PULP RANKED: The Top 6 Daddies of Classical Music

By Madeline Ward

The word “daddy” is admittedly not the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Prelude in E Minor or Claire De La Lune, but I think I would have paid a whole lot more attention in my history lectures if I knew just how delicious these historical composers really were. Contextualising the Hymn of The Cherubim with the knowledge that Tchaikovsky could absolutely get it really makes for a much more rewarding listening experience.

6. Claude Debussy (1862- 1918)

Listen: Arabesque No.1 and No.2

Claude De-BUSSY is only on this list so that I could make that (terrible) joke.

5. Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Listen: Hymn of The Cherubim

Tchaikovsky wrote Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, which are both as fantastic Barbie films as they are very famous Ballets. A Queer Icon, Tchaikovsky enjoyed a number of romances with other men in his lifetime, with uncensored copies of his letters published in 2018 revealing that Pyotr was as good with words as he was with sheet music: “My God, what an angelic creature and how I long to be his slave, his plaything, his property!” Have you ever heard anything so hot and romantic?

4. Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Listen: Prelude in E-Minor

Frederic Chopin was as known by his contemporaries as much for his messy love life as he was for his composition, enjoying affairs with French authors George Sand and (maybe) Marie d’Agoult. Chopin also only gave 30 public performances across the span of his career, preferring more intimate salon audiences. Beam me up, softboi.

3. Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Listen: Cello Sonata No.1 in E minor, Op. 38

Antonín Dvořák once wrote of Brahms: "Such a man, such a fine soul – and he believes in nothing! He believes in nothing!” Brahms was possibly the most boring composer of the Romantic period, but he more than made up for it by being fine as hell. He was also a very passionate writer of love letters, writing to (married) pianist Clara Schumann that "I can do nothing but think of you... What have you done to me? Can't you remove the spell you have cast over me?’

2. Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Listen: Fantasy in F Minor

Those of you that are familiar with Schubert will note that I have selectively chosen a particularly handsome portrait of the composer in his late teenage years. Though Schubert wasn’t exactly known for being much of a looker whilst living, (what happened?) his exceptionally poetic composition gained him considerable fame after death as one of the most significant composers of the early romantic period.

1. Franz Liszt (1811- 1886)

Listen: Liebestraum

Franz Liszt was so hot that crowds at his concerts would go into a frenzy, in a time when intense fan culture was not exactly the norm. Like a 19th century Harry Styles, admirers of Liszt were known to wear his piano strings as bracelets, attempt to cut off locks of his hair, and, in one instance, encase an old cigar stump in a locket with the initials F.L set in diamonds. So extreme was the public reaction to Liszt that it was given its own term, coined as Lisztomania by Heinrich Heine in 1844. Looking at this portrait of the man, I get it! Liszt almost definitely put it down.