These pages provide an overview of some of the available biographies of composers and performers. These include books that cover the personal life and/or the general musical life of the composer or performer. Be sure to visit the Thematic Indices section for reference texts dedicated to listing compositions by a given composer.
We welcome feedback, suggestions, additions, and corrections to this information.
Albéniz | Albinoni | Alwyn | Avison | C.P.E. Bach | J.C. Bach | J.S. Bach | Balakirev | Barber | Bartók | Beach | Beethoven | Bellini | Berg | Berlioz | Bernstein | Bizet | Borodin | Boulanger | Boulez | Brahms | Britten | Bruch | Bruckner | Busoni | Butterworth | Buxtehude | Cage | Callas | Carter | Chávez | Chopin | Clementi | Copland | Corelli | Couperin | Debussy | DeLay | Delius | Donizetti | Duparc | Dvořák | Elgar | Ellington | Enescu | De Falla | Fauré | Field | Foote | Franck | Frescobaldi | Furtwängler | Geminiani | Gershwin | Glinka | Górecki | Gottschalk | Gould | Grainger | Granados | Grieg | Griffes | Handel | Hartmann | Haydn | Henze | Herrmann | Hindemith | Holst | Horowitz | Ives | Janáček | Jenkins | Joplin | Josquin | Kodály | Korngold | Krenek | Ligeti | Liszt | MacDowell | Machaut | Mahler | Martinů | Mascagni | Massenet | Medtner | Mendelssohn | Mennin | Messiaen | Milhaud | Mitropoulos | Moeran | Monteverdi | Mussorgsky | Mozart | Nielsen | Nureyev | Obrecht | Offenbach | Paderewski | Paganini | Palestrina | Parry | Pärt | Persichetti | Pfitzner | Poulenc | Prokofieff | Puccini | Purcell | Quilter | Rachmaninoff | Rameau | Ravel | Reger | Rimsky-Korsakoff | Rodrigo | Rosetti | Rossini | Saint-Saëns | Satie | Scarlatti | Schnittke | Schoenberg | Schubert | Schuman | Schumann | Schütz | Scriabin | Seeger | Sessions | Shostakovich | Sibelius | Smetana | Stockhausen | R. Strauss | Stravinsky | Sullivan | Tchaikovsky | Thomson | Toscanini | Turina | Vanhal | Varèse | Vaughan Williams | Verdi | Victoria | Villa-Lôbos | Vivaldi | Wagner | Walton | Weber | Webern | Weill | Widor | Wolf | Xenakis Zelenka | Zemlinsky