Cocktail Party Fact: Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven’s friend and staunchest supporter among the nobility, was also a very decent composer in his own right.
Commitment Factor: About 37 minutes
Vital Statistics: Classical Period (1811). Composed for piano, violin and cello in four movements. Beethoven’s Trios are the greatest written for this combination of instruments, alongside those of Schubert, [...]

Active Years: 1860-1911
Position: Austrian composer, pianist, and conductor
Career Highlights: Resurrection Symphony, Das Lied von der Erde
Career Totals: 10 symphonies, 6 song-cycles, 1 cantata
Scouting Report: Rebuffed as a composer, Mahler became a very successful conductor, although he was renowned as much for his tyrannical demeanor as his artistic gifts. He came to New York to become [...]

Active Years: 1811-1886
Position: Hungarian pianist, conductor, and composer.
Career Highlights: Transcendental Etudes, (not to be confused with that gas you get before a cavity is filled), and Faust Symphony.
Career Totals: Several symphonic poems, 2 piano concertos, over 100 solo piano works, works for organ, 4 masses, over 60 songs, and various other choral works.
Scouting Report: A [...]

Active Years: 1865-1904 (born 1841)
Position: Czech composer
Career Highlights: “New World” Symphony, Cello Concerto, Piano Quintet in A, “Dumky” Piano Trio, Rusalka, Stabat Mater, String Quintet in E Flat, “American” string quartet.
Career Totals: 9 Symphonies, 3 concertos, 14 operas, 3 string quintets, 14 string quartets, 2 piano quartets, 2 piano quintets, 6 piano trios, 2 masses, [...]

Active Years: 1845-1896 (Born 1824)
Position: Austrian composer and organist
Career Highlights: Nine gigantic symphonies
Career Totals: Eleven symphonies, four masses, six chamber works, over forty cantatas, over fifty psalms, many choruses and songs.
Scouting Report: Bruckner is a composer who arouses fanatical support and intense dislike. To his detractors, he’s a bore who wrote elephantine symphonies with long, [...]