Music missing in action
Composers who failed to make the cut Every poll throws up its surprises and, consequently, leads to letters to the editor expressing surprise, dismay or downright disgust. Though some comment on who has made it into the list, more often than not they reflect on who hasn’t.
One of the more interesting absences from our Top 50 is Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-94), a composer who was ranked alongside Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as one of the four greatest ever by Mendelssohn and described by Verdi as ‘the real king of sacred music and the eternal father of Italian music’. And while Bach racked up a large number of votes in our poll, there was scarcely a mention of his exact contemporary George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) – Beethoven, who once called Handel ‘the master of us all... the greatest composer that ever lived’ would surely turn in his grave.
Talking of Felix Mendelssohn (180947), the composer who breathed new life into Bach and was a major influence on a whole generation of other composers is also noticeable by his absence. Hector Berlioz (1803-69, pictured below) may have re-written the symphonic rulebook but he’s not there, nor are the hugely popular Antonin Dvoˇrák (1841-1904), Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) or Anton Bruckner (1824-96). And, while the likes of Elgar, Britten and Vaughan Williams are there flying the flag for Britain, their compatriot, the extraordinarily inventive
Gustav Holst (1874-1934), has been cast into space.