Greatness can be established by consensus, but those outside the
consensus don't think that composer great.  Are they wrong, because they
refuse to join the consensus? And is the consensus just on which composers
are great, or is it on a set of criteria for determining greatness, which
these composers fulfill all or most of? Which is "greater," Galuppi's
sonata as played by Benedetti-Michelangeli or Beethoven's 9th performed by
Furtwaengler? There's no way to compare them.  In one case (you can choose
your own favorite examples if you like) one has a perfectly executed yet
ultimately non-heaven-storming little miniature, and in the other a titanic
but perhaps flawed attempt to embrace the cosmos musically.  Yet both
contain a glimpse of the infinite.  Don't ask me how, or how I know.
They just do.  And don't ask me what a glimpse of the infinite looks like.
I haven't the faintest idea.  I don't think I listen to the music of X
BECAUSE X is great (although I may think that), I listen to it because it
does something for me, changes me, somehow.  So I suppose in the end there
isn't really anything to be gained by knowing or believing that X is a
great composer, except that it might pique an interest in his or her music.

Chris Bonds