The Most Famous

COMPOSERS from Austria

This page contains a list of the greatest Austrian Composers. The pantheon dataset contains 1,451 Composers, 62 of which were born in Austria. This makes Austria the birth place of the 7th most number of Composers behind United Kingdom, and Russia.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Austrian Composers of all time. This list of famous Austrian Composers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Austrian Composers.

1. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)

With an HPI of 91.46, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is the most famous Austrian Composer. His biography has been translated into 214 different languages on wikipedia.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works representing virtually every Western classical genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. At age five he was already competent on keyboard and violin, he had begun to compose, and he performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position. Mozart's search for employment led to positions in Paris, Mannheim, Munich, and again in Salzburg, during which he wrote his five violin concertos, Sinfonia Concertante, and Concerto for Flute and Harp, as well as sacred pieces and masses, the motet Exsultate Jubilate, and the opera Idomeneo, among other works. While visiting Vienna in 1781, Mozart was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He stayed in Vienna, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During Mozart’s early years in Vienna, he produced several notable works, such as the opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail, the Great Mass in C Minor, the "Haydn" Quartets and a number of symphonies. Throughout his Vienna years, Mozart composed over a dozen piano concertos, many considered some of his greatest achievements. In the final years of his life, Mozart wrote many of his best-known works, including his last three symphonies, culminating in the Jupiter Symphony, the serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik, his Clarinet Concerto, the four operas Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte and The Magic Flute and his Requiem. The Requiem was largely unfinished at the time of his death at age 35, the circumstances of which are uncertain and much mythologised.

2. Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809)

With an HPI of 84.39, Joseph Haydn is the 2nd most famous Austrian Composer. His biography has been translated into 127 different languages.

Franz Joseph Haydn ( HY-dən, German: [ˈfʁants ˈjoːzɛf ˈhaɪdn̩] ; 31 March 1732 – 31 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led him to be called "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String quartet". Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their Eszterháza Castle. Until the later part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, "forced to become original". Yet his music circulated widely, and for much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe. He was a friend and mentor of Mozart, a tutor of Beethoven, and the elder brother of composer Michael Haydn.

3. Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)

With an HPI of 84.30, Franz Schubert is the 3rd most famous Austrian Composer. His biography has been translated into 132 different languages.

Franz Peter Schubert (German: [fʁants ˈpeːtɐ ˈʃuːbɐt]; 31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of piano and chamber music. His major works include the art songs "Erlkönig", "Gretchen am Spinnrade", and "Ave Maria"; the Trout Quintet; the Symphony No. 8 in B minor (Unfinished); the Symphony No. 9 in C major (Great); the String Quartet No. 14 in D minor (Death and the Maiden); the String Quintet in C major; the Impromptus for solo piano; the last three piano sonatas; the Fantasia in F minor for piano four hands; the opera Fierrabras; the incidental music to the play Rosamunde; and the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin, Winterreise and Schwanengesang. Born in the Himmelpfortgrund suburb of Vienna, Schubert showed uncommon gifts for music from an early age. His father gave him his first violin lessons and his elder brother gave him piano lessons, but Schubert soon exceeded their abilities. In 1808, at the age of eleven, he became a pupil at the Stadtkonvikt school, where he became acquainted with the orchestral music of Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven. He left the Stadtkonvikt at the end of 1813 and returned home to live with his father, where he began studying to become a schoolteacher. Despite this, he continued his studies in composition with Antonio Salieri and still composed prolifically. In 1821, Schubert was admitted to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde as a performing member, which helped establish his name among the Viennese citizenry. He gave a concert of his works to critical acclaim in March 1828, the only time he did so in his career. He died eight months later at the age of 31, the cause officially attributed to typhoid fever, but believed by some historians to be syphilis. Appreciation of Schubert's music while he was alive was limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna, but interest in his work increased greatly in the decades following his death. Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and other 19th-century composers discovered and championed his works. Today, Schubert is considered one of the greatest composers in the history of Western classical music and his music continues to be widely performed.

4. Anton Bruckner (1824 - 1896)

With an HPI of 75.89, Anton Bruckner is the 4th most famous Austrian Composer. His biography has been translated into 79 different languages.

Josef Anton Bruckner (German: [ˈantoːn ˈbʁʊknɐ] ; 4 September 1824 – 11 October 1896) was an Austrian composer and organist best known for his symphonies and sacred music, which includes Masses, Te Deum and motets. The symphonies are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, strongly polyphonic character, and considerable length. Bruckner's compositions helped to define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving harmonies. Unlike other musical radicals such as Richard Wagner and Hugo Wolf, Bruckner showed respect, even humility, before other famous musicians, Wagner in particular. This apparent dichotomy between Bruckner the man and Bruckner the composer hampers efforts to describe his life in a way that gives a straightforward context for his music. Hans von Bülow described him as "half genius, half simpleton". Bruckner was critical of his own work and often reworked his compositions. There are several versions of many of his works. His works, the symphonies in particular, had detractors, most notably the influential Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick and other supporters of Johannes Brahms, who pointed to their large size and use of repetition, as well as to Bruckner's propensity for revising many of his works, often with the assistance of colleagues, and his apparent indecision about which versions he preferred. On the other hand, Bruckner was greatly admired by subsequent composers, including his friend Gustav Mahler.

5. Johann Strauss I (1804 - 1849)

With an HPI of 75.82, Johann Strauss I is the 5th most famous Austrian Composer. His biography has been translated into 56 different languages.

Johann Baptist Strauss I (German: [ˈjoːhan bapˈtɪst ˈʃtʁaʊs]; 14 March 1804 – 25 September 1849), also known as Johann Strauss Sr., the Elder or the Father (German: Johann Strauß Vater), was an Austrian composer of the Romantic Period. He was famous for his light music, namely waltzes, polkas, and galops, which he popularized alongside Joseph Lanner, thereby setting the foundations for his sons—Johann, Josef and Eduard—to carry on his musical dynasty. He is best known for his composition of the Radetzky March (named after Joseph Radetzky von Radetz).

6. Johann Strauss II (1825 - 1899)

With an HPI of 75.75, Johann Strauss II is the 6th most famous Austrian Composer. His biography has been translated into 81 different languages.

Johann Baptist Strauss II (German: [ˈjoːhan bapˈtɪst ˈʃtʁaʊs]; 25 October 1825 – 3 June 1899), also known as Johann Strauss Jr., the Younger or the Son (German: Johann Strauß Sohn), was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas as well as a violinist. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, he was known as "The Waltz King", and was largely responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century. Some of Johann Strauss's most famous works include "The Blue Danube", "Kaiser-Walzer" (Emperor Waltz), "Tales from the Vienna Woods", "Frühlingsstimmen", and the "Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka". Among his operettas, Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron are the best known. Strauss was the son of Johann Strauss I and his first wife Maria Anna Streim. Two younger brothers, Josef and Eduard Strauss, also became composers of light music, although they were never as well known as their brother. Although the name Strauss can be found in reference books frequently with "ß" (Strauß), Strauss himself wrote his name with a long "s" and a round "s" (Strauſs), which was a replacement form for the Fraktur-ß used in antique manuscripts. His family called him "Schani" (Johnny), derived from the French "Jean" with addition of the endearment ending "-i". Strauss was born into a Catholic family in St Ulrich near Vienna (now a part of Neubau), Austria, on 25 October 1825, to the composer Johann Strauss I and his first wife, Maria Anna Streim. His paternal great-grandfather was a Hungarian Jew – a fact which the Nazis, who lionised Strauss's music as "so German", later tried to conceal. His father did not want him to become a musician but rather a banker. Nevertheless, Strauss Jr. studied the violin secretly as a child with the first violinist of his father's orchestra, Franz Amon. When his father discovered his son secretly practising on a violin one day, he gave him a severe whipping, saying that he was going to beat the music out of the boy. It seems that rather than trying to avoid a Strauss rivalry, the elder Strauss only wanted his son to escape the rigours of a musician's life. It was only when the father abandoned his family for a mistress, Emilie Trampusch, that the son was able to concentrate fully on a career as a composer with the support of his mother. Strauss studied counterpoint and harmony with theorist Professor Joachim Hoffmann, who owned a private music school. His talents were also recognized by composer Joseph Drechsler, who taught him exercises in harmony. It was during that time that he composed his only sacred work, the gradual Tu qui regis totum orbem (1844). His other violin teacher, Anton Kollmann, who was the ballet répétiteur of the Vienna Court Opera, also wrote excellent testimonials for him. Armed with these, he approached the Viennese authorities to apply for a license to perform. He initially formed his small orchestra where he recruited his members at the Zur Stadt Belgrad tavern, where musicians seeking work could be hired easily. Johann Strauss I's influence over the local entertainment establishments meant that many of them were wary of offering the younger Strauss a contract for fear of angering the father. Strauss Jr. was able to persuade Dommayer's Casino in Hietzing, a suburb of Vienna, to allow him to perform. The elder Strauss, in anger at his son's disobedience, and at that of the proprietor, refused to ever play again at Dommayer's Casino, which had been the site of many of his earlier triumphs. Strauss made his debut at Dommayer's in October 1844, where he performed some of his first works, such as the waltzes "Sinngedichte", Op. 1 and "Gunstwerber", Op. 4 and the polka "Herzenslust", Op. 3. Critics and the press were unanimous in their praise of Strauss's music. A critic for Der Wanderer commented that "Strauss's name will be worthily continued in his son; children and children's children can look forward to the future, and three-quarter time will find a strong footing in him." Despite the initial fanfare, Strauss found his early years as a composer difficult, but he soon won over audiences after accepting commissions to perform away from home. The first major appointment for the young composer was his award of the honorary position of "Kapellmeister of the 2nd Vienna Citizen's Regiment", which had been left vacant following Joseph Lanner's death two years before. Vienna was wracked by the revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire, and the intense rivalry between father and son became much more apparent. The son decided to side with the revolutionaries. It was a decision that was professionally disadvantageous, as the Austrian royalty twice denied him the much coveted position of KK Hofballmusikdirektor, which was first designated especially for Johann I in recognition of his musical contributions. Further, the younger Strauss was also arrested by the Viennese authorities for publicly playing "La Marseillaise", but was later acquitted. The elder Strauss remained loyal to the monarchy and composed his "Radetzky March", Op. 228 (dedicated to the Habsburg field marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz), which would become one of his best-known compositions. When the elder Strauss died from scarlet fever in Vienna in 1849, the younger Strauss merged both their orchestras and engaged in further tours. Later, he also composed a number of patriotic marches dedicated to the Habsburg Emperor Franz Josef I, such as the "Kaiser Franz-Josef Marsch" Op. 67 and the "Kaiser Franz Josef Rettungs Jubel-Marsch" Op. 126, probably to ingratiate himself in the eyes of the new monarch, who had ascended the Austrian throne after the 1848 revolution. Strauss Jr. eventually attained greater fame than his father and became one of the most popular waltz composers of the era, extensively touring Austria, Poland and Germany with his orchestra. He applied for the position of KK Hofballmusikdirektor (Music Director of the Royal Court Balls), which he finally attained in 1863, after being denied several times before for his frequent brushes with the local authorities. In 1853, due to constant mental and physical demands, Strauss suffered a nervous breakdown. He took a seven-week vacation in the countryside in the summer of that year on the advice of doctors. Johann's younger brother Josef was persuaded by his family to abandon his career as an engineer and take command of Johann's orchestra in the interim. In 1855, Strauss accepted commissions from the management of the Tsarskoye-Selo Railway Company of Saint Petersburg to play in Russia for the Vauxhall Pavilion at Pavlovsk in 1856. He would return to perform in Russia every year until 1865. In 1862, the 27-year-old Eduard Strauss officially joined the Strauss orchestra as another conductor, and he and his brother Josef would lead it until 1870. Strauss came to the United States in 1872, where he took part in the World's Peace Jubilee and International Musical Festival in Boston at the invitation of bandmaster Patrick Gilmore and was the lead conductor in a "Monster Concert" of over 1000 performers performing his "Blue Danube" waltz. He also conducted other pieces of his at the Festival with a smaller orchestra to great acclaim. As was customary at the time, requests for personal mementos from celebrities were often in the form of a lock of hair. In the case of Strauss during his visit to America, his valet obliged by clipping Strauss' black Newfoundland dog and providing "authentic Strauss hair" to adoring female fans. However, on account of the high volume of demand, there grew a fear that the dog would be trimmed bald. Strauss married the singer Henrietta Treffz in 1862, and they remained together until her death in 1878. Six weeks after her death, Strauss married the actress Angelika Dittrich. Dittrich was not a fervent supporter of his music, and their differences in status and opinion, and especially her indiscretion, led him to seek a divorce. Strauss was not granted a decree of annulment by the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore changed religion and nationality, and became a citizen of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in January 1887. Strauss sought solace in his third wife Adele Deutsch, whom he married in August 1887. She encouraged his creative talent to flow once more in his later years, resulting in many famous compositions, such as the operettas Der Zigeunerbaron and Waldmeister and the waltzes "Kaiser-Walzer" Op. 437, "Kaiser Jubiläum" Op. 434, and "Klug Gretelein" Op. 462. Although Strauss was the most sought-after composer of dance music in the latter half of the 19th century, Carl Michael Ziehrer and Émile Waldteufel provided stiff competition; the latter held a commanding position in Paris. Also, Philipp Fahrbach denied the younger Strauss the commanding position of the KK Hofballmusikdirektor when the latter first applied for the post. The German operetta composer Jacques Offenbach, who made his name in Paris, also posed a challenge to Strauss in the operetta field. Strauss was admired by other prominent composers: Richard Wagner once admitted that he liked the waltz "Wein, Weib und Gesang" (Wine, Women and Song) Op. 333. Richard Strauss (unrelated), when writing his Rosenkavalier waltzes, said in reference to Johann Strauss, "How could I forget the laughing genius of Vienna?" Johannes Brahms was a personal friend of Strauss; the latter dedicated his waltz "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!" ("Be Embraced, You Millions!"), Op. 443, to him. A story is told in biographies of both men that Strauss's wife Adele approached Brahms with a customary request that he autograph her fan. It was usual for the composer to inscribe a few measures of his best-known music, and then sign his name. Brahms, however, inscribed a few measures from the "Blue Danube", and then wrote beneath it: "Unfortunately, NOT by Johannes Brahms." The most famous of Strauss' operettas are Die Fledermaus, Eine Nacht in Venedig, and Der Zigeunerbaron. There are many dance pieces drawn from themes of his operettas, such as "Cagliostro-Walzer" Op. 370 (from Cagliostro in Wien), "O Schöner Mai" Walzer Op. 375 (from Prinz Methusalem), "Rosen aus dem Süden" Walzer Op. 388 (from Das Spitzentuch der Königin), and "Kuss-Walzer" op. 400 (from Der lustige Krieg), that have survived obscurity and become well-known. Strauss also wrote an opera, Ritter Pázmán, and was in the middle of composing a ballet, Aschenbrödel, when he died in 1899. Strauss often suffered from a variety of lifelong health problems, including hypochondria, several phobias, and bronchial catarrh. In late May of 1899, he developed a respiratory illness which developed into pleuropneumonia, and on 3 June 1899 he died in Vienna, at the age of 73. He was buried in the Zentralfriedhof. At the time of his death, he was still composing his ballet Aschenbrödel. As a result of the efforts by Clemens Krauss, who performed a special all-Strauss programme in 1929 with the Vienna Philharmonic, Strauss's music is now regularly performed at the annual Vienna New Year's Concert. Distinguished Strauss interpreters include Willi Boskovsky, who carried on the Vorgeiger tradition of conducting with violin in hand, as was the Strauss family custom, as well as Herbert von Karajan, Carlos Kleiber, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta and Riccardo Muti. In addition, the Wiener Johann Strauss Orchester, which was formed in 1966, pays tribute to the touring orchestras which once made the Strauss family so famous. In 1987 Dutch violinist and conductor André Rieu also created a Johann Strauss Orchestra. Eduard Strauss surprisingly wound up the Strauss Orchestra on 13 February 1901 after concerts in 840 cities around the globe, and pawned the instruments. The orchestra's last violins were destroyed in the firestorm of the Second World War. Most of the Strauss works that are performed today may once have existed in a slightly different form, as Eduard Strauss destroyed much of the original Strauss orchestral archives in a furnace factory in Vienna's Mariahilf district in 1907. Eduard, then the only surviving brother of the three, took this drastic precaution after agreeing to a pact between himself and brother Josef that whoever outlived the other was to destroy their works. The measure was intended to prevent the Strauss family's works from being claimed by another composer. This may also have been fueled by Strauss's rivalry with another of Vienna's popular waltz and march composers, Carl Michael Ziehrer. Two museums in Vienna are dedicated to Johann Strauss II. His residence in the Praterstrasse, where he lived in the 1860s, is now part of the Vienna Museum. The Strauss Museum is about the whole family, with a focus on Johann Strauss II. The lives of the Strauss dynasty members are the subject of several film and television features, such as The Great Waltz (1938), remade in 1972; The Strauss Family (1972); The Strauss Dynasty (1991) and Strauss, the King of 3/4 Time (1995). Many other films used his works and melodies. Alfred Hitchcock made a biographical film of Strauss in 1934 called Waltzes from Vienna. After a trip to Vienna, Walt Disney was inspired to create four feature films. One of those was The Waltz King, a loosely adapted biopic of Strauss, which aired as part of The Wonderful World of Disney in the U.S. in 1963. Fantel, Hans (1972). The Waltz Kings. William Morrow & Company. ISBN 978-0-688-00092-9. Gartenberg, Egon (1974). Johann Strauss: The End of an Era. Penn State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-01131-8. Jacob, Heinrich Eduard (1940) [1939]. Johann Strauss, Father and Son: A Century of Light Music. Freeport, NY: The Greystone Press. OCLC 607057509. Traubner, Richard (1983). Operetta: A Theatrical History. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-13232-9. Weitlaner, Juliana (2019). Johann Strauss: Father and Son: Their Illustrated Lives. Prague: Vitalis. ISBN 978-3-89919-648-1. Gänzl, Kurt (2001). The Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre (3 volumes). New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 978-0-02-864970-2. A complete list of Strauss's compositions A complete list of compositions by Johann Strauss II compiled by the Johann Strauss Society of New York List of Strauss's stage works with date, theatre information and links List of Strauss works at the Index to Opera and Ballet Sources Online Free scores by Johann Strauss II at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)

7. Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951)

With an HPI of 73.46, Arnold Schoenberg is the 7th most famous Austrian Composer. His biography has been translated into 72 different languages.

Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. Among the first modernist composers to write music of dense motivic relations saturating the musical texture, he propounded concepts like developing variation, the emancipation of the dissonance, and the "unity of musical space". Schoenberg's early works, like Verklärte Nacht (1899), represented a Brahmsian–Wagnerian synthesis on which he built. Mentoring Anton Webern and Alban Berg, he became the central figure of the Second Viennese School. They consorted with visual artists, published in Der Blaue Reiter, and wrote atonal, expressionist music, attracting fame and stirring debate. In his String Quartet No. 2 (1907–1908), Erwartung (1909), and Pierrot lunaire (1912), Schoenberg visited extremes of emotion; in self-portraits he emphasized his intense gaze. While working on Die Jakobsleiter (from 1914) and Moses und Aron (from 1923), Schoenberg confronted popular antisemitism by returning to Judaism and substantially developed his twelve-tone technique. He systematically interrelated all notes of the chromatic scale in his twelve-tone music, often exploiting combinatorial hexachords and sometimes admitting tonal elements. Schoenberg resigned from the Prussian Academy of Arts (1926–1933), emigrating as the Nazis took power; they banned his (and his students') music, labeling it "degenerate". He taught in the US, including at the University of California, Los Angeles (1936–1944), where facilities are named in his honor. He explored writing film music (as he had done idiosyncratically in Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene, 1929–1930) and wrote more tonal music, completing his Chamber Symphony No. 2 in 1939. With citizenship (1941) and US entry into World War II, he satirized fascist tyrants in Ode to Napoleon (1942, after Byron), deploying Beethoven's fate motif and the Marseillaise. Post-war Vienna beckoned with honorary citizenship, but Schoenberg was ill as depicted in his String Trio (1946). As the world learned of the Holocaust, he memorialized its victims in A Survivor from Warsaw (1947). The Israel Conservatory and Academy of Music elected him honorary president (1951). His innovative music was among the most influential and polemicized of 20th-century classical music. At least three generations of composers extended its somewhat formal principles. His aesthetic and music-historical views influenced musicologists Theodor W. Adorno and Carl Dahlhaus. The Arnold Schönberg Center collects his archival legacy.

8. Anton Webern (1883 - 1945)

With an HPI of 71.99, Anton Webern is the 8th most famous Austrian Composer. His biography has been translated into 54 different languages.

Anton Webern (German: [ˈantoːn ˈveːbɐn] ; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its concision and use of then novel atonal and twelve-tone techniques in an increasingly rigorous manner, somewhat after the Franco-Flemish School of his studies under Guido Adler. With his mentor Arnold Schoenberg and his colleague Alban Berg, Webern was at the core of those within the broader circle of the Second Viennese School. Their atonal music brought them fame and stirred debate. Webern was arguably the first and certainly the last of the three to write music in an aphoristic, expressionist style, reflecting his instincts and the idiosyncrasy of his compositional process. Peripatetic, unhappy, and often assigned light music and operetta in his early conducting career, he aspired to conduct more established repertoire with more autonomy at home in Vienna. During and after World War I, he set folk, lyric, and spiritual texts in texturally dense Lieder. He came to some prominence and increasingly high regard as a vocal coach, choirmaster, conductor, and teacher in Red Vienna. With a publication contract through Emil Hertzka's Universal Edition and Schoenberg away at the Prussian Academy of Arts, Webern wrote music of increasing confidence, independence, and scale using twelve-tone technique. He maintained his "path to the new music" while marginalized as a "cultural Bolshevist" effectively until his death. A variety of post-World War II musicians celebrated his music, much of which was first published only then or later still. Among these were many composers influenced especially by his twelve-tone music in a phenomenon known as post-Webernism, linking but not restricting Webern's legacy to serialism. Understanding of his musical semantics or semiotics, performance pratice, and sociocultural contexts was widely fledgling after years of severe disruption. This was gradually improved by musicians and scholars who helped publish and record his works as well as establish his music as modernist repertoire. A Gesamtausgabe (complete edition) is pending.

9. Alban Berg (1885 - 1935)

With an HPI of 70.58, Alban Berg is the 9th most famous Austrian Composer. His biography has been translated into 54 different languages.

Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( BAIRG, German: [ˈalbaːn ˈbɛʁk]; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively small oeuvre, he is remembered as one of the most important composers of the 20th century for his expressive style encompassing "entire worlds of emotion and structure". Berg was born and lived in Vienna. He began to compose at the age of fifteen. He studied counterpoint, music theory and harmony with Arnold Schoenberg between 1904 and 1911, and adopted his principles of developing variation and the twelve-tone technique. Berg's major works include the operas Wozzeck (1924) and Lulu (1935, finished posthumously), the chamber pieces Lyric Suite and Chamber Concerto, as well as a Violin Concerto. He also composed a number of songs (lieder). He is said to have brought more "human values" to the twelve-tone system; his works are seen as more "emotional" than those of Schoenberg. His music had a surface glamour that won him admirers when Schoenberg himself had few. Berg died from sepsis in 1935.

10. Carl Czerny (1791 - 1857)

With an HPI of 70.56, Carl Czerny is the 10th most famous Austrian Composer. His biography has been translated into 48 different languages.

Carl Czerny (German: [ˈtʃɛʁniː]; 21 February 1791 – 15 July 1857) was an Austrian composer, teacher, and pianist of Czech origin whose music spanned the late Classical and early Romantic eras. His vast musical production amounted to over a thousand works and his books of studies for the piano are still widely used in piano teaching. He was one of Ludwig van Beethoven's best-known pupils and would later on be one of the main teachers of Franz Liszt.

People

Pantheon has 64 people classified as Austrian composers born between 1620 and 1968. Of these 64, 3 (4.69%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Austrian composers include Harald Kloser, Georg Friedrich Haas, and Olga Neuwirth. The most famous deceased Austrian composers include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, and Franz Schubert. As of April 2024, 1 new Austrian composers have been added to Pantheon including Friedrich Cerha.