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]
- Inez Baranay: Pagan (1990)
- Louis Nowra: The Devil is a Woman (2004)
- 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': Sonnenmelodie (1923)
- Franz Werfel: Verdi. Roman der Oper (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]
Further reading
- Amos, William: The Originals: Who's Really Who in Fiction? (1985)
- Rintoul, M.C. Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction (2014)
- Weliver, Phyllis. The Musical Crowd in English Fiction (2006)
- Weliver, Phyllis. Women Musicians in Victorian Fiction, 1860-1900 (2000)
- Art in Fiction website
- List of composers depicted on film
References
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