I don't mean this to be diminutive of Bach, but Bach was a technician, a craftsman. He mastered the art form of his time and was amazing at it. Beethoven was an

I don't mean this to be diminutive of Bach, but Bach was a technician, a craftsman. He mastered the art form of his time and was amazing at it. Beethoven was an _artist_ in much more the modern sense, with all that entails. Bach was the guy in the cathedral who just wrote his twentieth amazing piece. Beethoven was the unwashed guy in his apartment with a spittoon by his side tweaking away on the piano. They just don't compare. But if I had to choose, it'd be Beethoven. His early symphony works illustrated that he certainly knew the current form. He just didn't like it much. And his later string works are some of the best written music ever (from what the pros tell me.) I sure would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when young Beethoven was being taught by "Papa" Haydn. What a pair that must have been.