The Most Famous

COMPOSERS from United Kingdom

This page contains a list of the greatest British Composers. The pantheon dataset contains 1,451 Composers, 98 of which were born in United Kingdom. This makes United Kingdom the birth place of the 5th most number of Composers behind France, and United States.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary British Composers of all time. This list of famous British 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 British Composers.

1. Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934)

With an HPI of 74.47, Edward Elgar is the most famous British Composer. His biography has been translated into 64 different languages on wikipedia.

Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, ( ; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924. Although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically, but socially. In musical circles dominated by academics, he was a self-taught composer; in Protestant Britain, his Roman Catholicism was regarded with suspicion in some quarters; and in the class-conscious society of Victorian and Edwardian Britain, he was acutely sensitive about his humble origins even after he achieved recognition. He nevertheless married the daughter of a senior British Army officer. She inspired him both musically and socially, but he struggled to achieve success until his forties, when after a series of moderately successful works his Enigma Variations (1899) became immediately popular in Britain and overseas. He followed the Variations with a choral work, The Dream of Gerontius (1900), based on a Roman Catholic text that caused some disquiet in the Anglican establishment in Britain, but it became, and has remained, a core repertory work in Britain and elsewhere. His later full-length religious choral works were well received but have not entered the regular repertory. In his fifties, Elgar composed a symphony and a violin concerto that were immensely successful. His second symphony and his cello concerto did not gain immediate public popularity and took many years to achieve a regular place in the concert repertory of British orchestras. Elgar's music came, in his later years, to be seen as appealing chiefly to British audiences. His stock remained low for a generation after his death. It began to revive significantly in the 1960s, helped by new recordings of his works. Some of his works have, in recent years, been taken up again internationally, but the music continues to be played more in Britain than elsewhere. Elgar has been described as the first composer to take the gramophone seriously. Between 1914 and 1925, he conducted a series of acoustic recordings of his works. The introduction of the moving-coil microphone in 1923 made far more accurate sound reproduction possible, and Elgar made new recordings of most of his major orchestral works and excerpts from The Dream of Gerontius.

2. Henry Purcell (1659 - 1695)

With an HPI of 72.40, Henry Purcell is the 2nd most famous British Composer. His biography has been translated into 60 different languages.

Henry Purcell (, rare: ; c. 10 September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer of Baroque music. Purcell's musical style was uniquely English, although it incorporated Italian and French elements. Generally considered among the greatest English opera composers, Purcell has been assessed with John Dunstaple and William Byrd as England's most important early music composer. Purcell was born in St Ann's Lane, Old Pye Street, Westminster in 1659. Henry Purcell Senior, whose older brother Thomas Purcell was a musician, was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal and sang at the coronation of King Charles II of England. Henry the elder had three sons: Edward, Henry and Daniel. Daniel Purcell, the youngest of the brothers, was also a prolific composer who wrote the music for much of the final act of The Indian Queen after his brother Henry's death. The family lived just a few hundred yards west of Westminster Abbey from 1659 onwards. After his father's death in 1664, Purcell was placed under the guardianship of his uncle Thomas, who showed him great affection and kindness. Thomas arranged for Henry to be admitted as a chorister. Henry studied first under Captain Henry Cooke, Master of the Children, and afterwards under Pelham Humfrey, Cooke's successor, who was a pupil of Lully. The composer Matthew Locke was a family friend and, particularly with his semi-operas, probably also had a musical influence on the young Purcell. Henry was a chorister in the Chapel Royal until his voice broke in 1673 when he became assistant to the organ-builder John Hingston, who held the post of keeper of wind instruments to the King. Purcell is said to have been composing at nine years old, but the earliest work that can be certainly identified as his is an ode for the King's birthday, written in 1670, when he was eleven. The dates for his compositions are often uncertain, despite considerable research. It is assumed that the three-part song Sweet tyranness, I now resign was written by him as a child. After Humfrey's death, Purcell continued his studies under John Blow. He attended Westminster School and in 1676 was appointed copyist at Westminster Abbey. Henry Purcell's earliest anthem, Lord, who can tell, was composed in 1678. It is a psalm that is prescribed for Christmas Day and also to be read at morning prayer on the fourth day of the month. In 1679, he wrote songs for John Playford's Choice Ayres, Songs and Dialogues and an anthem, the name of which is unknown, for the Chapel Royal. From an extant letter written by Thomas Purcell we learn that this anthem was composed for the exceptionally fine voice of the Rev. John Gostling, then at Canterbury, but afterwards a gentleman of His Majesty's Chapel. Purcell wrote several anthems at different times for Gostling's extraordinary basso profondo voice, which is known to have had a range of at least two full octaves, from D below the bass staff to the D above it. The dates of very few of these sacred compositions are known; perhaps the most notable example is the anthem They that go down to the sea in ships. In gratitude for the providential escape of King Charles II from shipwreck, Gostling, who had been of the royal party, put together some verses from the Psalms in the form of an anthem and requested Purcell to set them to music. The challenging work opens with a passage which traverses the full extent of Gostling's range, beginning on the upper D and descending two octaves to the lower. Between 1680 and 1688 Purcell wrote music for seven plays. The composition of his chamber opera Dido and Aeneas, which forms a very important landmark in the history of English dramatic music, has been attributed to this period, and its earliest production may well have predated the documented one of 1689. It was written to a libretto furnished by Nahum Tate, and performed in 1689 in cooperation with Josias Priest, a dancing master and the choreographer for the Dorset Garden Theatre. Priest's wife kept a boarding school for young gentlewomen, first in Leicester Fields and afterwards at Chelsea, where the opera was performed. It is occasionally considered the first genuine English opera, though that title is usually given to Blow's Venus and Adonis: as in Blow's work, the action does not progress in spoken dialogue but in Italian-style recitative. Each work runs to less than one hour. At the time, Dido and Aeneas never found its way to the theatre, though it appears to have been very popular in private circles. It is believed to have been extensively copied, but only one song was printed by Purcell's widow in Orpheus Britannicus, and the complete work remained in manuscript until 1840 when it was printed by the Musical Antiquarian Society under the editorship of Sir George Macfarren. The composition of Dido and Aeneas gave Purcell his first chance to write a sustained musical setting of a dramatic text. It was his only opportunity to compose a work in which the music carried the entire drama. The story of Dido and Aeneas derives from the original source in Virgil's epic the Aeneid. During the early part of 1679, he produced two important works for the stage, the music for Nathaniel Lee's Theodosius, and Thomas d'Urfey's Virtuous Wife. In 1679, Blow, who had been appointed organist of Westminster Abbey 10 years before, resigned his office in favour of Purcell. Purcell now devoted himself almost entirely to the composition of sacred music, and for six years severed his connection with the theatre. He had probably written his two important stage works before taking up his new office. Soon after Purcell's marriage in 1682, on the death of Edward Lowe, he was appointed organist of the Chapel Royal, an office which he was able to hold simultaneously with his position at Westminster Abbey. His eldest son was born in this same year, but he was short-lived. His first printed composition, Twelve Sonatas, was published in 1683. For some years after this, he was busy in the production of sacred music, odes addressed to the king and royal family, and other similar works. In 1685, he wrote two of his finest anthems, I was glad and My heart is inditing, for the coronation of King James II. In 1690 he composed a setting of the birthday ode for Queen Mary, Arise, my muse and four years later wrote one of his most elaborate, important and magnificent works – a setting for another birthday ode for the Queen, written by Nahum Tate, entitled Come Ye Sons of Art. In 1687, he resumed his connection with the theatre by furnishing the music for John Dryden's tragedy Tyrannick Love. In this year, Purcell also composed a march and passepied called Quick-step, which became so popular that Lord Wharton adapted the latter to the verses of Lillibullero. In or before January 1688, Purcell composed his anthem Blessed are they that fear the Lord by the express command of the King. A few months later, he wrote the music for D'Urfey's play, The Fool's Preferment. In 1690, he composed the music for Betterton's adaptation of Fletcher and Massinger's Prophetess (afterwards called Dioclesian) and Dryden's Amphitryon. In 1691, he wrote the music for what is sometimes considered his dramatic masterpiece, King Arthur, or The British Worthy. In 1692, he composed The Fairy-Queen (an adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream), the score of which (his longest for theatre) was rediscovered in 1901 and published by the Purcell Society. The Indian Queen followed in 1695, in which year he also wrote songs for Dryden and Davenant's version of Shakespeare's The Tempest (recently, this has been disputed by music scholars), probably including "Full fathom five" and "Come unto these yellow sands". The Indian Queen was adapted from a tragedy by Dryden and Sir Robert Howard. In these semi-operas (another term for which at the time was "dramatic opera"), the main characters of the plays do not sing but speak their lines: the action moves in dialogue rather than recitative. The related songs are sung "for" them by singers, who have minor dramatic roles. Purcell's Te Deum and Jubilate Deo were written for Saint Cecilia's Day, 1694, the first English Te Deum ever composed with orchestral accompaniment. This work was annually performed at St Paul's Cathedral until 1712, after which it was performed alternately with Handel's Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate until 1743, when both works were replaced by Handel's Dettingen Te Deum. He composed an anthem and two elegies for Queen Mary II's funeral, his Funeral Sentences and Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary. Besides the operas and semi-operas already mentioned, Purcell wrote the music and songs for Thomas d'Urfey's The Comical History of Don Quixote, Bonduca, The Indian Queen and others, a vast quantity of sacred music, and numerous odes, cantatas, and other miscellaneous pieces. The quantity of his instrumental chamber music is minimal after his early career, and his keyboard music consists of an even more minimal number of harpsichord suites and organ pieces. In 1693, Purcell composed music for two comedies: The Old Bachelor, and The Double Dealer. Purcell also composed for five other plays within the same year. In July 1695, Purcell composed an ode for the Duke of Gloucester for his sixth birthday. The ode is titled Who can from joy refrain? Purcell's four-part sonatas were issued in 1697. In the final six years of his life, Purcell wrote music for forty-two plays. Purcell died on 21 November 1695 at his home in Marsham Street, at the height of his career. He is believed to have been 35 or 36 years old at the time. The cause of his death is unclear: one theory is that he caught a chill after returning home late from the theatre one night to find that his wife had locked him out. Another is that he succumbed to tuberculosis. The beginning of Purcell's will reads: In the name of God Amen. I, Henry Purcell, of the City of Westminster, gentleman, being dangerously ill as to the constitution of my body, but in good and perfect mind and memory (thanks be to God) do by these presents publish and declare this to be my last Will and Testament. And I do hereby give and bequeath unto my loving wife, Frances Purcell, all my estate both real and personal of what nature and kind soever... Purcell is buried adjacent to the organ in Westminster Abbey. The music that he had earlier composed for Queen Mary's funeral was performed during his funeral. Purcell was universally mourned as "a very great master of music". Following his death, the officials at Westminster honoured him by unanimously voting that he be buried with no expense spared in the north aisle of the Abbey. His epitaph reads: "Here lyes Henry Purcell Esq., who left this life and is gone to that Blessed Place where only His harmony can be exceeded." Purcell and his wife Frances had six children, four of whom died in infancy. His wife, as well as his son Edward (1689–1740) and daughter Frances, survived him. His wife Frances died in 1706, having published a number of her husband's works, including the now-famous collection called Orpheus Britannicus, in two volumes, printed in 1698 and 1702, respectively. Edward was appointed organist of St Clement's, Eastcheap, London, in 1711 and was succeeded by his son Edward Henry Purcell (died 1765). Both men were buried in St Clement's near the organ gallery. Purcell worked in many genres, both in works closely linked to the court, such as symphony song, to the Chapel Royal, such as the symphony anthem, and the theatre. Among Purcell's most notable works are his opera Dido and Aeneas (1688), his semi-operas Dioclesian (1690), King Arthur (1691), The Fairy-Queen (1692) and Timon of Athens (1695), as well as the compositions Hail! Bright Cecilia (1692), Come Ye Sons of Art (1694) and Funeral Sentences and Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary (1695). After his death, Purcell was honoured by many of his contemporaries, including his old friend John Blow, who wrote An Ode, on the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell (Mark how the lark and linnet sing) with text by his old collaborator, John Dryden. William Croft's 1724 setting for the Burial Service was written in the style of "the great Master". Croft preserved Purcell's setting of "Thou knowest Lord" (Z 58) in his service, for reasons "obvious to any artist"; it has been sung at every British state funeral ever since. More recently, the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a famous sonnet entitled simply "Henry Purcell", with a headnote reading: "The poet wishes well to the divine genius of Purcell and praises him that, whereas other musicians have given utterance to the moods of man's mind, he has, beyond that, uttered in notes the very make and species of man as created both in him and in all men generally." Purcell also had a strong influence on the composers of the English musical renaissance of the early 20th century, most notably Benjamin Britten, who arranged many of Purcell's vocal works for voice(s) and piano in Britten's Purcell Realizations, including from Dido and Aeneas, and whose The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra is based on a theme from Purcell's Abdelazar. Stylistically, the aria "I know a bank" from Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream is clearly inspired by Purcell's aria "Sweeter than Roses", which Purcell originally wrote as part of incidental music to Richard Norton's Pausanias, the Betrayer of His Country. In a 1940 interview Ignaz Friedman stated that he considered Purcell as great as Bach and Beethoven. In Victoria Street, Westminster, England, there is a bronze monument to Purcell, sculpted by Glynn Williams and unveiled in 1995 to mark the 300th anniversary of his death. In 2009, Purcell was selected by the Royal Mail for their "Eminent Britons" commemorative postage stamp issue. A Purcell Club was founded in London in 1836 for promoting the performance of his music but was dissolved in 1863. In 1876 a Purcell Society was founded, which published new editions of his works. A modern-day Purcell Club has been created, and provides guided tours and concerts in support of Westminster Abbey. Today there is a Henry Purcell Society of Boston, which performs his music in live concert. There is a Purcell Society in London, which collects and studies Purcell manuscripts and musical scores, concentrating on producing revised versions of the scores of all his music. Purcell's works have been catalogued by Franklin Zimmerman, who gave them a number preceded by Z. So strong was his reputation that a popular wedding processional was incorrectly attributed to Purcell for many years. The so-called Purcell's Trumpet Voluntary was in fact written around 1700 by a British composer named Jeremiah Clarke as the Prince of Denmark's March. Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary was reworked by Wendy Carlos for the title music of the 1971 film by Stanley Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange. The 1973 Rolling Stone review of Jethro Tull's A Passion Play compared the musical style of the album with that of Purcell. In 2009 Pete Townshend of The Who, an English rock band that established itself in the 1960s, identified Purcell's harmonies, particularly the use of suspension and resolution (Townshend has mentioned Chaconne from The Gordian Knot Untied) that he had learned from producer Kit Lambert, as an influence on the band's music (in songs such as "Won't Get Fooled Again" (1971), "I Can See for Miles" (1967) and the very Purcellian intro to "Pinball Wizard"). Purcell's music was widely featured as background music in the Academy Award winning 1979 film Kramer vs. Kramer, with a soundtrack on CBS Masterworks Records. The 1995 film, England, My England, tells the story of an actor who is himself writing a play about Purcell's life and music, and features many of his compositions. In the 21st century, the soundtrack of the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice features a dance titled "A Postcard to Henry Purcell". This is a version by composer Dario Marianelli of Purcell's Abdelazar theme. In the German-language 2004 movie, Downfall, the music of Dido's Lament is used repeatedly as Nazi Germany collapses. The 2012 film Moonrise Kingdom contains Benjamin Britten's version of the Rondeau in Purcell's Abdelazar created for his 1946 The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. In 2013, the Pet Shop Boys released their single "Love Is a Bourgeois Construct" incorporating one of the same ground basses from King Arthur used by Michael Nyman in his The Draughtsman's Contract score. Olivia Chaney performs her adaptation of "There's Not a Swain" on her CD "The Longest River". The song "Music for a while" from Purcell's incidental music to Oedipus, Z. 583 was included in the soundtrack of the 2018 film The Favourite, along with the second movement of his Trumpet Sonata in D major, Z. 850, performed by the English Baroque Soloists, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner. "What Power Art Thou" (from King Arthur, or The British Worthy (Z. 628), a semi-opera in five acts with music by Purcell and a libretto by John Dryden) is featured in The Crown. The Purcell Society Free scores by Henry Purcell at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) Free scores by Henry Purcell in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki) "Discovering Purcell". BBC Radio 3. The Mutopia Project has compositions by Henry Purcell Short biography, audio samples and images of Purcell Henry Purcell at AllMusic Henry Purcell at IMDb

3. Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976)

With an HPI of 67.06, Benjamin Britten is the 3rd most famous British Composer. His biography has been translated into 62 different languages.

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945). Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-scale operas for Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden, he wrote chamber operas for small forces, suitable for performance in venues of modest size. Among the best known of these is The Turn of the Screw (1954). Recurring themes in his operas include the struggle of an outsider against a hostile society and the corruption of innocence. Britten's other works range from orchestral to choral, solo vocal, chamber and instrumental as well as film music. He took a great interest in writing music for children and amateur performers, including the opera Noye's Fludde, a Missa Brevis, and the song collection Friday Afternoons. He often composed with particular performers in mind. His most frequent and important muse was his personal and professional partner, the tenor Peter Pears; others included Kathleen Ferrier, Jennifer Vyvyan, Janet Baker, Dennis Brain, Julian Bream, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Osian Ellis and Mstislav Rostropovich. Britten was a celebrated pianist and conductor, performing many of his own works in concert and on record. He also performed and recorded works by others, such as Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, Mozart symphonies, and song cycles by Schubert and Schumann. Together with Pears and the librettist and producer Eric Crozier, Britten founded the annual Aldeburgh Festival in 1948, and he was responsible for the creation of Snape Maltings concert hall in 1967. In his last year, he was the first composer to be given a life peerage.

4. John Barry (1933 - 2011)

With an HPI of 65.70, John Barry is the 4th most famous British Composer. His biography has been translated into 55 different languages.

John Barry Prendergast (3 November 1933 – 30 January 2011) was an English composer and conductor of film music. Born in York, Barry spent his early years working in cinemas owned by his father. During his national service with the British Army in Cyprus, Barry began performing as a musician after learning to play the trumpet. Upon completing his national service, he formed a band in 1957, the John Barry Seven. He later developed an interest in composing and arranging music, making his début for television in 1958. He came to the notice of the makers of the first James Bond film Dr. No, who were dissatisfied with a theme for James Bond given to them by Monty Norman. Noel Rogers, the head of music at United Artists, approached Barry. This started a successful association between Barry and the Bond series that lasted for 25 years. He composed the scores for eleven of the James Bond films between 1963 and 1987, as well as arranging and performing the "James Bond Theme" for the first film in the series, 1962's Dr. No. He wrote the Grammy- and Academy Award-winning scores to the films Dances with Wolves (1990) and Out of Africa (1985), as well as the scores of The Scarlet Letter (1995), Chaplin (1992), The Cotton Club (1984), Game of Death (1972), The Tamarind Seed (1974), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) and the theme for the television series The Persuaders!, in a career spanning over 50 years. In 1999, he was appointed with an OBE for services to music. Barry received awards including five Academy Awards: two for Born Free and one each for The Lion in Winter (for which he also won the first BAFTA Award for Best Film Music), Out of Africa and Dances with Wolves (both of which also won him Grammy Awards). He also received ten Golden Globe Award nominations, winning once for Best Original Score for Out of Africa in 1986. Barry completed his last film score, Enigma, in 2001 and recorded the successful album Eternal Echoes the same year. He then concentrated chiefly on live performances and co-wrote the music to the musical Brighton Rock in 2004 alongside Don Black. In 2001, Barry became a Fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, and, in 2005, he was made a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Barry was married four times and had four children. He moved to the United States in 1975 and lived there until his death in 2011. Barry was born John Barry Prendergast in York, the youngest of four children. His mother, a classical pianist, was English; his Irish father, John Xavier "Jack" Prendergast from Cork, was a projectionist during the silent film era and later owned a chain of cinemas across northern England. As a result of his father's work, Barry was raised in and around cinemas in northern England and he later stated that this childhood background influenced his musical tastes and interests. He had two older brothers and one older sister. Barry was educated at St Peter's School, York, and received composition lessons from Francis Jackson, Organist of York Minster. Barry spent his national service in the British Army playing the trumpet, working from a correspondence course with jazz composer Bill Russo. After national service he worked as an arranger for the orchestras of Jack Parnell and Ted Heath, forming his own band, the John Barry Seven, in 1957. The John Barry Seven recorded hit records on EMI's Columbia label including "Hit and Miss", the theme tune he composed for the BBC's Juke Box Jury programme; a cover of the Johnny Smith song "Walk Don't Run"; and a cover of the theme for the United Artists western The Magnificent Seven. By 1959 Barry was gaining commissions to arrange music for other acts, starting with a young trio on Decca, coincidentally called the Three Barry Sisters, though unrelated both to Barry and American duo The Barry Sisters. The career breakthrough for Barry was the BBC television series Drumbeat, when he appeared with the John Barry Seven. He was employed by EMI from 1959 until 1962 arranging orchestral accompaniments for the company's singers, including Adam Faith. He also composed songs (along with Les Vandyke) and scores for films in which Faith was featured. When Faith made his first film, Beat Girl (1960), Barry composed, arranged and conducted the film score, his first. His music was later released as the UK's first soundtrack album. Barry also composed the music for another Faith film, Never Let Go (also 1960), orchestrated the score for Mix Me a Person (1962), and composed, arranged and conducted the score for The Amorous Prawn (also 1962). In 1962, Barry transferred to Ember Records, where he produced and arranged albums. These achievements caught the attention of the producers of a new film called Dr. No (1962) who were dissatisfied with a theme for James Bond given to them by Monty Norman. Barry was hired and his arrangement of Norman's composition created the "James Bond Theme". When the producers of the Bond series sought to hire Lionel Bart to score the next James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963), they learned that Bart could not read or write music. Though Bart wrote a title song for the film, the producers remembered Barry's arrangement of the James Bond Theme and his composing and arranging for several films with Adam Faith. Bart also recommended Barry to producer Stanley Baker for his 1964 film Zulu. That same year Bart and Barry collaborated on the film Man in the Middle; and then, in 1965, Barry worked with director Bryan Forbes in scoring the World War II prison-camp drama King Rat. This was the turning point for Barry, and he subsequently won five Academy Awards and four Grammy Awards, with scores for, among others, Born Free (1966), The Lion in Winter (1968), Midnight Cowboy (1969) for which he did not receive an on-screen credit, and Somewhere in Time (1980). Barry was often cited as having had a distinct style which concentrated on lush strings and extensive use of brass. He was one of the first to employ synthesizers in a film score (On Her Majesty's Secret Service, also 1969), and to make wide use of pop artists and songs in Midnight Cowboy. Because Barry provided not just the main title theme but the complete soundtrack score, his music often enhanced the critical reception of a film, notably in Midnight Cowboy, The Tamarind Seed, the first remake of King Kong (1976), Out of Africa (1985), and Dances with Wolves (1990). Barry would often watch films and would note down with pen and paper what worked or what did not. Barry composed the theme for the TV series The Persuaders! (1971), also known as The Unlucky Heroes, in which Tony Curtis and Roger Moore were paired as rich playboys solving crimes. The instrumental recording features the cimbalom (which Barry also used for The Ipcress File (1965) and other themes) and Moog synthesizers. The theme was a hit single in many European countries (including France, Germany, and the Benelux states), contributing to the cult status of the series in Europe, and the record featured Barry's The Girl with the Sun in Her Hair on the B side, an instrumental piece featured in a long running TV advert for Sunsilk shampoo. Barry also wrote the scores to a number of musicals, including the 1965 Passion Flower Hotel (lyrics by Trevor Peacock), the successful 1974 West End show Billy (lyrics by Don Black), and two intended Broadway musicals that never opened on Broadway, Lolita, My Love (1971), with Alan Jay Lerner as lyricist, and The Little Prince and the Aviator (1981), again with lyricist Don Black. Barry also composed the soundtrack for the Bruce Lee film Game of Death (1978). In 2001, the University of York conferred an honorary degree on Barry, and in 2002 he was named an Honorary Freeman of the City of York. During 2006, Barry was the executive producer on an album entitled Here's to the Heroes by the Australian ensemble The Ten Tenors. The album features a number of songs Barry wrote in collaboration with his lyricist friend, Don Black. Barry and Black also composed one of the songs on Shirley Bassey's 2009 album, The Performance. The song, entitled "Our Time Is Now", is the first written by the duo for Bassey since "Diamonds Are Forever". After the success of Dr. No, Barry was hired to compose and perform eleven of the next fourteen James Bond films. In his tenure with the film series, Barry's music, variously brassy and moody, achieved very wide appeal. For From Russia with Love he composed "007", an alternative James Bond signature theme, which is featured in four other Bond films (Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, and Moonraker). The theme "Stalking", for the teaser sequence of From Russia with Love, was covered by colleague Marvin Hamlisch for The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Barry also contributed indirectly to the soundtrack of the spoof version of Casino Royale (1967): his Born Free theme appears briefly in the opening sequence. In Goldfinger (1964), he perfected the "Bond sound", a heady mixture of brass, jazz elements and sensuous melodies. There is even an element of Barry's jazz roots in the big-band track "Into Miami", which follows the title credits and accompanies the film's iconic image of the camera lens zooming toward the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. Barry's love for the Russian romantic composers is often reflected in his music; in his Bond scores he unites this with brass-heavy jazz writing. His use of strings, lyricism, half-diminished chords and complex key shifting provides melancholy contrast; in his scores this is often heard in variations of the title songs that are used to underscore plot development. As Barry matured, the Bond scores became more lushly melodic (along with other scores of his such as The Tamarind Seed and Out of Africa) as in Moonraker (1979) and Octopussy (1983). Barry's score for A View to a Kill was traditional, but his collaboration with Duran Duran for the title song was contemporary and reached number one in the United States and number two in the UK Singles Chart. Both A View to a Kill and The Living Daylights theme by A-ha blended the pop music style of the bands with Barry's orchestration. In 2006, A-ha's Pal Waaktaar complimented Barry's contributions: "I loved the stuff he added to the track, I mean it gave it this really cool string arrangement. That's when for me it started to sound like a Bond thing." Barry's last score for the Bond series was The Living Daylights (1987), Timothy Dalton's first film in the series, with Barry making a cameo appearance as a conductor in the film. Barry was intended to score Licence to Kill (1989) but was recovering from throat surgery at the time, and it was considered unsafe to fly him to London to complete the score. The score was completed by Michael Kamen. David Arnold, a British composer, saw the result of two years' work in 1997 with the release of Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project, an album of new versions of the themes from various James Bond films. Arnold thanks Barry in the sleeve notes, referring to him as "the Guvnor". Almost all of the tracks were John Barry compositions, and the revision of his work met with his approval – he contacted Barbara Broccoli, producer of the then upcoming Tomorrow Never Dies, to recommend Arnold as the film's composer. Arnold also went on to score four subsequent Bond films: The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. Monty Norman, who was contracted as composer for Dr. No, received sole compositional credit for the "James Bond Theme". Nearly 40 years later, in 2001, the disputed authorship of the theme was examined legally in the High Court in London after Norman sued The Sunday Times for libel for publishing an article in 1997 in which Barry was named as the true composer; Barry testified for the defence. In court, Barry testified that he had been handed a musical manuscript of a work by Norman (meant to become the theme) and that he was to arrange it musically, and that he composed additional music and arranged the "James Bond Theme". He also claimed that Norman received sole credit because of his prior contract with the producers. Barry said that a deal was struck whereby he would receive a flat fee of £250 and Norman would receive the songwriting credit. Barry said that he had accepted the deal with United Artists Head of Music Noel Rogers because it would help his career. Despite these claims, the jury ruled unanimously in favour of Norman. On 7 September 2006, John Barry reiterated his claim of authorship of the theme on the Steve Wright show on BBC Radio 2. Barry was married four times. His first three marriages, to Barbara Pickard (1959–63), Jane Birkin (1965–68) and Jane Sidey (1969–78) all ended in divorce. He was married to his fourth wife, Laurie, from January 1978 until his death. The couple had a son, Jonpatrick. Barry had three daughters: Suzanne with his first wife, Barbara; Kate with his second wife, Jane; and Sian, from a relationship with Ulla Larson between the first two marriages. In 1975, Barry moved to the US. A British judge later accused him of emigrating to avoid paying £134,000 due the Inland Revenue. The matter was resolved in the late 1980s, and Barry was able to return to the UK. He subsequently lived for many years in the United States, mainly in Oyster Bay, New York, in Centre Island on Long Island, from 1980. Barry suffered a rupture of the esophagus in 1988, following a toxic reaction to a health tonic he had consumed. The incident rendered him unable to work for two years and left him vulnerable to pneumonia. Barry died of a heart attack on 30 January 2011 at his Oyster Bay home, aged 77. A memorial concert took place on 20 June 2011 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, where the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Shirley Bassey, Rumer, David Arnold, Wynne Evans and others performed Barry's music. Sir George Martin, Sir Michael Parkinson, Don Black, Timothy Dalton and others also contributed to the celebration of his life and work. The event was sponsored by the Royal College of Music through a grant by the Broccoli Foundation. In 1999, Barry was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to music. He received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award in 2005. In 2005, the American Film Institute ranked Barry's score for Out of Africa No. 15 on their list of the greatest film scores. His scores and original songs for the following films were nominated: Goldfinger (1964) Born Free (1966) The Lion in Winter (1968) Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) The Dove (1974) The Deep (1977) Somewhere in Time (1980) Body Heat (1981) Out of Africa (1985) A View to a Kill (1985) Dances with Wolves (1990) Chaplin (1992) Grammy Award 1969 Best Instrumental Theme for Midnight Cowboy 1985 Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band for The Cotton Club 1985 Best Instrumental Composition for Out of Africa 1991 Best Instrumental Composition for Dances with Wolves Grammy Award nominations 1965 Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media for Goldfinger Emmy Award nominations 1964 Outstanding Achievement in Composing Original Music for Television for Elizabeth Taylor in London (a 1963 television special) 1977 Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Special (Dramatic Underscore) for Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years Golden Raspberry Award 1981 Worst Musical Score for The Legend of the Lone Ranger Max Steiner Lifetime Achievement Award (presented by the City of Vienna) 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award from World Soundtrack Academy (presented at the Ghent Film Festival) 2010 In 2011, he received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. Barry was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1998. Also wrote the theme for raise the titanic much under rated too Barry worked on the soundtracks for the following James Bond films (title song collaborators in brackets): Dr. No (1962) – "James Bond Theme" (composed by Monty Norman) as arranged by Barry used on main and end titles, key points such as Bond's arrival in Jamaica From Russia with Love (title song music and lyrics by Lionel Bart) (1963) Goldfinger (lyrics by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse) (1964) Thunderball (lyrics by Don Black) (1965) You Only Live Twice (lyrics by Leslie Bricusse) (1967) On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) Diamonds Are Forever (lyrics by Don Black) (1971) The Man with the Golden Gun (lyrics by Don Black) (1974) Moonraker (lyrics by Hal David) (1979) Octopussy – "All Time High" (lyrics by Tim Rice) (1983) A View to a Kill (music and lyrics by Duran Duran) (1985) The Living Daylights (music and lyrics by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy) (1987) In addition, a brief excerpt from the song "Born Free" is heard during a sequence in the non-EON Productions Bond film, Casino Royale (1967). Elizabeth Taylor in London (Grammy award nomination) (1963) Sophia Loren in Rome (1964) The Glass Menagerie (1973) Love Among the Ruins (1975) Eleanor and Franklin (1976) Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years (1977) The War Between the Tates (1977) Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy (1977) The Gathering (1977) The Corn Is Green (1979) Willa (1979) Svengali (1983) Juke Box Jury (1959–1967) Dateline (1962) Impromptu (1964) The Newcomers (1965–1969) Vendetta (1966) The Persuaders! (1971–1972) The Adventurer (1972–1973) Orson Welles Great Mysteries (1973) Born Free (1974) USA Today: The Television Show (1988) Passion Flower Hotel (1965) Lolita, My Love (1971), a musical comedy (text by Alan Jay Lerner) based on Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita Billy (1974) The Little Prince and the Aviator (1981) Brighton Rock (2004) Stringbeat (1961) Americans (1975) The Beyondness of Things (1999) Eternal Echoes (2001) The Seasons (no release date set) (Excludes co-composed hits, e.g. Duran Duran's "A View to a Kill") "Hit and Miss" as The John Barry Seven plus Four, UK#10 (first charted 1960) "Beat for Beatniks" as The John Barry Orchestra, UK#40 (1960) "Never Let Go" as The John Barry Orchestra, UK#49 (1960) "Blueberry Hill" as The John Barry Orchestra, UK#34 (1960) "Walk Don't Run" as The John Barry Seven, UK#11 (1960) "Black Stockings" as The John Barry Seven, UK#27 (1960) "The Magnificent Seven" as The John Barry Seven, UK#45 (1961) "Cutty Sark" as The John Barry Seven, UK#35 (1962) "The James Bond Theme" as The John Barry Orchestra, UK#13 (1962) "From Russia with Love" as The John Barry Orchestra, UK#39 (1963) "Theme from The Persuaders! as John Barry, UK#13 (1971) His four highest-charting hits all spent more than 10 weeks in the UK top 50. Category:Works by John Barry (composer) Fiegel, Eddi. John Barry: A Sixties Theme: From James Bond to Midnight Cowboy (Faber & Faber: London, UK, 2012) Leonard, Geoff, Pete Walker and Gareth Bramley. John Barry – The Man with the Midas Touch (Redcliffe Press: Bristol, UK, 2008) John Barry Website John Barry at the Songwriters Hall of Fame John Barry at IMDb Appearance on Desert Island Discs 13 June 1999 John Barry discography at MusicBrainz John Barry Memorial Concert – Remembering Chet on YouTube John Barry Memorial Concert – The James Bond Theme on YouTube John Barry Memorial Concert – Goldfinger on YouTube John Barry Memorial Concert – We Have All The Time in the World on YouTube John Barry Memorial Concert – Complete Radio Broadcast on YouTube

5. Gustav Holst (1874 - 1934)

With an HPI of 64.18, Gustav Holst is the 5th most famous British Composer. His biography has been translated into 55 different languages.

Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst; 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite The Planets, he composed many other works across a range of genres, although none achieved comparable success. His distinctive compositional style was the product of many influences, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss being most crucial early in his development. The subsequent inspiration of the English folksong revival of the early 20th century, and the example of such rising modern composers as Maurice Ravel, led Holst to develop and refine an individual style. There were professional musicians in the previous three generations of Holst's family and it was clear from his early years that he would follow the same calling. He hoped to become a pianist, but was prevented by neuritis in his right arm. Despite his father's reservations, he pursued a career as a composer, studying at the Royal College of Music under Charles Villiers Stanford. Unable to support himself by his compositions, he played the trombone professionally and later became a teacher—a great one, according to his colleague Ralph Vaughan Williams. Among other teaching activities he built up a strong tradition of performance at Morley College, where he served as musical director from 1907 until 1924, and pioneered music education for women at St Paul's Girls' School, where he taught from 1905 until his death in 1934. He was the founder of a series of Whitsun music festivals, which ran from 1916 for the remainder of his life. Holst's works were played frequently in the early years of the 20th century, but it was not until the international success of The Planets in the years immediately after the First World War that he became a well-known figure. A shy man, he did not welcome this fame, and preferred to be left in peace to compose and teach. In his later years his uncompromising, personal style of composition struck many music lovers as too austere, and his brief popularity declined. Nevertheless, he was an important influence on a number of younger English composers, including Edmund Rubbra, Michael Tippett and Benjamin Britten. Apart from The Planets and a handful of other works, his music was generally neglected until the 1980s, when recordings of much of his output became available.

6. William Byrd (1543 - 1623)

With an HPI of 62.27, William Byrd is the 6th most famous British Composer. His biography has been translated into 43 different languages.

William Byrd (; c. 1540 – 4 July 1623) was an English Renaissance composer. Considered among the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he had a profound influence on composers both from his native country and on the Continent. He is often considered along with John Dunstaple and Henry Purcell as one of England's most important composers of early music. Byrd wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard (the so-called Virginalist school), and consort music. He produced sacred music for Anglican services, but during the 1570s became a Roman Catholic, and wrote Catholic sacred music later in his life.

7. Keith Emerson (1944 - 2016)

With an HPI of 60.58, Keith Emerson is the 7th most famous British Composer. His biography has been translated into 41 different languages.

Keith Noel Emerson (2 November 1944 – 11 March 2016) was an English keyboardist, songwriter, composer and record producer. He played keyboards in a number of bands before finding his first commercial success with the Nice in the late 1960s. He became internationally famous for his work with the Nice, which included writing rock arrangements of classical music. After leaving the Nice in 1970, he was a founding member of Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP), one of the early progressive rock supergroups. Emerson, Lake & Palmer were commercially successful through much of the 1970s, becoming one of the best-known progressive rock groups of the era. Emerson wrote and arranged much of ELP's music on albums such as Tarkus (1971) and Brain Salad Surgery (1973), combining his own original compositions with classical or traditional pieces adapted into a rock format. Following ELP's break-up at the end of the 1970s, Emerson pursued a solo career, composed several film soundtracks, and formed the bands Emerson, Lake & Powell and 3 to carry on in the style of ELP. In the early 1990s, ELP reunited for two more albums and several tours before breaking up again in the late 1990s. Emerson also reunited The Nice in 2002 and 2003 for a tour. During the 2000s, Emerson resumed his solo career, including touring with his own Keith Emerson Band featuring guitarist Dave Kilminster, then replaced by Marc Bonilla, and collaborating with several orchestras. He reunited with ELP bandmate Greg Lake in 2010 for a duo tour, culminating in a one-off ELP reunion show in London to celebrate the band's 40th anniversary. Emerson's last album, The Three Fates Project, with Marc Bonilla and Terje Mikkelsen, was released in 2012. Emerson reportedly suffered from depression, and since 1993 developed nerve damage that hampered his playing, making him anxious about upcoming performances. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on 11 March 2016 at his home in Santa Monica, California. Emerson is widely regarded as one of the greatest keyboard players of the progressive rock era. AllMusic describes Emerson as "perhaps the greatest, most technically accomplished keyboardist in rock history". In 2019, readers of Prog voted him the greatest keyboard player in progressive rock.

8. Eugen d'Albert (1864 - 1932)

With an HPI of 60.46, Eugen d'Albert is the 8th most famous British Composer. His biography has been translated into 34 different languages.

Eugen (originally Eugène) Francis Charles d'Albert (10 April 1864 – 3 March 1932) was a Scottish-born pianist and composer who emigrated to Germany. Educated in Britain, d'Albert showed early musical talent and, at the age of seventeen, he won a scholarship to study in Austria. Feeling a kinship with German culture and music, he soon emigrated to Germany, where he studied with Franz Liszt and began a career as a concert pianist. D'Albert repudiated his early training and upbringing in Scotland and considered himself German. While pursuing his career as a pianist, d'Albert focused increasingly on composing, producing 21 operas and a considerable output of piano, vocal, chamber and orchestral works. His most successful opera was Tiefland, which premiered in Prague in 1903. His successful orchestral works included his cello concerto (1899), a symphony, two string quartets and two piano concertos. In 1907 d'Albert became the director of the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he exerted a wide influence on musical education in Germany. He edited critical editions of the scores of Beethoven and Bach, transcribed Bach's organ works for the piano and wrote cadenzas for Beethoven's piano concertos. He also held the post of Kapellmeister to the Court of Weimar. D'Albert was married six times, including to the pianist-singer Teresa Carreño, and was successively a British, German and Swiss citizen.

9. Thomas Tallis (1502 - 1585)

With an HPI of 60.22, Thomas Tallis is the 9th most famous British Composer. His biography has been translated into 42 different languages.

Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 – 23 November 1585; also Tallys or Talles) was an English composer of High Renaissance music. His compositions are primarily vocal, and he occupies a primary place in anthologies of English choral music. Tallis is considered one of England's greatest composers, and is honoured for his original voice in English musicianship.

10. Andrew Lloyd Webber (b. 1948)

With an HPI of 60.06, Andrew Lloyd Webber is the 10th most famous British Composer. His biography has been translated into 64 different languages.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber, (born 22 March 1948) is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 21 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass. Several of Lloyd Webber's songs have been widely recorded and widely successful outside of their parent musicals, such as "Memory" from Cats, "The Music of the Night" and "All I Ask of You" from The Phantom of the Opera, "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar, "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from Evita, and "Any Dream Will Do" from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. In 2001, The New York Times referred to him as "the most commercially successful composer in history". The Daily Telegraph named him in 2008 the fifth-most powerful person in British culture, on which occasion lyricist Don Black said that "Andrew more or less single-handedly reinvented the musical." Lloyd Webber has received numerous awards, including a knighthood in 1992, followed by a peerage for services to the arts, six Tonys, seven Olivier Awards, three Grammys (as well as the Grammy Legend Award), an Academy Award, 14 Ivor Novello Awards, a Golden Globe, a Brit Award, the 2006 Kennedy Center Honors, and two Classic Brit Awards (for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 2008, and for Musical Theatre and Education in 2018). In 2018, after Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Special (Live), he became the thirteenth person to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is an inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. The Really Useful Group, Lloyd Webber's company, is one of the largest theatre operators in London. Producers in several parts of the UK have staged productions, including national tours, of Lloyd Webber musicals under licence from the Really Useful Group. He is also the president of the Arts Educational Schools, London, a performing arts school located in Chiswick, West London. Lloyd Webber is involved in a number of charitable activities, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Nordoff Robbins, Prostate Cancer UK and War Child. In 1992, he started the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation which supports the arts, culture, and heritage of the UK.

People

Pantheon has 105 people classified as British composers born between 1390 and 2005. Of these 105, 27 (25.71%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living British composers include Andrew Lloyd Webber, Michael Nyman, and Harry Gregson-Williams. The most famous deceased British composers include Edward Elgar, Henry Purcell, and Benjamin Britten. As of April 2024, 7 new British composers have been added to Pantheon including York Bowen, Monty Norman, and John Stanley.