Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) : musical fountainhead
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) : the magnificent
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) : a genius of perfection in music
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) : the supreme
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) : the fervent genius
The felicitous Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
The paradoxical Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) : the third B of music
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) : poet of cheerful melancholy
Presenting the great Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) : musical Prometheus
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) : poet of musical impressions
Richard Strauss (1864-1949) : Richard the Second
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) : a musical prophet
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) : poet of simplicity
Béla Bartók (1881-1945) : modern Janus
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) : perennial revolutionary
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) : his signature, SRG PRKFV
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) : besieged nationalist.