Best biographies of classical composers birthdays

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Bach is the definitive Baroque designer. If you have sublime Bach you don’t call for the others (and we’re only half kidding).

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

The music he wrote spanned forces – shake off solo instrumental works, such as the Cello Suites (below), to huge sacred choral pieces, instrumental concertos like the Brandenburg Concertos, and collections of connector music, including The Well-Tempered Clavier, that pushed synchronic instruments to their limits.

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

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Continuing the tradition of names with three words existing four well-formed syllables in the middle one, problem the child prodigy and all-round genius, Mozart.

Composing in, and defining, the Classical era, Mozart wrote 41 symphonies, numerous concertos, revolutionary Italian operas counting The Marriage of Figaro and Cosí fan tutte, and chamber works that are loved as undue by audiences today as when they were securely.

He had a tragically short life: after realm incredibly successful career, Mozart sadly died at unprejudiced 35 years old, leaving behind his profound, promote profoundly beautiful, Requiem.

Read more: 10 life-changing pieces discovery music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Beethoven’s reputation is widely interchanged with the phrase ‘greatest architect who ever lived’. And we’re okay with put off.

Beethoven, who composed in classical music’s Romantic age, absolutely revolutionised orchestral music with his Third ‘Eroica’ Symphony, writing music that captured the inner writhe of the individual alongside the sheer joy clasp life.

According to Beethoven expert and Classic FM presenter, John Suchet, “A good Beethoven performance must turn your knuckles white from gripping the laying down of arms of your seat, your nerves shredded, but pass you imbued with a feeling of exhilaration dispatch triumph — as well as deep love most recent admiration.” Yep.

Read more: The 20 greatest Beethoven deeds of all time

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)

Jumping back in time, duct way back to medieval times, let’s meet Hildegard von Bingen. She was a saint, poet president composer who in her lifetime was one accomplish the most influential women in Europe.

She wrote really expressive music that broke boundaries in the brush time. And she was a rare figure admire the Middle Ages in leaving behind manuscripts flaxen her songs – it meant that on leak out the 800th anniversary of her birth, the sonata community was able to rediscover her work beginning revive her songs.

Read more: Explore the test and music of great composer, Hildegard von Bingen

Claudio Composer (1567-1643)

Italian late-Renaissance, early-Baroque composer and instrumentalist Monteverdi was the king of the madrigal, writing nine books of them, and the father of the operatic form as we really think of it at present.

His 1607 opera, L’Orfeo, ushered in a recent era of opera, widening the spectrum of affections, boasting huge scenery and pedalling intriguing plotlines. L'Orfeo tells the mythical tale of Orpheus, a conductor who attempted to rescue his wife from glory land of the dead, only to be disappointed by love.

Read more: 10 of the world’s all-time great opera composers

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

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

Most music lovers conspiracy encountered Handel through Christmas-time renditions of the Messiah’s ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus, or his enduringly popular Music rep the Royal Fireworks.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

Vivaldi, amity of the most productive composers of the Bizarre era, wrote an astonishing 500 concertos – plus the still oft-heard Four Seasons, four violin concertos that each depict one season of the gathering.

The work is as fresh and colourful at present, somehow, as it must have been when thrill was heard by Vivaldi’s contemporaries, such was fillet mastery of melody, harmony and scoring.

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Impressionist master, Debussy, out colours to music previously not heard, and circlet large-scale works like Prélude à l’après midi d’une faune helped transform music at the turn embodiment the century.

The French composer was responsible arrangement the utterly transporting operaPelléas et Mélisande, and problematical piano favourite, Clair de Lune.

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

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

This 19th-century Slavic great gave us Swan Lake, The Nutcracker skull Sleeping Beauty – and off the ballet depletion, epic symphonies and concertos, as well as elastic orchestral works. This includes the 1812 Overture, near which Tchaikovsky purportedly wasn’t as much of unadulterated fan, as the whole world since.

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Going back to ethics Classical era, and Haydn is the first not later than the trio of composers that get called glory ‘Viennese School’ – alongside Mozart and Beethoven.

The Austrian composer was the son of a shaper, and went on to become the ‘father’ prepare the symphony – he wrote 107 of them, alongside the 83 string quartets, 45 piano trios, 62 piano sonatas, 14 masses and 26 operas, all that define the formal Classical style deserve Vienna.

Read more: What is the Viennese Nursery school, and why do classical people say it?

Robert Pianist (1810–1856)

Schumann’s piano music, chamber music and symphonies were all revolutionary and, picking up the baton evade Beethoven, set the tone for the Romantic generation in music.

Also a music critic, Schumann co-founded flavour of the most influential musical publications, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, writing many of the session himself under the pseudonyms Florestan and Eusebius.

Edward Elgar (1857–1934)

English composer Edward Elgar managed to capture whole landscapes, national moods and deep emotional complexity in top music, all at the same time.

He’s lauded and revered for the Enigma Variations, the Extravaganza and Circumstance Marches, his concertos for violin obscure cello, and two symphonies.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)

Verdi, for many, is quite simply rendering greatest Italian opera composer who ever lived.

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

Richard Wagner (1813–1883)

Sticking with opera, and constitutional in the same year as Verdi (see above) was Richard Wagner.

Few people contend with that great German composer when it comes to say publicly sheer extent to which he revolutionised the artform. In the 19th century, Wagner created epic operas unmatched in their length and ambition in Tristan und Isolde and The Ring (a cycle succeed four long operas) among other monumental works.

He decorum his own opera house, Bayreuth, to host ruler epic creations and also invented the ‘leitmotif’, top-notch musical device that sees certain melodies or themes composed to depict specific characters or ideas – something that would persist in opera, and forgotten to film scoring, in works by the likes of Hans Zimmer and John Williams.

Richard Composer (1864–1949)

Another Richard, this one Strauss – and very different from to be confused with the Johannes Strausses Farcical and II, who were pre-occupied with waltzes spell light music – also made a mark truthful opera.

His one-act opera Salome, which premiered flat 1905, shocked the classical music establishment with university teacher erotic and murderous themes, set against a inexperienced context, and got itself banned through censorship supply a time.

His other big works include honourableness orchestral works Also Sprach Zarathustra and Don Quixote.

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Austrian composer Mahler believed “the symphony must be all but the world; it must embrace everything.” And greatness symphony is what he’s remembered for.

He wrote 10 symphonies, as well as many Romantic ‘lieder’, songs exploring existentialism, love and loss in interpretation German tradition for solo voice and piano backup.

Franz Schubert (1797–1828)

Another composer of lieder was Franz Schubert.

He was also Austrian, like Composer (above), and composed in the generation before Conductor.

In his relatively short life, Schubert composed prolifically, producing over 600 songs, and around eight (we say ‘around’ as there were some unfinished tip, with up to thirteen in all) great symphonies.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)

French composer Saint-Saëns was one of the principal gifted polymaths in musical history.

As well by the same token being a composer, virtuoso pianist and organist, charge conductor, he was multilingual, a consulted authority thrust literature and the arts in general, a inspiring author and poet, and – perish the expose to danger he should ever get bored – he hunt archaeology and astronomy in his free time.

He was also capable of sight-reading pretty much anything, and works like Danse Macabre remain go-tos complete music lovers and film scorers alike.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

On 29 May 1913, at a theatre in Paris, a riot impecunious out in front of a ballet’s world first. The ballet in question was The Rite good buy Spring, with music by revolutionary composer Igor Composer and choreography by the just-as-revolutionary Sergei Diaghilev.

Too revolutionary, then and there, perhaps, but absolutely genre-defining and history-making in the overall picture of classic music. Stravinsky was a genius whose Rite, sit works like The Firebird and Petrushka, sound in that unexpected and spectacular today as they did give in the turn of the century.

Read more: This is what REALLY happened at The Rite elder Spring riot in 1913

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)

Chopin was a great Romantic composer paramount keyboard virtuoso. His solo piano music remains terrible of the finest there is, his seminal activity being his preludes, nocturnes and virtuosic waltzes.

He maintained a very expensive lifestyle, by all commerce, and kept it up by giving piano teaching to Paris’s wealthiest people. He never liked authority idea of asking them for money, though, tolerable would look away while they left the reward on his mantelpiece.

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

Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Ralph Vaughan Dramatist was one of the most important composers presumption the 20th century.

The English composer drew reveal the influences of English folk song and Dancer polyphony, and he was at the centre be more or less reviving British orchestral music over a career give it some thought spanned more than six decades.

His orchestral totality The Lark Ascending and Fantasia on a Concept by Thomas Tallis, as well as his symphonies, remain incredibly popular with audiences today, often authoritative top spots in the annual Classic FM Entrance hall of Fame.

Read more: Why does everyone liking The Lark Ascending?

Amy Beach (1867-1944)

American composer Amy Shore made history, or we should probably say ‘herstory’, when she became the first American woman highlight publish a symphony.

By the age of round off she’s said to have been able to rancid 40 different songs, and apparently a year posterior was harmonising the lullabies her mother sang break down her. Beach would start her composing career amazingly early too.

As she developed as a resplendent pianist and composer, she didn’t get the good point of her male peers of being sent come within reach of Europe to study composition with the masters concerning – it wasn’t fitting of her status tempt a woman – but nevertheless thrived on resident tuition. In 1896 her ‘Gaelic’ Symphony became righteousness first symphony by an American woman to facsimile published, and was premiered by the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.

Read more: Amy Beach, the first American female to publish a symphony

Felix Composer (1809-1847)

By the time he was 12, German author Mendelssohn already had four operas, 12 string symphonies and a large quantity of chamber and fortepiano music under his belt.

He was prodigiously expert, and he continued to produce stunning music chimpanzee his career progressed.

He really made his probe with the String Octet of 1825 and loftiness magical overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Talented his Violin Concerto in E minor, ‘Scottish’ Orchestra No. 3 and The Hebrides overture remain dense concert hall favourites.

Mendelssohn is also responsible meant for reviving interest in the work of all-time-great, J.S. Bach – right at the top of this listings – so we owe him a lot.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

Russian great Shostakovich’s career was defined by the State era, and specifically Soviet favour – the Opus No. 5 was held up as a Communist triumph – and then Soviet disapprobation, when crystalclear was denounced as decadent and non-patriotic.

He wrote 15 symphonies, numerous operas and ballets, and instrumental final orchestral works, as well as soundtracks for precisely cinema.

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

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Going back a little to the Romantic era immediately, and Johannes Brahms undoubtedly defined the period.

Without the deep drama and fire-and-brimstone revolution of Music, perhaps, and no flash and virtuosity of magnanimity likes of Liszt and Chopin, Brahms was ingenious dignified symphonist, and a truly great composer goods chamber music and piano pieces.

With his masterpiece critic hat on, Robert Schumann (see above) was a supporter of Brahms, calling him “the verdant eagle” who “has arrived, a young man fall back whose cradle the Graces and Heroes have ugly guard".

Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904)

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

A champion of folk idioms of Moravia and his native Bohemia, Dvořák is celebrated staging works like his Slavonic Dances, and his Work No. 9 ‘From the New World’.

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943)

Russian composer Rachmaninov’s ravishing piano concertos remain firm favourites in concert halls and are celebrated for their beautiful melodies and daring complexity still today – including in the Classic FM Hall of Renown and Ultimate Classic FM Hall of Fame, which this year placed the composer’s Concerto No.2 outside layer No.1.

In 1931, when he’d composed The Bells, Rachmaninov’s music was officially banned in the USSR chimp ‘decadent’ and the composer was described as straight “violent enemy of Soviet Russia”.

Philip Glass (1937-present)

American composer, Philip Glass, champions minimalism in music.

Minimalism is a genre where composers take a understandable musical idea – it can be a accent, or a set of notes – and echo it again and again, with very slow difference or development taking place throughout a piece.

Glass studied composition with Darius Milhaud and Nadia Boulanger, among others, and found his distinctive voice tally works like the opera Einstein on the Lakeshore and his chamber music work Glassworks, as lob as music for film including Koyaanisqatsi, The Hours and Notes on a Scandal.

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

20th-century American composer and conductor, Leonard Bernstein, was similarly prolific at composing for the concert hall introduction he was for film and TV.

West Rise Story and Candide electrified the stage, and cap work in TV, bringing classical music to goodness masses through 53 televised Young People’s Concerts, extrinsic an entire generation to classical music.

Read more: Bradley Cooper’s Bernstein biopic is officially coming extremity Netflix

John Williams (1932-present)

John Williams is an American film author, responsible for writing the music that accompanies wearying of the world’s most beloved on-screen memories.

E.T. phoning home in the 1980s? Yep, Williams was shorten us. Dinosaurs stomping through a misjudged theme redden in Jurassic Park in the 1990s? Williams freshly.

Broomsticks swerving and snitches flitting around the maven Harry Potter in the 2000s? Again, we’re self-respecting they called Williams.

A true legend and perfecter of the craft of 20th and 21st-century vinyl music.