Last Updated on 29 October 2023
I know this will be controversial among my composer friends, but the following list is the Official Definitive List of the 400 best music composers ever. I averaged 22 different ranked lists of “best music composers of all time” to get this definitive compilation. Some lists said “classical” composers and others just said “composers” and some included film scores. Sure, lists of composers can be personal or subjective, but by averaging so many online lists, I hope to create a more unbiased list. See my Methodology page for the research process that was used, including links to all 22 lists that were averaged.
- Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
- Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
- Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
- Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
- Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
- Richard Wagner (1813–1883)
- Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
- Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
- Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
- Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
- George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
- Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
- Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
- Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
- Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
- Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904)
- Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
- Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
- Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
- Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
- Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
- Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
- Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
- Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
- Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
- Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
- Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
- Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
- Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
- Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
- Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)
- George Gershwin (1898-1937)
- Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)
- Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
- Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
- Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)
- Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
- Erik Satie (1866-1925)
- Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
- Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
- Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)
- Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
- Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c.1525-1594)
- Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
- Leos Janáček (1854-1928)
- Charles Ives (1874-1954)
- Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826)
- Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
- Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
- Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)
- Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
- Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840)
- Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
- John Cage (1912-1992)
- Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)
- César Franck (1822-1890)
- Alban Berg (1885-1935)
- Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
- Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)
- Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)
- Anton Webern (1883-1945)
- Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
- György Ligeti (1923-2006)
- William Byrd (1543-1623)
- Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787)
- Philip Glass (b.1937)
- Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
- John Williams (b.1932)
- Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)
- Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585)
- Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
- Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
- Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
- François Couperin (1668-1733)
- Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)
- Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
- Steve Reich (b.1936)
- Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
- Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007)
- Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
- Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613)
- Edgard Varèse (1883-1965)
- Kaija Saariaho (b.1952)
- Kurt Weill (1900-1950)
- Morton Feldman (1926-1987)
- Josquin des Prez (c.1450-1521)
- Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835)
- Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)
- Jules Massenet (1842-1912)
- Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978)
- Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)
- Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857)
- Orlando di Lasso (1532-1594)
- Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736)
- Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672)
- Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
- Pierre Boulez (1925-2016)
- Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994)
- Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725)
- Amy Beach (1867-1944)
- Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612)
- Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377)
- Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805)
- Guillaume DuFay (c.1397-1474)
- Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)
- Carl Orff (1895-1982)
- Arvo Pärt (b.1935)
- Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751)
- Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021)
- Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)
- Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
- Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)
- John Dowland (1563-1626)
- Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)
- Max Bruch (1838-1920)
- William Walton (1902-1983)
- Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)
- Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)
- Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)
- Harrison Birtwistle (1934-2022)
- Ennio Morricone (1928-2020)
- Luciano Berio (1925-2003)
- Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)
- Tōru Takemitsu (1930-1996)
- Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
- Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900)
- Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)
- Johannes Ockeghem (c.1410-1497)
- Danny Elfman (b.1953)
- Pérotin (1160-1230)
- Hans Zimmer (b.1957)
- Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782)
- Krzysztof Penderecki (1933-2020)
- Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001)
- Elliott Carter (1908-2012)
- Luigi Nono (1924-1990)
- Sofia Gubaidulina (b.1931)
- Léonin (c.1135-1201)
- Scott Joplin (1868-1917)
- Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864)
- Scott Bradley (1891-1977)
- Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
- Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967)
- Max Reger (1873-1916)
- Enrique Granados (1867-1916)
- Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957)
- Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988)
- Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937)
- John Adams (b.1947)
- Terry Riley (b.1935)
- Frederick Delius (1862-1934)
- Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959)
- Meredith Monk (b.1942)
- Léo Delibes (1836-1891)
- Muzio Clementi (1752-1832)
- Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704)
- Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924)
- Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842)
- Percy Grainger (1882-1961)
- Franz Lehar (1870-1948)
- Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908)
- Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837)
- Édouard Lalo (1823-1892)
- Alexandre Desplat (b.1961)
- John Philip Sousa (1854-1932)
- Helmut Lachenmann (b.1935)
- Alexei Stanchinsky (1888-1914)
- Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)
- Wim Mertens (b.1953)
- Carl Stalling (1891-1972)
- Arthur Honegger (1892-1955)
- Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847)
- Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962)
- George Enescu (1881-1955)
- Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997)
- Anton Rubinstein (1829-1894)
- Antonio Salieri (1750-1825)
- Ernest Chausson (1855-1899)
- Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-1894)
- Paul Dukas (1865-1935)
- Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921)
- Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704)
- Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006)
- Mily Balakirev (1837-1910)
- Akira Ifukube (1914-2006)
- Johann Strauss I (1804-1849)
- Henryk Górecki (1933-2010)
- Hoyt Curtin (1922-2000)
- Michael Tippett (1905-1998)
- Marin Marais (1656-1728)
- Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801)
- Ned Rorem (1923-2022)
- Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869)
- Hans Werner Henze (1926-2012)
- Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942)
- Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937)
- Edward MacDowell (1860-1908)
- Glenn Branca (1948-2018)
- Dmitry Kabalevsky (1904-1987)
- Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709)
- Alan Silvestri (b.1950)
- Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)
- John Tavener (1944-2013)
- Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)
- Michael Praetorius (1571-1621)
- Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007)
- Frank Zappa (1940-1993)
- Albert Roussel (1869-1937)
- Arnold Bax (1883-1953)
- John Field (1782-1837)
- William Basinski (b.1958)
- John Zorn (b.1953)
- Oliver Knussen (1952-2018)
- John Corigliano (b.1938)
- Hanns Eisler (1898-1962)
- Frank Bridge (1879-1941)
- Josef Suk (1874-1935)
- Howard Shore (b.1946)
- Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
- Ferde Grofé (1892-1972)
- Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920)
- Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975)
- Charlemagne Palestine (b.1945)
- Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013)
- Nikolai Kapustin (1937-2020)
- Roger Sessions (1896-1985)
- Per Nørgård (b.1932)
- André Jolivet (1905-1974)
- Niels Gade (1817-1890)
- Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785)
- Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944)
- Ludovico Einaudi (b.1955)
- Pierre Henry (1927-2020)
- Harold Budd (1936-2020)
- Jóhann Jóhannsson (1969-2018)
- Gavin Bryars (b.1943)
- Luc Ferrari (1929-2005)
- Max Richter (b.1966)
- Horațiu Rădulescu (1942-2008)
- Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023)
- Ryoji Ikeda (b.1966)
- Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016)
- Sylvain Chauveau (b.1971)
- Stephan Micus (b.1953)
- Peter Broderick (b.1987)
- Moondog (1916-1999)
- La Monte Young (b.1935)
- Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945)
- Salvatore Sciarrino (b.1947)
- Valentin Silvestrov (b.1937)
- Zbigniew Preisner (b.1955)
- Jon Lord (1941-2012)
- Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)
- Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006)
- Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745)
- Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999)
- Carl Czerny (1791-1857)
- Ernest Bloch (1880-1959)
- Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857-1919)
- Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975)
- Cole Porter (1891-1964)
- Jacob Obrecht (1457-1505)
- Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)
- Arrigo Boito (1842-1918)
- Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676)
- Henry Cowell (1897-1965)
- Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000)
- John Dunstable (1390-1453)
- Louis Spohr (1784-1859)
- Michael Haydn (1737-1806)
- Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-1888)
- Frank Martin (1890-1974)
- Joaquín Turina (1882-1949)
- Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915)
- Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770)
- Umberto Giordano (1867-1948)
- Angelo Badalamenti (1937-2022)
- George Crumb (1929-2022)
- Hieronymus Praetorius (1560-1629)
- Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677)
- Franz Schreker (1878-1934)
- Amilcare Ponchielli (1834-1886)
- Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674)
- Nino Rota (1911-1979)
- Jacques Ibert (1890-1962)
- Franz Schmidt (1874-1939)
- John Bull (1562-1628)
- Miklós Rózsa (1907-1995)
- Henryk Wieniawski (1835-1880)
- Louis Andriessen (1939-2021)
- Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016)
- Virgil Thomson (1896-1989)
- John Rutter (b.1945)
- Francesco Landini (1937)
- William Bolcom (b.1938)
- Ernst Krenek (1900-1991)
- Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)
- Otto Nicolai (1810-1849)
- Ernst von Dohnányi (1877-1960)
- Franz Berwald (1796-1868)
- Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621)
- Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762)
- César Cui (1835-1918)
- Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
- Fernando Sor (1778-1839)
- Karl Goldmark (1830-1915)
- Victor Herbert (1859-1924)
- William Schuman (1910-1992)
- Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938)
- Lou Harrison (1917-2003)
- Adriana Hölszky (b.1953)
- Manuel Ponce (1882-1948)
- Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812)
- Luca Marenzio (1553-1599)
- Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968)
- Alessandro Stradella (1643-1682)
- Ambroise Thomas (1811-1896)
- Michel Legrand (1932-2019)
- Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)
- Carlo Pallavicino (1630-1688)
- Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987)
- George Benjamin (b.1960)
- Jean Françaix (1912-1997)
- Tommaso Traetta (1727-1779)
- Josef Strauss (1827-1870)
- Gunther Schuller (1925-2015)
- Joachim Raff (1822-1882)
- Walter Piston (1894-1976)
- Niccolò Jommelli (1714-1774)
- Howard Hanson (1896-1981)
- Alfredo Casella (1883-1947)
- Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690)
- John Harbison (b.1938)
- Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021)
- Carlos Chávez (1899-1978)
- Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901)
- Agostino Steffani (1654-1728)
- Thomas Morley (1557-1602)
- Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-1988)
- Francesco Cilea (1866-1950)
- Guido d’Arezzo (c.991-aft.1033)
- Norman Dello Joio (1913-2008)
- Sigismond Thalberg (1812-1871)
- William Grant Still (1895-1978)
- Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876)
- Hubert Parry (1848-1918)
- Franz von Suppé (1819-1895)
- Stephen Foster (1826-1864)
- John Blow (1649-1708)
- Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947)
- Carl Tausig (1841-1871)
- Florent Schmitt (1870-1958)
- Peter Warlock (1894-1930)
- Stephen Heller (1813-1888)
- Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
- Carlos Salzedo (1885-1961)
- Healey Willan (1880-1968)
- Edmund Rubbra (1901-1986)
- Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784)
- R. Murray Schafer (1933-2021)
- Harry Partch (1901-1974)
- Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951)
- Milton Babbitt (1916-2011)
- Thomas Tellefsen (1823-1874)
- Frederic Mompou (1893-1987)
- Richard Wetz (1875-1935)
- Reinhold Glière (1875-1956)
- Heinrich Isaac (1450-1517)
- Thomas Arne (1710-1778)
- Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012)
- Frederick Loewe (1901-1988)
- Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654)
- John Ireland (1879-1962)
- Lukas Foss (1922-2009)
- Morton Gould (1913-1996)
- Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
- Antonio Soler (1729-1783)
- Wolfgang Rihm (b.1952)
- Charles Koechlin (1867-1950)
- Anton Reicha (1770-1836)
- Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016)
- Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941)
- Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656)
- Roy Harris (1898-1979)
- Hans Pfitzner (1869-1949)
- Peter Sculthorpe (1929-2014)
- Karel Husa (1921-2016)
- Friedrich von Flotow (1812-1883)
- Adolphe Adam (1803-1856)
- Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1881)
- William Boyce (1711-1779)
- Leo Brouwer (b.1939)
- George Rochberg (1918-2005)
- Vincent d’Indy (1851-1931)
- Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909)
- Rodion Shchedrin (b.1932)
- Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739)
- Giovanni Paisiello (1740-1816)
