- Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 1813 - 13 February 1883) was a German composer, conductor, music theorist, and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or "music dramas" as they were later called). Unlike most other great opera composers, Wagner always wrote the scenario and libretto for his works himself. Wagner's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their contrapuntal texture, rich chromaticism, harmonies and orchestration, … - Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including "La bohème", "Tosca", and "Madama Butterfly", are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire. Some of his melodies, such as "O mio babbino caro" from "Gianni Schicchi" and "Nessun dorma" from "Turandot", have become part of modern culture. - Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of Italian opera in the 19th century and went well beyond the work of Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini. His works are frequently performed in opera houses throughout the world and, transcending the boundaries of the genre, … - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptized Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. His output of over 600 compositions includes works widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Mozart is among the most enduringly popular of European composers and many of his works are part of the standard concert repertoire. - Domenico Scarlatti
Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti (October 26, 1685 - July 23, 1757) was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in Spain and Portugal. He was extremely influential in the development of the Classical period in music through his individual style, though he lived mostly during the Baroque era. - Franz Schubert
Franz Seraphicus Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. He wrote some 600 Lieder, seven completed symphonies, the famous "Unfinished Symphony", liturgical music, operas, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music. He is particularly noted for his original melodic and harmonic writing. While Schubert had a close circle of friends and associates who admired his work (including his teacher Antonio Salieri, and the prominent singer Johann Michael Vogl), … - Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, nicknamed "Il Prete Rosso" ("The Red Priest"), was an Italian priest and baroque music composer, as well as a famous violinist; he was born and raised in the Republic of Venice. "The Four Seasons", a series of four violin concertos, are his best known works and highly popular Baroque music pieces. - Claude Debussy
Achille-Claude Debussy (August 22, 1862 - March 25, 1918) was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel he is considered the most prominent figure working within the style commonly referred to as Impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions. Debussy was not only among the most important of all French composers but also a central figure in all European music at the turn of the twentieth century. - Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian composer, considered by many in both the West and his native land to be the most influential composer of 20th century music. He was a quintessentially cosmopolitan Russian who was named by "Time" magazine as one of the most influential people of the century. In addition to the recognition he received for his compositions, he also achieved fame as a pianist and a conductor, often at the premieres of his works. - Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi (May 15, 1567 (baptized) - November 29, 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer. His work marks the transition from Renaissance to Baroque music, and during his long life he produced works that can be classified in both categories. Monteverdi has been regarded as a revolutionary who brought about change in musical style. He wrote one of the earliest operas, "Orfeo", … - Hector Berlioz
Louis Hector Berlioz (December 11, 1803 - March 8, 1869) was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions "Symphonie Fantastique" (first performed in 1830) and "Grande Messe des Morts (Requiem)." Berlioz made great contributions to the modern orchestra with his "Treatise on Instrumentation" and by utilizing huge orchestral forces for his works, sometimes calling for over 1000 performers. - John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 - August 12, 1992) was an American composer. He is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition "4'33", whose three movements are performed without a single note being played. He was a pioneer of chance music, non-standard use of musical instruments, and electronic music. Though he remains a controversial figure, he is generally regarded as one of the most important composers of his era. - Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg, Russia on September 25, 1906. Years after his death, he remains one of the most important figures in 20th-century classical music and one of the most controversial. Under pressure from Soviet authorities, he compromised his art. At least that was how it seemed. (09/25/2006) - Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer, pianist and collector of Eastern European and Middle Eastern folk music. He is considered one of the greatest composers of the 20th century and was also one of the founders of the field of ethnomusicology, the study and ethnography of folk music. - Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss (June 11, 1864 - September 8, 1949) was a German composer of the late Romantic era and early modern era, particularly noted for his tone poems and operas. He was also a noted conductor. - Philip Glass
Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an Academy Award-nominated American composer. His music is frequently described as "minimalist", though he prefers the term "theater music". He is considered one of the most influential composers of the late-20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public (apart from precursors such as Kurt Weill and Leonard Bernstein), … - Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh, OM CH (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was a British composer, conductor, and pianist. - Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (November 29, 1797 - April 8, 1848) was an Italian opera composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. Donizetti's most famous work is "Lucia di Lammermoor" (1835). Along with Vincenzo Bellini and Gioacchino Rossini, he was a leading composer of "bel canto" opera. - Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-born American composer and librettist who wrote the classic Christmas opera "Amahl and the Night Visitors" among about two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular taste. He won the Pulitzer Prize for two of them, "The Consul" (1950) and "The Saint of Bleecker Street" (1955). He founded the noted "Festival dei due mondi" (Festival of the Two Worlds) in 1958 and its American counterpart, … - Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (November 3, 1801 - September 23, 1835) was a Sicilian opera composer. Known for his flowing melodic lines, Bellini was the quintessential composer of Bel canto opera. - Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein (August 25 1918 – October 14 1990) was an American conductor, composer, and pianist. He was the first conductor born in the United States of America to receive world-wide acclaim, and is known for both his conducting of the New York Philharmonic, including the acclaimed "Young People's Concerts" series, and his multiple compositions, including "West Side Story", … - Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (February 29, 1792 - November 13, 1868) was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music and chamber music. His best known works include "Il barbiere di Siviglia" ("The Barber of Seville") and "Guillaume Tell" ("William Tell"). - Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau (September 25, 1683 - September 12, 1764) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera, and was attacked by those who preferred Lully's style. - Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste de Lully, originally Giovanni Battista di Lulli (November 28, 1632 - March 22, 1687), was a French composer of Italian birth, who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He became a French subject in 1661. - Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg (February 9, 1885 - December 24, 1935) was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School along with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, producing works that combined Mahlerian romanticism with a highly personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique. - Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet was a French composer and pianist of the romantic era. He is best known for his opera "Carmen". - Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell (September 10 (?),, 1659–November 21, 1695), a Baroque composer, is generally considered to be one of England's greatest composers. He has often been called England's finest native composer. Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements but devised a peculiarly English style of Baroque music. - Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti (May 2, 1660 - October 24, 1725) was a Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti. - Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni (December 7, 1863 - August 2, 1945) was an Italian composer, most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece, "Cavalleria rusticana", caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and singlehandedly ushered in the "Verismo" movement in Italian dramatic music. However, though it has been stated that Mascagni, like Leoncavallo, was a "one-opera man" who could never repeat his first success, this is inaccurate. - Samuel Barber
Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of classical music ranging from orchestral, to opera, choral, and piano music. His "Adagio for Strings" became his most famous composition and can be heard in films such as "Sicko", "Platoon", "The Elephant Man", "El Norte", "Amélie", "Lorenzo's Oil" and "Reconstruction". - George Gershwin
George Gershwin (September 26, 1898 - July 11, 1937) was an American composer. He wrote most of his vocal and theatrical works in collaboration with his elder brother, lyricist Ira Gershwin. George Gershwin composed both for Broadway and for the classical concert hall. He also wrote popular songs with success. Many of his compositions have been used on television and in numerous films, and many became jazz standards. - Jules Massenet
Jules (Émile Frédéric) Massenet was a French composer. He is best known for his operas, which were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th century; they afterwards fell into oblivion for the most part, but have undergone periodic revivals since the mid-1970's. - Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, best known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas "Faust" and "Roméo et Juliette". - Steve Reich
Stephen Michael Reich (born October 3, 1936) is an American composer. He is a pioneer of minimalism, although his music has increasingly deviated from a purely minimalist style. Reich's innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns (examples are his early compositions, "It's Gonna Rain" and "Come Out"), and the use of processes to create and explore musical concepts (for instance, "Pendulum Music" and "Four Organs"). - Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875 - December 28, 1937) was a French composer and pianist of the impressionistic period, known especially for the subtlety, richness and poignancy of his music. His piano, chamber music and orchestral works have become staples of the concert repertoire. Ravel's piano compositions, such as "Jeux d'eau", "Miroirs" and "Gaspard de la Nuit", demand considerable virtuosity from the performer, and his orchestral music, … - Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd (born 1926 in Latta, South Carolina) is an American opera composer. Many of his works are based on themes from the South. His opera "Susannah" (1955), composed when he was on the piano faculty at Florida State University, is considered to be his masterpiece and it continues to be regularly performed in the United States. Aside from his theatre works, he composed a "solo cantata on biblical texts," "Pilgrimage", … - Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri (August 18, 1750 - May 7, 1825), born in Legnago, Italy, was a composer and conductor. As the Austrian imperial "Kapellmeister" from 1788 to 1824, he was one of the most important and famous musicians of his time. - Amilcare Ponchielli
Amilcare Ponchielli (August 31, 1834 - January 17, 1886) was an Italian composer, largely of operas. Born in Paderno Fasolaro, now Paderno Ponchielli, near Cremona, Ponchielli won a scholarship at the age of nine to study music at the Milan Conservatory, writing his first symphony by the time he was ten years old. - Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev born in Sontsovka, Ukraine of the Russian Empire on April 27 (April 15<small><sup>1<;/sup></small> O.S.), 1891-March 5, 1953 was a Russian and Soviet composer who mastered numerous musical genres and came to be admired as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. (Alternative transliterations of his name include Sergey or Serge, and Prokofief, Prokofieff, … - Arrigo Boito
Arrigo Boito (February 24, 1842 - June 10, 1918) was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist and composer, best known today for his opera libretti and his own opera, "Mefistofele".
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