Oh god, this thread is kind of old. But I must say this. No one has mentioned one of my favorite composers, he's horribly underrated.
Emmanuel Chabrier. His music is on par with the greats, he is practically only known for his Espana, even though, Suite Pastorale and Gwendoline, and others are truly fabulous. Not a soul ever talks about him it seems. He came before Debussy and Satie, but he influenced them both, he is the source of that parisian avante garde movement, he is huge in the developement of "the six". If I had to pick one, it would be Chabrier!
Of course, there are others, Johann Strauss II has been mentioned, and I believe this to be true, I much prefer him to Richard. How about Gustav Holst, people know the Planets Suite, one of the greatest pieces of music out there, but hardly know his name. Erik Satie has been mentioned, quite a few refuse to take his gymnopedies and gnossienes seriously, sadly, and few recognize that he wrote Parade, and alot of cool "normal" piano pieces that sound Scott Joplin-esque and are often better to listen to and more clever than Debussy pieces. This brings me to the man himself, Scott Joplin. He founded a genre of music, Maple Leaf rag is a gem and this kind of stuff came out of nowhere. Its really easy to consider his music classical, but most want to put it off as ragtime, which I believe to be a hybrid subgenre of classical and jazz, it was composed in the tradition of classical, notated and such, and I believe it should be treated that way. When it came out, there was no Jazz. Bacharinni, that early classical dude, must've been good, everyone knows his minuet tune, but not his name, and this minuet is excellant, I don't know his other stuff. Aaron Copland, I mean, his music is hugely appreciated and so is he as a historic figure, but plenty of traditional classical snobs bill him as inferior, even if they don't really mean to. And he was really, really, really excellant, nothing else to it, just like Chabrier(except poor Chabrier didn't have America to support him). I think Zappa is a little bit pretentious, but he probably doesn't get as much credit as he deserves. Not a classical composer, but Joe Jackson, I love his music, wrote that "Symphony no. 1" and I find the second movement to be great, and it had a similar and why the hell not equal creative process to writing a symphony. Plus his new wave and jazz stuff is amazing. He was somewhat trained as a traditional composer but broke off into the pop scene. Ooh, a really good one, George Martin, he composed string music for the Beatles, he came up with so many good sound ideas for them. I think that John Phillip Sousa is pretty neat and original. So many people underrate many of Haydn's works and overrate others. The first movement of his Clock Symphony is incredible and not considered much. The Surprise Symphony has been elevated to a slightly pompus status. But the 2nd movement of the Clock Symphony is just right. As long as I've mentioned Haydn, I thought of someone much more deserving of being called underrated, Leopold Mozart.
I don't know much about this fellow, but I'll throw out Toru Takemitsu as well. He seems thoughtful about his notes, very original, and Copland thought highly of him,
. Oh, and I forgot to mention Camille Saint Saens, he is widely respected, but many wrongfully call his music superficial in my opinion, I think it is marvelous and that he truly was the next Mozart, its like people can't appreciate his music because they are freaked out by the fact that he was such an insane child prodigy, he wasn't as respected as it seems he should have been with that, therefore, he must not have lived up to his potential. This is bull****! Oh, and Jaques Offenbach is also underrated in that he is better than Wagner, and not as highly thought of as he should be! There is plenty of lute music from Italy in the rennaisance period that is beautiful, and the composers are hardly known. These are the ones I can back up adequately and/or really, really want to put up, there are others. Remember Chabrier!
So,
EMMANUEL CHABRIER
Johann Strauss II
Gustav Holst
Erik Satie
Scott Joplin(ragtime=american classical piano)
Luigi Bacharinni
Aaron Copland(to a lesser degree by some significant circles)
Frank Zappa
Joe Jackson
George Martin
John Phillip Sousa
Joseph Haydn(to a lesser degree by some significant circles)
Leopold Mozart
Toru Takemitsu
Lute composers from Rennaisance Italy.
-and to a lesser degree by some significant circles:
Camille Saint-Saens
Jacques Offenbach
And and I forgot to mention that:
One day, i'll show up alot on lists like this,
.
On the flip side, I appreciate their music and they are great and all, but...
Richard Wagner(its annoying that people say he is better than Offenbach, let alone Tchaikovky!)
Richard Strauss
can't think of any others right now, I'm not sure how I feel about saying any composer is overrated, you know I like R. Strauss and Wagner, its just when they overshadow others that I like better.