Make a list of the best classical music composers it is always subjective. Very important names will always be missing. Different musical styles, different times in history, very varied musical instruments, there are many options.
Classical music has always accompanied the human being, in one way or another. There are composers who have been given the nickname of "geniuses".
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Wagner has been one of the best known classical music composers German composers of all times. But he was also a theorist.
Some of his best known operas raised him to the top, already in life. It is the case of "The Flying Dutchman ”, or“Tannhäuser ”, in its first stage.
How to Live Aligned with political enthusiast, participated in different attempts of revolution in Germany, so he had to flee the country and take refuge in Paris or Zurich. From that stage would come works such as "The Twilight of the Gods", "Siegfried", "The Valkyrie" or "Tristán and Isolde".
From the almost complete The last stage of his life, already in weaker health, is the drama “Parsifal”.
We can consider Wagner as an artist at the height of romanticism in music, with the use of all possible resources to develop their ideas.
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Verdi is the leading figure of opera in Italy and one of the best-known great composers of lyrical singing worldwide. He had an incredible musical talent since he was a child. His first work was "Oberto Comte di San Bonifacio". And from it many others would come, such as "A day of reign" or "Nabuco".
The works of Verdi that have transcended the most are “El Trouvador "," La Traviata "and" Aida ". The first two operas, which have had so much fame to this day, were regularly received by the musical society of the time. With “Aida”, the response from the public was very good.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Brahms specialized, shortly after beginning his musical career, in the piano, composing small works and starting a tour at the age of 20. In it he would meet the German Robert Schumann, who was pleasantly surprised by the qualities of the young Brahms.
It would be in the year 1868 when the musician would obtain recognition as one of the best classical music composers in all of Europe, thanks to the premiere of his “German Requiem”. In 1874 he resigned all kinds of positions and positions, to dedicate himself one hundred percent to music.
Among his masterpieces is the majestic Symphony No. 1 in C minor op. 68 (1876); Symphony No. 2 in D major op. 73 (1877); the Overture of the academic festival op. 80 (1880), with songs by German students; the dark tragic Overture (1881); Symphony No. 3 in F major op. 90 (1883), and the Symphony No. 4 in E minor op. 98 (1885), with a surprising ending, which moves.
The music that Brahms composed was from the best classical tradition. He used new effects to enhance nuances. This romantic musician was very demanding, and he would rework the pieces a few years later, and for different combinations of instruments.
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
A renowned Russian composer as the most important musical figure in the entire XNUMXth century. He himself narrated his life in his autobiography "Stravinsky: an autobiography", published in New York in 1939.
At age 20, young Igor would be a student of the most important Russian teacher at that time: Rimski-Korsakov, who was the most important musician at that time. Under his influence he also composed his first two works within his own style: Fireworks (Feu d'artifice) and Fantastic Scherzo, which will make it known in the musical society of the time.
The ballet made to order "The Firebird”, It was a total success and elevated it all over the world.
His musical career characterized his permanent changes in style. An initial Russian style, very simple, a Neoclassical period later and finally another so-called serialist. He created many works, among which are: "Petroushka" (1911) and "The Rite of Spring" (1913), "Renard" (1916), "The story of the soldier" (1916), "Symphony in C" (1940), "Symphony in three movements" (1945), "Apollo" (1928) and the "Symphony of Psalms" (1930).
Among his latest works are: "Cantata "(1951)," In Memoriam Dylan Thomas "(1954)," Canticum sacrum and Thereni "(1958). Without a doubt, another of the great composers to consider.
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Debussy develops an innovative way of understanding the language of music, with a sound that will revolutionize its time.
The Debussy's beginnings weren't easy. He was the first child in a family of five siblings, of very humble parents. He was unable to go to school and his father, a poor merchant, expected his first-born to be a sailor.
Thanks to his godfather, an art collector, he began receiving music classes at the age of six. And it changed his life. At the age of ten he was already playing the piano and won the first prizes. He had an innate talent, and in 1880 he wrote “Trio for piano in G major”, one of his first great works.
His best known work is the piece "Moonlight”. He was the first composer to use the full tone scale successfully. It created a vague and fantastic atmosphere that freed him from the limitations that everyone seemed to want to impose on him.
It is considered a impressionist musician, and we can see it in his opera "Peleas y Melisande", which gave him clear recognition.
Debussy was also a great music critic, especially loading on classical German opera.
Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828)
Shortly after learning to play the piano, very young, he was already capable of playing it much better than his brother, who had been in training for a long time. His family did everything possible to give him a good musical education.
In his youthful stage, Schubert composed a lot of music at the same time that he taught it. He composed, not on request, but for sheer fun. The play "Gretchen am Spinnrade", he wrote at the age of 17. It is said that he wrote music almost without thinking.
Una venereal infection was slowly beginning to end his life. In his later years (he died at 31), his music sounded sad, in keeping with his thoughts on death.
His “unfinished” symphony has become very famous. It has only two movements. It seems that this work was composed only for the mind of the genius, not to be performed.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
The words of Haydn, another of the great names in the history of classical music, to Mozart's father, were: «His son is the greatest composer he has ever met. "
The first thing that catches the attention of the great genius of music is the great variety of styles that make up its repertoire. It can be said that he is the only one of the great masters who worked on all the genres of his time with the same interest.
It also highlights the passion for composition, which accompanied him all his life. He was one of the great composers of classical music and so precocious that he crossed the limits of what is understood by a child prodigy.
Those who knew him described him as a man of the world, passionate and taster of the pleasures of life, consummate dancer and extensive social relationships. Thus was created the legend that the worldly Mozart had nothing to do with the Mozart who sat at the piano, as if a superior being seized the absent-minded and joking man who knew his close ones.
Mozart wrote more than six hundred compositionsAmong which are forty-six symphonies, twenty masses, one hundred and seventy-eight piano sonatas, twenty-seven piano concertos, six for violin, twenty-three operas, another sixty orchestral compositions and hundreds of other works.
Their first compositions were made between the ages of 5 and 7. At the age of 9 he was already composing symphonies.
There are many pieces that could stand out from his musical production. As just a sample, we will quote. The “Requiem”, the “Concert for the Coronation”, the “Little Night Music”, “The Marriage of Figaro”, “Don Giovanni” or “The Magic Flute”.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
In Beethoven's music, we witness a supremacy of idea over form. His work, which is one of the great composers of classical music, can be divided into three periods, it is a reflection of a conflict between the past and the future, between classicism and romanticism.
In his first period His first piano sonatas and quartets stand out, highly influenced by Mozart's violin and piano sonatas. The sonata called "Patética" is an example of this time.
A At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, a personal crisis began in Beethoven that would mark his musical production later, derived from his sentimental setbacks, and above all from his deafness. "Fidelio" was his only opera.
In his last stage its production adopts religious dyes. The Symphony No. 9, call Coral, is the most famous work of this stage. Its impressive ending is one of the first forays of the human voice into a symphony. It is also worth mentioning his "Solemn Mass".
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Johann Sebastian Bach is another of the great composers of classical music who was also a German organist, violinist, chapelmaster and singer. He is one of the great names of the Baroque period. His work is extensive, full of technical perfection and great artistic beauty.
Member of a great family tradition, he followed his father and his children followed him. But by far, Johan Sebastian was the fundamental piece in the baroque of Germany. And his influence reached all parts of the world.
Bach is considered a master of the art of musical counterpoint. Among his best known works are the "Brandenburg Concertos", "The Well-Tempered Clavier", "Toccata and Fugue in D minor", and many more.
If you want to know more classical music artists, click on the link that we just left you. Do you know more classical music composers that deserve to be in this list?