Curated playlist
Composers awarded knighthoods
- Andrew Lloyd WebberAndrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera closed on Broadway in 2023 after 13,981 performances.
- Charlie ChaplinCharlie Chaplin was in a workhouse twice before he turned nine. By 26 he was among the world's highest-paid people.
- Wolfgang Amadeus MozartMozart finished more than 800 works in thirty-five years and died with his Requiem unfinished.
- Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney traded a trumpet for a guitar and wrote his first song on it. His father had given him the trumpet.
- Edward ElgarA 1901 London concert crowd demanded a double encore for Elgar's first Pomp and Circumstance march.
- John WilliamsSteven Spielberg laughed at John Williams's two-note Jaws theme, thinking it was a joke.
- Charles Villiers StanfordCharles Villiers Stanford could not persuade Cambridge's music society to admit women, so he started a rival choir.
- Ringo StarrRingo Starr's first drum was a cotton bobbin used to tap the cabinets by his hospital bed.
- George MartinGeorge Martin called the Beatles' audition recording a "lousy tape" before he signed them.
- Ravi ShankarRavi Shankar was horrified when Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire. The sitar master saw instruments as part of God.
- Christoph Willibald GluckComposer Gluck revealed that a hit opera credited to two men was wholly Salieri's.