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Jul 13, 2023 · 30 of the greatest classical music composers of all time. 13 July 2023, 12:14. Best classical composers of all time: Hildegard von Bingen, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Edward Elgar. Picture: PA / Getty.
- Overview
- Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
- Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91)
- Johannes Brahms (1833–97)
- Richard Wagner (1813–83)
- Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–93)
- Frédéric Chopin (1810–49)
- Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
They differed in style, skill, innovation, and popularity, and nothing incites more heated debate among classical music scholars and fans than determining which of these composers of Western classical music are the most essential. The three composers that consistently appear in the top spots are Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart. Scholars and fans vary o...
The German composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven is widely regarded as the greatest composer who ever lived. He expanded the Classical traditions of Joseph Haydn, one of his teachers, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and experimented with personal expression, a characteristic that influenced the Romantic composers who succeeded him. His life and car...
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organist of the Baroque period. His contemporaries admired him for his talent as a musician but thought his compositions were old-fashioned. A rediscovery of his work in the early 19th century led to the so-called Bach revival, in which he came to be seen as one of the greatest composers of all time. ...
An Austrian composer of the Classical period, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is widely recognized as one of the greatest composers of Western music. He is the only composer to write and excel in all of the musical genres of his time. Rumored to have had the ability to play music at age three and to write music at age five, Mozart began his career as a chi...
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist of the Romantic period, but he was more a disciple of the Classical tradition. He wrote in many genres, including symphonies, concerti, chamber music, piano works, and choral compositions, many of which reveal the influence of folk music. Some of his best-known works include Symphony No. 3 in F Majo...
The German composer and theorist Richard Wagner extended the opera tradition and revolutionized Western music. His dramatic compositions are particularly known for the use of leitmotifs, brief musical motifs for a character, place, or event, which he skillfully transformed throughout a piece. Among his major works are the operas The Flying Dutchman...
The French composer Claude Debussy is often regarded as the father of modern classical music. Debussy developed new and complex harmonies and musical structures that evoke comparisons to the art of his contemporary Impressionist and Symbolist painters and writers. His major works include Clair de lune, La Mer, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, an...
Writing music with broad emotional appeal during the Romantic period, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky became one of the most popular Russian composers of all time. He was schooled in the western European tradition and assimilated elements from French, Italian, and German music with a personal and Russian style. Some of his best-known works were composed f...
Frédéric Chopin was a Polish French composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was one of few composers to devote himself to a single instrument, and his sensitive approach to the keyboard allowed him to exploit all the resources of the piano, including innovations in fingering and pedaling. He is thus primarily known for writing music for the...
The Austrian composer Joseph Haydn was one of the most important figures in the development of the Classical style of music during the 18th century. He helped establish the forms and styles for the string quartet and symphony. Haydn was a prolific composer, and some of his most well-known works are Symphony No. 92 in G Major, Emperor Quartet, and C...
- 2 min
- Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) Music poured out of Bach, all for the greater glory of God and, in Bach’s words, “the refreshment of the soul.” Organ music, church cantatas and incidental music for his employers were his daily bread.
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791) Forget all that stuff about taking dictation from God. Mozart was always working, teaching himself to be a better composer and trying to be more than just a maker of music.
- Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) It’s not just the tunes, the blazing triumphs, the thundering highlights or the contemplative hymns and the rhapsodies.
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893) The beau idéal of the Romantic composer, Tchaikovsky, put Russian music on the European map. A devotion to Mozart, Bellini and Donizetti reflects his own endless melodic gifts, which he yoked to a brilliant orchestral sense, plus his own very intense emotionality.
Discover the 50 greatest classical composers of all time - do you agree with our choices? Meet the great composers with BBC Music Magazine
21st century. (since 2000) v. t. e. This is a list of composers of the Classical music era, roughly from 1730 to 1820. Prominent classicist composers [1] [2] [3] include Christoph Willibald Gluck, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Stamitz, Joseph Haydn, Johann Christian Bach, Antonio Salieri, Muzio Clementi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Luigi ...
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4. Joseph Haydn. Often called the Father of the Symphony, Joseph Haydn was one of the most prolific and influential composers of the classical era. Born in Austria in 1732, Haydn showed an early aptitude for music and was given rigorous training by his uncle, a professional musician.
