Top Ten Greatest Composers of Musical Theater

Some of you may have seen Anthony Tommasini's recent series of articles in the "New York Times," leading up to his announcement of his ranking of the top ten non-living composers of classical music. This has produced a great deal of discussion in the classical world (always a good thing, in my opinion).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/arts/music/23composers.html?_r=1

At the risk of creating a monster, I was wondering what BWW readers thought about such a list of musical theater composers (or composer-lyricist teams, if need be). Most of the rankings on this message board tend to be rankings of shows, or of performers. I can't find one about composers. (I'm a little torn about making it only about deceased folks, too.)

It's my impression that many such rankings come from students, or other young people excited to get involved in Broadway musicals. Again, nothing wrong with that at all.

But I would be interested to see some discussion from us older types as well, in the manner of Tommasini's scholarly, serious series of articles.

I don't want to start off with my list, but give me a few minutes and I just might!

"It's my impression that many such rankings come from students, or other young people excited to get involved in Broadway musicals. Again, nothing wrong with that at all.

But I would be interested to see some discussion from us older types as well, in the manner of Tommasini's scholarly, serious series of articles."

Well, that's not at all offensive.

Anyway, if this goes well, I'll eat my hat!

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"And, M. Growl, I ADORE postings from kids whose favorite shows are the ones they just saw or listened to or were cast in. But if you are a young person just starting out, you can't necessarily be expected to be familiar with Kurt Weill or Arthur Schwartz."

Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

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Out of sheer curiosity, are you a trained musician?

And if so, what is (are) your area(s) of expertise?

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Now let's all guess qolbinau's age based on his post!

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Goodness gracious. Awfully smug, too!

Did you write the bio yourself? Because to my eye, you've got a couple of general theater degrees, have sung in a choirs, and done some music-directing. Your composition credits "in various musical genres" certainly do nothing to convince me that you can elaborate in a "scholarly" way on the subjection of composition, let alone in a *more* scholarly way than, say, most 20-year-old composition majors in reputable music schools.

But I shall sit back and watch and hope to see some of this erudite discourse on the technicals of composition. I wish you luck in your endeavors!

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How old are you? We have to see if it counts.

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No Order, just my personal taste:

Sondheim
Kander & Ebb
Rodgers & Hammerstein
Bernstein
Herman
Porter
Lloyd Webber
Guettel
Flaherty & Ahrens
Yeston

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Hey, I just wanna see some music-theory talk.

EDIT: And you're right. He did answer the question. He is not a trained musician.

That kind of horrid discrimination just grinds my gears. It would be bad enough if it came from someone actually qualified to speak on the subject, but that nonsense elitist talk is tenfold worse coming from a theater enthusiast.

Carry on.

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Updated On: 1/25/11 at 06:42 PM

In no particular order:
Jerry Herman
Stephen Sondheim
Jule Styne
Cole Porter
Irving Berlin
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II
John Kander and Fred Ebb
Leonard Bernstein
George Gershwin
Frank Loesser

I went with a gut reaction, so yeah, no Porter or Berlin. I would probably trade someone out with Porter. Berlin, not so much.

Honestly what I'd like to do is a list of greatest composers separate from a list of greatest lyricists. Harold Arlen has a home in the former, and E.Y. Harburg should get separated from Fain and put in the latter. I just love Flahooley, so it got a top spot.

Wright and Forrest still did amazing original composition work, and I consider Magdalena (with Heitor-Villa Lobos) to be a strong score.

I almost forgot Herman! He is not an ingrained favorite but has grown on me.

Harold Arlen really needs to be on that list, though....

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About Arlen, I wanted to put him on my list but I had second thoughts, even though I love House of Flowers, I think his best work belongs on film, if this was a list of best film musicals composers he would surely be up there.

I think Qolbinau was joking.

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Updated On: 1/25/11 at 07:32 PM