Siegfried Matthus was born in 1934 in Mallenuppen (East Prussia). After leaving school, he studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin with Wagner-Régeny and Hanns Eisler. As well as being a successful freelance composer, Matthus also worked as artistic director at the Komische Oper in Berlin. His numerous contributions to music theatre represent the pinnacle of his extensive and diverse output.Without doubt, one of Matthus's greatest achievements is as founder and director of the opera academy at Rheinsberg Castle near Berlin, held annually to give upcoming international singers the opportunity to perform to a large audience in a professional milieu.

Stations in life:
Mallenuppen, Berlin

Clara Schumann, née Wieck, was a pianist and composer. She went on a number of concert tours and was considered to be one of the top European pianists at the age of only sixteen. Around this time she was composing virtuoso works for piano. She married Robert Schumann in 1840.

Stations in life:
Leipzig, Frankfurt am Main, Baden-Baden, Berlin

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe particularly appreciated Zelter's musical settings of texts because there was "not too much music to disturb the intrinsic life of the words". Carl Friedrich Zelter was born in Berlin in 1758. His place in the history of music is assured not only through his lieder, but also through his role as founder of the Berliner Singakademie, highly regarded as Bach specialists.

Stations in life:
Berlin

Richard Strauss was born in Munich in 1864. His operas - Salome, Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow), Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier - are pillars of the international repertoire. Strauss's works are vast in scale and are characterised by a sensuous tonality. He produced many symphonic works before making the extremely successful transition to the world of great opera.

Stations in life:
Munich, Berlin, Dresden, Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Born in 1936 in Berlin, Aribert Reimann is the undisputed master of modern German operatic composition. His most recent work of music theatre is The House of Bernarda Alba, written and premiered in 2001 to great acclaim at the Komische Oper in Berlin. In addition to operas, ballets, orchestral works and chamber music, Reimann's published oeuvre also includes numerous songs for voice and piano, which reveal his experience as a lieder accompanist.

Stations in life:
Berlin

The 12-tone method of composition was developed by Arnold Schoenberg and immortalised by Thomas Mann in his novel Doktor Faustus. Schoenberg was born in Vienna in 1874. His visionary, uncompromising style was to pave the way for modernism and the avant-garde. From 1925 to 1933, Schoenberg directed masterclasses at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. He then emigrated to America and died in Los Angeles in 1951.

Stations in life:
Berlin

Felix Mendelssohn was born in 1809 in Hamburg. Despite his untimely death at the age of 38, his legacy of works is vast. Born into a wealthy banking family, young Felix had a sheltered upbringing, shielded from the trials and tribulations of life. His piano works, his symphonies and the famous overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream all share the same carefree and unburdened feel.

Stations in life:
Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig: Conductor at the Gewandhaus

Albert Lortzing, born in Berlin in 1801, was the foremost pre-Wagner exponent of German romantic opera. His compositions - including Zar und Zimmermann (Tsar and Carpenter), Wildschütz (The Poacher) and the magic opera Undine - still enjoy enormous popularity, even today.

Stations in life:
Berlin

Frederick Loewe, born in Berlin in 1901, had a mega musical hit on Broadway with My Fair Lady. Based on Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, his story of Dr. Higgins and the flowergirl achieved the pinnacle of international success in the film version starring the legendary Audrey Hepburn.

Stations in life:
Berlin and link with America: My Fair Lady

Paul Hindemith, born in Hanau in 1895, is one of the defining figures in 20th-century music. When performances of his music were banned, he emigrated, first to Switzerland, then to the USA. He returned to Germany after the Second World War and died in Frankfurt in 1963. Hindemith composed for many different kinds of ensemble and published widely, including a mould-breaking theory of tonality.

Stations in life:
Hanau, Berlin, Frankfurt/M.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Sebastian's second - and perhaps most gifted - son, was born in Weimar. For a number of years, he was chamber harpsichordist to Frederick the Great, before becoming a successful opera director in Hamburg. His imaginative works show freedom from his father's strict rules and are very much in the style of the rococo and Sturm und Drang (storm and stress).

Stations in life:
Weimar, Berlin, Hamburg