music.wikisort.org - Musician

This list includes fictional portrayals of real (named) composers and musicians, and of 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)[1]

Arnold Bax

• Rebecca West: Harriet Hume (1929) (The title character based on Harriet Cohen)[2]

Ludwig van Beethoven

• Jessica Duchan: Immortal (2020)[3]
• Sanford Friedman: Conversations with Beethoven (1980s, published in 2014)[4]
• Paul Griffiths: Mr Beethoven (2020)[5]
• Esther Meynell: Grave Fairytale (1931) (as Melchior)[6]
• Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Rumour: A Novel (1858) (as Rodomant)[7]
• John Suchet: The Last Master (1997–99) (fictional biography in three volumes)

William Sterndale Bennett

• Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Starwood Burney)[7]

Hector Berlioz

• Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[4]
• Jude Morgan: Symphony (2006)[8]
• Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Florimond Anastasa)[9]

Lord Berners

• Nancy Mitford: The Pursuit of Love (1945) (as Lord Merlin)[10]
• Osbert Sitwell: 'The Love Bird' from Dumb Animal and Other Stories (1930) (as Sir Robert Mainwroth)[9]

Hildegard of Bingen

• Mary Sharratt: Illuminations (2012)[4]

Mario Braggiotti

• F. Scott Fitzgerald: Tender is The Night (1934) (as Tommy Barban)[11]

Benjamin Britten

• Ian McEwan: Amsterdam (1998) (Clive Linley, correspondencies with Britten)[12]

Thomas Busby

• George Borrow: Lavengro (1851) (as editor of the "Universal Review")[9]

Frédéric Chopin

• George Sand: Lucrezia Floriani (1846)[13]
• Nell Stevens: Briefly, a Delicious Life (2022)[14]

Harriet Cohen

• William Gerhardie: Pending Heaven (1930) (as Helen Sapphire)[2]
• D H Lawrence: Kangeroo (1923) (as Harriet)[15]
• Rebecca West: Harriet Hume (1929)[15]

Michael Costa

• Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as St Michel)[9]

Noël Coward

• Charles Brackett: Entirely Surrounded (1934) (as Nick Farraday)[9]
• Beverley Nichols: Death to Slow Music (as Nigel Fleet)[9]
• David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)

Christian Darnton

• Nigel Balchin: Darkness Falls From the Air (1942) (as the poet Stephen Ryle)[16]

Claude Debussy

• Pierre La Mure: Clair de lune (1962)[17]
• Marcel Proust: À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) (aspects of Vinteuil, see also Franck and Saint-Saëns)[18]

Frederick Delius

• C F Keary: The Journalist (1898) (as Sophus Jonsen)[18]

Edward J Dent

• E. M. Forster: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) (as Philip Herriton)[18]

Arnold Dolmetsch

• George Moore: Evelyn Innes (1898) (as the father of Evelyn)[19]

Edward Elgar

• Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[4]
• James Hamilton-Paterson: Gerontius (1989)[4]
• David Pownall: Elgar’s Rondo (1993)[20]
• David Pownall: Elgar’s Third (1994)[20]

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)[4]
• Mitchell James Kaplan. Rhapsody (2021)[21]
• George Kaufman and Moss Hart: Merrily We Roll Along (1934) (as Sam Frankl)[18]

Carlo Gesualdo

• David Pownall: Music to Murder By (1976)[20]

Jimmy Glover

• George Moore: A Mummer's Wife (1885) (as Montgomery)[9]

Cecil Gray

• H.D.: Bid Me to Live (1960) (as Vane)[22]
• Aldous Huxley: Antic Hay (1923) (as the critic Mercaptan)
• D.H.Lawrence: Aaron's Rod (1922) (as Cyril Scott)[9]
• D.H.Lawrence: Kangaroo (1923) (as James Sharpe)[9]
• Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (Maclintick and Gossege as a composite)[23]

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 [de]': Sonnenmelodie (1923)
• Franz Werfel: Verdi. Roman der Oper [de] (1924) (as Matthias Fischboeck)

Charles Edward Horsley

• Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Charles Auchester)[7]

John Pyke Hullah

• Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Lenhart Davy)[9]

Halfdan Jebe

• C F Keary: The Journalist (1898) (as Hauch)[24]

Maurice Jacobson

• Stevie Smith: Novel on Yellow Paper (1936) (as Herman)[25]

Joseph Joachim

• Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Charles Auchester)[9]

Aram Khachaturian

• David Pownall: Master Class (1982)[20]

Constant Lambert

• Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (as Moreland)[26]
• David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)

Henry Lawes

• Robert Graves: Wife to Mr Milton (1942)

Franz Liszt

• Daniel Stern: Nélida (1846)[27]
• Susanne Dunlap: Liszt's Kiss (2007)
• George Eliot: Daniel Deronda (1876) (aspects of Julius Klesmer, see also Rubenstein)[28]

Elisabeth Lutyens

• Henry Reed: The Private Life of Hilda Tablet (1954) (as Tablet)[29]

Alma Mahler

• Max Phillips: The Artist’s Wife (2001)[30]
• Mary Sharratt: Ecstasy (2018)[31]

Gustav Mahler

• Ronald Harwood: Mahler’s Conversion (2001)[32]
• Thomas Mann: Death in Venice (aspects of the author Aschenbach)[33]
• Stefan Zweig: The Return of Gustav Mahler (1915), semi-fictional essay[34]

Fanny Mendelssohn

• Peter Härtling: Liebste Fenchel (2011)
• Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Maria Cerinthea)[9]

Felix Mendelssohn

• Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[4]
• Pierre La Mure: Beyond Desire (1955)[35]
• Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Seraphael)[7]

Noel Mewton-Wood

• Sonia Orchard: The Virtuosso (2009)[36]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

• Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[4]
• 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)[7]

Helen Perkin

• Carl Ginsburg: Medicine Journeys: Ten Stories (Center Press, 1983) (as Mrs Todd Ashby)[37]

Sergei Prokofiev

• Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[4]
• David Pownall: Master Class (1982)[20]

Maurice Ravel

• Arnold Bennett: The Lion's Share (1916) {as Roussel)[18]

Gioachino Rossini

• Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[4]

Anton Rubinstein

• George Eliot: Daniel Deronda (1876) (aspects of Julius Klesmer, see also Liszt)[18]

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)[38]

Erik Satie

• Caitlin Horrocks: Vexations (2019)[39]

Arnold Schoenberg

• Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus (1947) (aspects of Adrian Leverkühn, see also Wolf)[40]

Franz Schubert

• Peter Härtling: Schubert: A Novel (1995)
• Gaëlle Josse: Un été à quatre mains

Clara Schumann

• Janice Galloway: Clara (2004)[41]
• J. D. Landis: Longing (2000)[42]

Robert Schumann

• Jessica Duchen: Ghost Variations (2016)[43]
• Peter Härtling: Schumanns Schatten (1996)

Dmitri Shostakovich

• Julian Barnes: The Noise of Time (2016)[4]
• David Pownall: Master Class (1982)[20]
• Sarah Quigley: The Conductor (2012)[44]
• William T. Vollmann: Europe Central (2005)[45]

Jean Sibelius

• Simon Boswell: The Seven Symphonies: A Finnish Murder Mystery (2005)[46]
• Caroline J Sinclair: My Music, My Drinking & Me (2015) (fictionalised memoir)[47]

Kay Swift

• Mitchell James Kaplan. Rhapsody (2021)[21]

Ethel Smyth

• E. F. Benson: Dodo (1893) (as Edith Stains)[7]

Barbara Strozzi

• Russell Hoban. My Tango with Barbara Strozzi (2007)[4]

Antonio Vivaldi

• Barbara Quick: Vivaldi's Virgins (2007)[4]

William Walton

• Lord Berners: Count Omega (1941) (as Emmanuel Smith)[48]
• David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)

Richard Wagner

• Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[4]

Peter Warlock

• Frank Baker: The Birds (1936) (as Paul Weaver)
• Ralph Bates: Dead End of the Sky (1937) (as Robert Durand)[49]
• Robertson Davies: A Mixture of Frailties (1958) (as Giles Revelstoke)[50]
• Aldous Huxley: Antic Hay (1923) (as Coleman)[51]
• D. H. Lawrence: Women in Love (1921) (as Julius Halliday)[51]
• Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (1960) (aspects of Maclintick)
• David Pownall: Music to Murder By (1976)[20]
• Jean Rhys: Till September Petronella (short story, 1930s) (as Julian Oakes)[52]
• Osbert Sitwell: Those Were the Days (1938) (as Roy Hartle)

Hugo Wolf

• Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus (1947) (aspects of Adrian Leverkühn, see also Schoenberg)[53]

Carl Friedrich Zelter

• Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Aronach)[9]

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)
• Art in Fiction website
• List of composers depicted on film

References

---