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Classical Composers by Composition

Difficulty level: hard. Can you name the composers who wrote these famous works of classical music?
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Last updated: September 1, 2018
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First submittedOctober 17, 2010
Times taken65,881
Average score55.0%
Rating4.52
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Music
Composer
Moonlight Sonata
Ludwig van Beethoven
The Magic Flute
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The Four Seasons
Antonio Vivaldi
Black Key Etude
Frederic Chopin
Messiah
George Frideric Handel
Ride of the Valkyries
Richard Wagner
The Rite of Spring
Igor Stravinsky
The Planets
Gustav Holst
Swan Lake
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Finlandia
Jean Sibelius
Adagio for Strings
Samuel Barber
Canon In D
Johann Pachelbel
Carmina Burana
Carl Orff
Fanfare for the Common Man
Aaron Copland
The Brandenburg Concertos
Johann Sebastian Bach
Boléro
Maurice Ravel
Hungarian Rhapsody
Franz Liszt
Flight of the Bumble-Bee
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Rhapsody in Blue
George Gershwin
Madame Butterfly
Giacomo Puccini
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67 Comments
BuckDonk
+7
Level 65
Jun 3, 2011
More like this please!
Jerry928
+2
Level 76
Jun 7, 2015
OK, here's another.
theLAYTshow
+2
Level 41
Dec 28, 2011
I got 6, but I did get Liszt! And only 16% got him... But I kinda cheated - I live in Handel st and Liszt and Bach are just around the corner...
Nobody
+2
Level 15
May 9, 2012
15, but I only got chopin and liszt by entering random classical composers.
bluesdjben
+1
Level 74
May 9, 2013
18, and I got Chopin and Liszt the same way. Wasn't going to remember Barber or Orff.
everybodydotheflopbonk
+1
Level 15
Oct 7, 2012
I enjoyed this quiz!!
alberici
+5
Level 74
Jan 23, 2013
What about Debussy, Haydn and Schubert?
thecoolestdude2
+2
Level 67
Oct 6, 2013
Yeah, has anyone ever even heard Clair de Lune? It's, like, the best ever.
kalbahamut
+6
Level 79
Jun 7, 2015
and no Brahms or Mendelsen as well, but Orff? Though I got that one... I happen to like the Carmina Burana.
brandybuck96
+5
Level 82
Jan 20, 2018
*Mendelssohn
Charliezard
+1
Level 67
Jan 8, 2022
Those were the first two I thought of as well!
rphxx
+2
Level 71
Jul 30, 2023
who doesnt like Carmina Burana?
Vidav
+1
Level 60
May 9, 2013
Good quiz. Got 15.
jmellor13
+1
Level 68
May 9, 2013
Pleasantly surprised by how many of these I knew. I guessed slept through less of music class than I thought. Especially proud that I got Rimsky-Korsakov. What an awesome name.
Yanni47
+1
Level 80
Sep 11, 2017
I knew that one too, but I wrote Kosakov, and it wasn't accepted. :(
Anzi
+1
Level 68
Oct 18, 2018
I spelled him Rimsky-Korsachov. Not accepted :(
Remster
+1
Level 81
May 9, 2013
I hadn't heard of Years of Pilgrimage, so I was going through every 19th and 20th century composer I could think of. Liszt didn't come to mind, damn it!
GeneralWaffle64
+5
Level 44
Apr 5, 2014
The word "Classical" is a little offsetting... just say "Classic" since this quiz seems to include Baroque and Romantic musical works as well.
kiwirage
+5
Level 63
Jun 7, 2015
"Classic Composers" doesn't mean anything; the title is correct. "Classical music", and by extension "Classical Composers", are general terms that encompass all periods of western art music, from medieval to contemporary. If the quiz just featured Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven etc. it would need to be called "Composers from the Classical Period."
Sifhraven
+2
Level 76
Apr 12, 2020
If you use classics, according to some, you would get a lot of 80's stuff..
nikhil02
+2
Level 42
Jul 3, 2014
What about Dvorak, Brahms, Bizet, Debussy, Mendelssohn, Schumann, or Saint-Saens? You forgot about all of them.
jmellor13
+13
Level 68
Jun 8, 2015
I doubt he forgot. It is not a list of every esteemed composer ever. It's a 20-question quiz.
interopia
+3
Level 90
Nov 23, 2021
Sure, but I think there are plenty for a part 2. I recommend Carnival of the Animals for Saint-Saens.
rphxx
+1
Level 71
Jul 30, 2023
The Organ Symphony though
Tokkemon
+2
Level 28
Jan 25, 2015
Please pick a better piece for Lizst. That's too obscure compared to the rest of his stuff like Hungarian Rhapsody or Les Preludes.
Quizmaster
+1
Level ∞
Jun 5, 2015
Changed it to Hungarian Rhapsody.
WT2008
+3
Level 77
Mar 25, 2015
Very few are classical composers (Mozart, Beethoven). These composers range from the Baroque to the Modern.
APHill
+2
Level 76
Jun 16, 2016
My thoughts exactly.
lottoid
+1
Level 92
May 17, 2015
I could not quit thinking "Albinoni" for Adagio...and I've played the Barber. Ugh.
Jerry928
+1
Level 76
Jun 7, 2015
You may (or may not) find some of them at 20 Most Performed Composers and the 75 Composers Performed Most Often.
DiscoBayGolfer
+1
Level 80
Jun 7, 2015
Not my cup of tea...tried and struggled to get 9.
jmellor13
+3
Level 68
Jun 8, 2015
What is it with people always saying "You forgot about Answer X!" or "No Answer Y?" The quizzes pick a category and come up with enough questions to fill out the quiz. They don't have to pick everyone you would pick. All that matters is whether the questions are fair. As one with a very basic working knowledge of classical, baroque, etc., I thought this was very fair. I got 12, and the only name I don't recognize is Sibelius.
Bemused
+1
Level 55
Mar 20, 2026
Do try listening to some Sibelius--Finlandia is probably his best known work, but there are wonderful symphonies, a major violin concerto, and much more. Also, I'd recommend his Andante Festivo, a Christmas message to the world delivered on the eve of the Winter War.

Trivia note: At some point in the 30s a poll of radio listeners asked for people's favorite composer. Sibelius won.

BlackLab
+4
Level 66
Aug 24, 2015
Please accept Emerson Lake and Palmer or ELP for "Fanfare for the common man" J/K. It was the only thing I could think of.
Olinguito
+1
Level 45
Mar 4, 2016
20/20 with 2:58 remaining. Yes, I really am a classical-music addict. ;-D
Arp2600
+5
Level 89
Nov 28, 2016
There should be an umlaut on Händel's name, and thus the spelling Haendel should be accepted.
Malbaby
+4
Level 70
Jun 14, 2017
Arp2600 wins the 'Golden Nitpick' award for November 2016...... congratulations.
Quizmaster
+4
Level ∞
Jun 14, 2017
@Malbaby, I don't know if you invented this, but I love it. Maybe for 2017 we actually will have a golden nitpick!
Sifhraven
+5
Level 76
Nov 17, 2019
You ll love it less when you see it for the 7385416th time... especially when a lot of those instances are not nitpicks but they have legit points,

(though there are a lot of nitpicks outthere. Like when somebody is not a spouse anymore but an ex... in that case it is a nitpick because you know what was meant. But when someone corrects the statement that a sea anemone is a plant by pointing out it is in fact an animal, that is not nitpicking, but a legit remark/correction.)

PigTickle
+1
Level 34
Apr 12, 2020
Sifhraven, thy name is irony.
stevediverse
+3
Level 86
Apr 12, 2020
Handel became British and changed (the spelling of) his name, anglicizing it (from Georg Friederich Händel) to George Frideric Handel. When he wrote the Messiah, his name was Handel, not Händel. The nit was incorrectly picked.
Arp2600
+1
Level 89
Mar 20, 2026
I don't remember if I ever saw your answers. That was not very nice, was it? I would feel offended if it was not that old... Stevediverse may have had a point, though, but of course, that's from a British point of view. Personnally, I have never seen it written without the umlaut or the e after the a.

So, finally, all I really asked about at the time was to accept the "Haendel" spelling, and that's still not the case, which, in my opinion, is a mistake (I know it doesn't work because I obviously tried that first, then without the e...).

russwood
+1
Level 74
Feb 26, 2017
Several other composers wrote Hungarian Rhapsodies! Luckily I had a couple of minutes left so just had to keep trying them all.
xXeLeCtRoNiXx
+1
Level 21
Jan 24, 2018
This quiz contains many popular composers but it gets less popular as it goes. I think Franz Joseph Haydn is more popular than 25% of the people on this quiz, so if you have room and time, it would be helpful to many others if you add him.
GeographyGeek42
+3
Level 65
May 25, 2018
suprised that Brahms wasn't on here.
Shirmal
+1
Level 61
Jun 12, 2018
love the 'Golden Nitpick'. idea! I did spectacularly badly at this quiz, I am shocked to be so ignorant
IsleAuHaulte
+1
Level 92
Jul 21, 2018
Jeff Beck did Bolero.
IsleAuHaulte
+1
Level 92
Jul 21, 2018
Rossini, who probably did more instantly recognizable pieces than anyone else on the list. Even if his name's not as famous as Beethoven and the like, his music most certainly is. Bugs Bunny and Looney Tunes used him to great effect more than once too ;)
Deadpool246
+3
Level 72
Feb 3, 2019
Aaron Copland is 1900s, definitely not Classical, I can understand Baroque composers and early Romantic but 1900s is nowhere near Classical.
catie09
+4
Level 87
Aug 16, 2019
Let's assume two things and put an end to the madness. 1) In mainstream lingo, "classical" covers a few centuries of western art music. 2) If you want everyone to know that you know about music history and cutoff dates, pat on the head, you're brilliant. Now go home.
FadKrashmor
+2
Level 70
Feb 8, 2020
No I agree with Deadpool246, using 'classical' to describe a multiplicity of forms from pre-renaissance to the modern day is so inclusive as to make the term meaningless.
InterAlia
+1
Level 83
Mar 21, 2026
But it's not meaningless at all. On the contrary, like many words, the word "classical" has more than one meaning. It refers, of course, to the specific time period you nitpickers keep pointing out. And it also refers to a genre of music defined broadly by its artistic formality and other musical qualities and not by any time period. Indeed there are classical composers born in the 21st century (see Alma Deutscher).

Perhaps you've encountered a "classical" radio station at some point. I suspect you wouldn't have been surprised or offended to catch them playing a bit of Rachmaninoff.

ribboncrasher
+1
Level 39
Dec 9, 2020
could you please accept Astor Piazzolla as an answer to Four Seasons? He did write a series of tango pieces based on Vivaldi's compositions. Thanks:)
tervuren
+2
Level 59
Jul 16, 2021
I believe it should be either "Hungarian Rhapsody #2," or "Hungarian Rhapsodies." Although the 2nd one is the famous one, Liszt wrote 19 of them.
bigiboy
+1
Level 41
Dec 18, 2021
ez 20/20
marjobro
+1
Level 66
Oct 12, 2022
Ah yes....always the complaints about the term "classical music." Fact is- most people know what is meant when it is used in a general way. Students of music learn early on about the more specific terms for the different style periods. Music majors are required to perform music from these eras. Competitions and auditions often require this as well. (Some still refer to everything from 1900 on as "modern" or even "contemporary!") To break down the music of the past 122 years into appropriate "labels" would be virtually impossible. To define classical music as a distinction from "popular" is also unsatisfactory, as so much of it is, in fact, extremely popular.

Composers creating music for students' lesson books often include works which they write in "classical" style to prepare them for Clementi sonatinas and the more difficult works of Mozart, Haydn and early Beethoven. A great deal of contemporary music is clearly "romantic" in style.

Bottom line is....just get over it and enjoy!

Capoooo
+3
Level 48
Nov 21, 2022
Gershwin is NOT a classical composer; would replace with Brahms or Grieg
Andrew169
+1
Level 77
Feb 25, 2023
The biggest surprise of the week is that I scored 8/20 on this quiz! Thanks for the quiz!
mondegreen
+1
Level 71
Apr 20, 2023
why no Hayden or Scarlatti🥺? they're more popular than half of the composers on this list (some of them well into the 20th century)
JuliusLang
+1
Level 55
Jun 29, 2024
Pardon me but who?
Arp2600
+1
Level 89
Mar 20, 2026
Joseph Haydn is a very famous classical composer, nothing to be proud about not knowing him. Scarlatti, well, much less important :3.
MovieQuizGuy
+2
Level 64
Sep 8, 2025
Yesterday I listened to an hour-long podcast about the influence between Ravel and Gershwin, and today I just sat here staring at Bolero and trying to remember Ravel's name. Sigh
bestanford
+4
Level 73
Mar 20, 2026
Needs to be yellow-box, thank you!!
Bemused
+1
Level 55
Mar 20, 2026
Agreed. Someone who recognized none of the titles could just enter Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, and others he or she might know of and do passibly well.
Artery
+1
Level 57
Mar 20, 2026
Please accept Tiesto for "Adagio for Strings".
Arp2600
+1
Level 89
Mar 20, 2026
I hope you're joking.
Hedgehog76
+1
Level 74
Mar 24, 2026
Got 15/20, so maybe the difficulty level "hard" is correct by the selection of composers (four of them, I have never heard), but without yellow boxes, it is relatively easy - just list all classical composers you know. :-)

(With yellow boxes, I would have gotten one less, but that would be fine for me.)

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