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In a world without recorded music, talent with an instrument was a valuable gift. But even more admired were the people who actually composed the music others would play; those so endowed could aspire to attain unending renown...and if not, at least a lucrative career.
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William Babell

aka: Babel
bornactivedied
1689/901711-17231723, Sep 23
an English musician, composer, and prolific arranger of vocal music for harpsichord. He wrote numerous keyboard arrangements of arias from popular operas of his time. These were published in France, the Netherlands and Germany as well as in England, and formed the basis of his musical reputation. His style was strongly influenced by his close acquaintance wi...
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August Wilhelm Bach

bornactivedied
1796, Oct 41832-18691869, Apr 15
a German composer and organist. He is unrelated to the family of Johann Sebastian Bach. His compositions largely consist of sacred works and works for keyboard. He also wrote a pipe organ method and a hymnbook.
Links (1)


Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

aka: C.P.E. Bach
borndied
1714, Mar 81788, Dec 14
a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and second (surviving) son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach. His second name was given in honor of his godfather Georg Philipp Telemann, a friend of Johann Sebastian Bach. He ...
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Heinrich Bach

borndied
1615, Sep 161692, Jul 10
a German organist, composer and a member of the Bach family. From 1641, he became organist in Arnstadt's St. Mary's Church and the Upper Church, a post he kept until his death.
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Johann Bach III

aka: Johannes
borndied
1604, Nov 261673, May
a German composer and musician of the Baroque. He was the father of the so-called "Erfurt line" of Bach family musicians. In 1635 he became town musician and director of the Raths-Musikanten in Erfurt, and was organist at the town's Predigerkirche from 1636. His first wife, Barbara Hoffman (a daughter of his teacher), died half an hour after bearing a stillb...
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Johann Bernhard Bach

borndied
1676, May 231749, Jun 11
a German composer, and second cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach. Most of his musical output has been lost, but amongst his surviving music there are four orchestral suites. It is known that J. S. Bach had individual parts prepared for performance by his orc...
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Johann Bernhard Bach the Younger

borndied
1700, Nov 241743, Jun 12
a nephew of Johann Sebastian Bach. He was a German composer and organist. Johann Bernhard was born and died in Ohrdruf. From 1715 he worked for his uncle as a copyist. In 1721 he followed his father, Johann Christoph Bach, in the post of organist at St. M...
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Johann Christian Bach

borndied
1735, Sep 51782, Jan 1
a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh surviving child and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as "the London Bach" or "the English Bach", due to his time spent living in the British capital, where he came to be known...
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Johann Christoph Bach

borndied
1645, Feb 221693, Aug 28
a German musician of the Baroque period. A court and town musician in Arnstadt, he was the third son of Christoph Bach and the twin brother of Johann Ambrosius Bach. He was the uncle of Johann Sebastian Bach. He married Martha Elisabeth Eisentraut (1654â€...
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Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach

borndied
1732, Jun 211795, Jan 26
the ninth son of Johann Sebastian Bach, sometimes referred to as the "Bückeburg Bach". Bach wrote keyboard sonatas, symphonies, oratorios, liturgical choir pieces and motets, operas and songs. Because of Count Wilhelm's predilection for Italian music, B...
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Johann Elias Bach

borndied
1705, Feb 121755, Nov 30


Johann Ernst Bach II

borndied
1722, Jan 281777, Sep 1
a German composer of the Bach family. He was the son of Johann Bernhard Bach. He was born in Eisenach, the son of Johann Bernhard Bach, and studied in the Thomasschule in Leipzig with Johann Sebastian Bach. n 1742 he was hired as the official advocate in ...
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Johann Lorenz Bach

borndied
1695, Sep 101773, Dec 14
a German organist and composer of the Frankish line of the Bach family. Except for a Prelude and Fugue in D major, works by Johann Lorenz Bach are lost. A copy of the Prelude exists in the Lahm parish archive in Itzgrund.
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Johann Ludwig Bach

borndied
1677, Feb 41731, May 1
a composer and violinist. He was born in Thal. At the age of 22 he moved to Meiningen eventually being appointed cantor there, and later Kapellmeister. He wrote a large amount of music and regularly oversaw performances, both at Meiningen and neighbouring courts.
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Cross-listed in Legal

Johann Michael Bach III

borndied
1745, Nov 91820, Jun 13
a German composer, lawyer and music theorist. He was a son of Johann Elias Bach (1705–1755), and therefore a nephew of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is not to be confused with his great uncle Johann Michael Bach (1648–1694, brother of Johann Christoph Bac...
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Johann Nikolaus Bach

borndied
1669, Oct 101753, Nov 4
a German composer of the Baroque period. Surviving pieces include a mass, two chorale preludes on "Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g'mein" and a Singspiel Der jenaische Wein- und Bierrufer, this in the form of a quodlibet on Jena student traditions.
Links (1)


Johann Philipp Bach

borndied
17521846


Johann Sebastian Bach

bornactivedied
1685, Mar 311703-17501750, Jul 28
a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B mino...
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Timeline (4)Links (21)


Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

borndied
1710, Nov 221784, Jul 1
the second child and eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach, was a German composer and performer. Despite his acknowledged genius as an organist, improviser and composer, his income and employment were unstable and he died in poverty.
Links (1)


Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach

bornactivedied
1759, May 241780s-1810s1845, Dec 25
the only grandson of Johann Sebastian Bach to gain fame as a composer. He was music director to Frederick William II of Prussia. One of Ernst Bach's most remarkable compositions was Dreyblatt, a concerto for piano involving six hands. He wrote it in such...
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Johann Aegidius Bach I

borndied
16451716


Francis Edward Bache

borndied
1833, Sep 141858, Aug 24
an English organist and composer. Considering the early age at which he died, his compositions are fairly numerous, and the best, a trio for piano and strings, was long held in high esteem. Two operettas, a piano concerto and a number of published pianoforte pieces and songs do little more than show how great was his promise.
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Daniel Bacheler

aka: Bachiler, Batchiler, Batchelar
borndied
1572, Mar1619, Jan
an English lutenist and composer. Of all the English lutenist-composers, he is now credited as probably being the most successful in his own lifetime. At the royal court he composed some fifty lute pieces. These included a number of pavans, galliards, almaines and fantasies.
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Heinrich Backofen

borndied
1768, Jul 61830, Jul 10
a German clarinetist, composer and painter. In his time Backofen enjoyed great fame; he was not only known as a composer for, and virtuoso of the clarinet but also played the harp, flute and basset horn. His year of death is not known with certainty; a year of 1839 is found in some documents.
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Selmar Bagge

borndied
1823, Jun 301896, Jul 16
a German composer. Bagges father was rector at the gymnasium to Coburg. After Selmar Bagge early his musical studies began, he had 1837 students of Dionys Weber at the Conservatory in Prague and later at Simon Sechter in Vienna . From 1851 to 1855 he taught at the Conservatory in Vienna, after which he worked as a music critic and -journalist. From 1863 to 1...
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Carlos Baguer

aka: Carles
bornactivedied
1768, Mar1786-18011808, Feb 29
a Spanish classical era composer and organist. Perhaps Baguer's most important works are his nineteen symphonies which rank him as one of the principal composers of symphonies in Spain at the time. Most of his symphonies clearly show the influence of the Italian and German masters. He also wrote a concerto for two bassoons, an English horn concerto (which is...
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Claude Balbastre

bornactivedied
1724, Dec 81750-17921799, May 9
a French composer, organist, harpsichordist and fortepianist. He was one of the most famous musicians of his time. Balbastre was quickly and efficiently introduced to the Parisian musical circles and high society, and made a brilliant career.
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Pietro Baldassare

aka: Baldassari
borndied
1683 ca1768 ca
a Baroque composer, possibly born in Rome or Brescia, Italy about 1683. Baldassari was maestro di cappella at San Filippo Neri in Brescia from 1714 until about 1768. He was also maestro di cappella at San Clemente, Bresica until 1754. He died some time after 1768. Few of the compositions attributed to him survive.
Links (1)


Joao Jose Baldi

aka: João José
borndied
17701816
a composer who was pianist at the court of the Marquis of Alorna and opera conductor in Leiria. He was a classical composer who composed mostly religious music: requiems. He was known in Leiria for his operas. He died in Lisbon, Portugal.
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Michael William Balfe

borndied
1808, May 151870, Oct 20
an Irish composer, best-remembered for his opera The Bohemian Girl. After a short career as a violinist, Balfe pursued an operatic singing career, while he began to compose. In a career spanning more than 40 years, he composed at least 29 operas, almost 250 songs and other works. He was also a noted conductor, directing Italian Opera at Her Majesty's ...
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Timeline (1)Links (1)


Adriano Banchieri

borndied
1568, Sep 31634
an Italian composer, music theorist, organist and poet of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He founded the Accademia dei Floridi in Bologna. He was one of the principal composers of madrigal comedies and choral pieces.
Links (1)


John Banister [2]

borndied
16301679, Oct 3
an English musical composer and violinist. His most important composition is the music to the tragedy of Circe by Dr. C. Davenant, which was performed at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1676. In the same year he wrote music to The Tempest in conjunction with Pelham Humphrey.Several songs by Banister are in a manuscript in the Christ Church Library, Oxford. Bes...
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Cross-listed in Governance

Barbara of Portugal

borndied
1711, Dec 41758, Aug 27
an Infanta of Portugal and later Queen of Spain as wife of Ferdinand VI of Spain. Although Barbara was not considered beautiful by her contemporaries — her homely looks were thought by observers to cause her future husband a visible shock when he was first presented to her — Ferdinand became deeply attached to her, sharing her passion for music. Ferdin...
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Francisco Asenjo Barbieri

borndied
1823, Aug 31894, Feb 19
a well-known composer of the popular Spanish opera form, zarzuela. His works include: El barberillo de Lavapiés, Jugar con fuego, Pan y toros, Don Quijote, Los diamantes de la corona, and El Diablo en el poder.
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Woldemar Bargiel

borndied
1828, Oct 31897, Feb 23
a German composer. After leaving Leipzig in 1850, he returned to Berlin where he tried to make ends meet by giving private lessons. Eventually, Clara and Robert were able to arrange for the publication of some of his early works, including his First Piano Trio. Besides teaching and composing, Bargiel served with more
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Cross-listed in Writers

Ernst Gottlieb Baron

borndied
1696, Feb 171760, Apr 12
a German lutenist, composer and writer on music. In Nuremberg he published his "Historisch-theoretische und practische Untersuchung des Instruments der Lauten", the work for which he is principally remembered. Baron’s Untersuchung is a valuable source of information about lutenists and lute playing in the late Baroque era.
Links (1)


Francesco Barsanti

borndied
16901775
an Italian flautist, oboist and composer. Barsanti is known today primarily for his set of 6 solo sonatas for alto recorder (Opus 1). He is also known among practitioners of traditional folk music for the twenty-eight Scots airs in his A Collection of Old Scots Tunes.
Links (1)


Josef Barta

aka: Bárta
borndied
1744 ca1787


Cecilia Maria Barthelemon

aka: Barthélemon
borndied
1767, Sep 11859, Dec 5
an English singer, composer, pianist, and organist. She was the daughter of Maria Barthélemon, née Mary (Polly) Young, and François-Hippolyte Barthélémon. She published sonatas and occasional music.
Links (1)


Francois Hippolyte Barthelemon

aka: François Hippolyte Barthélemon
borndied
1741, Jul 271808, Jul 20
a French violinist, pedagogue, and composer active in England. Barthélemon’s dashing French style of composition allowed him to produce musical entertainments in a wide range of styles. He composed salon music and chamber music, as well as volumes of popular songs.
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Cross-listed in Writers

Abramo Basevi

borndied
1818, Dec1885, Nov
an Italian musicologist and composer. Basevi was born in Livorno. He began as a physician in Florence (1858) but then devoted himself exclusively to music. His first attempts as a composer failed but in time he composed operas (Romilda ed Ezzelino 1840; and Enrico Howard, 1847) and other music. Basevi was editor of the musical journal L'Armonia. He founded t...
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Josquin Baston

bornactivedied
unknown1542-1563unknown
a Dutch composer of the first half of the 16th century. From the 1550s, he worked as kapellmeister at the court of Christian III. After Christian III's death, he found work at a Swedish court. A number of his pieces were published in Sigismund Salblinger's Concentus (1545), and in the Leuven Collection (1554).
Links (1)


Friedrich Baumfelder

borndied
1836, May 281916, Sep 8
Middle Romantic composer, conductor, and pianist, known in his day for his Tirocinium musicae, and today known for his Melody in F major
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Cross-listed in Writers

Baroness Sophie Bawr

aka: Comtesse de Saint-Simon, Baronne de Bawr, M. François
borndied
1773, Oct 81860, Dec 31
a French writer, playwright and composer. Her Suite d'un bal masque was highly successful and received 246 performances between 1813 and 1869. Alexandrine-Sophie de Bawr wrote plays, musical theater, songs, several novels, educational texts and her own memoirs. Her nonfiction texts provide important historical information.
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Francois Bazin

aka: François
borndied
1816, Sep 41878, Jul 2
a well-known French opera composer during the nineteenth century. His works are not widely performed today. At age 23, Bazin's cantata Loyse de Monfort won the 1840 Prix de Rome. Le voyage en Chine, which premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, is his best-known composition.
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Henriette Adelaide Villard Beaumesnil

aka: Henriette Adélaïde Villard
borndied
1748, Aug 301813, Oct 5
a French opera singer and composer. Mlle Beaumesnil wrote music from time to time and was the second woman to have a composition of hers performed at the Paris Opéra.
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Franz Ignaz Beck

borndied
1734, Feb 201809, Dec 31
a German violinist, composer, conductor and music teacher who spent the greater part of his life in France, where he became director of the Bordeaux Grand Théâtre. Beck is an important representative of the second generation of the so-called Mannheim school. His fame rests on his 24 symphonies that are among the most original and striking of the pre-Classi...
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Johann Becker

borndied
1726, Sep 11803
a German organist, teacher, and composer, born in Helsa-Wickenrode, near Kassel. He studied with Bach in Leipzig from about 1745 to 1748. He taught in Hartmuthsachsen, Bettenhausen, and Kassel, where in 1761 he was appointed municipal organist. In 1770 he was appointed court organist. He wrote mainly church music.
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Ludwig van Beethoven

bornactivedied
1770, Dec1778-18261827, Mar 26
a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies, 5 concertos for piano, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, and 16 string quartets. He also composed other chamber...
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Timeline (16)Links (21)


Supply Belcher

borndied
1751, Mar 291836, Jun 9
an American composer, singer, and compiler of tune books. He was one of the members of the so-called First New England School, a group of mostly self-taught composers who created sacred vocal music for local choirs. Like most of his colleagues, Belcher could not make music his main occupation, and worked as tax assessor, schoolmaster, town clerk, and so on; ...
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Laurent Belissen

aka: Bellissen
borndied
1693, Aug 81762, Feb 12
a French Baroque composer. He was born in Aix-en-Provence and may have been among the last students of Guillaume Poitevin, then maître de musique at the choir school of the Aix Cathedral. Much of Belissen's music is either lost or remains uncatalogued.
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Vincenzo Bellini

bornactivedied
1801, Nov 31807-18351835, Sep 23
an Italian opera composer. His most celebrated works are the operas La sonnambula and Norma. On account of such works as Norma and I puritani, Bellini is now recognised as one of the leading composers of the bel canto style of opera.
Timeline (4)Links (16)


Paolo Benedetto Bellinzani

bornactivedied
16821700s-1740s1757, Feb 26
an Italian composer of first half of the eighteenth century. Among his works are holy masses, offertories, duets, madrigals, litanies, motets and magnificat. His first known composition is a Requiem aeternam written in 1700 for two violins, Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass, Organ.
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Cross-listed in WritersPerformers

Carl Michael Bellman

bornactivedied
1740, Feb 41768-17911795, Feb 11
a Swedish songwriter, composer, musician, poet and entertainer. He is a central figure in the Swedish song tradition and remains a powerful influence in Swedish music, as well as in Scandinavian literature, to this day. He has been compared to Shakespeare, Ludw...
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Teresa Belloc-Giorgi

borndied
1784, Jul 21855, May 13
an Italian composer and contralto. Maria Teresa Trombetta was born in San Benigno Canavese, and made her début in 1801 at Turin. She followed her debut with engagements in Parma and Trieste, and in 1803 appeared in Paris in the title roles of Giovanni Paisiello's Niña and Ferdinando Paer's Griselda.
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Felix Benda

borndied
1708, Feb 251768
a Bohemian composer and organist. He was a member of the Benda musical family. Benda was born in Skalsko. Surviving works include organ masses, two oratorios, and other church music. He died in Prague.
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Franz Benda

aka: František
borndied
1709, Nov 221786, Mar 7
a Bohemian violinist and composer. He was the brother of Jirí Antonín Benda, and he worked for much of his life at the court of Frederick the Great. Benda became the founder of a German school of violin playing. Benda was a master of all the difficulties of violin playing, and the rapidity of his execution and the mellow sweetness of his highest notes were...
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Jiri Antonin Benda

aka: Jirí Antonín,Georg Anton
borndied
1722, Jun 301795, Nov 6
a Czech composer, violinist and Kapellmeister of the classical period. Brother of Franz Benda. Benda's most important contribution lies in the development of the German melodramas, a form of musical stage entertainment which influenced Mozart.
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Constantin Bender

borndied
18261902


Jean-Valentin Bender

borndied
18011873


Orazio Benevoli

aka: Benevolo
borndied
1605, Apr 191672, Jun 17
a Franco-Italian composer of large scaled polychoral sacred choral works (e.g., one work featured forty-eight vocal and instrumental lines). He composed Masses, motets, Magnificats, and other sacred vocal works. Much of Benevolo's fame as a composer has rested largely on his supposed composition of the fifty-three part Missa Salisburgensis, which musicologis...
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Joseph Bengraf

aka: József Bengráf
borndied
17451791)


John Bennet

borndied
1575 ca1614 ca
a composer of the English madrigal school. His madrigals include All creatures now as well as Weep, O Mine Eyes. The latter is an homage to John Dowland, using part of Dowland's most famous piece, Flow my Tears, also known in its pavane form as Lachrymae Antiquae.
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John Bennett

borndied
1735 ca1784, Sep
an English organist and composer. The Ten Voluntaries for the Organ or Harpsichord are his only works known to this day; they were published by the composer in 1758, and printed a number of times since.
Links (1)


Cross-listed in Educators

William Sterndale Bennett

borndied
1816, Apr 131875, Feb 1
an English composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. Bennett is the most distinguished composer of the early Victorian era. Of a total of some 130 compositions, about a quarter have been recorded for CD.
Links (1)


Cross-listed in Writers

Peter Benoit

borndied
1834, Aug 171901, Mar 8
a Flemish composer of Belgian nationality. Benoit's most important compositions include the Flemish oratorios De Schelde (The river Scheldt) and Lucifer (which met complete failure when it was staged in London in 1888), the operas Het Dorp in 't Gebergte (The village in the mountains) and Isa, and the Drama Christi, a huge body of songs, choruses, small cant...
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Maksim Berezovsky

aka: Maksym Berezovsky
borndied
1745 ca1777
a Ukrainian composer, opera singer, and violinist. Berezovsky was the first Ukrainian composer to be recognized throughout Europe and the first to compose an opera, symphony, and violin sonata. His most popular works are his sacred choral pieces written for the Orthodox Church. Much of his work has been lost; only three of the 18 known choral concertos have ...
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Ludwig Berger

borndied
1777, Apr 181839, Feb 16
a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. He was born in Berlin, and spent his youth in Templin and Frankfurt, where he studied both flute and piano. Later, he studied composition with J. A. Gürrlich in Berlin. He became friendly with the composer Clementi, and visited him in Russia, where he stayed for eight years. While in Russia, he married, but was...
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Anton Berlijn

aka: Aron Wolf
borndied
1817, May 211870, Jan 16
a Dutch conductor and composer. He wrote nine operas, seven ballets, an oratorio ("Moses auf Nebo"), a symphony, a cantata, a mass, several overtures, and chamber-music. During his long service as conductor at the Royal Theater at Amsterdam, he was held in high regard by the king, who in 1860 bestowed upon him the decoration of the order of merit of the king...
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Cross-listed in Writers

Johan Daniel Berlin

borndied
1714, May 121787, Nov 4
a German-born Norwegian rococo composer and organist, remembered as one of the founders of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters. He allegedly composed many works, but only a few of the compositions of Berlin have been preserved. His book, Musicaliske Elementer (Musical Elements), printed in Trondheim in 1744, was the first Norwegian textbook o...
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Hector Berlioz

borndied
1803, Dec 111869, Mar 8
a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie Fantastique and Requiem: Grande Messe des Morts. Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works, and conducted several concerts with more than 1,000 musician...
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Timeline (7)Links (9)


Andrea Bernasconi

borndied
1706 ca1784, Jan 27
an Italian composer. He began his career in his native country as a composer of operas. In 1755 he was appointed to the post of Kapellmeister at the Bavarian court in Munich where he produced several more operas successfully and a few symphonies. After 1772 his compositional output consisted of entirely sacred music. He was the stepfather of soprano Antonia ...
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Christoph Bernhard

borndied
1628, Jan 11692, Nov 14
a German singer and composer. Bernhard left behind many sacred vocal works, a few secular compositions, and three important treatises on music, the most famous of which is the Tractatus compositionis augmentatus (ca. 1657), which was the source of the term passus duriusculus.
Links (1)


Henri Montan Berton

borndied
1767, Sep 171844, Apr 22
a French composer, teacher, and writer, and the son of Pierre Montan Berton. He is principally remembered as a composer of operas, most of which were first performed at the Opéra-Comique. He was the music director of the Théâtre de l'Impératrice from 1807 to 1810 and the chorus master at the Paris Opera from 1810 to 1815.
Links (1)


Pierre Montan Berton

borndied
1727, Jan 71780, May 14
a French composer and conductor. He resided primarily in Paris and was an opera director. He wrote at least seven operas. Pierre's son Henri Montan Berton (1767–1844) was also a composer, more famous than Pierre himself.
Links (1)


Franz Berwald

borndied
1796, Jul 231868, Apr 3
a Swedish Romantic composer who was generally ignored during his lifetime. He made his living as an orthopedic surgeon and later as the manager of a saw mill and glass factory. Berwald's music was not recognised favourably in Sweden during his lifetime, even drawing hostile newspaper reviews, but fared a little better in Germany and Austria.
Links (1)


Alessandro Besozzi

borndied
1702, Jul 221793, Jul 26
an Italian composer and virtuoso oboist. Alessandro Besozzi is the author of nearly two hundred chamber works composed for various groups of instruments, although only one of them was published in his lifetime. He wrote over a hundred sonatas, 65 trios, six oboe concertos, being two for flute, and twelve trio sonatas.
Links (1)


Johann Samuel Beyer

borndied
16691744, May 9
a German composer and writer of a manual on singing (1703). His works available in modern edition include a Christmas cantata entitled Heilig ist Gott.
Links (1)


Francesco Bianchi

borndied
17521810, Nov 27
an Italian opera composer. Born at Cremona, Lombardy, he studied with Pasquale Cafaro and Niccolò Jommelli, and worked mainly in London, Paris and in all the major Italian operatic centres of Venice, Naples, Rome, Milan, Turin, Florence. He wrote at least 78 operas of all genres, mainly in the field of the Italian opera, but in the French opera too.
Links (1)


Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber

borndied
1644, Aug1704, May 3
a Bohemian-Austrian composer and violinist. Biber was one of the most important composers for the violin in the history of the instrument. His technique allowed him to easily reach the 6th and 7th positions, employ multiple stops in intricate polyphonic passages, and explore the various possibilities of scordatura tuning. He also wrote one of the earliest kn...
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Marie Bigot

borndied
1786, Mar 31820, Sep 16
a French piano teacher whose full name was Marie Kiéné Bigot de Morogues. As a composer she is best known for her sonatas and études. She was highly accomplished at the keyboard and played for Joseph Haydn. She became a friend of Salieri. Her husband being th...
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Links (1)


William Billings

bornactivedied
1746, Oct 71770-17941800, Sep 26
regarded as the first American choral composer. He possibly received musical instruction from John Barry, one of the choir members at the New South Church, but for the most part he was self-taught. Virtually all of Billings' music was written for four-part chorus, singing a cappella. His many hymns and anthems were published mostly in book-length collection...
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Benjamin Bilse

borndied
1816, Aug 171902, Jul 13
a German conductor and composer. He obtained a rich musical education, as at the Vienna Conservatory under violinist Joseph Böhm, and played in the orchestra of Johann Strauss I. Returned to Liegnitz, he became municipal Kapellmeister in 1842.
Links (1)


Wenzel Raimund Birck

aka: Pirck, Birk, Birckh, Pirckh, Pürk, Pürck
borndied
17181763
one of the early proponents of Symphonic music in Vienna, and an early tutor for Mozart. Birck also, along with Georg Christoph Wagenseil tutored a young Joseph Haydn. He was the court organist for Maria Theresia and the music teacher for emperor Joseph II.
Links (1)


Henry Rowley Bishop

borndied
1786, Nov 181855, Apr 30
an English composer. He is most famous for the songs "Home! Sweet Home!" and "Lo! Here the Gentle Lark." He was the composer or arranger of some 120 dramatic works, including 80 operas, light operas, cantatas, and ballets. Knighted in 1842, he was the first musician to be so honoured.
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Cross-listed in Writers

Jan Blahoslav

borndied
1523, Feb 201571, Nov 24
a Czech humanistic writer, poet, translator, etymologist, hymnographer, grammarian, music theorist and composer. He was a Unity of the Brethren bishop, and translated the New Testament into Czech in 1564. This was incorporated into the Bible of Kralice.
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Cross-listed in Writers

Frederic Blasius

aka: Frédéric, Matthäus, Matthieu, Mathieu
borndied
1758, Apr 241829
a French violinist, clarinetist, conductor, and composer. Born Matthäus (French: Matthieu, Mathieu) Blasius, he used Frédéric as his pen name on his publications in Paris. Blasius wrote a number of works for the stage as well as instrumental pieces for Harmoniemusik (music for wind band), concertos with orchestra, and chamber music with a particular emph...
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Michel Blavet

borndied
1700, Mar 131768, Oct 28
a French composer and flute virtuoso. Blavet wrote primarily for the transverse flute, in the so-called 'Italian' as well as the French style. His surviving works include a concerto and three books of sonatas (1740). His surviving works are written only in the easiest keys, since he published them for amateurs to play.
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John Blow

bornactivedied
1649, Feb1668-17001708, Oct 1
an English Baroque composer and organist, appointed to Westminster Abbey in 1669. In 1685 he was named a private musician to James II. His only stage composition, Venus and Adonis (ca. 1680–1687), was thought to influence more
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Martin Traugott Blumner

borndied
1827, Nov 211901, Nov 16
a German composer, conductor and music theorists. He was the younger brother of the Berlin-born pianist and composer Sigismund Blumner (1826–1893).
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Luigi Boccherini

borndied
1743, Feb 191805, May 28
an Italian classical era composer and cellist whose music retained a courtly and galante style while he matured somewhat apart from the major European musical centers. Boccherini composed several guitar quintets including the "Fandango" which was influenced by Spanish music. His vast chamber music output includes some 125 string quintets, some 90 string quar...
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Nicolas-Charles Bochsa

borndied
1789, Aug 91856, Jan 6
a musician and composer. He was appointed harpist to the Imperial Orchestra in 1813, and began writing operas for the Opéra-Comique. However, in 1817 he became entangled in counterfeiting, fraud, and forgery, and fled to London to avoid prosecution.
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Cross-listed in Clergy

Erhard Bodenschatz

borndied
15761636
a German pastor, cantor and composer. He was cantor at Schulpforta from 1600 to 1603 and pastor in Groß-Osterhausen/Querfurt from 1608 onwards. He produced several motets. Among his best known works was the edited motet collection Florilegium Portense, meaning "Schulpforta's anthology". It was published in two volumes in Leipzig in 1618 and 1621 and held 36...
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Sebastian Bodinus

borndied
1700 ca1759, Mar 19
a German composer about whom very little is known. Bodinus was born in the village of Bittstädt in Saxe-Gotha and trained as a violinist. It is known that in 1718 he entered the service of the Margrave Karl III of Baden-Durlach at the court in Karlsruhe. He left Karlsruhe in 1752, returned in a disoriented state in 1758 and was committed to an insane asylum...
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Alexandre Pierre Francois Boely

aka: Alexandre Pierre François Boëly
borndied
1785, Apr 191858, Dec 27
a French composer, organist, and pianist. Besides mastering the piano and organ, Boëly was also a talented violist. Much of his chamber music follows models established by Joseph Haydn; however, Boccherini is often credited with improving Haydn's model of the s...
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Georg Bohm

aka: Böhm
bornactivedied
1661, Sep 21680s-17271733, May 18
a German Baroque organist and composer. He is notable for his development of the chorale partita and for his influence on the young Johann Sebastian Bach. Böhm is mainly known for his compositions for organ and harpsichord (primarily preludes, fugues, an...
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Johann Ludwig Bohner

aka: Böhner
borndied
1787, Jan 81860, Mar 28
a talented composer, a celebrated piano and organ virtuoso and a master of musical improvisation. In the years 1811-1814 he held predominantly to Nuremberg. In this short time emerged here most of his major compositions, including three of the five highly regarded piano concertos, the Fantasy for Clarinet and Orchestra, Op. 21, and the Fantasy for Bassoon an...
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Francois-Adrien Boieldieu

aka: François-Adrien
borndied
1775, Dec 161834, Oct 8
a French composer, mainly of operas, often called "the French Mozart". Although his reputation is largely based upon his operas, Boieldieu also composed other works. Among them was his Harp Concerto in C, written in 1800–1801 and one of the masterpieces of the harp repertory.
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Joseph Bodin de Boismortier

borndied
1689, Dec 231755, Oct 28
a French baroque composer of instrumental music, cantatas, opéra-ballets, and vocal music. Boismortier was one of the first composers to have no patrons: having obtained a royal license for engraving music in 1724, he made enormous sums of money by publishing his music for sale to the public.
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Cross-listed in Performers

Joseph Bologne

aka: Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges
borndied
1745, Dec 251799, Jun 10
a champion fencer, a virtuoso violinist and conductor of the leading symphony orchestra in Paris. Born in Guadeloupe, he was the son of George Bologne de Saint-Georges, a wealthy planter, and Nanon, his African slave. During the French Revolution, Saint-Georges was colonel of the 'Légion St.-Georges,' the first all-black regiment in Europe, fighting on the ...
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Joao Domingos Bomtempo

aka: João Frederico Ludovice
borndied
1775, Dec 281842, Aug 18
a Portuguese classical pianist, composer and pedagogue. Bomtempo composed a vast amount of concertos (newly published by Soundpost.org), sonatas, variations and fantasies for the piano. His two known symphonies are the first to be produced by a Portuguese composer. Bomtempo's masterpiece is his Requiem in memory of Luís de Camões.
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Anna Bon di Venezia

borndied
1739 caunknown
an Italian composer and performer born in Russia. Her parents were both involved in music and traveled internationally. she held the new post of 'chamber music virtuosa' at the court of Brandenburg Kulmbach when she was 16 and wrote many sonatas, and an aria, motet and opera.
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Capel Bond

borndied
1730, Dec 141790, Feb 14
an English organist and composer. His Six Concertos in Seven Parts (London, 1766) are a collection of four concerti grossi and a concerto each for bassoon and trumpet. His only other known compositions are Six Anthems in Score (London, 1769).
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Giuseppe Bonno

aka: Josef, Josephus Johannes Baptizta Bon
borndied
1711, Jan 291788, Apr 15
an Austrian composer of Italian origin. Bonno's works are rarely heard today, but he was a prominent figure in Viennese musical life in his day and his works were often performed. Most of his output was for vocal forces, including stage works, oratorios, masses and other sacred pieces.
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Francis Boott

borndied
1813, Jun 241904, Mar 1
an American classical music composer of art songs and works for chorus. Boott's first six songs appeared in 1846 under the pen name of Telford. In 1857 eight songs were published, followed by many individual songs in the following years. Boott composed at least 140 songs during his long life, as well as a handful of duets, choral works, part-songs, and instr...
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Dmitry Bortniansky

borndied
1751, Oct 281825, Sep 28
a composer and conductor of Ukrainian origin active in Russia. While Bortniansky wrote operas and instrumental compositions, it is his sacred choral works that are performed most often today. This vast body of work remains central not only to understanding 18th-century Orthodox sacred music, but also served as inspiration to his fellow Ukrainian composers in...
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Bartolomeo Bortolazzi

borndied
17731820
a performing musician, composer, author, and virtuoso of both the guitar and the mandolin. Among his published works we find a method for the guitar entitled: New theoretical and practical guitar school, Op. 21, and a method for the mandolin entitled School for the mandolin, violin system.
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Cross-listed in Performers

Cornelis Boscoop

borndied
unknown1573
a Dutch organist, singer, and composer. Little is known about Boscoop's life. He was organist at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam in the middle of the 16th century. The only surviving work of Boscoop's is the Fifty Psalms of David (1562).
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Nicolas Bosret

borndied
1799, Mar 51876, Nov 18
a blind composer and organist at the St. Loup church in Namur. In 1851 he composed Li Bia Bouquet (originally named Li bouquet del marieye), a song in the Walloon language that gained a lot of popularity in that city and became the official hymn of the city.
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Josse Boutmy

borndied
16971779
a composer, organist and harpsichordist of the Austrian Netherlands who established himself in Brussels. Born into a musical family, Boutmy composed three collections of pieces for the harpsichord. His style incorporates multiple European influences.
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Francois Bouvard

aka: François
borndied
16841760
a French composer of the Baroque era. Originally from Lyon, Bouvard began his career as a singer at the Paris Opéra at the age of sixteen. When the quality of his voice deteriorated, he went to study in Rome and devoted himself to playing the violin and composition. His first opera, the tragédie en musique Médus, appeared in Paris in 1702.
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William Boyce

borndied
1711, Sep1779, Feb 7
is widely regarded as one of the most important English-born composers of the 18th century. Boyce is best known for his set of eight symphonies, his anthems and his odes. Boyce was largely forgotten after his death and he remains a little-performed composer today.
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William Brade

borndied
15601630, Feb 26
an English composer, violinist, and viol player of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, mainly active in northern Germany. He was the first Englishman to write a canzona, an Italian form, and probably the first to write a piece for solo violin. All of Brade's surviving music is for string instruments, and most is for dancing.
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Johannes Brahms

borndied
1833, May 71897, Apr 3
a German composer and pianist. In his lifetime, Brahms's popularity and influence were considerable. Brahms wrote a number of major works for orchestra, including two serenades, four symphonies, two piano concertos (No. 1 in D minor; No. 2 in B-flat major), a Violin Concerto, a Double Concerto for violin and cello, and two companion orchestral overtures, the...
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Per Brant

aka: Brandt
borndied
17141767
a Swedish violinist and composer during the Revolutionary period. Brant succeeded his teacher Johan Helmich Roman as the conductor of the 1758 court orchestra He is one of the main copyists of Swedish and foreign music in the 1700s. Brant also had plans to start a musical academy, and in 1748 received permission to organize a lottery to gather the necessary ...
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Petrus Hercules Brehy

borndied
16731737
a Flemish composer and organist, born in Brussels in 1673. From the age of 16 he was in the employ of St Nicholas Church in Brussels, first as a choirboy and later as an organist, and from 1705 until his death in 1737 he served as zangmeester (i.e. choirmaster-preceptor-composer-in-residence) of the Collegiate Church of St Michael and St Gudula in the same c...
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Jan Josef Ignac Brentner

aka: Jan Josef Ignác, Brenntner, Brendner, Brendtner, Prentner
borndied
1689, Nov 31742, Jun 28
a Czech composer of the Baroque era. Brentner's music fuses a simple and direct melodic component, reminiscent of contemporary Moravian practices, with a complex and highly ornamented instrumental accompaniment more typical of Bohemian musicians. Although Brentner has never been a famous name, his music has proved enduring.
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Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello

borndied
1690 ca1758, Oct 4
an Italian Baroque composer and violinist. His name is mentioned for the first time in a document from 1715 in which the Maximilian II Emanuel appointed him violinist in his court orchestra in Munich. He led the court and opera music until he was pensioned off in the period between 1751 and 1755.
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Jean-Baptiste Breval

aka: Bréval
borndied
1753, Nov 61823, Mar 18
a French cellist and composer. He wrote mostly pieces for his own instrument, and performed many world premières of his own pieces. Bréval compositions written between 1775 and 1805 consisted mostly of instrumental pieces. Bréval wrote symphonies, seven cello concerti, 4 cello sonatas, various chamber music including five sets of cello duets, as well as a...
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Thomas Brewer

borndied
16111660 ca
a 17th-century composer best known for introducing the glee form. Little is known of his life. However many of his compositions have survived. Most of them are catches, rounds and glees but three instrumental pieces are stored in the Oxford Music School collection..
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Wolfgang Carl Briegel

borndied
1626, May 211712, Nov 19
a German organist, teacher, and composer. Briegel was prolific in his sacred music output, completing 24 published collections between 1654 and 1709. He also wrote several "occasional" pieces and some secular works. At Darmstadt he produced several stage works, but none of that music has survived.
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Anne Louise Brillon de Jouy

borndied
1744, Dec 131824, Dec 5
a French musician and composer. She was born in Paris, played and composed for the harpsichord and the piano, and lived in Passy. In 1777, she composed the Marche des insurgents (March of the Insurgents) to celebrate an American victory in the American Revolutionary War. She became a friend of more


George Frederick Bristow

borndied
1825, Dec 191898, Dec 13
an American composer. He advocated American classical music, rather than favoring European pieces. Throughout his life, Bristow was a champion of American music and a nationalist in his choice of texts. The amount and quality of his choral music, although mostly ignored by Grove's, makes Bristow a historically important choral composer.
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Frantisek Xaver Brixi

aka: František, Franz
borndied
1732, Jan 21771, Oct 14
a Czech classical composer of the 18th century. Brixi was an important composer at the junction between Baroque and the Classical period. Brixi's style is distinguished from that of his contemporaries by its fresh melodic writing, vivacious rhythm and lively bass lines, and from that of his predecessors by its simple yet effective instrumentation. During his...
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Simon Brixi

aka: Å imon
borndied
1693, Oct 281735, Nov 2
a Czech composer. He was the father of František Brixi. His compositions were intended almost exclusively for a church choir. Only about 21 of his compositions have been preserved. He wrote offertoria, gradualia, Regina Coeli, Salve Reginas, requiems, litanies, Te Deums, and church cantatas.
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Riccardo Broschi

borndied
1698 ca1756
a composer of baroque music and the brother of the opera singer Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli. He made his debut in 1725 with La Vecchia Sorda. Next, he moved to London in 1726 and stayed there until 1734 and wrote six heroic operas.
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Harriet Browne

aka: Mrs. Hughes
borndied
17901858
an English writer and composer, the sister of poet Felicia Hemans.. Besides composing, she wrote a The works of Mrs. Hemans, with a memoir by her sister. She also used the pseudonym Mrs. Hughes.
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Nicolaus Bruhns

borndied
16651697, Mar 29
a Danish-German organist, violinist, and composer. He was one of the most prominent organists and composers of his generation. Bruhns' surviving oeuvre is unfortunately small: only 12 vocal and 5 organ pieces are extant.
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Pablo Bruna

borndied
1611, Jun 221679, Jun 27
a Spanish composer and organist notable for his blindness (suffered after a childhood bout of smallpox), which resulted in his being known as "El ciego de Daroca" ("the blind man of Daroca"). Thirty-two of Bruna's organ works have survived, mostly in the tiento form.
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Gaetano Brunetti

aka: Cayetano
borndied
17441798, Dec 16
a prolific Italian born composer active in Spain under kings Charles III and IV. Though he was musically influential at court and, to a lesser extent, throughout parts of western Europe, very little of his music was published during his lifetime, and not much more has been published since his death.
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Philipp Friedrich Buchner

borndied
1614, Sep 111669, Mar 23
a German composer. He converted to Catholicism in Poland, and travelled to Italy to absorb the new style of Monteverdi. On his return to Germany he was employed by bishop Johann Philipp von Schönborn in Mainz for his Electoral orchestra. His works available in modern edition include a Christmas cantata.
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Frederick Buck

borndied
1827, Jan 291906, May 11


Olivia Buckley

aka: O. B. Dussek
borndied
17991847
an English harpist, organist and composer. She was born in London, the daughter of Czech composer Jan Ladislav Dussek and Scottish composer Sophia Corri. Buckley taught music, and around 1840 became organist at Kensington parish church. She used the pen name O. B. Dussek for the publication of her music. Buckley composed for harp and vocal works.
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Pierre-Gabriel Buffardin

borndied
1690 ca1768, Jan 13
a French flutist and composer of the late Baroque period. Born in Provence, Buffardin was a flute soloist at the court of the Elector of Saxony in Dresden from 1715 to 1749. Buffardin's Sonata for Flute is the only work which it is certain he wrote.
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John Bull

borndied
1562 ca1628, Mar 15
an English composer, musician and organ builder. He was a renowned keyboard performer of the virginalist school and most of his compositions were written for this medium. Bull was one of the most famous composers of keyboard music of the early 17th century. In addition to his keyboard compositions, he wrote verse anthems, canons and other works.
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Cross-listed in Clergy

Benedictus Buns

borndied
16421716, Dec 6
a priest and composer. Much of Buns's work has survived, including motets, litanies, masses, pieces for chorus and instruments, as well as 14 instrumental sonatas.
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Friedrich Burgmuller

aka: Bergmüller
borndied
1806, Dec 41874, Feb 13
a German pianist and composer, brother of Norbert Burgmuller. He adopted Parisian music and developed his trademark (light) style of playing. He wrote many pieces of salon music for the piano and published several albums. Burgmüller also went on to compose piano etudes intended for children.
Links (1)


Norbert Burgmuller

aka: Bergmüller
borndied
1810, Feb 81836, May 7
a German composer, brother of Friedrich Burgmuller. In 1836 he went to a spa in Aachen, where he drowned during an epileptic seizure. He wrote two symphonies, both published after his death.
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Cross-listed in Writers

Charles Burney

borndied
1726, Apr 71814, Apr 12
an English music historian, composer and musician, and father of the writers Frances Burney and Sarah Burney. Burney wrote some music for Thomson's Alfred, which was produced at Drury Lane theatre on 30 March 1745. His Ode for St Cecilia's Day was performed at Ranelagh Gardens in 1759. In 1776 appeared the first volume (in quarto) of his long-projected Histo...
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Links (4)Notes (1)


Pieter Bustijn

borndied
1649 ca1729, Nov 22
a Dutch composer, organist, harpsichordist and carillon player of the Baroque period. He occupies a very minor place in music literature: only one of his works, in fact, has been discovered, the IX Suittes pour le Clavessin. This work, one opus number, was printed in Amsterdam in 1712 by the famous publisher Estienne Roger.
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Johann Heinrich Buttstedt

borndied
1666, Apr 251727, Dec 1
a German Baroque organist and composer. Although he was Johann Pachelbel's most important pupil and one of the last major exponents of the south German organ tradition, Buttstett is best remembered for a dispute with Johann Mattheson.
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Dietrich Buxtehude

borndied
1638 ca1707, May 9
a Danish-German organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services. He composed in a wide variety of vocal and instrumental idioms, and his style strongly influenced many composers, including more
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William Byrd

bornactivedied
1540 ca1560s-1570s1623, Jul 4
an English composer of the Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard (the so-called Virginalist school), and consort music. He produced sacred music for use in Anglican services, although he himself became a Roman Catholic in later life and wrote Catholic sacre...
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