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The Etude, Philadelphia magazine, assembled a "Musical World Court" to determine who were the greatest composers and what their finest compositions. The court was composed of Americans, 8; Russians, 4; Englishmen, 3; Poles, 3; Italians, 2; Frenchmen, Belgians, Spaniards, Germans, Austrians, Australians, 1 each. Of these 26 judges none were critics; all (except one—an author) were active musicians in one field or another. They were: Leopold Auer, Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler, John Alden Carpenter, George W. Chadwick, Frederick Corder, Charles M. Courboin, P. M. T. Vincent d'Indy, H. Clarence Eddy, Arthur Foote, Robert Fuchs, Amelita Galli-Curci, Percy A. Grainger, Mark Hambourg, Josef Hofmann, Alberto Jonas, Edwin H. Lemare, Josef Lhevinne, Mortiz Moszkowski, Giacomo Puccini, Olga Samarov, Eduard Schütt, Cyril M. Scott, John Philip Sousa, Walter R. Spalding, Siegfried Wagner, Owen Wister (the author). Each was asked to choose what he thought the ten greatest compositions.
The greatest compositions with the number of votes to each were:
Die Meistersinger, Wagner, 14
Mass in B Minor, Bach, 10
Fifth Symphony, Beethoven, 9
Tristan und Isolde, Wagner, 9
Ninth Symphony, Beethoven, 5
The composers received mention as follows:
Beethoven, 36
Wagner, 33
Bach, 24
Mozart, 14
Brahms, 14
Schubert, 13
Chopin, 12
Schumann, 12
Mendelssohn, 8
Tchaikovsky, 8
Debussy, 7
Bizet, 7
Franck, 7
John Alden Carpenter, composer of The Birthday of the Infanta, a ballet-pantomime produced a few years ago (1919-1920) by the Chicago Opera Company, named Irving Berlin's Everybody Step third on his list.