Top ten lists

The New York Times ran an interesting piece on Friday about the top ten composers of all time. Anthony Tommasini, music critic for the Times, discussed the obstacles and pitfalls inherent in compiling such a list. These ranged from the unfairness of unduly imposing one's personal taste by elevating a favorite composer's ranking to the fundamental unsuitability of doing so. "As I see it," he writes, "the critic's job description does not include compiling lists of greats in order of greatness." Nevertheless, he conceded that with the help of an inquisitive high schooler he was persuaded to view the task afresh. As Tommasini describes it, "For me the resulting list would not be the point. But the process of coming up with such a list might be clarifying and instructive, as well as exasperating and fun." Indeed!

Tommasini does not provide his entire list off the bat; he merely reveals his first selection, J.S. Bach. The final list will be presented in order on January 21, according to a post on the Artsbeat blog. That same post strongly implied that Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert will all join Bach on the list. There were some restrictions placed on the field of candidates; Tommasini discusses these in the original article. While any kind of limitation goes against the grain of an all-inclusive list, he sensibly reasons that forgoing even the slightest boundary would make for too vast and disparate a field to allow any meaningful, edifying comparison. I'm excited to see whom he chooses and why.

I also wonder if similar obstacles would face someone trying to compile a list of the greatest authors of all time. Setting aside subjectivity--which is unavoidable in any discussion of the "best" anything--there are so many potential evaluating factors from which to choose. Popularity, cultural influence and technical skill are but three of nearly innumerable possibilities. Then one must take into consideration questions of language, time and place. It's a daunting task, to say the least, but it sounds like fun. I may take up the challenge in a future post. If anybody would like to take a stab at it in the meantime, please leave a comment and do so!