everyone\'s going to pick Beethoven but bach is just as good. Still, the styles are completely different. Bach wrote very straight forward and directly on the beat rhythms with sophisticated syncopations. Not to say that Ludwig didn\'t, but many of Bachs pieces were written for one person to preform on a multi-keyboarded organ with footpedals and require a very advance sence of rhythm to preform. Not that beethoven didn\'t write hard to play passages and entire pieces, but he wrote more for larger orchestra, quartets, quintets, solo piano, etc. In each case Beethovens brilliance comes from getting many people to play together to make a united piece larger than it\'s parts. i.e., the individual isn\'t working nearly as hard as they are in some of bach\'s works. And in the case of the solo piano pieces, it\'s just one keyboard, not 4+ working in rounds.
A better comparison would be motzart to beethoven, or listz to bach.
