A Fox or Two

Yesterday I was thinking about how one could crudely compare the history of classical music with the history of rock music and this is what I came up with. There is alot missing, and alot of overextending of similarities, but it was fun to think about nonetheless. Here is what I came up with:

Bach - Elvis: The granddaddy of their genres as we know them. Wrote about Jesus sometimes.
Haydn - Beatles: Started off pretty classic(al), but pushed the genre pretty far ahead.
Mozart - The Rolling Stones: Plenty of throwbacks to music of yesteryear, but with immense amounts of innovation and fusion of many music genres and forms. Lots of childishness and immorality.
Beethoven - The Who: Totally epic in scope. Started off copying everyone else, but then their music opened up a can on the music scene.
Liszt - Led Zeppelin: All about showing off and partying.
Berlioz - The Ramones: Got in your face and didn't acheive much success in their time.
Wagner - Sex Pistols: Gave everyone the middle finger and said, "I will do it my way!"
Brahms - The Clash: Still pretty heavy (like their contempories Wagner/Sex Pistols), but also had much admiration for older genres/forms and profusely incorporated them into their music.
Tchaikovsky - Rites of Spring. Straight-up emo.

I don't know (or pretend to know) very much about classical music after 1900, so I couldn't extend the already-shaky analogies past the emo/punk bands of the 1980's. Regardless, Classical music is well worth investing time in for it's sheer beauty, profound craftmanship, and earth-shattering dynamism.

My favorite thing about learning about classical composers is that you realize that they, like every other human being in history, had deep flaws, tragically-inflated egos, and enormous self-deceptions. They were heroically talented, but, like the rest of us, there was always alot more going on beneath the surface.

Top picture: Franz Listz - The original hedonist rock star. Some women were known to carry around necklaces made of his cigar butts on a chain.
Middle picture: Pyotr Tchaikovsky - Totally emo. There are stories of young people with horribly misdirected priorities bringing pistols to his concerts so they could kill themselves after hearing his music, since they reasoned life wouldn't be worth living after hearing something so emotionally-overwhelming.
Bottom picture: Hector Berlioz - Once wrote a piece for 1000 instruments. His last words were "They are finally going to play my music."