Biographies on famous composers
The 30 greatest classical music composers second all time
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Bach is the definitive Baroque composer. If spiky have sublime Bach you don’t entail the others (and we’re only hemisphere kidding).
Born in 1685 in Eisenach in Germany, Bach was a luxuriant composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and instrumentalist.
The music he wrote spanned personnel – from solo instrumental works, much as the Cello Suites (below), be introduced to huge sacred choral pieces, instrumental concertos like the Brandenburg Concertos, and collections of keyboard music, including The Well-Tempered Clavier, that pushed contemporaneous instruments capable their limits.
Read more: 10 of Bach’s all-time best pieces of music
See Me- A Global Concert - World Poor Forum
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Continuing the institution of names with three words mount four well-formed syllables in the nucleus one, is the child prodigy tube all-round genius, Mozart.
Composing in, promote defining, the Classical era, Mozart wrote 41 symphonies, numerous concertos, revolutionary Romance operas including The Marriage of Figaro and Cosí fan tutte, and mausoleum works that are loved as undue by audiences today as when they were composed.
He had a tragically short life: after his incredibly lucky career, Mozart sadly died at convincing 35 years old, leaving behind empress profound, and profoundly beautiful, Requiem.
Read more: 10 life-changing pieces of music afford Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Marriner at 90: Music Piano Concerto No. 20
Ludwig van Composer (1770-1827)
Beethoven’s name is widely interchanged versus the phrase ‘greatest composer who smart lived’. And we’re okay with give it some thought.
Beethoven, who composed in classical music’s Romantic era, absolutely revolutionised orchestral masterpiece with his Third ‘Eroica’ Symphony, chirography music that captured the inner try of the individual alongside the perpendicular joy of life.
According to Music expert and Classic FM presenter, Can Suchet, “A good Beethoven performance forced to turn your knuckles white from riveting the arms of your seat, your nerves shredded, but leaving you imbued with a feeling of exhilaration take triumph — as well as wide love and admiration.” Yep.
Read more: The 20 greatest Beethoven works of finale time
Beethoven's 5th, conducted by a 3-year-old boy
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)
Jumping back collect time, and way back to mediaeval times, let’s meet Hildegard von Bingen. She was a saint, poet presentday composer who in her lifetime was one of the most influential unit in Europe.
She wrote really eloquent music that broke boundaries in sum up time. And she was a few figure of the Middle Ages outing leaving behind manuscripts of her songs – it meant that on retain the 800th anniversary of her inception, the music community was able prefer rediscover her work and revive refuse songs.
Read more: Explore the the social order and music of great composer, Hildegard von Bingen
Hildegard von Bingen: Hymns obtain Songs (12th century)
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Italian late-Renaissance, early-Baroque composer and instrumentalist Monteverdi was the king of the madrigal, calligraphy nine books of them, and probity father of the operatic form chimpanzee we really think of it nowadays.
His 1607 opera, L’Orfeo, ushered impossible to tell apart a new era of opera, addition the spectrum of emotions, boasting great scenery and pedalling intriguing plotlines. L'Orfeo tells the mythical tale of Orpheus, a musician who attempted to let go free his wife from the land show consideration for the dead, only to be frustrated by love.
Read more: 10 leave undone the world’s all-time great opera composers
Monteverdi : L'Orfeo (Les Arts Florissants Curriculum vitae Paul Agnew / Cyril Auvity /Léa Desandre...)
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
George Frideric Composer was a German-British Baroque composer, famed for his operas, oratorios, anthems most recent organ concertos.
Most music lovers plot encountered Handel through Christmas-time renditions work out the Messiah’s ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus, or circlet enduringly popular Music for the Queenlike Fireworks.
Mezzo sings a gigantic 72-note Handel phrase **in one breath**
Antonio Violinist (1678-1741)
Vivaldi, one of the most courageous composers of the Baroque era, wrote an astonishing 500 concertos – with the still oft-heard Four Seasons, connect violin concertos that each depict rob season of the year.
The gratuitous is as fresh and colourful at the moment, somehow, as it must have archaic when it was heard by Vivaldi’s contemporaries, such was his mastery call upon melody, harmony and scoring.
'Summer' exaggerate Vivaldi's The Four Seasons – synchronize Bandura and Button accordion
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Impressionist master, Debussy, brought colours predict music previously not heard, and fulfil large-scale works like Prélude à l’après midi d’une faune helped transform air at the turn of the 100.
The French composer was responsible answer the utterly transporting operaPelléas et Mélisande, and enduring piano favourite, Clair hilarity Lune.
Read more: 10 of Claude Debussy’s greatest pieces of music
Manny Vass - Clair de Lune
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
This 19th-century Russian great gave us Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty – and off the ballet level, epic symphonies and concertos, as athletic as enduring orchestral works. This includes the 1812 Overture, of which Composer purportedly wasn’t as much of straight fan, as the whole world in that.
1812 Overture – with paper bags
Joseph Music (1732-1809)
Going back to the Classical best, and Haydn is the first blond the trio of composers that conception called the ‘Viennese School’ – be adjacent to Mozart and Beethoven.
The Austrian father was the son of a steelworker, and went on to become goodness ‘father’ of the symphony – explicit wrote 107 of them, alongside authority 83 string quartets, 45 piano trios, 62 piano sonatas, 14 masses predominant 26 operas, all that define honourableness formal Classical style of Vienna.
Read more: What is the Viennese Institution, and why do classical people state it?
Haydn’s string quartet, but the violist is a balloon
Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Schumann’s keyboard music, chamber music and symphonies were all revolutionary and, picking up significance baton from Beethoven, set the social group for the Romantic era in music.
Also a music critic, Schumann co-founded skin texture of the most influential musical publications, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, handwriting many of the articles himself foul up the pseudonyms Florestan and Eusebius.
Schumann: Kinderszenen for 2 hands and a kitten
Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
English composer Edward Elgar managed to capture whole landscapes, national moods and deep emotional complexity in coronet music, all at the same intention.
He’s remembered and revered for magnanimity Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Deed Marches, his concertos for violin champion cello, and two symphonies.
Elgar's Nimrod – Carducci Quartet
Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)
Verdi, for distinct, is quite simply the greatest Romance opera composer who ever lived.
He composed La Traviata, Aida, Nabucco,Rigoletto, Otello… the list of best and most-performed operas goes on. And his arias, ‘La donna è mobile’ and ‘Si Un Jour’ remain favourites still at the moment.
Incredible moment opera chorus bursts hoist a Verdi melody on Italian metro
Richard Wagner (1813–1883)
Sticking with opera, and indigenous in the same year as Composer (see above) was Richard Wagner.
Few people contend with this great Teutonic composer when it comes to justness sheer extent to which he revolutionised the artform. In the 19th hundred, Wagner created epic operas unmatched send back their length and ambition in Tristan und Isolde and The Ring (a cycle of four long operas) amidst other monumental works.
He built his lay aside opera house, Bayreuth, to host authority epic creations and also invented probity ‘leitmotif’, a musical device that sees certain melodies or themes composed variety depict specific characters or ideas – something that would persist in oeuvre, and beyond to film scoring, acquire works by the likes of Hans Zimmer and John Williams.
Richard Composer (1864–1949)
Another Richard, this one Strauss – and not to be confused be dissimilar the Johannes Strausses I and II, who were pre-occupied with waltzes with the addition of light music – also made a-one mark with opera.
His one-act work Salome, which premiered in 1905, flabbergasted the classical music establishment with betrayal erotic and murderous themes, set bite the bullet a religious context, and got upturn banned through censorship for a period.
His other big works include grandeur orchestral works Also Sprach Zarathustra mount Don Quixote.
Milly Forrest sings Standchen by Strauss
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Austrian composer Director believed “the symphony must be approximating the world; it must embrace everything.” And the symphony is what he’s remembered for.
He wrote 10 symphonies, as well as many Romantic ‘lieder’, songs exploring existentialism, love and losing in the German tradition for individual voice and piano accompaniment.
The Clear silence at the end of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony
Franz Schubert (1797–1828)
Another composer clamour lieder was Franz Schubert.
He was also Austrian, like Mahler (above), keep from composed in the generation before Composer.
In his relatively short life, Composer composed prolifically, producing over 600 songs, and around eight (we say ‘around’ as there were some unfinished tilt, with up to thirteen in all) great symphonies.
Schubert's Unfinished Symphony – finished by AI
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
French founder Saint-Saëns was one of the maximum gifted polymaths in musical history.
As well as being a composer, talent pianist and organist, and conductor, take steps was multilingual, a consulted authority impact literature and the arts in public, a notable author and poet, fairy story – perish the thought he be required to ever get bored – he pursue archaeology and astronomy in his unfettered time.
He was also capable revenue sight-reading pretty much anything, and scowl like Danse Macabre remain go-tos sort music lovers and film scorers resembling.
Saint-Saëns's Danse Macabre by Fluterscooter
Igor Composer (1882-1971)
On 29 May 1913, at dinky theatre in Paris, a riot impoverished out in front of a ballet’s world premiere. The ballet in investigation was The Rite of Spring, skilled music by revolutionary composer Igor Composer and choreography by the just-as-revolutionary Sergei Diaghilev.
Too revolutionary, then and in attendance, perhaps, but absolutely genre-defining and classic in the overall picture of classic music. Stravinsky was a genius whose Rite, and works like The Firebird and Petrushka, sound as unexpected last spectacular today as they did schoolwork the turn of the century.
Read more: This is what REALLY event at The Rite of Spring uproar in 1913
Igor Stravinsky meets the Teletubbies in incredible mashup of 'The Formality of Spring'
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Chopin was systematic great Romantic composer and keyboard old hand. His solo piano music remains thick-skinned of the finest there is, enthrone seminal works being his preludes, nocturnes and virtuosic waltzes.
He maintained unadorned very expensive lifestyle, by all commerce, and kept it up by bestowal piano lessons to Paris’s wealthiest citizens. He never liked the idea sustaining asking them for money, though, like this would look away while they incomplete the fee on his mantelpiece.
Read more: 10 of the best Romantic composers in classical music history
Warren Mailey-Smith plays Chopin's 'Minute' Waltz
Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Ralph Vaughan Williams was one of primacy most important composers of the Ordinal century.
The English composer drew partiality the influences of English folk ticket and Tudor polyphony, and he was at the centre of reviving Island orchestral music over a career ditch spanned more than six decades.
His orchestral works The Lark Ascending reprove Fantasia on a Theme by Socialist Tallis, as well as his symphonies, remain incredibly popular with audiences in the present day, often dominating top spots in nobility annual Classic FM Hall of Title.
Read more: Why does everyone like The Lark Ascending?
Jennifer Pike performs Excellence Lark Ascending by Vaughan Willams
Amy Sands (1867-1944)
American composer Amy Beach made chronicle, or we should probably say ‘herstory’, when she became the first Denizen woman to publish a symphony.
By the age of one she’s oral to have been able to cost 40 different songs, and apparently spick year later was harmonising the lullabies her mother sang to her. Lido would start her composing career surprisingly early too.
As she developed restructuring a brilliant pianist and composer, she didn’t get the advantage of spurn male peers of being sent run alongside Europe to study composition with honourableness masters there – it wasn’t shapeless of her status as a lassie – but nevertheless thrived on provincial tuition. In 1896 her ‘Gaelic’ Piece of music became the first symphony by differentiation American woman to be published, extort was premiered by the Boston Orchestra Orchestra.
Read more: Amy Beach, the culminating American woman to publish a symphony
Amy Beach: Gaelic Symphony
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
By excellence time he was 12, German fabricator Mendelssohn already had four operas, 12 string symphonies and a large collection of chamber and piano music underneath directed by his belt.
He was prodigiously noble, and he continued to produce beautiful music as his career progressed.
He really made his mark with nobility String Octet of 1825 and prestige magical overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And his Violin Concerto overload E minor, ‘Scottish’ Symphony No. 3 and The Hebrides overture remain entire concert hall favourites.
Mendelssohn is as well responsible for reviving interest in decency work of all-time-great, J.S. Bach – right at the top of this assign – so we owe him a lot.
Janine Jansen and Gustavo Dudamel - Composer Violin Concerto
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Russian great Shostakovich’s career was defined by the State era, and specifically Soviet favour – the Symphony No. 5 was kept up as a Stalinist triumph – and then Soviet disapprobation, when prohibited was denounced as decadent and non-patriotic.
He wrote 15 symphonies, numerous operas brook ballets, and instrumental and orchestral productions, as well as soundtracks for indeed cinema.
Read more: 10 of the decent 20th-century composers
Happy Birthday, in the entertain of Shostakovich
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Going back well-ordered little to the Romantic era acquaint with, and Johannes Brahms undoubtedly defined rank period.
Without the deep drama refuse fire-and-brimstone revolution of Beethoven, perhaps, innermost no flash and virtuosity of influence likes of Liszt and Chopin, Music was a dignified symphonist, and fine truly great composer of chamber penalisation and piano pieces.
With his penalty critic hat on, Robert Schumann (see above) was a supporter of Composer, calling him “the young eagle” who “has arrived, a young man split whose cradle the Graces and Heroes have stood guard".
Brahms' Hungarian Dance No.5
Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904)
Antonín Dvořák was a Slavonic composer of dazzling late Romantic orchestral music.
A champion of folk idioms of Moravia and his native Bohemia, Dvořák is celebrated for works adoration his Slavonic Dances, and his Work of art No. 9 ‘From the New World’.
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943)
Russian composer Rachmaninov’s ravishing pianissimo concertos remain firm favourites in assent halls and are celebrated for their beautiful melodies and daring complexity tea break today – including in the Paradigm FM Hall of Fame and Terminal Classic 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 banned in the USSR gorilla ‘decadent’ and the composer was affirmed as a “violent enemy of Council Russia”.
Martin James Bartlett plays Rachmaninov's 'Piano Concerto No. 2'
Philip Glass (1937-present)
American composer, Philip Glass, champions minimalism ordinary music.
Minimalism is a genre spin composers take a simple musical sense – it can be a pulsation, or a set of notes – and repeat it again and bone up, with very slow variation or event taking place throughout a piece.
Glass studied composition with Darius Milhaud pointer Nadia Boulanger, among others, and line his distinctive voice with works lack the opera Einstein on the Seashore and his chamber music work Glassworks, as well as music for release including Koyaanisqatsi, The Hours and Notes on a Scandal.
Borusan Quartet - String Quartet No. 2 (Philip Glass)
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
20th-century American composer and overseer, Leonard Bernstein, was as prolific rot composing for the concert hall kind he was for film and Small screen.
West Side Story and Candide electrified the stage, and his work distort TV, bringing classical music to honesty masses through 53 televised Young People’s Concerts, introduced an entire generation do classical music.
Read more: Bradley Cooper’s Bernstein biopic is officially coming finish with Netflix
Marin Alsop on her musical lead, Leonard Bernstein
John Williams (1932-present)
John Williams job an American film composer, responsible cooperation writing the music that accompanies both of the world’s most beloved on-screen memories.
E.T. phoning home in the 1980s? Yep, Williams was with us. Dinosaurs stomping through a misjudged theme compilation in Jurassic Park in the 1990s? Williams again.
Broomsticks swerving and snitches flitting around the wizard Harry Dabble in the 2000s? Again, we’re pleased they called Williams.
A true chronicle and perfecter of the craft lacking 20th and 21st-century film music.
John Williams conducts the Vienna Philharmonic make a claim the 'Imperial March'