95 articles
Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janáček (1854–1928), Czech composer born in Hukvaldy and based in Brno; creator of nine operas including Jenůfa, Káťa Kabanová, and the Sinfonietta, known for speech-melody notation and the Brno organ school.
List of Classical-era composers
List of Classical-era composers: musicians of the Classical period (c. 1750–1820), led by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, with contemporaries such as Boccherini, Clementi, Salieri, Gluck, C.P.E. Bach, and period-boundary and classification notes.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), German composer and pianist of Bonn and Vienna, links Classical and Romantic eras; nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas, Fidelio, and late deaf works set him apart.
Makar Yekmalyan
Makar Yekmalyan (Մակար Եկմալյան, 1856–1905) was an Armenian composer, choral conductor, and teacher. His polyphonic Divine Liturgy, officially adopted in 1895, is still the most performed setting in Armenian churches.
Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel, born Joseph Maurice Ravel, was a French composer (1875–1937) known for Boléro, Daphnis et Chloé, and Gaspard de la nuit, ranked with Debussy among leading French composers.
Mauro Giuliani
Mauro Giuliani (1781–1829), Italian guitar virtuoso, cellist, and composer based in Vienna 1806–1819; premiered his Guitar Concerto Op. 30 in 1808, served Empress Marie Louise, wrote Le Rossiniane Opp. 119–124, and shaped modern guitar notation.
Maxim Berezovsky
Maxim Berezovsky (Максим Березовський) was a Ukrainian composer and opera singer, born in 1745, known for the sacred concerto "Do Not Forsake Me in My Old Age".
Michał Kleofas Ogiński
Michał Kleofas Ogiński (Mykolas Kleopas Oginskis, 1765–1833) was a Polish-Lithuanian composer, violinist, and statesman who served as Grand Treasurer of Lithuania and joined the Kościuszko Uprising of 1794.
Modest Mussorgsky (Модест Петрович Мусоргский)
Modest Mussorgsky (Модест Петрович Мусоргский) was a Russian composer, member of the nationalist group The Five, known for Boris Godunov, Pictures at an Exhibition, and Night on Bald Mountain.
Mozart and scatology
Mozart and scatology: the composer's ribald letters (notably the Bäsle letters, 1777–1781) and bawdy canons such as Leck mich im Arsch; scatology appeared in 10.5% of his letters, was family-typical and era-common, and modern scholarship rejects the debauchery and Tourette narratives.
Mykhailo Verbytsky
Mykhailo Verbytsky (Михайло Вербицький, 1815–1870) was a Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest and composer in Galicia, best known for composing the music of the Ukrainian national anthem in 1862–63.
Mykola Leontovych
Mykola Leontovych (Микола Леонтович, 1877–1921) was a Ukrainian composer and choral conductor best known for "Shchedryk," the choral work that became "Carol of the Bells." He was shot by a Cheka agent in 1921.
Mykola Lysenko
Mykola Lysenko (Микола Лисенко) was a Ukrainian composer and ethnomusicologist who founded the modern Ukrainian national school of music, writing operas like Taras Bulba in Kyiv.
Nicolas Gautherot
Nicolas Gautherot (1753–1803) was a French composer and amateur chemist whose 1801 observation of secondary currents gave rechargeable batteries their name, and who first observed electrophoresis.
Nikoghayos Tigranyan
Nikoghayos Tigranyan (Նիկողայոս Տիգրանյան) was an Armenian composer and pianist, born in 1856 and blind from childhood, who first arranged the folk songs and mughams of Transcaucasia in European notation.
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Николай Андреевич Римский-Корсаков)
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Николай Андреевич Римский-Корсаков, 1844–1908), Russian composer, Mighty Five member, professor at the St Petersburg Conservatory 1871–1908, author of Scheherazade, Sadko, and Principles of Orchestration.
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni (1863–1945), Italian verismo opera composer and conductor from Livorno; won the Sonzogno competition with Cavalleria rusticana (1890), later wrote Iris, Isabeau, and Il Piccolo Marat.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Пётр Ильич Чайковский), 1840–1893, Russian composer of Swan Lake, Eugene Onegin, and the Pathétique Symphony; conservatory-trained, Moscow professor, von Meck patronage, not one of the Mighty Handful.
Reynaldo Hahn
Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947), Venezuelan-born French composer, conductor, singer, and critic of the Belle Époque; friend of Proust; known for about 125 mélodies, Ciboulette, and directing the Opéra de Paris in 1945.
Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss (1864–1949), German composer and conductor, unrelated to the Strauss waltz family; famed for tone poems like Also sprach Zarathustra, operas Salome, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier with Hofmannsthal, and late works Metamorphosen and the Four Last Songs.
Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner (1813–1883), German composer of music dramas including the Ring cycle and Tristan und Isolde; built the Bayreuth Festspielhaus; his antisemitic writings and Nazi-era reception remain central to his contested legacy.
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann was a German Romantic composer and music critic known for piano cycles, art songs, four symphonies, and founding the journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1834.
Ruggero Leoncavallo
Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857-1919), Italian verismo opera composer, librettist, and pianist from Naples, wrote Pagliacci (1892), paired with Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana; also Zazà, La Bohème, operettas, and the song Mattinata for Caruso.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912), Anglo-African British composer, student of Stanford, famed for Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, Pan-African Conference delegate, three US tours, died at 37.
Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin (c. 1868–1917) was an American composer and pianist known as the "King of Ragtime," who wrote "Maple Leaf Rag" and "The Entertainer" and won a posthumous 1976 Pulitzer Prize.
Sergei Rachmaninoff (Сергей Васильевич Рахманинов)
Sergei Rachmaninoff (Сергей Васильевич Рахманинов, 1873–1943), Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor; composer of four piano concertos, three symphonies, Aleko, and the Symphonic Dances, who left Russia in 1917 and died in Beverly Hills.
Siegfried Wagner
Siegfried Helferich Richard Wagner (1869-1930), only son of Richard and Cosima Wagner, directed the Bayreuth Festival 1908-1930 and wrote 17 operas including Der Barenhauter, his own libretti throughout.
Stanyslav Lyudkevych
Stanyslav Lyudkevych (Станіслав Людкевич, 1879–1979) was a Ukrainian composer, musicologist, and teacher who lived a hundred years and was known for the cantata-symphony Kavkaz and the opera Dovbush.
Tigran Chukhajian
Tigran Chukhajian, also rendered Dikran Tchouhadjian or Çuhacıyan, was an Armenian composer and conductor who wrote the first Armenian opera, Arshak II (1868), and founded the Armenian musical theater.
Tsvetan Radoslavov
Tsvetan Radoslavov (Цветан Радославов) was a Bulgarian psychologist, teacher, and composer who wrote the 1885 patriotic song that became the basis of Bulgaria's national anthem, Mila Rodino.