performance. They are probably the most difficult pieces of music ever written for any instrument, and even veteran professionals refuse to play No. 5, “Feux Follets.” If not the Transcendental Etudes, his Sonata in b minor is extraordinarily difficult to play. It is his finest composition.

F rederic Chopin

The most idiomatic composer for the piano who ever lived. Chopin did not understand orchestration, which he freely admitted, and had help from friends, including Liszt, in scoring his two piano concerti. Even so, the orchestra takes a back seat while the piano indulges in the finest filigree work any composer has ever managed. Chopin’s melodic genius is superlative in all respects, and he composed primarily short piano works, of which the most notable are his ballades, etudes, sonatas, mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, preludes, and impromptus. Chopin was the most innovative composer for all of these genres except the sonata. His finest work is his Ballade No. 1, in g minor.