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List of composers in literature

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This list includes fictional representations of real (named) composers and musicians, and fictional characters under other names that are generally agreed to be based on a specific composer, or sometimes a composite of several.

Johann Sebastian Bach

  • Esther Meynell: The Little Chronicle of Magdalena Bach (1925)[1]
  • James Runcie: The Great Passion (2022)[2]

Arnold Bax

  • Rebecca West: Harriet Hume (1929) (The title character based on Harriet Cohen)[3]

Ludwig van Beethoven

  • Jessica Duchan: Immortal (2020)[4]
  • Sanford Friedman: Conversations with Beethoven (1980s, published in 2014)[5]
  • Paul Griffiths: Mr Beethoven (2020)[6]
  • Esther Meynell: Grave Fairytale (1931) (as Melchior)[7]
  • Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Rumour: A Novel (1858) (as Rodomant)[8]
  • John Suchet: The Last Master (1997–99) (fictional biography in three volumes)

Bix Beiderbecke

  • Dorothy Baker: Young Man With a Horn (1938)

William Sterndale Bennett

  • Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Starwood Burney)[8]

Hector Berlioz

  • Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]
  • Jude Morgan: Symphony (2006)[9]
  • Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Florimond Anastasa)[10]

Lord Berners

  • Nancy Mitford: The Pursuit of Love (1945) (as Lord Merlin)[11]
  • Osbert Sitwell: ‘The Love Bird’ from Dumb Animal and Other Stories (1930) (as Sir Robert Mainwroth)[10]

Hildegard of Bingen

  • Mary Sharratt: Illuminations (2012)[5]

Mario Braggiotti

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald: Tender is The Night (1934) (as Tommy Barban)[12]

Benjamin Britten

  • Ian McEwan: Amsterdam (1998) (Clive Linley, correspondencies with Britten)[13]

Thomas Busby

  • George Borrow: Lavengro (1851) (as editor of the “Universal Review”)[10]

Frédéric Chopin

  • George Sand: Lucrezia Floriani (1846)[14]
  • Nell Stevens: Briefly, a Delicious Life (2022)[15]

Harriet Cohen

  • William Gerhardie: Pending Heaven (1930) (as Helen Sapphire)[3]
  • D H Lawrence: Kangeroo (1923) (as Harriet)[16]
  • Rebecca West: Harriet Hume (1929)[16]

Michael Costa

  • Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as St Michel)[10]

Noël Coward

  • Charles Brackett: Entirely Surrounded (1934) (as Nick Farraday)[10]
  • Beverley Nichols: Death to Slow Music (as Nigel Fleet)[10]
  • David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)

Christian Darnton

  • Nigel Balchin: Darkness Falls From the Air (1942) (as the poet Stephen Ryle)[17]

Claude Debussy

  • Pierre La Mure: Clair de lune (1962)[18]
  • Marcel Proust: À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) (aspects of Vinteuil, see also Franck and Saint-Saëns)[19]

Frederick Delius

  • C F Keary: The Journalist (1898) (as Sophus Jonsen)[19]

Edward J Dent

  • E. M. Forster: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) (as Philip Herriton)[19]

Delia Derbyshire

  • Rosemary Tonks: The Bloater (1968) (as Jenny)[20]

Arnold Dolmetsch

  • George Moore: Evelyn Innes (1898) (as the father of Evelyn)[21]

Edward Elgar

  • Keith Alldritt: Elgar on the Journey to Hanley: A Novel (1979)
  • Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]
  • James Hamilton-Paterson: Gerontius (1989)[5]
  • David Pownall: Elgar’s Rondo (1993)[22]
  • David Pownall: Elgar’s Third (1994)[22]

César Franck

  • Marcel Proust: À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) (aspects of Vinteuil, see also Debussy and Saint-Saëns)

George Gershwin

  • Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]
  • Mitchell James Kaplan. Rhapsody (2021)[23]
  • George Kaufman and Moss Hart: Merrily We Roll Along (1934) (as Sam Frankl)[19]

Carlo Gesualdo

  • David Pownall: Music to Murder By (1976)[22]

Jimmy Glover

  • George Moore: A Mummer’s Wife (1885) (as Montgomery)[10]

Eugene Aynsley Goossens

  • Inez Baranay: Pagan (1990)
  • Louis Nowra: The Devil is a Woman (2004)

Glenn Gould

  • Christopher Miller: Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects: A Novel in Liner Notes (2004)[24]

Cecil Gray

  • H.D.: Bid Me to Live (1960) (as Vane)[25]
  • Aldous Huxley: Antic Hay (1923) (as the critic Mercaptan)
  • D.H.Lawrence: Aaron’s Rod (1922) (as Cyril Scott)[10]
  • D.H.Lawrence: Kangaroo (1923) (as James Sharpe)[10]
  • Anthony Powell: Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant (Maclintick and Gossege as a composite)[26]

George Frideric Handel

  • Nick Drake: All the Angels: Handel and the First Messiah (2015)

Josef Matthias Hauer

  • Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (1943) (as model for Joculator Basiliensis (“the player from Basel”).
  • Otto Stoessl [de]’: Sonnenmelodie (1923)
  • Franz Werfel: Verdi. Roman der Oper [de] (1924) (as Matthias Fischboeck)

Charles Edward Horsley

  • Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Charles Auchester)[8]

John Pyke Hullah

  • Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Lenhart Davy)[10]

Halfdan Jebe

  • C F Keary: The Journalist (1898) (as Hauch)[27]

Maurice Jacobson

  • Stevie Smith: Novel on Yellow Paper (1936) (as Herman)[28]

Joseph Joachim

  • Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Charles Auchester)[10]

Aram Khachaturian

  • David Pownall: Master Class (1982)[22]

Constant Lambert

  • Anthony Powell: Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant (as Moreland)[29]
  • David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)

Henry Lawes

  • Robert Graves: Wife to Mr Milton (1942)

Madame Levinskaya

  • Bernice Rubens: Madame Sousatzka (1962)[30]

Franz Liszt

  • Daniel Stern: Nélida (1846)[31]
  • Susanne Dunlap: Liszt’s Kiss (2007)
  • George Eliot: Daniel Deronda (1876) (aspects of Julius Klesmer, see also Rubenstein)[32]

Elisabeth Lutyens

  • Henry Reed: The Private Life of Hilda Tablet (1954) (as Tablet)[33]

Alma Mahler

  • Max Phillips: The Artist’s Wife (2001)[34]
  • Mary Sharratt: Ecstasy (2018)[35]

Gustav Mahler

  • Ronald Harwood: Mahler’s Conversion (2001)[36]
  • Thomas Mann: Death in Venice (aspects of the author Aschenbach)[37]
  • Stefan Zweig: The Return of Gustav Mahler (1915), semi-fictional essay[38]

Fanny Mendelssohn

  • Peter Härtling: Liebste Fenchel (2011)
  • Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Maria Cerinthea)[10]

Felix Mendelssohn

  • Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]
  • Pierre La Mure: Beyond Desire (1955)[39]
  • Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Seraphael)[8]

Noel Mewton-Wood

  • Sonia Orchard: The Virtuosso (2009)[40]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  • Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]
  • Stephanie Cowell: Marrying Mozart (2004)
  • Alexander Pushkin: Mozart and Salieri (1830)
  • Peter Shaffer: Amadeus (1979)

Hubert Parry

  • George Bernard Shaw: Love Among the Artists (1881) (as Owen Jack)[8]

Helen Perkin

  • Carl Ginsburg: Medicine Journeys: Ten Stories (Center Press, 1983) (as Mrs Todd Ashby)[41]

Sergei Prokofiev

  • Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]
  • David Pownall: Master Class (1982)[22]

Maurice Ravel

  • Arnold Bennett: The Lion’s Share (1916) {as Roussel)[19]

Gioachino Rossini

  • Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]

Harold Rubens

  • Bernice Rubens: Madame Souzatzka (1962) (as Manek)[42]

Anton Rubinstein

  • George Eliot: Daniel Deronda (1876) (aspects of Julius Klesmer, see also Liszt)[19]

Camille Saint-Saëns

  • Marcel Proust: À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) (aspects of Vinteuil, see also Debussy and Franck)

Antonio Salieri

  • Alexander Pushkin: Mozart and Salieri (1830)
  • Peter Shaffer: Amadeus (1979)

Godfrey Sampson

  • Edmund Crispen: Holy Disorders (1945) (as Geoffrey Vintner)[43]

Erik Satie

  • Caitlin Horrocks: Vexations (2019)[44]

Arnold Schoenberg

  • Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus (1947) (aspects of Adrian Leverkühn, see also Wolf)[45]

Franz Schubert

  • Peter Härtling: Schubert: A Novel (1995)
  • Gaëlle Josse: Un été à quatre mains

Clara Schumann

  • Janice Galloway: Clara (2004)[46]
  • Elisabeth Kyle: Duet: The Story of Robert and Clara Schumann (1968)
  • J. D. Landis: Longing (2000)[47]

Robert Schumann

  • Jessica Duchen: Ghost Variations (2016)[48]
  • Elisabeth Kyle: Duet: The Story of Robert and Clara Schumann (1968)
  • Peter Härtling: Schumanns Schatten (1996)

Dmitri Shostakovich

  • Julian Barnes: The Noise of Time (2016)[5]
  • David Pownall: Master Class (1982)[22]
  • Sarah Quigley: The Conductor (2012)[49]
  • William T. Vollmann: Europe Central (2005)[50]

Jean Sibelius

  • Simon Boswell: The Seven Symphonies: A Finnish Murder Mystery (2005)[51]
  • Caroline J Sinclair: My Music, My Drinking & Me (2015) (fictionalised memoir)[52]

Ethel Smyth

  • E. F. Benson: Dodo (1893) (as Edith Stains)[8]

Kaikhosru Sorabji

  • Christopher Miller: Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects: A Novel in Liner Notes (2004)[53]

Barbara Strozzi

  • Russell Hoban. My Tango with Barbara Strozzi (2007) ((as modern day Bertha Strunk)[5]

Arthur Sullivan

  • Nicholas Meyer. The West End Horror (1976)[54]

Kay Swift

  • Mitchell James Kaplan. Rhapsody (2021)[23]

Antonio Vivaldi

  • Barbara Quick: Vivaldi’s Virgins (2007)[5]

William Walton

  • Lord Berners: Count Omega (1941) (as Emmanuel Smith)[55]
  • David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)

Richard Wagner

  • Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]

Peter Warlock

  • Frank Baker: The Birds (1936) (as Paul Weaver)
  • Ralph Bates: Dead End of the Sky (1937) (as Robert Durand)[56]
  • Robertson Davies: A Mixture of Frailties (1958) (as Giles Revelstoke)[57]
  • Aldous Huxley: Antic Hay (1923) (as Coleman)[58]
  • D. H. Lawrence: Women in Love (1921) (as Julius Halliday)[58]
  • Anthony Powell: Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant (1960) (aspects of Maclintick)
  • David Pownall: Music to Murder By (1976)[22]
  • Jean Rhys: Till September Petronella (short story, 1930s) (as Julian Oakes)[59]
  • Osbert Sitwell: Those Were the Days (1938) (as Roy Hartle)

Hugo Wolf

  • Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus (1947) (aspects of Adrian Leverkühn, see also Schoenberg)[60]

Carl Friedrich Zelter

  • Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Aronach)[10]

Further reading[edit]

  • Amos, William: The Originals: Who’s Really Who in Fiction? (1985)
  • Rintoul, M.C. Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction (2014)
  • Weliver, Phyllis. The Musical Crowd in English Fiction (2006)
  • Weliver, Phyllis. Women Musicians in Victorian Fiction, 1860-1900 (2000)
  • Art in Fiction website
  • List of composers depicted on film

References[edit]

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  • ^ A. H. Weiler. “Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968)” in The New York Times, April 7, 1969
  • ^ Erin Douglass. ‘A novel envisions what it would be like to study with Bach’, Christian Science Monitor, 29 April 2022
  • ^ a b Corymbus: The Music That Time Forgot
  • ^ Duchan, Jessica. Immortal at Unbound
  • ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Freya Parr. ‘Ten of the best (and worst) novels about composers’, BBC Music Magazine, 26 February 2019
  • ^ New York Review of Books, 26 October, 2021
  • ^ British Musician and Musical News, Vol. 7 no 67, July 1931, p. 153
  • ^ a b c d e f Weliver, Phyllis. The Musical Crowd in English Fiction (2006)
  • ^ review, Publishers Weekly
  • ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m M.C. Rintoul: Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction (2014)
  • ^ Amory, Mark. Lord Berners: The Last Eccentric (1999)
  • ^ The Letters of Scott Fitzgerald, ed. Andrew Turnbull (1964), p. 570
  • ^ Robert E Kohn. ‘The Fivesquare “Amsterdam” of Ian McEwan’, in Critical Survey, Vol. 16, No. 1 (2004), pp. 89-106
  • ^ Diedre Bair. ‘Getting even with Chopin’, in The New York Times, 11 August 1985, Section 7, p.9
  • ^ Pan Macmillian
  • ^ a b Fry, Helen. Music & men : the life and loves of Harriet Cohen (2008)
  • ^ Collett, Derek (2015). His Own Executioner: The Life of Nigel Balchin. SilverWood. .mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit;word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:”””””””‘””‘”}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free.id-lock-free a{background:url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg”)right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a{background-size:contain}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited.id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration.id-lock-registration a{background:url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg”)right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a{background-size:contain}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription.id-lock-subscription a{background:url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg”)right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a{background-size:contain}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg”)right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background-size:contain}.mw-parser-output .cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#2C882D;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911F}html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error,html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{color:#f8a397}@media(prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error,html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{color:#f8a397}html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911F}}ISBN 978-1-78132-391-5.
  • ^ Claire de Lune review, Montreal Gazette, 24 November, 1962
  • ^ a b c d e f Amos, William. The Originals: Who’s Really Who in Fiction (1990)
  • ^ Audrey Wollen. ‘The Writer Who Burned Her Own Books’, in The New Yorker, 3 January, 2023
  • ^ Richard Lines. ‘George Moore’s Evelyn Innes’, in The Norwood Review No 174 (2008)
  • ^ a b c d e f g The Composer Plays, Oberon (1996)
  • ^ a b Rhapsody, by Mitchell James Kaplan
  • ^ Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise blog (2004)
  • ^ Leo Hamalian (1996). D.H. Lawrence and Nine Women Writers. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-8386-3603-9.
  • ^ Spurling, Hilary: Dancing to the Music of Time, Hamish Hamilton, 2017
  • ^ Boyle, Andrew J. Delius and Norway (2017), p. 175
  • ^ Bluemel, Kristin. George Orwell and the Radical Eccentrics: Intermodernism in Literary London (2004), Chapter 1, p.27-66
  • ^ Lloyd, Stephen. Constant Lambert: Beyond The Rio Grande. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2014. ISBN 978-1-84383-898-2
  • ^ Allis, Michael. Temporaries and Eternals: The Music Criticism of Aldous Huxley (2013), p. 56
  • ^ Nélida, Suny Press
  • ^ Walker, Alan. Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years, 1848–1861 (1989), p. 250
  • ^ Henry Reed: Hilda Tablet and Others, BBC Books, London, 1971
  • ^ Art in Fiction: The Artist’s Wife
  • ^ Art in Fiction. Ecstacy
  • ^ Faber, Mahler’s Conversion
  • ^ ‘Thomas Mann’, Mahler Foundation
  • ^ Werley, Matthew. Mahler in Context (2020), Chapter 32, ‘Influences in Literature’
  • ^ Beyond Desire review, The Age. 12 December, 1956
  • ^ Harper Collins, The Virtuosso
  • ^ ‘Helen Adie’, at Gurdjieff Club
  • ^ Flynn, Jessica (4 May 2010). “Tributes paid to piano great Harold Rubens”. South Wales Echo. Cardiff. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  • ^ Whittle, David. Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music and Books (2008)
  • ^ Art in Fiction: Vexations
  • ^ Jack M Stein. Adrian Leverkühn as a Composer, Germanic Review, Vol. 25 (1950)
  • ^ Penguin Books
  • ^ Art in Fiction. Longing
  • ^ Art in Fiction. Ghost Variations
  • ^ Art in Fiction: The Conductor
  • ^ Helga Schwalm. ‘Imagining Compromised Creativity: Art and Fear in Shostakovich Bio-Fiction’, in Slavonica, Volume 25, 2020 – Issue 1
  • ^ sevensymphonies.com
  • ^ GoodReads
  • ^ Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise blog (2004)
  • ^ Eyles, Allen (1986). Sherlock Holmes: A Centenary Celebration. Harper & Row. pp. 118-119. ISBN 0-06-015620-1.
  • ^ Lloyd, Stephen. William Walton: Muse of Fire (2002)
  • ^ Bates, Ralph. Rainbow Fish: Four Short Novels (1937)
  • ^ Allis, Michael. ‘From Musicology to Novel: Reassessing Robertson Davies’s Literary Representation of Peter Warlock’, in University of Toronto Quarterly (Winter 2019)
  • ^ a b Smith, Barry. Peter Warlock: The Life of Philip Heseltine (1994)
  • ^ Angier, Carole. Jean Rhys: Life and Work (1998)
  • ^ Stokes, Richard. The Complete Songs of Hugo Wolf: Life, Letters, Lieder (2020)



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