# List of composers in literature

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)
* James Runcie: The Great Passion (2022)
Arnold Bax
Ludwig van Beethoven
* Andrew Crumey: Beethoven's Assassins (2023)
* Jessica Duchan: Immortal (2020)
* Sanford Friedman: Conversations with Beethoven (1980s, published in 2014)
* Paul Griffiths: Mr Beethoven (2020)
* Esther Meynell: Grave Fairytale (1931) (as Melchior)
* Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Rumour: A Novel (1858) (as Rodomant)
* John Suchet: The Last Master (1997–99) (fictional biography in three volumes)
Bix Beiderbecke
William Sterndale Bennett
Hector Berlioz
* Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)
* Jude Morgan: Symphony (2006)
* Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Florimond Anastasa)
Lord Berners
* Nancy Mitford: The Pursuit of Love (1945) (as Lord Merlin)
* Osbert Sitwell: 'The Love Bird' from Dumb Animal and Other Stories (1930) (as Sir Robert Mainwroth)
Hildegard of Bingen
Mario Braggiotti
Benjamin Britten
Thomas Busby
Frédéric Chopin
* George Sand: Lucrezia Floriani (1846)
* Nell Stevens: Briefly, a Delicious Life (2022)
Harriet Cohen
* William Gerhardie: Pending Heaven (1930) (as Helen Sapphire)
* D H Lawrence: Kangeroo (1923) (as Harriet)
* Rebecca West: Harriet Hume (1929)
Michael Costa
Noël Coward
* Charles Brackett: Entirely Surrounded (1934) (as Nick Farraday)
* Beverley Nichols: Death to Slow Music (as Nigel Fleet)
* David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)
Christian Darnton
Claude Debussy
* Pierre La Mure: Clair de lune (1962)
* Marcel Proust: À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) (aspects of Vinteuil, see also Franck and Saint-Saëns)
Frederick Delius
Edward J Dent
Delia Derbyshire
Arnold Dolmetsch
Edward Elgar
* Keith Alldritt: Elgar on the Journey to Hanley: A Novel (1979)
* Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)
* James Hamilton-Paterson: Gerontius (1989)
* David Pownall: Elgar’s Rondo (1993)
* David Pownall: Elgar’s Third (1994)
César Franck
George Gershwin
* Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)
* Mitchell James Kaplan. Rhapsody (2021)
* George Kaufman and Moss Hart: Merrily We Roll Along (1934) (as Sam Frankl)
Carlo Gesualdo
Jimmy Glover
Eugene Aynsley Goossens
* Inez Baranay: Pagan (1990)
* Louis Nowra: The Devil is a Woman (2004)
Glenn Gould
Cecil Gray
* H.D.: Bid Me to Live (1960) (as Vane)
* Aldous Huxley: Antic Hay (1923) (as the critic Mercaptan)
* D. H.Lawrence: Aaron's Rod (1922) (as Cyril Scott)
* D. H.Lawrence: Kangaroo (1923) (as James Sharpe)
* Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (Maclintick and Gossege as a composite)
Jan Hambourg
George Frideric Handel
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
John Pyke Hullah
Halfdan Jebe
Maurice Jacobson
Joseph Joachim
Aram Khachaturian
Constant Lambert
* Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (as Moreland)
* David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)
Henry Lawes
Madame Levinskaya
Franz Liszt
* Daniel Stern: Nélida (1846)
* Susanne Dunlap: Liszt's Kiss (2007)
* George Eliot: Daniel Deronda (1876) (aspects of Julius Klesmer, see also Rubenstein)
Elisabeth Lutyens
Alma Mahler
* Max Phillips: The Artist’s Wife (2001)
* Mary Sharratt: Ecstasy (2018)
Gustav Mahler
* Ronald Harwood: Mahler’s Conversion (2001)
* Thomas Mann: Death in Venice (aspects of the author Aschenbach)
* Stefan Zweig: The Return of Gustav Mahler (1915), semi-fictional essay
Florence Ashton Marshall (and her sister, the clarinettist Frances Marshall)
Fanny Mendelssohn
* Peter Härtling: Liebste Fenchel (2011)
* Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Maria Cerinthea)
Felix Mendelssohn
* Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)
* Pierre La Mure: Beyond Desire (1955)
* Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Seraphael)
Noel Mewton-Wood
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
* Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)
* Stephanie Cowell: Marrying Mozart (2004)
* Alexander Pushkin: Mozart and Salieri (1830)
* Peter Shaffer: Amadeus (1979)
Hubert Parry
Helen Perkin
Sergei Prokofiev
* Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)
* David Pownall: Master Class (1982)
Maurice Ravel
Gioachino Rossini
Harold Rubens
Anton Rubinstein
Camille Saint-Saëns
Antonio Salieri
* Alexander Pushkin: Mozart and Salieri (1830)
* Peter Shaffer: Amadeus (1979)
Godfrey Sampson
Erik Satie
Arnold Schoenberg
Franz Schubert
* Peter Härtling: Schubert: A Novel (1995)
* Gaëlle Josse: Un été à quatre mains
Clara Schumann
* Janice Galloway: Clara (2004)
* Elisabeth Kyle: Duet: The Story of Robert and Clara Schumann (1968)
* J. D. Landis: Longing (2000)
Robert Schumann
* Jessica Duchen: Ghost Variations (2016)
* 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)
* David Pownall: Master Class (1982)
* Sarah Quigley: The Conductor (2012)
* William T. Vollmann: Europe Central (2005)
Jean Sibelius
* Simon Boswell: The Seven Symphonies: A Finnish Murder Mystery (2005)
* Caroline J Sinclair: My Music, My Drinking & Me (2015) (fictionalised memoir)
Ethel Smyth
Kaikhosru Sorabji
Barbara Strozzi
Arthur Sullivan
Kay Swift
Antonio Vivaldi
William Walton
* Lord Berners: Count Omega (1941) (as Emmanuel Smith)
* David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)
Richard Wagner
Peter Warlock
* Frank Baker: The Birds (1936) (as Paul Weaver)
* Ralph Bates: Dead End of the Sky (1937) (as Robert Durand)
* Robertson Davies: A Mixture of Frailties (1958) (as Giles Revelstoke)
* Aldous Huxley: Antic Hay (1923) (as Coleman)
* D. H. Lawrence: Women in Love (1921) (as Julius Halliday)
* Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (1960) (aspects of Maclintick)
* David Pownall: Music to Murder By (1976)
* Jean Rhys: Till September Petronella (short story, 1930s) (as Julian Oakes)
* Osbert Sitwell: Those Were the Days (1938) (as Roy Hartle)
Hugo Wolf
Carl Friedrich Zelter