Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He is considered one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time. He was a master of polyphony and brought to perfection the musical form of the fugue. He composed 1126 musical compositions of various forms (they are referred to by the abbreviation BWV and serial number). In his time, Bach became famous mainly as a keyboard player, but as a composer he was less known. His music was perceived as conservative, and after his death it fell into oblivion for almost fifty years.

Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) was an Austrian composer of the early Romantic period, who had an extraordinary ability to express lyrical and romantic moods and great melodic talent. He is the first great representative of early Romanticism and is sometimes referred to as a Romantic classic. He wrote over 1,000 works, most of the most impressive of which were written during the time he was unhappily in love. However, much of his work was not recognized until after Schubert's death, which is why he spent most of his life in poverty. He died at the age of thirty-one, after a sudden illness of several weeks. To this day, Franz Schubert remains one of the leading composers of the Romantic musical repertoire.

Charles-François Gounod (1818 -1893) was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, a large amount of church music and many songs and popular small pieces. Today, his best-known works are the operas Faust and Romeo and Juliet, and of his minor compositions, the most famous is his Ave Maria, based on the Prelude in C major by Johann Sebastian Bach.