Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893),anglicised as Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was a Russian composer whose works included symphonies, concertos, operas, ballets, chamber music, and a choral setting of the Russian Orthodox Divine Liturgy. Some of these are among the most popular theatrical music in the classical repertoire. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, which he bolstered with appearances as a guest conductor later in his career in Europe and the United States. One of these appearances was at the inaugural concert of Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1891. Tchaikovsky was honored in 1884 by Emperor Alexander III, and awarded a lifetime pension in the late 1880s.
Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant. There was scant opportunity for a musical career in Russia at that time, and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching he received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five, with whom his professional relationship was mixed. Tchaikovsky's training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From this reconciliation, he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style—a task that did not prove easy. The principles that governed melody, harmony and other fundamentals of Russian music ran completely counter to those that governed Western European music; this seemed to defeat the potential for using Russian music in large-scale Western composition or from forming a composite style, and it caused personal antipathies that dented Tchaikovsky's self-confidence. Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart increasingly since the time of Peter the Great, and this resulted in uncertainty among the intelligentsia of the country's national identity.

The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is an a cappella choral composition by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, his Op. 41, composed in 1878.It consists of settings of texts taken from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the most celebrated of the eucharistic services of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Tchaikovsky's setting constitutes the first "unified musical cycle" of the liturgy.

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn,was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period.
A grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn was born into a prominent Jewish family, although initially he was raised without religion and was later baptised as a Reformed Christian. Mendelssohn was recognised early as a musical prodigy, but his parents were cautious and did not seek to capitalise on his talent.
Early success in Germany, where he also revived interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, was followed by travel throughout Europe. Mendelssohn was particularly well received in Britain as a composer, conductor and soloist, and his ten visits there – during which many of his major works were premiered – form an important part of his adult career. His essentially conservative musical tastes, however, set him apart from many of his more adventurous musical contemporaries such as Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner and Hector Berlioz. The Leipzig Conservatoire (now the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig), which he founded, became a bastion of this anti-radical outlook.
Mendelssohn wrote symphonies, concerti, oratorios, piano music and chamber music. His best-known works include his Overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the overture The Hebrides, his mature Violin Concerto, and his String Octet. His Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions. After a long period of relative denigration due to changing musical tastes and anti-Semitism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his creative originality has now been recognised and re-evaluated. He is now among the most popular composers of the Romantic era.

The concert overture The Hebrides (German: Die Hebriden), Op. 26, also known as Fingal's Cave (Die Fingalshöhle), was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1830. The piece was inspired by a cavern known as Fingal's Cave on Staffa, an island in the Hebrides archipelago located off the west coast of Scotland. As is common with Romantic era pieces, this is not an overture in the sense that it precedes a play or opera; the piece is a concert overture, a stand-alone musical selection, and has now become part of standard orchestral repertoire. The piece was dedicated to King Frederick William IV of Prussia (then Crown Prince of Prussia).

The Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, commonly known as the Italian, is an orchestral symphony written by German composer Felix Mendelssohn.
The work has its origins, like the composer's Scottish Symphony and the orchestral overture The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave), in the tour of Europe which occupied Mendelssohn from 1829 to 1831. Its inspiration is the colour and atmosphere of Italy, where Mendelssohn made sketches but left the work incomplete.The Italian Symphony was finished in Berlin, 13 March 1833, in response to an invitation for a symphony from the London (now Royal) Philharmonic Society; he conducted the first performance himself in London on 13 May 1833, at a London Philharmonic Society concert. The symphony's success, and Mendelssohn's popularity, influenced the course of British music for the rest of the century.However, Mendelssohn remained unsatisfied with the composition, which cost him, he said, some of the bitterest moments of his career; he revised it in 1834 and even planned to write alternate versions of the second, third, and fourth movements. He never published the symphony, and it appeared in print only in 1851; thus it is numbered as his 'Symphony No. 4', although it was in fact the third in order of composition.

Frédéric François Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, was a Romantic-era Polish composer. A child prodigy, Chopin grew up in Warsaw, completed his musical education there, and composed many of his works there before leaving Poland shortly before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising.
Effectively cut off from Poland, at age 20 he settled in Paris. During the remaining 19 years of his life, he gave only some 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon; he supported himself by selling his compositions and as a sought-after piano teacher. He formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his musical contemporaries, including Robert Schumann. After a failed engagement with a Polish girl, from 1837 to 1847 he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer George Sand. A brief and unhappy visit with Sand to Majorca in 1838–39 was also one of his most productive periods of composition. In his last years, he was financially supported by his admirer Jane Stirling, who also arranged for him to visit Scotland in 1848. Through most of his life, Chopin suffered from poor health; he died in Paris in 1849, probably of tuberculosis.
All of Chopin's compositions include the piano; most are for solo piano, although he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces, and some songs to Polish lyrics. His keyboard style is often technically demanding; his own performances were noted for their nuance and sensitivity. Chopin invented the concept of instrumental ballade; his major piano works also include sonatas, mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, études, impromptus, scherzos, and preludes. Many of these works were published only after Chopin's death. Stylistically, they contain elements of both Polish folk music and of the classical tradition of J.S. Bach, Mozart and Schubert, whom Chopin particularly admired. Chopin's innovations in keyboard style, musical form, and harmony were influential throughout the late Romantic period and since.
Both in his native Poland and beyond, Chopin's music, his association (if only indirect) with political insurrection, his amours and his early death have made him, in the public consciousness, a leading symbol of the Romantic era. His works remain popular, and he has been the subject of numerous films and biographies of varying degrees of historical accuracy.

Chopin's 24 Preludes, Op. 28, are a set of short pieces for the piano, one in each of the twenty-four keys, originally published in 1839. The French edition was dedicated to the piano-maker and publisher Camille Pleyel, who had commissioned the work for 2,000 francs (equivalent to nearly $30,000 in present day).The German edition was dedicated to Joseph Christoph Kessler, a composer of piano studies during Chopin's time. Ten years earlier, Kessler had dedicated his own set of 24 Preludes, Op. 31, to Chopin. Although the term prelude is generally used to describe an introductory piece, Chopin's stand as self-contained units, each conveying a specific idea or emotion.
Chopin wrote them between 1835 and 1839, partly at Valldemossa, Majorca, where he spent the winter of 1838–39 and where he had fled with George Sand and her children to escape the damp Paris weather.

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff (1 April 1873 – 28 March 1943) was a Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music.
Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a personal style notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness and his use of rich orchestral colors. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output, and through his own skills as a performer he explored the expressive possibilities of the instrument.

Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, Op. 31, is a musical work by Sergei Rachmaninoff, one of his two major unaccompanied choral works (the other being his All-Night Vigil). The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is the primary worship service of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Magdaléna Hajóssyová (born 25 July 1946, Bratislava) is a renowned classical Slovak soprano who has had an active international career singing in operas, concerts, and recitals since the late 1960s. She has been particularly active at the Prague State Opera where she has been a principal artist since 1972. She has also had a long and fruitful partnership with the Berlin State Opera beginning in 1975. In 1977, 1981, and 1987, she won the Berlin Critic's Prize for her portrayal of the roles of Margarete in Charles Gounod's Faust, the title roles in Richard Strauss's Elektra, Carl Maria von Weber's Euryanthe, and Christoph Willibald Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide.
In 1974 Hajóssyová was a recipient of the Slovak Culture Prize and in 2003 she was awarded the Rad Bieleho Prize by the Government of Slovakia for her work in performing and popularizing Slovak music on the international stage. She has also been awarded the National Prize of the German Democratic Republic and the J.W. Goethe Award. She is currently the chair of the vocal music department at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Several of her students have gone on to have successful careers, including Anda-Louise Bogza.

Robert Schumann (June 8, 1810 - July 29, 1856) was a German Romantic composer.
Respected music critic and founder of the magazine, is now regarded as a representative of musical Romanticism. He composed among others piano music, songs and church music.
Johan Brahms (May 7, 1833 - April 3, 1897) was a German composer. One of the representatives of late Romanticism, was an accomplished pianist and composer.
Richard Strauss (June 11, 1864 - September 8, 1949) was a German composer and conductor. It is considered the last great German romantics. He is known for his symphonic poems and operas.

Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use and development of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions put the music of Norway in the international spectrum, as well as helping develop a national identity.

Carl August Nielsen (9 June 1865 – 3 October 1931) is widely recognized as Denmark's greatest composer, and is also recognized as being a skilled conductor and a violinist.Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age. While it was some time before his works were fully appreciated, even in his home country, Nielsen has now firmly entered the international repertoire.Especially in Europe and the United States, Nielsen's music is ever more frequently performed, with interest growing in other countries as well.Carl Nielsen is especially admired for his six symphonies, his Wind Quintet and his concertos for violin, flute and clarinet. In Denmark, his opera Maskarade and a considerable number of his songs have become an integral part of the national heritage.While his early music was inspired by composers such as Brahms and Grieg, he soon started to develop his own style, first experimenting with progressive tonality and later diverging even more radically from the standards of composition still common at the time.

Johan Severin Svendsen (30 September 1840 – 14 June 1911) was a Norwegian composer, conductor and violinist. Born in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway, he lived most his life in Copenhagen, Denmark. Svendsen's output includes two symphonies, a violin concerto, a cello concerto, and the Romance for violin, as well as a number of Norwegian Rhapsodies for orchestra. At one time Svendsen was an intimate friend of the German composer Richard Wagner.

Dag Ivar Wirén (15 October 1905 – 19 April 1986) was a Swedish composer. Wirén studied at the Stockholm conservatory.