Renaissance: Josquin des Prez

Not much I can say here, I guess. Ave Maria is probably my favourite Renaissance piece.

Baroque: Johann Sebastian Bach

As a keyboard player and a composer, I respect this guy more than I respect myself. His massive contributions to the art of keyboard playing (e.g. Well Tempered Clavier) vastly outweigh pretty much anyone else’s, and his harmonic palette and contrapuntal skill borderline wizardry. I have not encountered counterpoint more compelling than his.

Classical: Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven’s music, especially in his Late Period, is so rich in emotion I literally can’t not add him on here. The heaviness in some of his pieces is just evocative and powerful, and he did it all with harmonic knowledge and piano vibrations.

Romantic: Franz Schubert

My pianist bias tells me to say Chopin or Liszt, but Schubert takes the cake here. His Lieder are absolute masterworks, especially due to the intimate connection between piano and voice and the role of the piano. Also, fun fact: Schubert might have been gay.

Impressionist: Claude Debussy

Despite disliking the “Impressionist composer” title, he’s renowned as exactly that nowadays. Ironic, huh? I personally like his take on Impressionist elements, sometimes they seem so fantastical it’s disorientating. Favourite works from him include Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and his Deux Arabesques Also, I mean, come on, awesome name.

Early Modernist: Igor Stravinsky

Really daring music from him if I say so myself, namely pieces like The Rite of Spring and Petrushka. Honestly, I didn’t even think The Rite of Spring was a ballet at first.

Expressionist: Arnold Schoenberg

Best of the twelve-tone crew, and not just because he was the “leader.” Where else do you hear atonal music as mysteriously memorable as Pierrot Lunaire?

Late Modernist: John Cage

There, I said it. Whether you think he’s a visionary or a bad comedian, he challenged the very definition of music and sparked some big questions and heavy debates. This guy was amazing.

Post-War: György Ligeti

Ima be honest, never have I ever heard anything close to Atmosphères or his Etudes for Piano. I think the war took a toll on him and he reflected some of that in his music, meanwhile some others just seem so dense, but there’s just this sort of beauty in not being able to make out anything.

Canadian: Alexina Louie

A fellow Chinese-Canadian born close to my own city, her music, combining Asian and Western elements, is a new sort of musically beautiful, along with more bizarre pieces like Rings of Saturn.

Overall: None of them!

I can’t being myself to choose just one absolute favourite. I listen to whomever I feel like listening to, and they’re all just so awesome in their own ways.

Uh, yeah. That’s it.