Votes for WNED Classical's Top 20 Composers been tabulated!

For several years now we’ve asked listeners like you to name your favorite pieces of music. From your choices, we’ve generated a list of the Top 100 favorite pieces of Classical Music. Over the years that list has settled into an almost unbroken pattern with Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 taking the top spot.

So for 2023 we tried something different and are putting together a list of the top 20 favorite COMPOSERS: A list that you as a listener to WNED Classical must help to decide.

We asked listeners to nominate 3 of their favorite composers for the brand new (!) list of the WNED Classical Top 20 Favorite Composers. Listeners voted on which composer will take the top spot.

527 listeners nominated 160 different composers as their favorites. Of that number, 37 composers were in the hunt to be among the top twenty. It was extremely close.

1. Beethoven

2. Bach

3. Mozart

4. Vivaldi

5. Dvorak

6. Tchaikovsky

7. Chopin

8. Debussy

9. Handel

10. Brahms

11. Rachmaninoff

12. Copeland

13. Vaughn Williams

14. Schubert

15.  George Gershwin

16.  John Williams

17.  Mahler

18.  Ravel 

19.  Sibelius 

20.  Mendelssohn