List of composers in literature
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
- Esther Meynell: The Little Chronicle of Magdalena Bach (1925)[1]
- James Runcie: The Great Passion (2022)[2]
- Rebecca West: Harriet Hume (1929) (The title character based on Harriet Cohen)[3]
- Jessica Duchan: Immortal (2020)[4]
- Sanford Friedman: Conversations with Beethoven (1980s, published in 2014)[5]
- Paul Griffiths: Mr Beethoven (2020)[6]
- Esther Meynell: Grave Fairytale (1931) (as Melchior)[7]
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Rumour: A Novel (1858) (as Rodomant)[8]
- John Suchet: The Last Master (1997–99) (fictional biography in three volumes)
- Dorothy Baker: Young Man With a Horn (1938)
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Starwood Burney)[8]
- Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]
- Jude Morgan: Symphony (2006)[9]
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Florimond Anastasa)[10]
- Nancy Mitford: The Pursuit of Love (1945) (as Lord Merlin)[11]
- Osbert Sitwell: 'The Love Bird' from Dumb Animal and Other Stories (1930) (as Sir Robert Mainwroth)[10]
- Mary Sharratt: Illuminations (2012)[5]
- F. Scott Fitzgerald: Tender is The Night (1934) (as Tommy Barban)[12]
- Ian McEwan: Amsterdam (1998) (Clive Linley, correspondencies with Britten)[13]
- George Borrow: Lavengro (1851) (as editor of the "Universal Review")[10]
- George Sand: Lucrezia Floriani (1846)[14]
- Nell Stevens: Briefly, a Delicious Life (2022)[15]
- William Gerhardie: Pending Heaven (1930) (as Helen Sapphire)[3]
- D H Lawrence: Kangeroo (1923) (as Harriet)[16]
- Rebecca West: Harriet Hume (1929)[16]
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as St Michel)[10]
- Charles Brackett: Entirely Surrounded (1934) (as Nick Farraday)[10]
- Beverley Nichols: Death to Slow Music (as Nigel Fleet)[10]
- David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)
- Nigel Balchin: Darkness Falls From the Air (1942) (as the poet Stephen Ryle)[17]
- Pierre La Mure: Clair de lune (1962)[18]
- Marcel Proust: À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) (aspects of Vinteuil, see also Franck and Saint-Saëns)[19]
- E. M. Forster: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) (as Philip Herriton)[19]
- Rosemary Tonks: The Bloater (1968) (as Jenny)[20]
- George Moore: Evelyn Innes (1898) (as the father of Evelyn)[21]
- Keith Alldritt: Elgar on the Journey to Hanley: A Novel (1979)
- Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]
- James Hamilton-Paterson: Gerontius (1989)[5]
- David Pownall: Elgar’s Rondo (1993)[22]
- David Pownall: Elgar’s Third (1994)[22]
- Marcel Proust: À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) (aspects of Vinteuil, see also Debussy and Saint-Saëns)
- Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]
- Mitchell James Kaplan. Rhapsody (2021)[23]
- George Kaufman and Moss Hart: Merrily We Roll Along (1934) (as Sam Frankl)[19]
- David Pownall: Music to Murder By (1976)[22]
- George Moore: A Mummer's Wife (1885) (as Montgomery)[10]
- Christopher Miller: Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects: A Novel in Liner Notes (2004)[24]
- H.D.: Bid Me to Live (1960) (as Vane)[25]
- Aldous Huxley: Antic Hay (1923) (as the critic Mercaptan)
- D.H.Lawrence: Aaron's Rod (1922) (as Cyril Scott)[10]
- D.H.Lawrence: Kangaroo (1923) (as James Sharpe)[10]
- Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (Maclintick and Gossege as a composite)[26]
- Nick Drake: All the Angels: Handel and the First Messiah (2015)
- Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (1943) (as model for Joculator Basiliensis ("the player from Basel").
- Otto Stoessl [de]': Sonnenmelodie (1923)
- Franz Werfel: Verdi. Roman der Oper [de] (1924) (as Matthias Fischboeck)
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Charles Auchester)[8]
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Lenhart Davy)[10]
- C F Keary: The Journalist (1898) (as Hauch)[27]
- Stevie Smith: Novel on Yellow Paper (1936) (as Herman)[28]
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Charles Auchester)[10]
- David Pownall: Master Class (1982)[22]
- Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (as Moreland)[29]
- David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)
- Robert Graves: Wife to Mr Milton (1942)
- Bernice Rubens: Madame Sousatzka (1962)[30]
- Daniel Stern: Nélida (1846)[31]
- Susanne Dunlap: Liszt's Kiss (2007)
- George Eliot: Daniel Deronda (1876) (aspects of Julius Klesmer, see also Rubenstein)[32]
- Henry Reed: The Private Life of Hilda Tablet (1954) (as Tablet)[33]
- Ronald Harwood: Mahler’s Conversion (2001)[36]
- Thomas Mann: Death in Venice (aspects of the author Aschenbach)[37]
- Stefan Zweig: The Return of Gustav Mahler (1915), semi-fictional essay[38]
- Peter Härtling: Liebste Fenchel (2011)
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Maria Cerinthea)[10]
- Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]
- Pierre La Mure: Beyond Desire (1955)[39]
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Seraphael)[8]
- Sonia Orchard: The Virtuosso (2009)[40]
- Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]
- Stephanie Cowell: Marrying Mozart (2004)
- Alexander Pushkin: Mozart and Salieri (1830)
- Peter Shaffer: Amadeus (1979)
- George Bernard Shaw: Love Among the Artists (1881) (as Owen Jack)[8]
- Carl Ginsburg: Medicine Journeys: Ten Stories (Center Press, 1983) (as Mrs Todd Ashby)[41]
- Arnold Bennett: The Lion's Share (1916) {as Roussel)[19]
- Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]
- Bernice Rubens: Madame Souzatzka (1962) (as Manek)[42]
- George Eliot: Daniel Deronda (1876) (aspects of Julius Klesmer, see also Liszt)[19]
- Marcel Proust: À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) (aspects of Vinteuil, see also Debussy and Franck)
- Alexander Pushkin: Mozart and Salieri (1830)
- Peter Shaffer: Amadeus (1979)
- Edmund Crispen: Holy Disorders (1945) (as Geoffrey Vintner)[43]
- Caitlin Horrocks: Vexations (2019)[44]
- Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus (1947) (aspects of Adrian Leverkühn, see also Wolf)[45]
- Peter Härtling: Schubert: A Novel (1995)
- Gaëlle Josse: Un été à quatre mains
- Janice Galloway: Clara (2004)[46]
- Elisabeth Kyle: Duet: The Story of Robert and Clara Schumann (1968)
- J. D. Landis: Longing (2000)[47]
- Jessica Duchen: Ghost Variations (2016)[48]
- Elisabeth Kyle: Duet: The Story of Robert and Clara Schumann (1968)
- Peter Härtling: Schumanns Schatten (1996)
- Julian Barnes: The Noise of Time (2016)[5]
- David Pownall: Master Class (1982)[22]
- Sarah Quigley: The Conductor (2012)[49]
- William T. Vollmann: Europe Central (2005)[50]
- Simon Boswell: The Seven Symphonies: A Finnish Murder Mystery (2005)[51]
- Caroline J Sinclair: My Music, My Drinking & Me (2015) (fictionalised memoir)[52]
- E. F. Benson: Dodo (1893) (as Edith Stains)[8]
- Christopher Miller: Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects: A Novel in Liner Notes (2004)[53]
- Russell Hoban. My Tango with Barbara Strozzi (2007) ((as modern day Bertha Strunk)[5]
- Mitchell James Kaplan. Rhapsody (2021)[23]
- Barbara Quick: Vivaldi's Virgins (2007)[5]
- Lord Berners: Count Omega (1941) (as Emmanuel Smith)[55]
- David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)
- Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[5]
- Frank Baker: The Birds (1936) (as Paul Weaver)
- Ralph Bates: Dead End of the Sky (1937) (as Robert Durand)[56]
- Robertson Davies: A Mixture of Frailties (1958) (as Giles Revelstoke)[57]
- Aldous Huxley: Antic Hay (1923) (as Coleman)[58]
- D. H. Lawrence: Women in Love (1921) (as Julius Halliday)[58]
- Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (1960) (aspects of Maclintick)
- David Pownall: Music to Murder By (1976)[22]
- Jean Rhys: Till September Petronella (short story, 1930s) (as Julian Oakes)[59]
- Osbert Sitwell: Those Were the Days (1938) (as Roy Hartle)
- Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus (1947) (aspects of Adrian Leverkühn, see also Schoenberg)[60]
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Aronach)[10]