B
Bach: the composer who changed music forever
Meet the king of counterpoint, Johann Sebastian Bach
Beethoven unleashed: the man, the myth, the music that shook the world
John Suchet profiles Ludwig van Beethoven - the composer who sparked a musical revolution
'Scant regard for hygiene led to serious complications': how a medical charlatan blinded Bach
In April 1750 Bach went under the knife of English eye surgeon John Taylor with disastrous results...
Brahms: traditionalist, innovator... a man of many fascinating contradictions
Meet Johannes Brahms, the Janus-like face of Romanticism
Lord Berners: a true English eccentric
Geoff Brown tells the story of the maverick composer Lord Berners, whose flamboyant lifestyle went hand-in-hand with a major talent
Mel Bonis: the French composer who forged her own path through social norms and personal struggles
French composer Mel Bonis overcame social prejudice and personal struggles to create a vast and expressive body of work
A document of despair… How Beethoven's anguished Heiligenstadt Testament revealed his advancing deafness
Beethoven's Heiligenstadt Testament reveals the composer's pain over his encroaching deafness
Judith Bingham: British composer and mezzo-soprano whose music explores spiritual, historical, and environmental themes
Meet the composer 'always chasing the chimaera of the perfect piece and never capturing it'
Amy Beach: the gifted American composer whose prodigious talents were stifled by social norms
Amy Beach left behind some beautiful and hugely accomplished works. But, says Anthony Burton, did the social conventions of the era in which she was living stifle her true potential?
Ferruccio Busoni: the underrated Italian composer who 'breathed the air of other planets'
Although the piano virtuoso’s roots lay firmly in the Romantic era, Busoni’s instinct for pushing musical boundaries won him the respect of Schoenberg and Webern, says Erik Levi
Benjamin Britten: a captivating balance of tradition and innovation
The English voice of Europe
Alban Berg: from lush Romanticism to the wilder shores of Serialism
Read on for an introduction to the life and work of the Austrian composer who travelled from rich Romanticism into the austere Serialism of his teacher Schoenberg
Bartók: folk music alchemist
Hungary's genuine folk artist
Berlioz: a revolutionary Romantic with deep Classical roots
Hector Berlioz: the revival of an outlandish romantic
Samuel Barber: last great American Romantic
Vincenzo Bellini: the well-travelled bel canto composer whose life was cut short
Alexandra Wilson explores the short but lavishly successful life of an opera composer feted from Milan to Paris and far beyond
The 'Pink Peril': Lili Boulanger, Grażyna Bacewicz, and glass ceilings
Soprano Katharine Dain looks at how misogyny has stood in the way of some wonderful female composers getting their due
Johann Christian Bach: Classical pioneer and mentor to Mozart
Adventurous and inventive Johann Christian Bach, the pioneering ‘English Bach’, proved a major inspiration to the young Mozart, as Chris de Souza explains
Buxtehude, the Danish composer who inspired Bach
Dieterich Buxtehude was a composer so original that JS Bach felt compelled to walk hundreds of miles just to hear him at work. Paul Riley salutes one of choral and organ music’s early geniuses
Grażyna Bacewicz: one of Poland's finest composers of all time
One of Poland’s most brilliant composers, Bacewicz is finally taking her rightful place on the international stage, says John Allison
William Byrd: Elizabeth I's Catholic composer
Meet William Byrd, Queen Elizabeth's Catholic composer
Harrison Birtwistle: an introduction
Life and times of the English composer whose works offer 'a sense of being in touch with the primordial essence of music'
Who is Sally Beamish?
Sally Beamish, who also paints, writes and narrates, is one of Britain's foremost composers. But she didn't devote herself to writing music until her thirties. Here is everything you need to know about her
Bologne, Joseph
A supreme sportsman with military ambitions, Joseph Bologne - Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was also one of the finest musicians of 18th-century Paris, and often referred to the black Mozart. Paul Riley tells his story