One interesting thing to me is that unless I am remembering wrong, no one has mentioned Bruckner on this thread. In Europe, he is still considered second only to Beethoven as a symphonist. Rnm4, I mostly like your list, though I personally would not list either Ravel or Shostakovitch. To name two other 20th century candidates, how about Prokofiev and Hindemith? As a horn player, I also must have both Strauss and Mahler in a top ten. Another one of my favorites is the late Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo - no one wrote music as chromatic as his again until Wagner. Anyone not familiar with his madrigals in particular should check them out, especially the fifth and sixth books. For an American inclusion in the discussion, I like to promote Charles Ives, for me a much more quintessentially American composer than say Copland.
