top ten composers

ANTHONY TOMMASINI has an intriguing blog entry trying to rank the top ten greatest classical composers. His first chose J. S. Bach is extremely fitting. Almost every aspiring musician has played at one time or another Bach. (As a young child playing the recorder, I can remember struggling with his simple studies.) Bach was writing at a crossroads, when modal counterpoint of the earlier period was beginning to go out of style, and the new style based on major and minor harmonization that would dominate western music for the next 300 hundred years. Bach defined this eclectic late baroque period, with some pieces hearkening back to the earlier period and many other pointing in the new direction. All of this to say that he definitely deserves to be on any top ten list.

here are a couple of interesting link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/arts/music/09composers.html?pagewanted=2&ref=arts. This is the

Here is Bach's choral es ist ginug: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwpwr0MYNWc&feature=related

and Berg's violine concerto which uses parts of the Bach choral: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbaPQ9956UE&feature=related