Ranking the greatest composers of all time is a daunting task.
Music history stretches across centuries, styles, and cultures, from the Baroque intricacies of Bach to the bold modernism of Ives and Debussy. Some composers are revered for their sweeping emotional power, like Tchaikovsky and Sibelius, whose symphonies capture universal feelings with immediacy and grandeur. Others are admired for their technical innovation, harmonic daring, or imaginative orchestration.
In assembling this list of 31 composers, the goal is not to definitively crown one genius above all but to explore the diverse ways music has moved, challenged, and inspired listeners. It includes the lush lyricism of Romantic masters, the clarity and elegance of Classical pillars, and the radical experiments of 20th-century pioneers.
Figures such as Charles Ives, with his fearless exploration of tonality and rhythm, sit alongside Debussy, whose impressionistic textures reshaped the palette of orchestral color. Sibelius and Tchaikovsky offer symphonic landscapes of profound emotional resonance, while other innovators pushed music in unexpected directions, redefining what sound could convey.
This ranking celebrates mastery, influence, and enduring beauty, tracing a lineage of genius that continues to resonate today.
The greatest composers of all time
31. Hector Berlioz (1803-69, French) 🇫🇷
Hector Berlioz was a fearless innovator whose music pushed the boundaries of orchestration, structure, and emotion. His Symphonie fantastique revolutionised the symphonic form, introducing the idea of a programmatic symphony with recurring motifs and vivid storytelling. Berlioz’s bold use of the orchestra and dramatic flair inspired generations of composers, from Wagner to Mahler. Though misunderstood in his lifetime, his genius is now recognised as visionary and foundational to the Romantic era.
Start here: Symphonie fantastique (Boston Symphony Orchestra/Charles Munch)
30. Aaron Copland (1900-90, American) 🇺🇸
Aaron Copland is often hailed as the voice of American classical music. Blending modernist techniques with folk and jazz elements, he crafted a uniquely American sound that captured the vastness and spirit of the nation. Works like Appalachian Spring, Fanfare for the Common Man, and Rodeo evoke open landscapes and democratic optimism. His accessible style and patriotic themes made classical music resonate with a broader public.
Start here: Symphony No. 3 (New York Philharmonic / Leonard Bernstein, DG)
29. Edward Elgar (1857-1934, British) 🇬🇧
Britain’s symphonic master with a natural ear for yearning melodies
Edward Elgar’s greatness lies in his ability to combine sweeping lyricism with emotional depth, creating music at once noble and deeply human. Works like the Enigma Variations and the Cello Concerto capture a quintessentially English voice, both intimate and universal. His gift for orchestral colour, memorable melody, and profound feeling secures Elgar as one of the most enduring composers of the modern era.
Start here: Enigma Variations et al (Hallé Orchestra/Mark Elder)
28. Richard Strauss (1864-1949, German) 🇩🇪
Late Romantic composer of richly scored tone poems and heady operas
It’s easy to underestimate Richard Strauss’s significance, yet his 25-year sequence of tone poems, from Don Juan to An Alpine Symphony, demonstrated dazzling orchestral mastery and bold innovation. Operas like Salome and Elektra were stylistically as advanced as anything of their era. His late works – from Capriccio through the wind serenades and concertos to the Four Last Songs – achieve a radiant perfection, crowning an extraordinary creative life.
Start here: Don Juan (Berlin Philharmonic/Karajan)
27. Charles Ives (1874-1954, American) 🇺🇸
Pioneering experimentalist who redefined American classical music
Charles Ives may be the most original composer in history, his influence only fully recognized years after his groundbreaking works emerged. A fearless pioneer, he explored new paths in orchestration, form, harmony, rhythm, tuning, piano writing, and text setting – especially in his extraordinary 114 Songs – often decades ahead of others who later experimented in these fields. His Three Places in New England remains a striking showcase of his bold innovations and vision.
Start here: Three Places in New England, Symphony No. 3 etc (Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, DG Galleria)
26. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958, British) 🇬🇧
Pastoral scenes and Tudor influences are to the fore
Vaughan Williams’s music is instantly recognizable yet astonishingly varied, moving from the turbulence of the Fourth Symphony to the serenity of the Fifth. His works possess striking emotional directness and a deeply personal voice, blending ancient modes with modern harmonies into something uniquely his own. Nowhere is this more evident than in the luminous Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, where timeless beauty and bold invention coexist in a soundworld only Vaughan Williams could create.
Start here: Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis (Sinfonia of London/John Barbirolli)
25. Steve Reich (b.1936, American) 🇺🇸
American minimalist, expert crafter of clean lines and propulsive melodies
Stewart Copeland: Steve Reich could be regarded as the saviour of modern classical music. Somewhere in the middle of the 20th century, the idea took hold among even the best classical composers that music sophistication equals pain. Reich himself started with intellectual high concept, but then landed on something that allowed him to take a different direction: simple beauty. His minimalism eschews rules of structure, form, contour and rhythm.
Start here: Different Trains (Kronos Quartet, Nonesuch)
24. Benjamin Britten (1913-76, British) 🇬🇧
Restlessly inventive English composer of choral works, opera and song
Benjamin Britten’s greatness lies in his ability to blend emotional immediacy with technical mastery. His operas – Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw –combine vivid characterization, dramatic intensity, and innovative orchestration. Equally accomplished in orchestral, choral, and vocal music, Britten (pictured on right) reshaped 20th-century British music with a distinctive voice that balances lyricism, psychological depth, and modernist daring, leaving a legacy of works that remain both challenging and profoundly moving.
Start here: Les Illuminations etc (Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding)
23. Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953, Russian) 🇷🇺
Russian composer who balanced Romanticism and modernism and wrote brilliantly for the stage
Prokofiev’s unmistakable voice shines through his quirky, catchy melodies and inventive harmonies, instantly recognizable among 20th-century composers. Unlike many contemporaries, he continued writing tonally rooted, exciting themes well into the 1950s. His music has had lasting impact: Peter and the Wolf remains a beloved introduction to classical music for children, while Romeo and Juliet has become a globally celebrated staple, securing his place in the wider musical canon.
Start here: Romeo and Juliet (Cleveland Orchestra/Lorin Maazel)
22. Frédéric Chopin (1810-49, Polish) 🇵🇱
Polish Romantic whose colossal output transformed the piano repertoire
Jake Heggie: Is there anyone like Chopin? He didn’t write symphonies or operas; he knew where his gifts lay and relentlessly explored the technical and expressive possibilities within that realm. He has been the gateway and inspiration for millions of pianists, teachers and composers of all stripes. His humanity walked me through the toughest times of my life: my father’s suicide, coming out during the AIDS crisis, the hand injury that changed the course of my life. Chopin was always there with me.
Start here: Préludes / Piano Sonata No. 2 (Martha Argerich, piano, DG)
21. Anton Bruckner (1824-1896, Austrian) 🇦🇹
Monumental symphonist bridging Romantic passion and spirituality
Anton Bruckner was a visionary symphonist whose music fuses monumental scale with spiritual depth. Deeply devout, he infused his symphonies with a sense of awe, mystery, and transcendence, creating vast soundscapes that build slowly to overwhelming climaxes. Though often misunderstood in his time, Bruckner's symphonies now stand as towering achievements of the Romantic era – majestic, meditative, and profoundly moving.
Start here: Symphony No. 4 (Berlin Philharmonic/Gunter Wand, RCA Red Seal)
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20. George Frideric Handel (1685-1759, German) 🇩🇪
Master of Baroque drama and majestic choral masterpieces
George Frideric Handel was a master of drama, melody, and grandeur. His music – whether operas, oratorios, or instrumental works – brims with emotional immediacy and regal splendour. Handel’s genius lay in his ability to marry theatrical flair with profound expressiveness, most famously in works like Messiah and Zadok the Priest. His influence on both sacred and secular music is immense, and his timeless melodies continue to captivate audiences across the world.
Start here: Water Music (The English Concert / Trevor Pinnock)
19. Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901, Italian) 🇮🇹
Italian operatic master whose enduring arias are beloved the world over
Qigang Chen: The five classical composers I voted for all have something in common: they were unconcerned with keeping up with the latest fashions and were relatively free of outside influence. They were, in short, utterly individual. Verdi’s age coincided with the height of Austro-Germanic rationalist dominance in philosophy, literature, and music, but he did without such glorious guiding principles.
Start here: La Traviata (Joan Sutherland, Luciano Pavarotti et al, Decca)
- A quick guide to Verdi's Requiem
- We named Verdi one of the greatest Italian composers of all time
18. Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943, Russian) 🇷🇺
Russian virtuoso pianist, gifted melodist, Romanticism's last hurrah
John Rutter: Rachmaninov belongs to the aristocracy of composers. He never wrote a piece of music unless he had something to say and he never repeated himself; he never outstayed his welcome. No two of his piano pieces are alike, each one creates its own world. He lays his soul before us in music like the Second Symphony, yet it is noble as much as passionate.
Start here: Piano Concerto No. 4 (Michelangeli; Philharmonia/Ettore Gracis, 1957). This disc features in our list of the greatest recordings of all time.
Best of Rachmaninov: ten great works
17. Joseph Haydn (1732-1809, Austrian) 🇦🇹
Symphonic pioneer who played a key role in the development of chamber music
Rodney Newton: The father of both the symphony and the string quartet, ‘Papa’ Haydn laid the foundations for the development of these forms, and his inventiveness and originality were the inspiration and model for countless others. As with Bach, the fecundity and range of Haydn’s output are staggering. From the point of view of sheer enjoyment, he has few parallels – his humanity bubbles out of every work.
Start here: The London Symphonies (Concertgebouw / Colin Davis, Decca)
16. Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75, Russian) 🇷🇺
Post-Romantic composer of large-scale symphonies, orchestral works and opera
The Simpsons composer Danny Elfman: My first encounters with Shostakovich turned my musical perspective upside down. His Eighth String Quartet, for instance, hit me with such force. The opening four-note motif made an instant connection to me as it evolved into the most soulful and heartbreaking melody I had ever heard. Then, the way he twists and turns that motif, exposing and hiding it throughout the quartet, seemed like an impossible magic trick.
Start here: Piano Quintet (Takács Quartet/Marc-André Hamelin)
15. Béla Bartók (1881-1945, Hungarian) 🇭🇺
A thrilling clash of Hungarian folk idioms and angular modernism
Michael Berkeley: Bartók is, for me, an unsung hero. His six string quartets are the finest cycle since Beethoven’s and in them he revolutionised writing for string instruments. But the extraordinary sounds he achieves are utterly organic and crucial to the sensibility of the music. On a larger scale, I would love to see two masterpieces at the Royal Opera House, with the opera doing Bluebeard’s Castle and the ballet doing The Miraculous Mandarin – both scores of terrifying power and vision.
Start here: Complete String Quartets (Heath Quartet)
14. Jean Sibelius (1865-1957, Finnish) 🇫🇮
Brooding Finnish landscapes and ancient folklore captured in vivid colour
Anthony Payne: There’s something northern and powerful about Sibelius. But it’s the idea of narrative growth in his music that really grabs me – the way he starts with an idea or a motif and allows it to develop. Sibelius also makes references to classical forms, but they’re completely newly aligned, as in the first movement of the Second Symphony or the tone poems such as Tapiola, which I think is one of the great works of all time.
Start here: Symphonies 1-7, etc (Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Paavo Berglund)
13. Robert Schumann (1810-56, German) 🇩🇪
German Romantic composer whose unstable mind spawned complex masterpieces
Bent Sørensen: Bach and Mozart write perfect music, but there’s a fragile quality to Schumann's perfection. I grew up listening to violin concertos, because my father played the violin. There’s something about Schumann’s Violin Concerto; the music reminded me of myself. I feel close to Schumann, both personally and professionally.
Start here: Carnaval/Kreisleriana (Mitsuko Uchida, piano)
12. Maurice Ravel (1875-1937, French) 🇫🇷
French Impressionist notable for his colourful pianism and superbly evocative soundscapes
Judith Bingham: Both musically and as a person, Ravel has always seemed extremely mysterious to me. He reminds me of the French Baroque painter, Antoine Watteau (whose paintings inspired him) – intensely beautiful, but the picture’s meaning is always slightly out of reach. For example Le Tombeau de Couperin, which Ravel composed during World War I to memorialise friends who had been killed, is very light-hearted, as though he wanted to wind back time. Of course, all his music is incredibly original: the timbres are used to enchant. He has the unusual skill, maybe not deliberately, of writing music that can be listened to with equal satisfaction by adults and children.
Start here: Boléro / La valse / Daphnis et Chloé etc (Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal/Charles Dutoit, Decca 2CD)
11. Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904, Czech) 🇨🇿
Melodic genius blending Czech folk spirit with symphonic grandeur
Antonín Dvořák is celebrated for blending rich Romantic expression with the rhythms and melodies of Czech folk music. His works are emotionally direct, structurally masterful, and often deeply lyrical, whether in his soaring symphonies, vibrant chamber music, or operas. The 'New World' Symphony and 'American' String Quartet reflect his global influence, written during his time in the U.S. Dvořák’s music pulses with life, warmth, and national pride – making him a true giant of 19th-century music.
Start here: Symphonies 8 & 9 (Berlin Philharmonic / Rafael Kubelik, DG)
Best composers of all time: the top ten
10. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-93, Russian) 🇷🇺
Ballets and biographical symphonies are at the heart of this Russian Romantic’s work
Joby Talbot: If you were to greet some aliens who had landed and wanted to know what classical music sounded like, you could do much worse than point them in the direction of Tchaikovsky. To me, growing up, Tchaikovsky's music was just the quintessence of beautiful, extraordinary, poetic and melodic orchestral and vocal music. Tchaikovsky was obviously the master of melody, but I also love the heart-on-sleeve emotional palette and the rhythmic element of his music.
Start here: The Ballet Suites (Berlin Philharmonic/Mstislav Rostropovich, DG)
We named Tchaikovsky one of the best Russian composers of all time and one of the greatest ballet composers.
9. Johannes Brahms (1833-97, German) 🇩🇪
A Romantic composing giant of rich, ripe textures and winsome melodies
Mark Simpson: The best of Brahms exists in the moments when he transcends his grounded, earthy sense of being and take us to a higher state of spiritual awareness – the passage between the human and the spiritual world. Brahms was in essence deeply human, but he also had a developed spiritual side that he had access to. It’s this striving for a higher state of expressive consciousness that I take most from his work.
Start here: The Piano Concertos (Stephen Hough; Mozarteumorchester Salzburg/Mark Wigglesworth)
8. Richard Wagner (1813-83, German) 🇩🇪
Composer of epic, large-scale operas; inventor of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or 'total work of art'
Jonathan Dove: The scale of Wagner’s imagination is overwhelming. The Ring Cycle in particular is an immense vision of a work that lasts more than 15 hours (plus intervals), and he had the tenacity and self-belief to spend 26 years writing it. He created spectacular musical imagery of unsurpassed vividness, and had a revolutionary approach to memory and time. Whether you find his music toxic or intoxicating, you can’t ignore it.
Start here: Overtures and Preludes (Karl Böhm, Rafel Kubelik et al, DG)
7. Franz Schubert (1797-1828, Austrian) 🇦🇹
Austrian Romantic famed for his profound song cycles, sublime sonatas and deep feel for melody
Stephen Hough: For me, Schubert's unique power lies in his ability to speak to the human heart in all its fragility and vulnerability. Without sentimentality or falsehood, Schubert reaches beyond the ears of his listeners to their hearts. We sense that he empathises with the deepest longings of our souls, yet somehow still respects our boundaries. After his body began to break down in illness, Schubert's inspiration took flight. It was a high price for him to pay. For us, though, left with his miraculous works, it is a trove of priceless treasures.
Start here: Piano Quintet 'Trout' / String Quartet No. 14 'Death and the Maiden' (Amadeus Quartet/Emil Gilels et al, DG)
We named Schubert one of the greatest Austrian composers ever.
6. Gustav Mahler (1860-1911, Austrian) 🇦🇹
Mahler's mighty Romantic symphonies embrace the whole of humanity
David Matthews: Mahler composed some of the greatest symphonies since Beethoven, written with an astonishing command of all aspects of compositional technique. Mahler was a Romantic, but he could not share Beethoven’s early Romantic optimism; his is a modern approach, full of doubts and uncertainties yet hardly ever falling into despair. The search for meaning is never absent, and as well as its passionate striving, Mahler’s music is often full of uninhibited joy. This is why I think it has such appeal in our own dark time.
Start here: Symphony No. 1 (Berlin Philharmonic/Claudio Abbado)
5. Claude Debussy (1862-1918, French) 🇫🇷
Creator of lyrical melodies, poetic piano works and chamber music
Jennifer Higdon: Light and air imbue the spaces between the notes of Debussy's music. Even as a young child – long before I started down the path of music – his works would always bring me to a standstill. I was utterly fascinated by what felt like some sort of magic, descending on the air. Debussy’s music sounds like a light breeze, leaving a gentle impression but with enough presence to still inspire me to stop and listen – the artistry of this ‘rebel’ composer still sounds fresh.
Start here: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune / Jeux (with Stravinsky, Petrouchka)
Orchestre de Paris/Klaus Mäkelä
4. Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971, Russian) 🇷🇺
Russian iconoclast whose integrated approach to art has stood the test of time
Mark-Anthony Turnage: I suppose in many ways I’m obsessed with Stravinsky. Every note is so beautifully placed; nothing jars or is superfluous. It moves me, because like Bach it’s so precise. I love the harmony, the Russian-inflected melodies, the energy and brilliance.
Whether it’s the serene chords that move with the bass line at the end of Symphony of Psalms, the keening at the opening of Symphonies of Wind Instruments and everything in between, including the much maligned neo-classical works, it’s all wonderful.
As a composer, Stravinsky is there in my life, looming over me but never an overwhelming presence; always cheeky and encouraging. His music makes me so happy, especially on dark days. I love Igor Stravinsky.
Start here: The Firebird / Petrushka / The Rite of Spring (London Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle)
3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91, Austrian) 🇦🇹
Prodigious and prolific, the Austrian composer defined the Classical era
Augusta Read Thomas: To me, Mozart’s works have an inevitability that is pure and honest, humane, human, infinitely compelling, rich, sonorous and technically fabulous; his music is at times humorous, at times gut-wrenchingly moving. In many ways, the body of work that poured out of Mozart in his brief 35 years of life feels like pure magic, and it’s unbelievable how such a young man was able to assimilate the deepest riches of music and its possibilities.
Start here: The Great Piano Concertos (Alfred Brendel; Academy of St Martin in the Fields / Neville Marriner)
2. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827, German) 🇩🇪
Straddling Classicism and Romanticism, Beethoven's wide-ranging music dominated his era
John Corigliano: For me, Beethoven is the one composer that makes music so urgent that one is immediately drawn to it, so powerful that one can hardly resist it and yet so richly layered that one will never entirely plumb its depths. There is no one like him. For an example of what excites me about Beethoven, take the last movement of his Eighth Symphony. It starts in F major then suddenly the music is interrupted with a startling and unexplained C sharp played forte. The music then resumes almost as if nothing has happened! The ‘explanation’ only comes in the coda several minutes later – a wonderful example of ‘long-range’ harmonic planning.
Start here: Symphonies Nos 5 & 7 (Vienna Philharmonic/Carlos Kleiber)
And the best composer of all time is...
1. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750, German) 🇩🇪
A worthy champion of our 50 greatest classical composers of all time
All hail JS Bach, whose spirit dwells in practically every note written since his death. With supreme contrapuntal skill, Bach sculpts music of perfect form and balance, bestowing it with an emotional power that has echoed through the centuries. From the aching beauty of the Cello Suites and the bewildering ambition of the keyboard works to the dramatic force of the cantatas, no one has, and could possibly, come close to Bach's genius.
Steve Reich: Bach to me is the greatest composer who ever lived, the genius who created the most beautiful counterpoint I have ever heard, plus the basic aria of the Goldberg Variations where I am reduced to tears. I first heard Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto as a teenager in 1950, shortly after first hearing Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. The two pieces set me on my way. As a student, along with everyone else, Bach’s four-part chorales were essential to my study of harmony.
Start here: Brandenburg Concertos Nos 1-6 (Concentus Musicus Wien/Nikolaus Harnoncourt)
All pics: Getty Images