__NOTOC__ 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. It doesn't include biographies, unless fictionalized.
Johann Sebastian Bach Esther Meynell: The Little Chronicle of Magdalena Bach (1925)A. H. Weiler. "Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968)" in The New York Times, April 7, 1969 Marc Moskovitz: The Eyes of Bach (2024) James Runcie: The Great Passion (2022)Erin Douglass. 'A novel envisions what it would be like to study with Bach', Christian Science Monitor, 29 April 2022
Arnold Bax Rebecca West: Harriet Hume (1929) (The title character is based on Harriet Cohen, the Bax character is named Arnold Condorex)Corymbus: The Music That Time Forgot Jonathan Wylie: Magister (1997)
Ludwig van Beethoven Andrew Crumey: Beethoven's Assassins (2023) Jessica Duchan: Immortal (2020)Duchan, Jessica. Immortal at Unbound Sanford Friedman: Conversations with Beethoven (1980s, published in 2014)Freya Parr. 'Ten of the best (and worst) novels about composers', BBC Music Magazine, 26 February 2019 Paul Griffiths: Mr Beethoven (2020)New York Review of Books, 26 October, 2021 Esther Meynell: Grave Fairytale (1931) (as Melchior)British Musician and Musical News, Vol. 7 no 67, July 1931, p. 153 Patricia Morrisroe: The Woman in the Moonlight (2020) Ken Russell: Beethoven Confidential (2007) Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Rumour: A Novel (1858) (as Rodomant) John Suchet: The Last Master (1997–99) (fictional biography in three volumes)
Bix Beiderbecke Dorothy Baker: Young Man With a Horn (1938) George Willis: Three Musicians Trilogy (1943, 1945, 1947) (also Eddy Duchin and Frankie Trumbauer)
William Sterndale Bennett Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Starwood Burney)
Hector Berlioz Christine Balint: Ophelia's Fan: A Novel (2005) Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991) Jude Morgan: Symphony (2006)review, Publishers Weekly Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Florimond Anastasa)
Lord Berners (self-portrait, Lord FitzCricket in Far From the Madding War, 1941) Nancy Mitford: The Pursuit of Love (1945) (as Lord Merlin)Amory, Mark. Lord Berners: The Last Eccentric (1999) Osbert Sitwell: 'The Love Bird' from Dumb Animal and Other Stories (1930) (as Sir Robert Mainwroth)
Hildegard of Bingen P.K. Adams: The Greenest Branch (2018) and The Column of Burning Spices (2019) Mary Sharratt: Illuminations (2012)
Mario Braggiotti F. Scott Fitzgerald: Tender is The Night (1934) (as Tommy Barban)The Letters of Scott Fitzgerald, ed. Andrew Turnbull (1964), p. 570
Johannes Brahms Boman Desai: Trio: A Novel Biography of the Schumanns and Brahms (2011) J. D. Landis: Longing (2000) Louise Marley: The Brahms Deception (2010) Ken Russell: Brahms Gets Laid (2007) Kristen Wolf: Escapement (2018)
Benjamin Britten Ian McEwan: Amsterdam (1998) (Clive Linley, correspondencies with Britten)Robert E Kohn. 'The Fivesquare "Amsterdam" of Ian McEwan', in Critical Survey, Vol. 16, No. 1 (2004), pp. 89-106
Thomas Busby George Borrow: Lavengro (1851) (as editor of the "Universal Review")
Frédéric Chopin Elizabeth Berg: Dream Lover (2015) Nancy Burkhalter: The Education of Delhomme: Chopin, Sand, and La France (2020) Jean Echenoz: Lac (1995, translated as Chopin's Move for the US edition, 2004) George Sand: Lucrezia Floriani (1846)Diedre Bair. 'Getting even with Chopin', in The New York Times, 11 August 1985, Section 7, p.9 Nell Stevens: Briefly, a Delicious Life (2022)Pan Macmillian Leon Thornber: Bitter Glory. A Novel of the Life of Chopin (1937)
Harriet Cohen William Gerhardie: Pending Heaven (1930) (as Helen Sapphire) D H Lawrence: Kangaroo (1923) (as Harriet)Fry, Helen. Music & men : the life and loves of Harriet Cohen (2008) Rebecca West: Harriet Hume (1929)
Michael Costa Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as St Michel)
Noël Coward Charles Brackett: Entirely Surrounded (1934) (as Nick Farraday) George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart: The Man Who Came to Dinner (play, as Beverley Carlton) Beverley Nichols: Death to Slow Music (as Nigel Fleet) David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002) Keith Winter: Impassioned Pygmies (1936)
Christian Darnton Nigel Balchin: Darkness Falls From the Air (1942) (as the poet Stephen Ryle)Collett, Derek (2015). His Own Executioner: The Life of Nigel Balchin. SilverWood. .
Claude Debussy Anthony Burgess: '1889 and the Devil's Mode', short story in The Devil's Mode (1989) Pierre La Mure: Clair de lune (1962)Claire de Lune review, Montreal Gazette, 24 November, 1962 Marcel Proust: À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) (aspects of Vinteuil, see also Franck and Saint-Saëns)
Frederick Delius C F Keary: The Journalist (1898) (as Sophus Jonsen)Amos, William. The Originals: Who's Really Who in Fiction (1990) David Mitchell. Cloud Atlas (2004) (as Vyvyan Ayers, with Robert Frobisher as Eric Fenby) Ken Russell: Delius: A Moment with Venus (2007)
Edward J Dent E. M. Forster: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) (as Philip Herriton)
Delia Derbyshire Rosemary Tonks: The Bloater (1968) (as Jenny)Audrey Wollen. 'The Writer Who Burned Her Own Books', in The New Yorker, 3 January, 2023
Arnold Dolmetsch George Moore: Evelyn Innes (1898) (as the father of Evelyn)Richard Lines. 'George Moore's Evelyn Innes', in The Norwood Review No 174 (2008)
Karl Eliasberg Sarah Quigley: The Conductor (2012)
Edward Elgar Keith Alldritt: Elgar on the Journey to Hanley: A Novel (1979) Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991) James Hamilton-Paterson: Gerontius (1989) James Miles: The Worcester Enigma (short story, 1988) David Pownall: Elgar’s Rondo (1993) and Elgar's Third (1994)The Composer Plays, Oberon (1996) Ken Russell: Elgar: the Erotic Variations (2007)
César Franck Ronald Harwood: Cesar and Augusta (1978) 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) Steve Exeter. Debussy's Slippers (2019) Laura Frankos: Broadway Revival (2022) Mitchell James Kaplan. Rhapsody (2021)Rhapsody, by Mitchell James Kaplan George Kaufman and Moss Hart: Merrily We Roll Along (1934) (as Sam Frankl)
Carlo Gesualdo Michel Breitman: Le Témoin de poussière (1985) Joel Epstein: The Curse of Gesualdo: Music, Murder and Madness (2020) Fran Kempton: The Devil's Tune: a Tale of Music, Murder and Revenge (2018) David Pownall: Music to Murder By (1976) Erika Rummel: The Road to Gesualdo (2020)
Jimmy Glover George Moore: A Mummer's Wife (1885) (as Montgomery)
Eugene Aynsley Goossens Inez Baranay: Pagan (1990) Louis Nowra: The Devil is a Woman (2004)
Glenn Gould Thomas Bernhard: The Loser (1983) Christopher Miller: Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects: A Novel in Liner Notes (2004)Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise blog (2004)
Cecil Gray H.D.: Bid Me to Live (1960) (as Vane) Aldous Huxley: Antic Hay (1923) (as the critic Mercaptan) D. H.Lawrence: Aaron's Rod (1922) (as Cyril Scott)M.C. Rintoul: Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction (2014) D. H.Lawrence: Kangaroo (1923) (as James Sharpe) Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (Maclintick and Gossege as a composite)Spurling, Hilary: Dancing to the Music of Time, Hamish Hamilton, 2017
Jan Hambourg Willa Cather: The Professor's House (as the professor's son-in-law, Louie Marsellus)'Willa Cather and the Professor's House', in Western American Literature, Vol. 7, No. 1, A Willa Cather Issue (Spring 1972), pp. 13-24
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"). ': Sonnenmelodie (1923) Franz Werfel: (1924) (as Matthias Fischboeck)
Augusta Holmes Ronald Harwood: Cesar and Augusta (1978)
Charles Edward Horsley Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Charles Auchester)
John Pyke Hullah Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Lenhart Davy)
Halfdan Jebe C F Keary: The Journalist (1898) (as Hauch)Boyle, Andrew J. Delius and Norway (2017), p. 175
Maurice Jacobson Stevie Smith: Novel on Yellow Paper (1936) (as Herman)Bluemel, Kristin. George Orwell and the Radical Eccentrics: Intermodernism in Literary London (2004), Chapter 1, p.27-66
Joseph Joachim Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Charles Auchester)
Aram Khachaturian David Pownall: Master Class (1982)
Constant Lambert Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (as Moreland)Lloyd, Stephen. Constant Lambert: Beyond The Rio Grande. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2014. David Pownall: Facade (radio play, 2002)
Henry Lawes Robert Graves: Wife to Mr Milton (1942)
Madame Levinskaya Bernice Rubens: Madame Sousatzka (1962)Allis, Michael. Temporaries and Eternals: The Music Criticism of Aldous Huxley (2013), p. 56
Franz Liszt Daniel Stern: Nélida (1846)Nélida, Suny Press Honoré de Balzac: Béatrix (1839) (as Gennaro Conti) Susanne Dunlap: Liszt's Kiss (2007) George Eliot: Daniel Deronda (1876) (aspects of Julius Klesmer, see also Rubenstein)Walker, Alan. Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years, 1848–1861 (1989), p. 250 Julian Livingston: The Anonymous North American Tour of Franz Liszt (1999) Sarah Rayne: Music Macabre (2019) John Spurling: A Book of Liszts: Variations on the Theme of Franz Liszt (2011)
Elisabeth Lutyens Henry Reed: The Private Life of Hilda Tablet (1954) (as Tablet)Henry Reed: Hilda Tablet and Others, BBC Books, London, 1971
Alma Mahler Joseph Horowitz: The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York (2023) Max Phillips: The Artist’s Wife (2001)Art in Fiction: The Artist's Wife James Reidel: Manon's World (2020) Mary Sharratt: Ecstasy (2018)Art in Fiction. Ecstacy
Gustav Mahler Willa Cather: The Song of the Lark (1915) Ronald Harwood: Mahler’s Conversion (2001)Faber, Mahler's Conversion Joseph Horowitz: The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York (2023 Walter Kappacher: Mahlers Heimkehr (2014) Thomas Mann: Death in Venice (aspects of the author Aschenbach)'Thomas Mann', Mahler Foundation Frank Tallis: Death and the Maiden (2010) Stefan Zweig: The Return of Gustav Mahler (1915), semi-fictional essayWerley, Matthew. Mahler in Context (2020), Chapter 32, 'Influences in Literature'
Florence Ashton Marshall (and her sister, the clarinettist Frances Marshall) Bertha Thomas: The Violin Player (1880)Shannon Draucker. Sounding Bodies: Acoustical Science and Musical Erotics in Victorian Literature (2024)
Fanny Mendelssohn Peter Härtling: Liebste Fenchel (2011) Myla Lichtman-Fields: Felix and Fanny (play, 2011) Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Maria Cerinthea)
Felix Mendelssohn Rosemarie Bodenheimer: Mendelssohn & Co: a Fictive Memoir (2018) Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991) Pierre La Mure: Beyond Desire (1955)Beyond Desire review, The Age. 12 December, 1956 George Sampson: A Day with Mendelssohn (1910) Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Seraphael)Weliver, Phyllis. The Musical Crowd in English Fiction (2006)
Noel Mewton-Wood Sonia Orchard: The Virtuoso (2009)Harper Collins, The Virtuoso
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991) Rita Charbonnier: The Death of Mozart (2006) Stephanie Cowell: Marrying Mozart (2004) Eduard Mörike: Mozart's Journey to Prague (1856) Alexander Pushkin: Mozart and Salieri (1830) Matt Rees: Mozart's Last Aria (2011) Peter Shaffer: Amadeus (1979)
Maria Theresia von Paradis Julian Barnes: 'Harmony', from the short story collection Pulse (2011) Brian O'Doherty: The Strange Case of Mademoiselle P (1992) Michèle Halberstadt. The Pianist in the Dark (2011) Jean Thuillier: Franz Anton Mesmer ou L'extase Magnétique (1988)