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
 * Rebecca West: Harriet Hume (1929) (The title character based on Harriet Cohen)

Ludwig van Beethoven
 * 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
 * Dorothy Baker: Young Man With a Horn (1938)

William Sterndale Bennett
 * Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Starwood Burney)

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
 * Mary Sharratt: Illuminations (2012)

Mario Braggiotti
 * F. Scott Fitzgerald: Tender is The Night (1934) (as Tommy Barban)

Benjamin Britten
 * Ian McEwan: Amsterdam (1998) (Clive Linley, correspondencies with Britten)

Thomas Busby
 * George Borrow: Lavengro (1851) (as editor of the "Universal Review")

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
 * Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as St Michel)

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
 * Nigel Balchin: Darkness Falls From the Air (1942) (as the poet Stephen Ryle)

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
 * C F Keary: The Journalist (1898) (as Sophus Jonsen)

Edward J Dent
 * E. M. Forster: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) (as Philip Herriton)

Delia Derbyshire
 * Rosemary Tonks: The Bloater (1968) (as Jenny)

Arnold Dolmetsch
 * George Moore: Evelyn Innes (1898) (as the father of Evelyn)

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

George Gershwin
 * Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)
 * Mitchell James Kaplan. Rhapsody (2021)
 * George Kaufman and Moss Hart: Merrily We Roll Along (1934) (as Sam Frankl)

Carlo Gesualdo
 * David Pownall: Music to Murder By (1976)

Jimmy Glover
 * George Moore: A Mummer's Wife (1885) (as Montgomery)

Eugene Aynsley Goossens
 * Inez Baranay: Pagan (1990)
 * Louis Nowra: The Devil is a Woman (2004)

Glenn Gould
 * Christopher Miller: Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects: A Novel in Liner Notes (2004)

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)

George Frideric Handel
 * Nick Drake: All the Angels: Handel and the First Messiah (2015)

Josef Matthias Hauer
 * Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (1943) (as model for Joculator Basiliensis ("the player from Basel").
 * Otto Stoessl': Sonnenmelodie (1923)
 * Franz Werfel: Verdi. Roman der Oper (1924) (as Matthias Fischboeck)

Charles Edward Horsley
 * Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Charles Auchester)

John Pyke Hullah
 * Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Lenhart Davy)

Halfdan Jebe
 * C F Keary: The Journalist (1898) (as Hauch)

Maurice Jacobson
 * Stevie Smith: Novel on Yellow Paper (1936) (as Herman)

Joseph Joachim
 * Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Charles Auchester)

Aram Khachaturian
 * David Pownall: Master Class (1982)

Constant Lambert
 * Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (as Moreland)
 * David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)

Henry Lawes
 * Robert Graves: Wife to Mr Milton (1942)

Madame Levinskaya
 * Bernice Rubens: Madame Sousatzka (1962)

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
 * Henry Reed: The Private Life of Hilda Tablet (1954) (as Tablet)

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

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
 * Sonia Orchard: The Virtuosso (2009)

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
 * George Bernard Shaw: Love Among the Artists (1881) (as Owen Jack)

Helen Perkin
 * Carl Ginsburg: Medicine Journeys: Ten Stories (Center Press, 1983) (as Mrs Todd Ashby)

Sergei Prokofiev
 * Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)
 * David Pownall: Master Class (1982)

Maurice Ravel
 * Arnold Bennett: The Lion's Share (1916) {as Roussel)

Gioachino Rossini
 * Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)

Harold Rubens
 * Bernice Rubens: Madame Souzatzka (1962) (as Manek)

Anton Rubinstein
 * George Eliot: Daniel Deronda (1876) (aspects of Julius Klesmer, see also Liszt)

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

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

Godfrey Sampson
 * Edmund Crispen: Holy Disorders (1945) (as Geoffrey Vintner)

Erik Satie
 * Caitlin Horrocks: Vexations (2019)

Arnold Schoenberg
 * Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus (1947) (aspects of Adrian Leverkühn, see also Wolf)

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
 * E. F. Benson: Dodo (1893) (as Edith Stains)

Kaikhosru Sorabji
 * Christopher Miller: Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects: A Novel in Liner Notes (2004)

Barbara Strozzi
 * Russell Hoban. My Tango with Barbara Strozzi (2007) ((as modern day Bertha Strunk)

Arthur Sullivan
 * Nicholas Meyer. The West End Horror (1976)

Kay Swift
 * Mitchell James Kaplan. Rhapsody (2021)

Antonio Vivaldi
 * Barbara Quick: Vivaldi's Virgins (2007)

William Walton
 * Lord Berners: Count Omega (1941) (as Emmanuel Smith)
 * David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)

Richard Wagner
 * Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)

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
 * Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus (1947) (aspects of Adrian Leverkühn, see also Schoenberg)

Carl Friedrich Zelter
 * Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Aronach)