Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has maintained renown worldwide as a leading musician of his era, whose "poetic genius was based o...

In 1834 Schumann founded a music journal, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik; he was its editor and leading writer for ten years. He was a brilliant and perceptive critic: his writings embody the most progressive aspects of musical thinking in...

Felix Mendelssohn has sometimes been called the "classical romantic." Born in 1809 in the first generation of romantic composers, Mendelssohn's music is the most conservative of the group. If Chopin and Schumann are the Shelly and Keats of...

Johann Strauss I was a Austrian violinist and composer of waltzes and other works, notably Redetzky March (1848). His son Johann (1825–1899), known as “the Younger,” is sometimes called “the Waltz King” and is best remembered for his nu...

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition within his own country, and is often regarded as the father of Russian classical music. Glinka's compositions were an important influence on future Russian com...

Louis-Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique, Grande messe des morts (Requiem), Les Troyens, and La damnation de Faust. Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orche...

Bellini, Vincenzo, Italian opera composer. He acquired his musical training from his grandfather and father, and began composing religious and secular music in his childhood. His first opera, Adelson e Salvini, was successfully performed in...

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. In a short lifespan of less than 32 years, Schubert was a prolific composer, writing some 600 Lieder, ten complete or nearly complete symphonies, liturgical music, operas, incidental music and...

Gaetano Donizetti was among the most important composers of bel canto opera in both Italian and French in the first half of the nineteenth Century. Many of Donizetti's more than 60 operas are still part of the modern repertoire and continue...

Gioacchino Antonio Rossini was an Italian musical composer who wrote more than 30 operas as well as sacred music and chamber music. His best known works include Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville), and Guillaume Tell (William Te...

Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst, Freiherr von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school. Weber's works, especially his operas Der Freischütz, Euryanthe and Oberon gr...

Niccolò Paganini was an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer. He was the most celebrated violin virtuoso of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique. His 24 Caprices for Solo Violin Op. 1 a...

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, better known by his pen name E. T. A. Hoffmann, was a Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist. Hoffmann's stories were tremendously influential in t...

Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 Dec, 1770) was a German composer and pianist; his music is amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire, and he is one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music. His...

Luigi Cherubini was an Italian Classical and Romantic composer. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries. His operas were heavily praised and interpret...