Lists of composers
Composers are people who write music.
There is a stronger distinction made between composers and performers in classical music than in other musical genres. In most popular music forms the term "songwriter" is used for people who write music and lyrics.
This page includes a list of composers sorted by genre. Other classifications can be found at:
Classical music
By Era:
- Hildegard of Bingen
- Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377)
- Guido of Arezzo (c.995-c.1050)
- Andrieu
- Gilles Binchois (c.1400-1460)
- Antoine Brumel (c.1475-c.1520)
- Ciconia
- Francesco Landini (1325-1397)
- Johannes Ockeghem (c.1430-c.1495)
- Philipe de Vitry (1291-1361)
- Oswald von Wolkenstein
- Martinus Fabri
- Perusio
- Martin Agricola (1466-1506)
- William Byrd (1543-1623)
- John Dowland (1563-1626)
- Guillaume Dufay (c.1400-1474)
- Andrea Gabrieli (c.1510-1586)
- Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612)
- Carlo Gesualdo
- Orlando Gibbons
- Heinrich Isaac (c.1450-1517)
- Josquin Des Prez (c.1440-1521)
- Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
- Thomas Tallis
- John Taverner
- Karl Friedrich Abel
- Tomaso Albinoni
- Domenico Alberti
- Gregorio Allegri
- Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
- Johann Christian Bach
- Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
- Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
- Heinrich Ignaz Biber
- Dietrich Buxtehude
- Gustave Charpentier
- Marc-Antoine Charpentier
- Arcangelo Corelli
- François Couperin
- Girolamo Frescobaldi
- Baldassare Galuppi
- Francesco Geminiani
- Maurice Greene
- George Friderich Händel
- Richard Leveridge
- Jean Baptiste Lully
- Claudio Monteverdi
- Johann Pachelbel
- Henry Purcell
- Johann Joachim Quantz
- Jean Phillippe Rameau
- Alessandro Scarlatti
- Domenico Scarlatti
- Heinrich Schutz
- Antonio Soler
- Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
- Giuseppe Tartini
- Georg Philipp Telemann
- Antonio Vivaldi
- Luigo Boccherini
- Luigi Cherubini
- Domenico Cimarosa
- Franz Danzi
- Christoph Willibald Gluck
- Franz Joseph Haydn
- Joseph Martin Kraus
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Niccolò Paganini
- Antonio Salieri
- Fernando Sor (1778-1839)
- Louis Spohr
- Carl Maria von Weber
- Adolphe-Charles Adam
- Isaac Albéniz
- Daniel-François Auber
- Francis Edward Bache
- Michael William Balfe (1808 - 1870)
- Amy Beach
- Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
- Vincenzo Bellini
- Hector Berlioz
- Georges Bizet
- Arrigo Boito (1842-1918)
- Alexander Borodin
- Johannes Brahms
- Max Bruch
- Anton Bruckner
- Ferruccio Busoni
- Joseph Canteloube
- Ernest Chausson
- Whitefield Chadwick
- Frédéric Chopin
- Léo Delibes
- Gaetano Donizetti
- Paul Dukas
- Antonin Dvorák
- Gabriel Fauré
- César Franck
- Niels Wilhelm Gade
- Edward German
- Alexander Glazunov
- Reinhold Gliere
- Mikhail Glinka
- Karl Goldmark
- Louis Gottschalk
- Charles Gounod
- Edvard Grieg
- Johann Nepomuk Hummel
- Ruggiero Leoncavallo
- Franz Liszt
- Carl Loewe
- Fanny Mendelssohn
- Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
- Giacomo Meyerbeer
- Jacques Offenbach
- Giacomo Puccini
- Max Reger
- Ottorino Respighi
- Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
- Gioacchino Rossini
- Anton Rubinstein (1829 - 1894)
- Camille Saint Saens (1835-1921)
- Pablo Sarasate (1844-1908)
- Franz Schmidt (1874-1939)
- Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
- Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
- Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
- Alexander Scriabin
- Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884)
- Johann Strauss, Sr. (1804-1849)
- Johann Strauss, Jr. (1825-1899)
- Joseph Strauss
- Arthur S. Sullivan
- Francisco Tarrega (1852-1909)
- Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
- Giuseppe Verdi
- Richard Wagner
- Charles-Marie Widor
- Hugo Wolf
- Eugene Ysaÿe
- John Adams
- Louis Andriessen
- George Antheil
- Malcolm Arnold
- Samuel Barber
- Béla Bartók
- Arnold Bax
- Alban Berg
- Luciano Berio
- Irving Berlin
- Leonard Bernstein
- Ronald Binge
- Arthur Bliss
- Ernest Bloch
- William Bolcom
- Lili Boulanger
- Nadia Boulanger
- Pierre Boulez
- Frank Bridge
- Benjamin Britten
- Gavin Bryars
- Diana Burrell
- Alan Bush (1900 - 1995)
- George Butterworth
- John Cage
- Elliott Carter
- Mikolajus Konstantinas Ciurlionis
- Eric Coates
- Cecil Coles
- Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
- John Corigliano
- George Crumb
- Luigi Dallapiccola
- Claude Debussy
- Frederick Delius
- David Diamond
- Madeleine Dring
- Hanns Eisler
- Edward Elgar
- Georges Enesco
- Manuel De Falla
- Morton Feldman
- Brian Ferneyhough
- Luc Ferrari
- Gerald Finzi
- Peter Racine Fricker
- George Gershwin
- Cecil Armstrong Gibbs
- Paul Gilson
- Alberto Ginastera
- Umberto Giordano
- Gilbert and Sullivan
- Philip Glass
- Leopold Godowsky
- Carl Goldmark
- Henryk Górecki
- Morton Gould
- Percy Grainger
- Enrique Granados
- Gérard Grisey
- Carmago Guarnieri
- Sofia Gubaidulina
- Howard Hanson
- Karl Amadeus Hartmann
- Pieter Hellendaal
- Hans Werner Henze
- Paul Hindemith
- Gustav Holst
- Arthur Honegger (1892 - 1955)
- Alan Hovhaness
- Philippe Hurel
- Charles Ives
- Leos Janácek
- Mauricio Kagel (born 1931)
- Oliver Knussen
- Zoltán Kodály
- Ladislav Kupkovic
- Philippe Leroux
- György Ligeti
- Witold Lutoslawski
- Elisabeth Lutyens
- James Macmillan
- Elizabeth Maconchy
- Gustav Mahler
- Frank Martin
- Steve Martland
- Peter Maxwell Davies
- Bohuslav Martinu
- Nicholas Maw
- Gian-Carlo Menotti
- Olivier Messiaen
- Darius Milhaud
- E.J. Moeran
- Tristan Murail
- Conlon Nancarrow
- Carl Nielsen
- Luigi Nono
- Michael Nyman
- Sergio Roberto de Oliveira
- Carl Orff
- Andrzej Panufnik
- Roxanna Panufnik
- Charles Hubert Parry
- Arvo Pärt
- Harry Partch
- Krzysztof Penderecki
- Alan Pettersson
- Walter Piston
- Francis Poulenc
- Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
- Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
- Einojuhani Rautavaara
- Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
- Alan Rawsthorne
- Steve Reich
- Terry Riley
- Ned Rorem
- Nino Rota (1911 - 1979)
- Albert Roussel
- Edmund Rubbra
- Carl Ruggles
- John Rutter
- Frederic Rzewski
- Aulis Salinen
- Erik Satie (1866-1925)
- Florent Schmidt
- Franz Schmidt
- Alfred Schnittke
- Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
- Gunther Schuller
- William Schuman
- Peter Sculthorpe
- Roger Sessions (1896- )
- Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
- Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
- Robert Simpson
- Charles Villiers Stanford
- Rudi Stephan
- Karlheinz Stockhausen
- Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
- Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
- Giles Swayne
- Karol Szymanowski
- Toru Takemitsu
- Mikis Theodorakis
- Virgil Thomson
- Michael Tippett
- Michael Torke
- David Del Tredici
- Eduard Tubin
- Anthony Turnage
- Erkki-Sven Tüür
- Geirr Tveitt
- Moisei Vainberg
- Edgard Varese
- Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
- Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
- Anton Webern (1883-1945)
- Kurt Weill (1900-1950)
- Malcolm Williamson
- Yannis Xenakis
- Dave Brubeck
- John Coltrane
- Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington
- Herbie Hancock
- Scott Joplin
- Krzysztof Komeda
- Charles Mingus
- Thelonious Monk
- Charlie Parker
- Billy Strayhorn
- Irving Berlin
- Brian Eno
- George Gershwin
- Ira Gershwin
- Jean Michel Jarre
- Elton John
- John Lennon
- Paul McCartney
- George Michael
- Joni Mitchell
- Mike Oldfield
- Frank Zappa
- Sam Raymond
Uncategorized
A
B
C
D
E F
G
- Jacob Thune Hansen Gade
- Don Carlo Gesualdo
- Mauro Giuliani
- Louis Glass
- Michael Gordon
- Louis Moreau Gottschalk
- Morton Gould
- Enrique Granados
- Alexander Grechaninov
- Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé
- Carlos Guastavino
H
I
J K
- Mieczyslaw Karlowicz
- Aram Khachaturian
- Wojciech Kilar
- William Kinloch
- Paul August von Klenau
- William Kraft
- Johann Tobias Krebs
- Fritz Kreisler
L
M
- Alessandro Marcello
- Vicente Martin y Soler
- Pietro Mascagni
- Jules Massenet
- Giuseppe Mercadante
- Federico Mompou
- Steve Morse
- Modest Moussorgsky
N O P
- Giovanni Pacini
- Andrzej Panufnik
- Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
- Micheal Praetorius
- Giacomo Puccini
- Loisa Puget
Q R
S
T
U V W
X Y
Z