The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. The motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted. – William Shakespeare
Johann Sebastian Bach
The greatest representative of a wonderful family of musicians, who were prominent in Germany for over two hundred years. Bach not only had a long line of musical ancestors himself but he is also said »»
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
One of the greatest composers the world has yet known; born at Salzburg, in 1756. His father, Leopold Mozart, was a man of fine education and profound religious feeling and a thorough musician. »»
Ludwig van Beethoven
Beethoven, born in the year 1770, came into the world in the beginning of a new era, a period of change and overthrow. During his boyhood, America established her freedom, in his manhood... »»
Robert Schumann
One of the few really great musicians; born June 8, 1810, at Zwickau, Saxony; the youngest of five children. His parents were not musical, nor, so far as has been discovered, were any of his ancestors. »»
Georg Friedrich Händel
One of the world's most gifted musicians, who was born at Halle of a family which possessed no musical talent. His father, a surgeon-barber attached to the ducal court of Saxony at Weissenfels... »»
Joseph Haydn
Haydn was first among the great masters to make himself intelligible to the masses. He was the father of the sonata form and of the modern symphony, in fact the father of modern instrumental music and... »»
Franz Schubert
Famous German lyric composer, who is known as the greatest songwriter that ever lived, of whom Beethoven said: "Truly Schubert has a spark of the divine fire." Schubert was born at Lichtenthal... »»
Johannes Brahms
When Johannes Brahms died, in 1897, there passed the last of the great masters in German music, and one of their greatest. Johannes Brahms came of the people. As Josef Wiess says... »»
More Great Composers
Thomas Arne • Tomasso Albinoni • Georges Bizet • Luigi Boccherini • Max Bruch • Anton Bruckner • Dietrich Buxtehude • Hector Berlioz • Vicenzo Bellini • Wilhelm Friedmann Bach • Karl Philipp Emanuel Bach • Johann Christoph Bach • Ernest Chausson • Luigi Cherubini • Frederic Chopin • Domenico Cimarosa • Muzio Clementi • Archangelo Corelli • François Couperin • Claude Debussy • François Devienne • Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf • Antonin Dvorak • Edward Elgar • Gabriel Fauré • César Franck • Girolamo Frescobaldi • Baldassare Galuppi • Francesco Geminiani • Christoph Wilibald Gluck • Charles Gounod • Edvard Grieg • Franz Liszt • Jean Baptiste Lully • Gustav Mahler • Felix Mendelssohn- Bartholdy • Modeste Moussorgsky • Niccolo Paganini • Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina • Giovanni Battista Pergolesi • Giacomo Puccini • Henry Purcell • Jean Philippe Rameau • Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov • Gioachino Rossini • Camille Saint-Saëns • Alessandro Scarlatti • Domenico Scarlatti • Jan Sibelius • Georg Philipp Telemann • Pyotr Ilyich Tschaikowsky • Giuseppe Verdi • Antonio Vivaldi • Richard Wagner • Carl Maria von Weber