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You have to be the best musician in the world to pull that off.

End of discussion!

My criteria is :

Known to play extraordinarily well on several instruments

Compose astoundingly for most all instruments of his day,
and have a functional ability to play on them also

Was subsidized by both the church and the powers that be King Duke etc.
Dance popular in its day,
processionals for state occasions,
litugical music of the highest order written ever week for decades

Left a body of work amazing for that time period

That body of work is still studied today, and is still amazing, It is studied by players of instruments that DIDN'T EXIST at the time it was written.

200+ year old instruments are maintained at exorbitant costs JUST to play this music in a proper setting ( church organs)

Is the basis and still has resonance with many musical styles, not yet invented at the time.

Will cause individuals to spend their ENTIRE LIFE trying to just play this well even in part.

BACH, certainly shines above all other heads INHO

I love McCartney, he was great, I have the complete Beatles collection.
But Geroge Martin was the classical mind behind Paul's ideas, and did the arranging of the classical elements. Yes later Paul did try his hand at clasical arranging. But no one will study it in 300 years.
Paul's SONG crafating is up there with the best no question!

I also. like Beethoven, I have played his 9th symphony with 90 singers and 70 players. He is ceretainly in the running, but was less a player and more a composer, though he ceretainly DID play fabulously

Motzart was a super player, and did church music and Opera beuf for the common people,
all the required music for hire by the Dukes, and many experimental works that moved things forward.
If he had but lived to 70 years, k who knows what he might have left us.

One person Jim sent me an email stating King David was the greatest : The text >
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with all due respect---King David (your namesake, no doubt) has to
have been the best because the Good Lord included his songs, along with
several other musicians songs in the Book of Psaims. the Scriptures,
themselves, speak of him as being "the sweet singer of Israel" plus
inventing, building, & playing musical instruments. may the Good Lord
bless & keep You
---jim---
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I couldn't replay the return address wasn't working I replied

I am sure he was good, and noteworthy,
but "Kings" do get better press than most musicians in the bible and other places too.

Bach's majority of music was liturgical, he wrote more church music than most any one.

Motzart also did amazing church music too. His Requiem is a classic,
and he wrote lots of organ music.
I think God was clearly smiling on both these great men.

Also, I have no memory of any musical notation in the Psalms.
So certainly King David was an eloquent lyricist and his sense of meter was sure, but no musical refrences are there... to my knowlege.

Bach was hired to put MANY of the Psalms to music,
and most churches seem to STILL use many of his arrangments on King David's texts.

Not trying to besmirch King David's work in any way.

Nevertheless, I would have to agree with all the above about Bach. A multiple console organ, with foot pedals and many stops, is the most complicated instrument to play. And Bach played the most complicated music on it, both prearranged and improv. And he wrote for full orchestras or any single instrument. And he left a body of compositions unequaled since.

Mozart and Beethoven come in close seconds. Mozart toured Europe as a child prodigy, then matured into a great composer of some of the most beautiful simple tunes (Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, the middle movement of the clarinet concerto in A - the most gorgeous simple scale melody you'll ever hear), and the most complex symphonic pieces (the late symphonies), and the most popular Operas of all time. (David Mason, yeah a lot of it was kind of prissy and stylized, but the late symphonies and operas are more Beethovenesque, and in fact got Beethoven started in the stormy direction he took.)

Beethoven's odd numbered symphonies are more emotionally moving than Bach or Mozart. But his talent was not as expansive over all instruments and genres the way Mozart and Bach were. Likewise for Wagner.

I know those are all classical musicians, but in my experience classical music takes more practice, skill, brain power, concentration and endurance than any other genre. Unlike popular genres and jazz, classical pieces consist of very long non-repeating passages, and any repeats are often not exact repeats. I can't imagine any mental feat more difficult than memorizing a long piano concerto, and playing it note for note, without a noticable mistake. And writing complex symphonic pieces and operas that last through the ages requires the same kind of super rare genius we see in Galileo, Newton and Einstein.

Of course I love popular music genres just as much, and play and listen to them more. But the genius in these forms lies in the musical ideas and emotions, not the skill level. On the other hand, I did see Rhasan Roland Kirk once play multiple saxes, nose flute, etc. And while he was playing, he systematically tore up the folding chair he was sitting on - and it fit with the timing and emotions of the music. And he was blind. But Paul McCarthy - give me a break. I'd put Hank Sr., Elvis and BB King ahead of him easy.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 26 January 2005 at 12:59 PM.]

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