The Long Line — Waveform

Nine hundred years of Western classical composers, each life drawn as a stroke on the timeline.

• Léonin (1135–1201)
• Pérotin (1155–1230)
• Guillaume de Machaut (1300–1377)
• Guillaume Dufay (1397–1474)
• Johannes Ockeghem (1410–1497)
• Josquin des Prez (1440–1521)
• Jacob Obrecht (1457–1505)
• Clément Janequin (1485–1558)
• Thomas Tallis (1505–1585)
• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594)
• Orlande de Lassus (1532–1594)
• William Byrd (1543–1623)
• Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548–1611)
• Giulio Caccini (1551–1618)
• Jacopo Peri (1561–1633)
• Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621)
• John Dowland (1563–1626)
• Carlo Gesualdo (1566–1613)
• Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643)
• Michael Praetorius (1571–1621)
• Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643)
• Orlando Gibbons (1583–1625)
• Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672)
• Francesca Caccini (1587–1641)
• Francesco Cavalli (1602–1676)
• Giacomo Carissimi (1605–1674)
• Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687)
• Dietrich Buxtehude (1637–1707)
• Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643–1704)
• Alessandro Stradella (1643–1682)
• Heinrich Biber (1644–1704)
• Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706)
• Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713)
• Marin Marais (1656–1728)
• Henry Purcell (1659–1695)
• Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725)
• François Couperin (1668–1733)
• Giovanni Bononcini (1670–1747)
• Tomaso Albinoni (1671–1751)
• Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741)
• Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679–1745)
• Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767)
• Johann Mattheson (1681–1764)
• Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764)
• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
• Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757)
• George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
• Benedetto Marcello (1686–1739)
• Nicola Porpora (1686–1768)
• Leonardo Vinci (1690–1730)
• Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770)
• Johann Adolf Hasse (1699–1783)
• Giovanni Battista Sammartini (1700–1775)
• Baldassare Galuppi (1706–1785)
• Wilhelmine of Prussia, Margravine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (1709–1758)
• Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710–1784)
• Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736)
• Thomas Arne (1710–1778)
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
• Christoph Willibald von Gluck (1714–1787)
• Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788)
• Johann Stamitz (1717–1757)
• Leopold Mozart (1719–1787)
• Carl Friedrich Abel (1723–1787)
• Maria Antonia Walpurgis of Bavaria (1724–1780)
• François-André Danican Philidor (1726–1795)
• Niccolò Piccinni (1728–1800)
• Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
• Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732–1795)
• François Joseph Gossec (1734–1829)
• Johann Christian Bach (1735–1782)
• Michael Haydn (1737–1806)
• Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739–1799)
• Giovanni Paisiello (1740–1816)
• André Grétry (1741–1813)
• Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805)
• Carl Stamitz (1745–1801)
• Domenico Cimarosa (1749–1801)
• Antonio Salieri (1750–1825)
• Emanuel Schikaneder (1751–1812)
• Dmytro Bortnianskyi (1751–1825)
• Muzio Clementi (1752–1832)
• Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755–1824)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
• Luigi Cherubini (1760–1842)
• Anton Reicha (1770–1836)
• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
• Gaspare Spontini (1774–1851)
• François Adrien Boieldieu (1775–1834)
• E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822)
• Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778–1837)
• Fernando Sor (1778–1839)
• Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840)
• Daniel François Esprit Auber (1782–1871)
• John Field (1782–1837)
• Louis Spohr (1784–1859)
• Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826)
• Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864)
• Carl Czerny (1791–1857)
• Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868)
• Ignaz Moscheles (1794–1870)
• Heinrich August Marschner (1795–1861)
• Franz Berwald (1796–1868)
• Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848)
• Franz Schubert (1797–1828)
• Fromental Halévy (1799–1862)
• Albert Lortzing (1801–1851)
• Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835)
• Hector Berlioz (1803–1869)
• Adolphe Adam (1803–1856)
• Michael Glinka (1804–1857)
• Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–1847)
• Michael William Balfe (1808–1870)
• Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)
• Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)
• Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
• Ferenc Erkel (1810–1893)
• Otto Nicolai (1810–1849)
• Franz Liszt (1811–1886)
• Ambroise Thomas (1811–1896)
• Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813–1888)
• Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)
• Richard Wagner (1813–1883)
• Alexander Dargomyzhsky (1813–1869)
• Niels Gade (1817–1890)
• Charles Gounod (1818–1893)
• Stanisław Moniuszko (1819–1872)
• Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880)
• Franz von Suppè (1819–1895)
• Clara Schumann (1819–1896)
• Henri Vieuxtemps (1820–1881)
• Pauline Viardot (1821–1910)
• César Franck (1822–1890)
• Edouard Lalo (1823–1892)
• Peter Cornelius (1824–1874)
• Anton Bruckner (1824–1896)
• Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884)
• Carl Reinecke (1824–1910)
• Johann Strauss II (1825–1899)
• Joseph Strauss (1827–1870)
• Anton Rubinstein (1829–1894)
• Joseph Joachim (1831–1907)
• Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
• Alexander Borodin (1833–1887)
• Amilcare Ponchielli (1834–1886)
• César Cui (1835–1918)
• Henri Wieniawski (1835–1880)
• Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921)
• Léo Delibes (1836–1891)
• Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev (1837–1910)
• Georges Bizet (1838–1875)
• Max Bruch (1838–1920)
• Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839–1881)
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)
• Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
• Emmanuel Chabrier (1841–1894)
• Arrigo Boito (1842–1918)
• Mykola Lysenko (1842–1912)
• Jules Massenet (1842–1912)
• Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900)
• Edvard Grieg (1843–1907)
• Pablo de Sarasate (1844–1908)
• Charles-Marie Widor (1844–1937)
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908)
• Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924)
• Vincent d'Indy (1851–1931)
• Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924)
• Engelbert Humperdinck (1854–1921)
• John Philip Sousa (1854–1932)
• Leoš Janáček (1854–1928)
• Anatoly Lyadov (1855–1914)
• Ernest Chausson (1855–1899)
• Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856–1915)
• Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857–1919)
• Cécile Chaminade (1857–1944)
• Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
• Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924)
• Eugène Ysaÿe (1858–1931)
• Ethel Smyth (1858–1944)
• Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909)
• Gustave Charpentier (1860–1956)
• Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860–1941)
• Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)
• Hugo Wolf (1860–1903)
• Anton Arensky (1861–1906)
• Frederick Delius (1862–1934)
• Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
• Felix Weingartner (1863–1942)
• Pietro Mascagni (1863–1945)
• Eugen d'Albert (1864–1932)
• Richard Strauss (1864–1949)
• Paul Dukas (1865–1935)
• Jean Sibelius (1865–1957)
• Alexander Glazunov (1865–1936)
• Carl Nielsen (1865–1931)
• Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924)
• Erik Satie (1866–1925)
• Umberto Giordano (1867–1948)
• Scott Joplin (1867–1917)
• Enrique Granados (1867–1916)
• Arturo Toscanini (1867–1957)
• Albert Roussel (1869–1937)
• Louis Vierne (1870–1937)
• Franz Lehár (1870–1948)
• Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871–1942)
• Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)
• Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915)
• Hugo Alfvén (1872–1960)
• Max Reger (1873–1916)
• Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943)
• Charles Ives (1874–1954)
• Josef Suk (1874–1935)
• Gustav Holst (1874–1934)
• Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951)
• Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875–1911)
• Franco Alfano (1875–1954)
• Reinhold Glière (1875–1956)
• Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
• Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962)
• Manuel de Falla (1876–1946)
• Pau Casals (1876–1973)
• Ernő Dohnányi (1877–1960)
• Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936)
• Ernest Bloch (1880–1959)
• George Enesco (1881–1955)
• Nikolai Myaskovsky (1881–1950)
• Béla Bartók (1881–1945)
• Emmerich Kálmán (1882–1953)
• Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937)
• Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
• Percy Grainger (1882–1961)
• Zoltán Kodály (1882–1967)
• Arnold Bax (1883–1953)
• Alfredo Casella (1883–1947)
• Anton Webern (1883–1945)
• Edgard Varèse (1883–1965)
• Boris Asafyev (1884–1949)
• Alban Berg (1885–1935)
• Uzeyir Hajibeyov (1885–1948)
• Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886–1954)
• Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979)
• Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959)
• Jacques Ibert (1890–1962)
• Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
• Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953)
• Cole Porter (1891–1964)
• Paul Abraham (1892–1960)
• Darius Milhaud (1892–1974)
• Arthur Honegger (1892–1955)
• Lili Boulanger (1893–1918)
• Borys Liatoshynsky (1894–1968)
• Carl Orff (1895–1982)
• Wilhelm Kempff (1895–1991)
• Paul Hindemith (1895–1963)
• Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896–1960)
• Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957)
• George Gershwin (1898–1937)
• Hanns Eisler (1898–1962)
• Pancho Vladigerov (1899–1978)
• Noël Coward (1899–1973)
• Duke Ellington (1899–1974)
• Georges Auric (1899–1983)
• Francis Poulenc (1899–1963)
• Aaron Copland (1900–1990)
• George Antheil (1900–1959)
• Isaak Dunayevsky (1900–1955)
• Kurt Weill (1900–1950)
• Joaquín Rodrigo (1901–1999)
• William Walton (1902–1983)
• Aram Khachaturian (1903–1978)
• Luigi Dallapiccola (1904–1975)
• Dmitry Borisovich Kabalevsky (1904–1987)
• Harold Arlen (1905–1986)
• Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)
• Miklós Rózsa (1907–1995)
• Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992)
• Paul Bowles (1910–1999)
• Samuel Barber (1910–1981)
• Artie Shaw (1910–2004)
• Gian Carlo Menotti (1911–2007)
• Nino Rota (1911–1979)
• Bernard Herrmann (1911–1975)
• John Cage (1912–1992)
• Witold Lutosławski (1913–1994)
• Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)
• Tikhon Khrennikov (1913–2007)
• Georgy Sviridov (1915–1998)
• Henri Dutilleux (1916–2013)
• Alberto Ginastera (1916–1983)
• Milton Babbitt (1916–2011)
• Léo Ferré (1916–1993)
• Gara Garayev (1918–1982)
• Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990)
• Ravi Shankar (1920–2012)
• Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992)
• Malcolm Arnold (1921–2006)
• Fikret Amirov (1922–1984)
• Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001)
• György Ligeti (1923–2006)
• Luigi Nono (1924–1990)
• Pierre Boulez (1925–2016)
• Mikis Theodorakis (1925–2021)
• Luciano Berio (1925–2003)
• Hans Werner Henze (1926–2012)
• Morton Feldman (1926–1987)
• György Kurtág (1926–present)
• Gilbert Bécaud (1927–2001)
• Ennio Morricone (1928–2020)
• Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928–2016)
• Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007)
• André Previn (1929–2019)
• Aleksandra Pakhmutova (1929–present)
• Jerry Goldsmith (1929–2004)
• Tōru Takemitsu (1930–1996)
• Lorin Maazel (1930–2014)
• Sofia Gubaidulina (1931–2025)
• Rodion Shchedrin (1932–2025)
• John Williams (1932–present)
• Wojciech Kilar (1932–2013)
• Krzysztof Penderecki (1933–2020)
• Henryk Mikolaj Górecki (1933–2010)
• Wayne Shorter (1933–2023)
• Peter Maxwell Davies (1934–2016)
• Alfred Schnittke (1934–1998)
• Giya Kancheli (1935–2019)
• Arvo Pärt (1935–present)
• Steve Reich (1936–present)
• Philip Glass (1937–present)
• Valentyn Sylvestrov (1937–present)
• Jon Lord (1941–2012)
• Vangelis (1943–2022)
• Lucio Dalla (1943–2012)
• Karl Jenkins (1944–present)
• Michael Nyman (1944–present)
• Keith Emerson (1944–2016)
• John Tavener (1944–2013)
• Howard Shore (1946–present)
• John Adams (1947–present)
• Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948–present)
• Bobby McFerrin (1950–present)
• Kaija Saariaho (1952–2023)
• James Horner (1953–2015)
• Danny Elfman (1953–present)
• Tan Dun (1957–present)
• Esa-Pekka Salonen (1958–present)
• Alexandre Desplat (1961–present)
• Serj Tankian (1967–present)
• Damon Albarn (1968–present)
• Fazıl Say (1970–present)
• Airat Ichmouratov (1973–present)
• Rufus Wainwright (1973–present)
• Mjekoe (1979–present)
• Alma Deutscher (2005–present)