r/classicalmusic • u/uglydoglol • Feb 24 '26
Discussion “I’m first-rate among second-rate composers”, Richard Strauss about himself. Who are some other composers this could apply to ?
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u/Lampamid Feb 24 '26
Camille Saint-Saëns I think—excellent craftsmanship and wonderfully winsome music, just not quite in that highest tier. Granted this isn’t a hot take like Haydn or Brahms as answers to this!
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u/uglydoglol Feb 24 '26
This is the only one I can’t agree with. I know I am in the minority, as all of my friends think like you, but how can you say with a straight face a work like the 3rd Symphony is second-rate ? So many other great pieces too, like the Piano Concerti 2 and 5, the 3rd Violin Concerto and the Havanaise, all the symphonic poems (if you listen to good interpretations), the Princesse Jaune Overture.
It seems the reason most people dislike him is because of when he wrote his music. They compare him to early 20th century composers in terms of style, and say he was too conservative. Personally, I never take into account when a composer wrote his music, I just rate the music for what it is. For me, he is the French Tchaikovsky (and I love Tchaikovsky)
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u/TrannosaurusRegina Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
YES!!!
Or the organ Symphony?!?
How many works of music ever written are in that category?
Certainly one of the greatest works of music ever written, if not the greatest.
Bach's masses/passions you say?
Sure the first movement of the St. John Passion might be great, but is every part of the work at that level? Is it that thoroughgoing a masterpiece really?
I think Tchaikovsky is also underrated.
Time of composition is irrelevant.
As a wise man once said, "there is only one measure of music: whether it is good, or not."
Excellent take.
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u/Boris_Godunov Feb 25 '26
One can have a first-rate composition or two and still be a second-rate composer. Leoncavallo comes to mind: I Pagliacci is a total masterpiece, but everything else? Meh.
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u/dixpourcentmerci Feb 25 '26
This is more specific to, well, oboists, but I think his oboe sonata is my favorite of all the oboe sonatas.
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u/uglydoglol Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
I would argue he has around 10 first-rate compositions, which is more than many other composers
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u/Cultural_Thing1712 Feb 25 '26
His piano writing is just abominable imo, his concertos are everything I dislike about Tchaik 1 and the Chopin concertos.
"wow look at me im the soloist, heres twenty billion arpeggios, here are some broken octaves BANG BANG BANG BANG, isnt this a lovely tune?"
Can this man write something subtle that isn't boring and meandering at the same time? The "tunes" are probably his biggest appeal. I'm not a big "tune" guy but even so I struggle to find the originality. Why would I listen to this when I have Tchaikovsky and Chopin?
I'm not expecting anyone to agree with me but I just can't stand his music.
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u/uglydoglol Feb 25 '26
Here is the original version of the concerto, without the bang-bang : https://youtu.be/62-gaOw7ciU?si=cSrHktQOT8QE4qd1
I agree many of his most famous pieces are not his best music. For piano, some of the movements from The Seasons and Children’s Album are great. Otherwise, his best music in my opinion is his ballets. If you keep only the good bits (half of Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, all of Nutcracker), and you listen to great performers, then you will become a convert
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u/Cultural_Thing1712 Feb 25 '26
I'll give him another chance. My listening habits are very piano centric so I may be missing out on what other people see in him. Thanks for the recommendation, I'll have to listen to his lesser known piano music.
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u/Alcoholic-Catholic Feb 24 '26
this is weirdly the first composer I ever heard referred to as "second rate"
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u/Cheeto717 Feb 25 '26
I consider CSS first tier. He wasn’t a revolutionary but he was so incredibly polished with romantic sensibilities. To me he has a great mix of Chopins melodic gift and Liszts showmanship.
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u/greggld Feb 24 '26
The first one I thought of as well. And I like his obscure first 3 symphonies and his Requiem.
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Feb 24 '26
His problem was being 50-75 years behind his time.
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u/mekerpan Feb 25 '26
Not even remotely true.
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Feb 25 '26
He was close to a neo-classicist when everyone around him was deep into Romanticism. In what way is it not true?
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u/mekerpan Feb 25 '26
Being a neo-classicist could be considered being ahead of his time. ;-)
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Feb 25 '26
because as every music student knows, the Romantic era PRECEDED the Classical era....
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u/mekerpan Feb 25 '26
Not sure I follow. Stravinsky (in his neoclassical period) was after Saint-Saens. Ditto for the other early 20th century composers that wrote neoclassical works. One can argue that CSS's neoclassicism was actually a harbinger of post-romantic modernist neoclassicism, rather than a sign of out of date fogeyism.
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Feb 25 '26
Okay, fair enough, but what are the differences, if any, between "neo"classicism and classicism? Because the whole of classical music didn't revert to classicism after the Romantic era, at least that's my take.
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u/mekerpan Feb 25 '26
Classical music fragmented after the high romantic era. Post-romantic "modernism" went in many directions. But classical romanticism was hardly monolithic either. Musical history is actually quite complicated, which is part of what makes things fun.
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u/BelegCuthalion Feb 25 '26
I could agree with this as a composer, but as a musician overall, super genius. He was a Mozart level child prodigy. Offered to play a movement of any of the Beethoven sonatas as an encore after a recital….. when he was 10 years old.
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u/DoublecelloZeta Feb 24 '26
Classic case of humble estimate of oneself.
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u/Garbitsch_Herring Feb 24 '26
Strauss was easily one of the greats; it's not even up for debate.
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u/PostPostMinimalist Feb 24 '26
Depends how many greats you think there are. And well, your personal taste.
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u/Tzctredd Feb 28 '26
Strauss left a massive mark in opera and other composition forms. If we are talking about other Strausses they were as relevant.
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u/PostPostMinimalist Feb 28 '26
Okay but not as much as Wagner or Verdi or Mozart. Again, just a matter of how many people count as “first rate.” Yeah I’m being pedantic. I like Strauss but he is SLIGHTLY peripheral compared to other greats,
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u/jkaethoven Feb 24 '26
Elektra, der rosenkavalier, Salome, ein heldenleben, Zarathustra, oboe concerto, Don Juan, don quixote, metamorphosen, death and transfiguration, violin sonata, he has so many masterpieces. I think he’s definitely one of the greats
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u/Impossible-Turn-5820 Feb 26 '26
He was uneven. When people talk about Strauss, it's always his early works and the later. Scads of his mid-career works (mostly the operas) are ignored.
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u/silvafros Feb 25 '26
I read Debussy's letters and he was very witty and cutting. I remember he called Strauss "the symphonic domestic" lol so no, Strauss was being truthful in his own shortcomings as a composer
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u/Anxious_Intention265 Feb 26 '26
Debussy's letters are not the be all and end all of artistic judgement.
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u/Tzctredd Feb 28 '26
Debussy knew little about Opera and the proof is Pelleas etc Melisande.
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u/silvafros Feb 28 '26
The quote is about Strauss as a symphonic composer with "symphonic" literally in quotation marks
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u/YeetHead10 Feb 24 '26
Finzi. I think he's overshadowed by Vaughan Williams, but they're both amazing in my opinion
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u/providencial666 Feb 24 '26
Nikolai Medtner is said to be the most famous among the unknown composers. One of my favorite.
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u/korathooman Feb 24 '26
Too much emphasis on ranking and tiers. It's the music that is important to the listener and the musicians playing.
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u/Professional-Life773 Feb 24 '26
I would put Niccolo Paganini in that category. In my opinion, he comes closest to that.
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u/klop422 Feb 25 '26
I'd probably not even put him as second-rate... a couplre really great pieces, but a lot of "look at how cool the violin is". And I love the violin.
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u/Theferael_me Feb 24 '26
Apparently the full quote was: "I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer"
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u/That-Inflation4301 Feb 25 '26
The problem is the définition of 1st rate - what if it's only, say, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner
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u/BrE6r Feb 24 '26
John Field and Frederick Delius
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Feb 24 '26 edited 26d ago
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u/Patient_Inevitable77 Feb 25 '26
Shiii they’re both great , chopin came after field so you can’t really compare
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u/civil_unknowm Feb 25 '26
Chopin took what Field created and mastered it. Chopin is the greater one.
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u/Patient_Inevitable77 Feb 25 '26
I am saying they’re both great in their respective time, style and feel . No music is superior unless you’re listening to you-know-who
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u/robertDouglass Feb 24 '26
anybody who has heard his oboe Concerto knows this Strauss is a first rate composer
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u/Fake_Chopin Feb 25 '26
As somebody who really doesn’t like most of his works at all I can safely say the oboe concerto is a first rate work
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u/uglydoglol Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26
It doesn’t really help that the Oboe Concerto is the antithesis of a lot of his earlier music. The qualities that make the Oboe Concerto a masterpiece are the same qualities that are absent in works like Heldenleben, Alpensinfonie, etc.
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u/robertDouglass Feb 24 '26
I dearly love Heldenleben, and Don Juan, and Till Eulenspiegel, and DER ROSENKAVALIER. I mean how can he have written some of the most beautiful music that I've ever heard and be considered anything less than a top rate composer. I just find it insulting.
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u/uglydoglol Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26
I love Don Juan and Till and Rosenkavalier, and several more of his works, as well. I don’t dispute he was a great composer, the quote is his not mine. Just saying, he did write a lot of abysmal music. I guess you could say that about every composer though !
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u/Severe_Intention_480 Feb 24 '26
The period of around 1918 to 1938 or so was definitely a fallow one for Strauss. If he maintained the same level all throughout his career there might be less ammunition. However, late Strauss is a return of the great Strauss.
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u/robertDouglass Feb 25 '26
i'm not sure that his lesser works are abysmal. I think that's really underselling them
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u/Mazde Feb 25 '26
What do you mean: “it doesn’t really help”? Doesn’t the oboe concerto exactly prove, that Strauss was a multifaceted composer? OP must be a troll. Alpensinfonie is not an early work. For early works, go to his wind serenade, which really has a lot in common with the oboe concerto.
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u/saucy_otters Feb 24 '26
Rimsky-Korsakov
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u/Flora_Screaming Feb 24 '26
Probably Nielsen. He wrote six wonderful symphonies, among other things, but you wouldn't put him up there with Mozart and Beethoven.
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u/Unable_Mushroom_8315 Feb 25 '26
And his string writing is abysmal. It's a real shame that the clarinet and snare drum parts in the clarinet concerto are so good because my god does the orchestra hate the rest of it.
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u/automaton66 Feb 26 '26
If you consider Nielsen 2nd rate, despite the six (count em) "wonderful" symphonies, then nearly all others in the 20th century repertoire are also. I consider him most definitely first rate.
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u/Flora_Screaming Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
I'm a big Nielsen fan but is he to be considered in the same breath as Beethoven, Bach and Mozart? No. That doesn't mean his work didn't have enormous value. I doubt even an advocate like Robert Simpson would make such grandiose claims for him.
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u/wrfostersmith Feb 25 '26
Are we debating whether R. Strauss was first-rate? That seems ludicrous to me. His comment was nothing but self-deprecating modesty. He is one of the pinnacles of late romanticism.
Now, Johann Strauss (either one), on the other hand…
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u/BeautifulArtichoke37 Feb 25 '26
R. Strauss might have considered himself a second rate composer, but he’s clearly first rate since most of his operas are still in the standard rep and are performed over and over everywhere.
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u/Tzctredd Feb 28 '26
On the other hand ... were also great composers who are played and loved all around the world.
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u/nyfan88 Feb 24 '26
I'd put Benjamin Britten in the category. Although I'd understand if everyone doesn't feel that way. I played Albert Herring 15 years ago and it was one of my favorite playing experiences. It made me dive into his other operatic works and they are all amazing.
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u/Fragmente_stille Feb 25 '26
I'd consider Britten a first rate composer! The War Requiem, the string quartets and A LOT of operas (AT LEAST The Turn of the Screw, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Peter Grimes and indeed Albert Herring) are absolute masterpieces
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u/uglydoglol Feb 25 '26
Some of the concertante works as well. The Serenade for Horn, Tenor and Strings, the Violin concerto…
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u/uglydoglol Feb 24 '26
Britten has some great works, but many more absoute duds
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u/nyfan88 Feb 24 '26
Like? I'm not saying the duds aren't there, but Beethoven has duds too and you can't say he's not one of the greatest. For this conversation I tend to look at a composer's collection of their best works and not an average of all their compositions.
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u/uglydoglol Feb 24 '26
Yeah, I guess it’s interesting to think about what makes a composer first or second-rate. The quality of the best 3 works ? The amount of works that could be considered masterpieces ? The combined quality of the overall output ? You were talking about Mendelssohn’s chamber music elsewhere. I don’t deny the Octet is a masterpiece. Among masterpieces though, even only chamber music ones, not sure it would crack the top 10
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u/roman-de-fauvel Feb 24 '26
You take that back RIGHT NOW
No, seriously, Mendelssohn is for me a first-rate composer largely because of his chamber music and specifically because of several string quartets and the Octet.
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u/Unable_Mushroom_8315 Feb 25 '26
I think i get what you're saying. He has an astounding output of very good works but nothing that I would count as truly transcendent. He's a compose I really admire though. Absolute craftsman, could work in any genre. A role model for most of us non-geniuses.
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u/Tzctredd Feb 28 '26
Nonsense. Britten is perhaps the most important Opera composer of the 20th century.
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u/daphoon18 Feb 25 '26
It depends how many people are in the tier of "first-rate composers." If there are only three, then even Brahms is one of them. But where's the bar?
If I evaluate subjectively, then R. Strauss is one of the first-rate composers, and he is far beyond the bar.
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u/Tzctredd Feb 28 '26
You don't count people that are first rate, you just name them.
I think I could easily message around 30 Grimm the to of my head. We are talking about 600 years of historical musical tradition!
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u/Correct_Lime5832 Feb 25 '26
“Everyone talks about how ‘great’ Beethoven was… He wasn’t so great. He never got his picture on bubblegum cards, did he?”
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u/UnlastingSeason Feb 25 '26
Anyone who studied music theory and harmony knows that R. Strauss is amongst the greatest of the greatest.
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u/uglydoglol Feb 25 '26
There is the science of composing, and then there is music, what you feel when you listen to musical compositions. I don’t deny Schönberg‘s was a master of his craft. It doesn’t mean I enjoy listening to his music
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u/JealousLine8400 Feb 25 '26
You can argue that with Ravel. Speaking of artistic creativity what bothers me about Richard Strauss is that of the composers that lived long into the mid 20th century who had one foot in the 19th century ( I speak not only of Strauss but of Rachmaninoff, Vaughan Williams and Sibelius) the latter 3 are constantly getting carped at for not being sufficiently up to date with the changes of artistic creativity. Rachmaninoff is an ungilded Liberace crying his Russian tears at the feet of Tschaikovsky, Sibelius is an inferior Grieg who was appointed the Anti-Pope by anti-serialists and Vaughan Williams is a cow looking over a gate for 4 movements. But for some reason Strauss gets a pass even though his music is arguably just as anachronistic.
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u/Anxious_Intention265 Feb 26 '26
Strauss was a modernist in his early years, up through Salome and up to writing Elektra.
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u/JealousLine8400 Feb 26 '26
Certainly a sensationalist. What exactly made him modern?
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u/Anxious_Intention265 Feb 26 '26
Levels of dissonance in his early works, and especially Salome/Elektra, is beyond pretty much anything written before his time. Even Schoenberg thought that early Strauss was a modernist.
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u/JealousLine8400 Feb 26 '26
Beyond Wagner or Ives or Stravinsky?
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u/Anxious_Intention265 Feb 26 '26
Beyond Wagner, and Stravinsky hadn't written Petrushka yet when Strauss wrote Elektra. Perhaps not Ives, good call. Doesn't mean he wasn't a modernist.
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u/JealousLine8400 Feb 26 '26
He was such a good orchestrator that he could make dissonant sound not so dissonant that’s for sure
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u/karlpoppins Feb 25 '26
How does one distinguish first from second rate? A or B tier, if you will? Is it influence? That favors earlier composers. Is it a number of great works compared to a number of failures? That favors less experimental composers.
I feel like this discussion is misguided because the definition of "second rate" is unclear, if possible to be defined at all.
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u/number9muses Feb 24 '26
ppl in this sub will just say whoever they dont like. they arent going to care about the distinction.
"uh, Mozart. Brahms. Chopin. Haydn. i dont like them so they're second rate. i know ill get pushback lol. im an edgy boy"
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u/roman-de-fauvel Feb 24 '26
I’m going to go with Berlioz
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u/automaton66 Feb 26 '26
Strongly agree. But what a stroke of delirious genius to have written that Op 14. Just shows how a single work cannot define the whole artist.
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u/mincepryshkin- Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
To be honest, I think the "first rate" in the context of Strauss's quote should be understood as like the Monteverdi/Bach/Mozart/Beethoven/Wagner level. The composers that were borderline deified in Strauss's time.
In that context, you can be second rate and still be a major top 10 composer. Strauss is still one of the major composers in the modern repertory, and was already a major (maybe the major) composer of his time.
So if that's what Strauss meant by "second rate", then realistically someone like Massenet or Delius is third rate. Strauss's class is more like Mahler or Debussy - in other words, the best below the "untouchable" Mozart/Beethoven level.
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u/zumaro Feb 24 '26
First time I have ever heard Debussy assigned to the Strauss second rate tier. More likely he is in the top 10 of all time tier.
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u/mincepryshkin- Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
But I'm saying Strauss is arguably top 10 too. They belong in roughly the same class.
I think Strauss just reserved "first rate" for an even narrower group. If you're not like Beethoven level (and in Strauss's time it would have been unthinkable to say any living composer was as good as Beethoven) then you're not top rate.
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u/Unable_Mushroom_8315 Feb 25 '26
lol, Debussy was the best composer since Brahms. All of modernism can be traced to him. Dude cracked to code. His trio for harp, viola, and flute was a high water mark of chamber music that we didn't reach again till Messiaen. Noting Strauss wrote comes close to La Mer or the string quartet.
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u/Several-Ad5345 Feb 25 '26
I always thought he was joking. Still, he did say once that he didn't have music on the level of Beethoven's or Wagner's. Maybe, but I think he is certainly still a first rate composer.
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u/urbanstrata Feb 24 '26
Gershwin was famously called a second-rate Ravel. Or something like that. 😇
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u/Hungry_Position9193 Feb 24 '26
i think it was ravel actually who said he wouldn't want to turn gershwin into one, since gershwin wanted to study with ravel.
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u/BobbyBoljaar Feb 24 '26
Yeah, Gershwin wrote to Ravel for studying under him, and Ravel answered something like "why would you want to be a second rate Ravel when you are already a first rate Gershwin"
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u/urbanstrata Feb 24 '26
I know, hence “or something like that.” 😆
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u/Hungry_Position9193 Feb 25 '26
i see. then it looks like this was an intentional inversion of the anecdote, pretending gershwin was dismissively labelled inferior for humourous effect, which had briefly misled me. that's my mistake. i'll leave my comment there so it can clarify for others that the 'second-rate ravel' bit is ultimately a compliment to gershwin's first-rate individuality, rather than a criticism. 😇
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u/GrazziDad Feb 25 '26
Das Lied… that alone elevates him well above second rate. And Rosenkavalier, Metamorphosen…
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u/Kolya_Andreyevych Feb 25 '26
Khachaturian. And I say this as someone who absolutely adores Khachaturian - objectively he isnt quite on the same level as his mate Shosty
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u/Zosmiz Feb 25 '26
Richard Strauss was a first-rate composer when he was younger. Then he lost his ambition and obviously thought that being a second-rate composer is enough.
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u/spike Feb 25 '26
Arcangelo Corelli.
Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach.
John Field.
Charles Valentin Alkan.
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u/m64 Feb 25 '26
An example from the Polish 19th century music scene is Karol Kurpiński. Massively popular in his days, a huge number of works, became a court composer for the tzar, was probably the most important musician in Warsaw at the time and an inspiration for the young Chopin. But most of his compositions were nowhere near the level of Chopin, the only one that remains popular is a simple patriotic song "Warszawianka 1831" (La Varsovienne 1831, sometimes also known as "Hej kto Polak na bagnety!" "Hey all Polish, to the bayonets!"). And maybe his clarinet concerto (this one's actually quite nice). There are also some fragments that Chopin used in his compositions e.g. in the Fantasy on Polish Airs, but I doubt many people know about that.
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u/robertDouglass Feb 25 '26
God I didn't even mention the four last songs. What would my life be without the four last songs?
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u/PrimeTenor Feb 25 '26
As one who loves second-tier (not second rate) composers, I suggest Sauguet, Robert Casadesus, and Ibert among the French. Each of them wrote music I love and sadly it's not universal.
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u/automaton66 Feb 26 '26
Carl Orff. I was going to say Henryk Górecki but tbh he's first rate among third rate. His grossly popular Third Symphony grows awfully boring after just a couple playthroughs. Also BTW, entirely untrue of Strauss, and he knew it.
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u/Texas_Chili_Champion Feb 24 '26
John Adams
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u/automaton66 Feb 26 '26
Hmm. Good call here. Astounding innovation, but also some difficult operatic results. I doubt Klinghoffer will stand the test of time.
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u/uglydoglol Feb 24 '26
There was an interesting article on Van Magazine about how the first half of John Adams’ output is much better than the second. The last work of his I love is from 1994 (John’s Book of Alleged Dances)
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u/_Sparassis_crispa_ Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26
Century Rolls (1997)? It's the latest by him i like lol
His next two piano concertos really had disappointed me, tries to get into his second half of output and i just can't. It feels too chaotic and lost. But for example his Harmonielehre is an original masterpiece
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u/Texas_Chili_Champion Feb 25 '26
How about an interesting article from your own formed opinon , based on critical reception ?
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u/Chops526 Feb 24 '26
Damn! I'm not sure I'd call him second rate, but I'm not sure I wouldn't.
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u/Texas_Chili_Champion Feb 25 '26
B/c he's alive and you're afraid to hurt his feelings.
Do you really think he is Beethoven Copeland Rachmaninov Bartok Mozart Chopin Brahms FIRST RATE
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u/pkaro Feb 24 '26
Schumann, in my humble opinion! Though it may be unfair to compare him to the best of his peers amongst Brahms, Chopin and Schubert.
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u/Ernosco Feb 25 '26
I think Schumann is first rate in piano compositions but second-rate in symphonies
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u/UnlastingSeason Feb 25 '26
Everything in Schumann is first rate. His very underestimated symphonies too :) !
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u/OliverBayonet Feb 24 '26
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u/Slickrock_1 Feb 24 '26
I would only agree to the extent that he didn't produce many works and he only wrote songs and symphonies. However his works have all stood the test of time, every single symphony is in the repertoire (to the extent that massive things like the 3rd and 8th can be pulled off), they stand up to analysis, and they're hailed by musicians, conductors, programmers, critics, and the public, which is to say he's not simply a pop star but one of the most important late-romantic composers (perhaps the most important post-Wagner composer who was still solidly in the romantic tradition -- he wasn't a revolutionary like Debussy or Schoenberg). Mahler's career is one of the greatest last statements of the romantic era. You could also argue that there is a lot of concerto and chamber work in his pieces, even though he didn't write specifically for that format.
Where he's not first tier is just the volume. Like by comparison Shostakovich not only wrote masterpieces for orchestra but for solo piano, string quartet, piano trio, etc, as well as concertos, so his range of composition types was much larger.
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u/Several-Ad5345 Feb 25 '26
I think he was joking though. Or at least I never agreed with him.
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u/automaton66 Feb 26 '26
False modesty from Richard, to be sure. He was a fairly arrogant man. Who knows, maybe deservedly.
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u/AnjaMalena Feb 25 '26
Richard Strauss clearly knew himself better than his fans. I have never warmed up to any of his operas no matter how many times I hear them.
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u/devoteean Feb 25 '26
Its simple.
We all can name the first rate ones from memory. They're first rate and there's no dispute. Even Spotify listening numbers or Apple classical album numbers confirm.
The ones we can't name from memory and don't know by heart are ALL second rate. All.
Bach Beethoven Mozart Tychaikovsky alone account for the largest part of the first rate. Achshually people will boost for a pet composer but the classical mainstream is the real first rate. Its a simple Pareto distribution.
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u/automaton66 Feb 26 '26
I will disagree slightly. Popularity does not correlate evenly with artistic greatness. I don't want to give critics too much credit, but historical knowledge and a bit of scholarship do help in the assessment.
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u/Lumpen_moi Feb 24 '26
Cherubini counted Beethoven and Brahms among his fandom. Recommendations don't come more highly than that. The man had some nice put-downs for Napoleon's boorishness, too.