Classical Music Composers in Chronological Order.
I am trying here to give an exhaustive overview of the western classical music composers sorted by their birth years. (suggestions welcome)
Ancient Greek civilization. 1200 BC
This might be funny to have Pythagoras (580 BC) in this list of composers but since he is credited with having discovered musical intervals, why not mentioning his name as he might have been one of the first composers of western music("Joke"). On the other hands, it can be interesting to mention this period of time to measure the gap it existed from the ancient Greek time and the medieval period.
Medieval Music 500 - 1400
Generally called the Middle Ages, this long historical era can be broken into several distinct developmental periods and falls between Classical Antiquity and the Renaissance. Period of Gregorian plainchant written in Latin), monophonic and polyphonic sacred chants.
- Guido d’Arezzo 992 - 1033 “Said to be the father of modern musical notation“
- Pérotin dit le Grand 1160 - 1230 representative of the (Ecole de Notre Dame in Paris)
- Léonin - 1150 - 1210
Renaissance ("rebirth") Period: 1400 - 1600
This was a period of Chorale, Madrigal and Cantus firmus (Latin: fixed song) which consisting of several independent voices. For its part, Motet is the plainchant cantus firmus in the tenor. (Tenor, Latin: tenere, to hold. The voice that holds the plainchant.)
Guillaume Dufay 1397 - 1474
Gilles Binchois 1400 - 1460
Josquin des Près 1450 - 1521
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina 1525 - 1594
Roland de Lassus 1532 - 1594
William Byrd 1539 - 1623
Anthony Holborne 1545 - 1602
Luzzasco Luzzaschi 1545 - 1607
Francis Cutting 1550 - 1596 (known for a variation of Greensleeves)
Giovanni Gastoldi 1555 -1609
Baroque Period: 1600 - 1750
The early baroque was characterized by homophonic, polyphonic, and contrapuntal textures. It is also a particularly rich period characterized by the rise of the fugue, a theme (subject) and melodic lines (counterpoint). It is also a period in which musicians would suggest different compositional rules to enrich their music. (Such as, Alessandro Scarlatti and the Neapolitan sixth).
Depiction of demons in the gradual with four-part chorale arrangement by Manfred Barbarini Lupus (1562). Abbey Library St.Gallen.
Thomas Morley 1557 -1602
John Dowland 1563 - 1626
Claudio Monteverdi 1567 - 1643
Philip Rosseter 1568 - 1623
Daniel Bacheler 1572 - 1619
Francesco Cavalli 1602 - 1676
Gaspar Sanz 1640 - 1710 (Guitar)
Marc-Antoine Charpentier 1643 - 1704
Ludovico Roncalli 1654 - 1713 (Guitar)
Alessandro Scarlatti 1660 - 1725
Tomaso Albinoni 1671 - 1751
Georg Philipp Telemann 1681 - 1764
Antonio Vivaldi 1678 - 1741
Léopold Weiss 1681 - 1750 (Lute)
Domenico Scarlatti 1685 - 1757
Johann Sebastian Bach 1685 - 1750
Georg Friedrich Haendel 1685 - 1759
Johan Helmish Roman 1694 - 1758
Father Giovanni Martini 1706 - 1784 (Father Martini is known for having taught the elements of music to the young Mozart)
Classical Period: 1750 - 1820
This was a time when musicians returned to more ordered forms and strict "rules and regulations" to govern their musical compositions.
Jean-Baptiste Pergolèse 1710 - 1736
Joseph Haydn 1732 - 1809
Domenico Cimarosa 1749 - 1801
Antonio Salieri 1750 - 1825
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756 - 1791
Luigi Cherubini 1760-1842
Étienne-Nicolas Méhul 1763-1817
Ludwig Van Beethoven 1770 - 1827 (Vienne)
Fernando Sor 1778 - 1839 (Guitar)
Anton Diabelli - 1781 - 1858
Mauro Giuliani 1781 - 1829 (Guitar)
Niccolo Paganini (Gènes) 1782 - 1840
Dionisio Aguado 1787 - 1849 (Guitar)
Luigi Legnani 1790 - 1877 (Guitar)
Matteo Carcassi 1792 - 1853 (Guitar)
Gioachino Antonio Rossini 1792 -1868
Franz Peter Schubert 1797 - 1828
Marco Aurelio Zani de Ferranti 1801 - 1878 (Guitar)
Romantic Period: 1820 - 1900
A great and turbulent period in which Composers touched on themes such as romantic, love, supernatural and even death in contrast with the more objective and rational Classic. Freedom from boundaries, including those that separate the arts: music becomes more programmatic, merging with literature, art, and philosophy; programmatic elements reflect this trend.
Hector Berlioz 1803 - 1869
Napoléon Coste 1805 - 1883 (Guitar)
Felix Mendelssohn 1809 - 1847
Frederic Chopin 1810 - 1849
Robert Schumann 1810 - 1856
Franz Liszt 1811 - 1886
Giuseppe Verdi 1813 - 1901
Richard Wagner 1813 - 1883 (Venise)
Antonio de Torres 1817 - 1892 (Guitar)
Charles Gounod 1818 - 1893
Catharina Josepha Pelzer 1821 - 1895 (Guitar)
Giulio Regondi 1822 - 1872 (Guitar)
César Franck 1822 - 1890
Anton Bruckner 1824 - 1896
Johannes Brahms 1833 -1897
Camille Saint-Saëns 1835 - 1921
Georges Bizet 1838 - 1875
Max Bruch 1838 - 1920
Petrovich Mussorgsky 1839 - 1881
Peter Ilyich Tchaïkovsky - 1840 - 1893
Antonín Dvořák 1841 - 1904
Gabriel-Urbain Fauré 1845 - 1924
Vincent d'Indy 1851 - 1931
Francisco Tárrega 1852 - 1909 (Guitar)
Ernest Chausson 1855 - 1899
Giuseppe Martucci 1856 - 1909
Edward Elgar 1857 -1934 (Enigma Variations )
Hans Rott 1858 - 1884
Gustav Mahler 1860 - 1911
Claude Debussy 1862 - 1918
Richard Strauss 1864 - 1949
Jean Sibelius 1865 - 1957
Erik Satie 1866 - 1925
Guy Ropartz 1864 - 1955
Paul Dukas 1865 - 1935
Albéric Magnard 1865 - 1914
Isaac Albeniz 1869 - 1909
Sergei Rachmaninoff 1873 - 1943
Arnold Schoenberg 1874 - 1951
- Maurice Ravel 1875 - 1925
Miguel Llobet 1878 - 1938 (Guitar)
Igor Stravinsky 1882 - 1971
Manuel Ponce 1882 - 1886 (Guitar)
Augustin Barrios 1885 - 1944 (Guitar)
Emilio Pujol 1886 - 1980 (Guitar)
Villa Lobos -1887 - 1959 (Guitar)
Sergei Prokofieff 1891 - 1953
Federico Torroba 1891 - 1982 (Guitar)
- Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco 1895 - 1968 (Guitar)
Twentieth-century music: 1900 - 2000
Wide range of tonal, modal, whole tone, atonal, serial, and approaches to composition.
George Gershwin 1898 -1937
William Walton 1902 - 1983 (Guitar)
Lennox Berkeley 1903 - 1989 (Guitar)
Dmitri Shostakovich 1906 -1975
Olivier Messiaen 1908 - 1992
Samuel Osborne Barber 1910 - 1981
Maurice Ohana 1913 -1992 (Guitar)
Héctor Ayala 1914 -1990 (Guitar)
Alberto Ponce 1935 - 2019 (Guitar)
Nikolaï Kapoustine 1939 - 2020
Leo Brouwer 1939 - (Guitar)
Rolans Dyens 1955 - 2016 (Guitar)