Most impacting 500 classical composers, objectively

RoundTheBend · 2018-01-22T01:27:51-05:00

This is the work of WKU librarian Charles H. Smith to identify the objectively most impacting classical composers from what appears to be a strictly academic level (I've seen the Grove's Dictionary of Music... it's a pretty cool band of books). This of course isn't an subjective/qualitative list. But perhaps a qualitative value can be prescribed via their impact pending on how you evaluate the significance (is it popularity alone or is it actually the value of the artist which begat the popularity?) http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/music/images/stats6.pdf http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/music/images/influences111.pdf Here's his methodology: http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/music/stats1.htm Over the ten years that Version 1 of this service operated several individuals asked me to supply more description of its methodological underpinnings. The information provided at this site was statistically arrived at; i.e., decisions as to which composers and which of their works should be included were based on objective criteria, not subjective preferences. The particular 500 composers now included scored highest on a combination of eleven (unweighted) variables; these were: (1) length of composer entry in the Schwann Opus catalog (2) length of composer entry in the Grove's Dictionary of Music (3) length of composer entry in the (British) RED Classical Catalogue (4) for each composer's existing published sheet music, the number of libraries in the OCLC WorldCat database (covering the sum holdings of over 50,000 libraries in the U. S. and worldwide) holding his/r 20th-ranking work in his/r overall list (5) from the same source, the total number of sheet music publications for each composer over the past five years only (6) from the same source, the total number of Library of Congress subject headings referring to each composer’s name (name authority record) (7) same as #6, but taking the total over the past five years only (8) from the same source, the total number of recordings referring to each composer (9) same as #8, but taking the total over the past five years only (10) as for #4, the number of libraries holding his/r 25th-ranking recording (11) combining data from the Opus and RED catalogs, the mean length of record for all the works by each composer. These data were reduced to rank values across some 700 initial composer names, and the geometric mean taken across the ranks, establishing an overall score. Some small adjustments were made to compensate for outlier values and national affinities, then the resulting top 538 scorers were re-subjected to the process to obtain a penultimate top 500.

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RoundTheBend I miss the comfort in being sad Profile
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From a librarian/historical perspective, it really is about who is writing about what and how often.

So unless the study of history radically changes, it very likely will be the music that is most written about which will be remembered?

I think this is the main point.

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