The grammatical remark was meant to be an aside, not the substance of the post.

Bernstein, John Williams, Morricone, Rimsky-Korsakov, Khachaturian, and others were popular composers who wrote music for films. Gottschalk is one of the most overlooked pianist-composers of his day (a contemporary of Chopin, who is right up there in my top five and is on this list at #20). I'd have found a way to shoehorn a few of these onto such a list.

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, they always flirt around the top of the list. But a reason Bach is so well known now is because Mendelssohn rescued him from obscurity in the early 1800s. And he's not on the list.

Making lists is a silly thing to do - my favorite pieces are often times the ones I'm listening to now. My absolute top favorite I would listen to whenever it comes on? Beethoven's Seventh Symphony; the whole thing is great, but that second movement - it is sublime. And his Romances . . . there I go, setting myself off on a trip to YouTube.