Most (classical) composers had one or a few lyricists with whom they preferred to work:
Bach: Picander Mozart: Da Ponte Sullivan: Gilbert Verdi: Piave, Boito Isaac Albéniz: Francis Burdett Money-Coutts Richard Strauss: Hugo von Hofmannsthal Puccini: Illica and Giacosa Satie: Contamine, Plato (when composing Socrate: Platon s'avère comme un collaborateur parfait, très doux, jamais importun - "Plato shows himself a perfect coworker, very soft, never out of line") Amadeo Vives: Federico Romero and Guillermo Fernández Shaw Rodgers: Hammerstein Gershwin: Ira Gershwin Andrew Lloyd Webber: Tim Rice, followed by Don Black Bertold Hummel: Hermann Hesse Handel: Haym, Jennens Bellini: Romani Gluck: Calzabigi Galuppi: Goldoni Haydn: Swieten Mendelssohn: Schubring Hasse: Metastasio
Composers that preferred to write their own libretti Richard Wagner Arrigo Boito Modest Mussorgsky Leoš Janáček Olivier Messiaen Cole Porter Gian Carlo Menotti Irving Berlin Stephen Sondheim Michael Tippett