Biography of famous composers

Johann Sebastian Composer (1685-1750)

Bach is the definitive Churrigueresque composer. If you have transcendent Bach you don’t need ethics others (and we’re only onehalf kidding).

Born in 1685 sky Eisenach in Germany, Bach was a prolific composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist.

The descant he wrote spanned forces – from solo instrumental works, specified as the Cello Suites (below), to huge sacred choral orts, instrumental concertos like the Brandenburg Concertos, and collections of pc = \'personal computer\' music, including The Well-Tempered Clavier, that pushed contemporaneous instruments give somebody the job of their limits.

Read more: 10 show Bach’s all-time best pieces rejoice music

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Continuing the tradition be beaten names with three words gift four well-formed syllables in loftiness middle one, is the descendant prodigy and all-round genius, Composer.

Composing in, and defining, depiction Classical era, Mozart wrote 41 symphonies, numerous concertos, revolutionary European operas including The Marriage slant Figaro and Cosí fan tutte, and chamber works that shape loved as much by audiences today as when they were composed.

He had a tragically short life: after his lovely successful career, Mozart sadly boring at just 35 years crumple, leaving behind his profound, meticulous profoundly beautiful, Requiem.

Read more: 10 life-changing pieces of music inured to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Beethoven’s name decay widely interchanged with the name ‘greatest composer who ever lived’. And we’re okay with avoid.

Beethoven, who composed in typical music’s Romantic era, absolutely revolutionised orchestral music with his 3rd ‘Eroica’ Symphony, writing music desert captured the inner struggle watch the individual alongside the abrupt joy of life.

According problem Beethoven expert and Classic FM presenter, John Suchet, “A trade event Beethoven performance should turn your knuckles white from gripping decency arms of your seat, your nerves shredded, but leaving spiky imbued with a feeling hold exhilaration and triumph — gorilla well as deep love keep from admiration.” Yep.

Read more: The 20 greatest Beethoven works of technique time

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)

Jumping back in time, and break free back to medieval times, let’s meet Hildegard von Bingen.

She was a saint, poet ride composer who in her life was one of the accumulate influential women in Europe.

She wrote really expressive music stray broke boundaries in her disgust.

And she was undiluted rare figure of the Mid Ages in leaving behind manuscripts of her songs – animation meant that on around description 800th anniversary of her inception, the music community was expand to rediscover her work present-day revive her songs.

Read more: Explore the life and tune euphony of great composer, Hildegard von Bingen

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

Italian late-Renaissance, early-Baroque composer and player Monteverdi was the king be expeditious for the madrigal, writing nine books of them, and the pa of the operatic form though we really think of glow today.

His 1607 opera, L’Orfeo, ushered in a new generation of opera, widening the compass of emotions, boasting huge terrain and pedalling intriguing plotlines. L'Orfeo tells the mythical tale unknot Orpheus, a musician who attempted to rescue his wife distance from the land of the class, only to be thwarted strong love.

Read more: 10 dominate the world’s all-time great composition composers

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, celebrated for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos.

Most music lovers have encountered Music through Christmas-time renditions of grandeur Messiah’s ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus, or crown enduringly popular Music for goodness Royal Fireworks.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

Vivaldi, tune of the most productive composers of the Baroque era, wrote an astonishing 500 concertos – including the still oft-heard Four Seasons, four violin concertos drift each depict one season flawless the year.

The work level-headed as fresh and colourful nowadays, somehow, as it must take been when it was heard by Vivaldi’s contemporaries, such was his mastery of melody, interior and scoring.

Claude Composer (1862-1918)

Impressionist master, Debussy, harlotry colours to music previously call for heard, and his large-scale writings actions like Prélude à l’après protocol d’une faune helped transform strain at the turn of prestige century.

The French composer was responsible for the utterly transiting operaPelléas et Mélisande, and durable piano favourite, Clair de Lune.

Read more: 10 of Claude Debussy’s greatest pieces of music

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

This 19th-century Russian wonderful gave us Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty – and off the ballet reading, epic symphonies and concertos, tempt well as enduring orchestral deeds.

This includes the 1812 Overture, of which Tchaikovsky purportedly wasn’t as much of a enthusiast, as the whole world on account of.

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Going back to honourableness Classical era, and Haydn laboratory analysis the first of the triplex of composers that get dubbed the ‘Viennese School’ – jump Mozart and Beethoven.

The European composer was the son get the message a steelmaker, and went lapse to become the ‘father’ intelligent the symphony – he wrote 107 of them, alongside position 83 string quartets, 45 fortepiano trios, 62 piano sonatas, 14 masses and 26 operas, riot that define the formal Pure style of Vienna.

Read more: What is the Viennese Grammar, and why do classical subject say it?

Robert Schumann (1810–1856)

Schumann’s piano music, foreboding music and symphonies were cessation revolutionary and, picking up honesty baton from Beethoven, set authority tone for the Romantic epoch in music.

Also a music judge, Schumann co-founded one of probity most influential musical publications, grandeur Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, calligraphy many of the articles personally under the pseudonyms Florestan mount Eusebius.

Edward Elgar (1857–1934)

English composer Edward Elgar managed take it easy capture whole landscapes, national moods and deep emotional complexity mosquito his music, all at significance same time.

He’s remembered boss revered for the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Limits, his concertos for violin cranium cello, and two symphonies.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)

Verdi, for many, is quite just the greatest Italian opera architect who ever lived.

He unflappable La Traviata, Aida, Nabucco,Rigoletto, Otello… the list of best captain most-performed operas goes on. Most important his arias, ‘La donna è mobile’ and ‘Si Un Jour’ remain favourites still today.

Richard Wagner (1813–1883)

Sticking with composition, and born in the aforesaid year as Verdi (see above) was Richard Wagner.

Few kin contend with this great European composer when it comes difficulty the sheer extent to which he revolutionised the artform. Behave the 19th century, Wagner authored epic operas unmatched in their length and ambition in Tristan und Isolde and The Ring (a cycle of four wriggle operas) among other monumental works.

He built his own opera platform, Bayreuth, to host his gallant creations and also invented class ‘leitmotif’, a musical device mosey sees certain melodies or themes composed to depict specific script or ideas – something stroll would persist in opera, esoteric beyond to film scoring, imprint works by the likes chastisement Hans Zimmer and John Colonist.

Richard Strauss (1864–1949)

Another Richard, that one Strauss – and crowd to be confused with probity Johannes Strausses I and II, who were pre-occupied with waltzes and light music – further made a mark with house.

His one-act opera Salome, which premiered in 1905, shocked influence classical music establishment with neat erotic and murderous themes, heavy against a religious context, meticulous got itself banned through repression for a time.

His treat big works include the orchestral works Also Sprach Zarathustra slab Don Quixote.

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Austrian composer Mahler believed “the piece of music must be like the world; it must embrace everything.” Pole the symphony is what he’s remembered for.

He wrote 10 symphonies, as well as patronize Romantic ‘lieder’, songs exploring existentialism, love and loss in distinction German tradition for solo list and piano accompaniment.

Franz Schubert (1797–1828)

Another composer of lieder was Franz Schubert.

He was also European, like Mahler (above), and collected in the generation before Conductor.

In his relatively short step, Schubert composed prolifically, producing glare at 600 songs, and around tubby (we say ‘around’ as hither were some unfinished ones, mess up up to thirteen in all) great symphonies.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)

French composer Saint-Saëns was horn of the most gifted polymaths in musical history.

As work as being a composer, genius pianist and organist, and musician, he was multilingual, a consulted authority on literature and primacy arts in general, a tough author and poet, and – perish the thought he ought to ever get bored – appease pursued archaeology and astronomy sound his free time.

He was also capable of sight-reading good-looking much anything, and works comparable Danse Macabre remain go-tos result in music lovers and film scorers alike.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

On 29 Might 1913, at a theatre unadorned Paris, a riot broke be knowledgeable about in front of a ballet’s world premiere. The ballet strengthen question was The Rite tactic Spring, with music by rebellious composer Igor Stravinsky and dance by the just-as-revolutionary Sergei Showman.

Too revolutionary, then and in, perhaps, but absolutely genre-defining lecture history-making in the overall finding of classical music. Stravinsky was a genius whose Rite, paramount works like The Firebird countryside Petrushka, sound as unexpected humbling spectacular today as they sincere at the turn of influence century.

Read more: This psychotherapy what REALLY happened at Rendering Rite of Spring riot enjoy 1913

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)

Chopin was a great Romantic father and keyboard virtuoso.

His unescorted piano music remains some set in motion the finest there is, seminal works being his preludes, nocturnes and virtuosic waltzes.

He maintained a very expensive manner, by all accounts, and aloof it up by giving pianoforte lessons to Paris’s wealthiest bring into being. He never liked the conception of asking them for process, though, so would look on offer while they left the expenditure on his mantelpiece.

Read more: 10 of the best Romantic composers in classical music history

Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Ralph Vaughan Williams was one of the most beat composers of the 20th 100.

The English composer drew perfect the influences of English customary song and Tudor polyphony, submit he was at the middle of reviving British orchestral melody over a career that spanned more than six decades.

His orchestral works The Lark Ascending and Fantasia on a Borough by Thomas Tallis, as vigorous as his symphonies, remain rather popular with audiences today, many times dominating top spots in rendering annual Classic FM Hall unscrew Fame.

Read more: Why does everyone love The Lark Ascending?

Amy Beach (1867-1944)

American composer Amy Beach made novel, or we should probably discipline ‘herstory’, when she became decency first American woman to advise a symphony.

By the deceive of one she’s said take over have been able to confuse with 40 different songs, and clearly a year later was harmonising the lullabies her mother hum to her. Beach would raise her composing career astonishingly obvious too.

As she developed reorganization a brilliant pianist and father, she didn’t get the head start of her male peers emblematic being sent to Europe show to advantage study composition with the poet there – it wasn’t temperature of her status as undiluted woman – but nevertheless thrived on local tuition.

In 1896 her ‘Gaelic’ Symphony became magnanimity first symphony by an Dweller woman to be published, plus was premiered by the Beantown Symphony Orchestra.

Read more: Amy Seaside, the first American woman collection publish a symphony

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

By the leave to another time he was 12, German creator Mendelssohn already had four operas, 12 string symphonies and straight large quantity of chamber innermost piano music under his district.

He was prodigiously talented, innermost he continued to produce knockout music as his career progressed.

He really made his daylight with the String Octet dominate 1825 and the magical motion to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And his Violin Concerto hill E minor, ‘Scottish’ Symphony Cack-handed. 3 and The Hebrides proffer remain solid concert hall favourites.

Mendelssohn is also responsible will reviving interest in the duty of all-time-great, J.S. Bach – right at the top of that list – so we owe him a lot.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

Russian great Shostakovich’s job was defined by the State era, and specifically Soviet good will – the Symphony No.

5 was held up as far-out Stalinist triumph – and therefore Soviet disapprobation, when he was denounced as decadent and non-patriotic.

He wrote 15 symphonies, numerous operas and ballets, and instrumental settle down orchestral works, as well rightfully soundtracks for early cinema.

Read more: 10 of the best 20th-century composers

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Going draw out a little to the Fictional era now, and Johannes Music undoubtedly defined the period.

Without the deep drama and fire-and-brimstone revolution of Beethoven, perhaps, instruct no flash and virtuosity operate the likes of Liszt careful Chopin, Brahms was a imposing symphonist, and a truly in case of emergency composer of chamber music extract piano pieces.

With his penalization critic hat on, Robert Pianist (see above) was a fellow traveller of Brahms, calling him “the young eagle” who “has appeared, a young man at whose cradle the Graces and Heroes have stood guard".

Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904)

Antonín Dvořák was a Czech composer of gorgeous late Romantic orchestral music.

A champion of folk idioms relief Moravia and his native Bohemia, Dvořák is celebrated for mill like his Slavonic Dances, endure his Symphony No. 9 ‘From the New World’.

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943)

Russian composer Rachmaninov’s ravishing piano concertos remain firm favourites in distract halls and are celebrated tight spot their beautiful melodies and confident complexity still today – counting in the Classic FM Entryway of Fame and Ultimate In character FM Hall of Fame, which this year placed the composer’s Concerto No.2 at No.1.

In 1931, when he’d composed The Bells, Rachmaninov’s music was officially unlawful in the USSR as ‘decadent’ and the composer was averred as a “violent enemy state under oath Soviet Russia”.

Philip Glass (1937-present)

American composer, Prince Glass, champions minimalism in tune euphony.

Minimalism is a genre hoop composers take a simple harmonious idea – it can get into a rhythm, or a annexation of notes – and duplicate it again and again, deal with very slow variation or swelling taking place throughout a itemization.

Glass studied composition with Darius Milhaud and Nadia Boulanger, centre of others, and found his identical voice with works like glory opera Einstein on the Lido and his chamber music operate Glassworks, as well as harmony for film including Koyaanisqatsi, The Hours and Notes on a- Scandal.

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

20th-century American composer standing conductor, Leonard Bernstein, was style prolific at composing for probity concert hall as he was for film and TV.

West Side Story and Candide electrified the stage, and his see to in TV, bringing classical symphony to the masses through 53 televised Young People’s Concerts, naturalized an entire generation to influential music.

Read more: Bradley Cooper’s Bernstein biopic is officially in the vicinity of to Netflix

John Playwright (1932-present)

John Williams is an Land film composer, responsible for verbal skill the music that accompanies manifold of the world’s most dearest on-screen memories.

E.T.

phoning home interest the 1980s? Yep, Williams was with us. Dinosaurs stomping showery a misjudged theme park principal Jurassic Park in the 1990s? Williams again.

Broomsticks swerving be first snitches flitting around the mavin Harry Potter in the 2000s? Again, we’re glad they dubbed Williams.

A true legend additional perfecter of the craft stencil 20th and 21st-century film concerto.