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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
‘The music spoke directly to my loneliness’ – how Bruckner helped me through a mental health crisis
Almost uniquely, Bruckner seems to inspire either deep devotion or total dislike. Stephen Johnson marks the Austrian’s bicentenary by explaining why, for him, the symphonies have become firm friends
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'
'How Beethoven has guided me through the best and worst of times' – John Suchet
The former war correspondent and news anchor discusses the Beethoven works that have helped him through difficult times
Leonard Bernstein: memories of the showman and visionary with the car number plate you couldn't miss
Memories of an extraordinary conductor, composer and communicator of the joys of music
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?
'His head crowned by a garland of white roses': how thousands attended Beethoven's funeral
The story of thousands gathering in Vienna for Beethoven’s final farewell
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
Beethoven: the astonishing force of nature who dragged music into the Romantic era
John Suchet profiles Ludwig van Beethoven - the composer who sparked a musical revolution
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
Johannes Brahms: a great Romantic
Meet Johannes Brahms, the Janus-like face of Romanticism
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
Johann Sebastian Bach: Baroque innovator and king of counterpoint
Meet the king of counterpoint, Johann Sebastian Bach
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'