WAgathe Ursula Backer Grøndahl was a Norwegian pianist and composer. She married the conductor and singing teacher Olaus Andreas Grøndahl in 1875, and was generally known thereafter as Agathe Backer Grøndahl. Her son Fridtjof Backer-Grøndahl (1885–1959) was also a pianist and composer, who promoted his mother's compositions in his concerts.
WLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist whose music ranks amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire; he remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music. His works span the transition from the classical period to the romantic era in classical music. His career has conventionally been divided into early, middle, and late periods. The "early" period, during which he forged his craft, is typically considered to have lasted until 1802. From 1802 to around 1812, his "middle" period showed an individual development from the "classical" styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and is sometimes characterized as "heroic." During this time he began to suffer increasingly from deafness. In his "late" period from 1812 to his death in 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression.
WWilliam Boyce was an English composer and organist.
WGabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, Sicilienne, nocturnes for piano and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his most highly regarded works in his later years, in a more harmonically and melodically complex style.
WRobert Franz was a German composer, mainly of lieder.
WDame Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie, is a Scottish percussionist. She was selected as one of the two laureates for the Polar Music Prize of 2015.
WJohann Mattheson was a German composer, singer, writer, lexicographer, diplomat and music theorist.
WBedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride and for the symphonic cycle Má vlast, which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native Bohemia. It contains the famous symphonic poem "Vltava", also popularly known by its German name "Die Moldau".
WRalph Vaughan Williams was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.