Think of Weber - and you think of Der Freischütz, a romantic mood opera that was the greatest event at German opera houses in the post-Mozart, pre-Wagner era. Carl Maria von Weber was born in Eutin (Holstein) in 1786. As well as operas, he composed a great many concertos, symphonies and chamber music works. His most important post was that of music director at the Deutsche Oper in Dresden. Weber died in 1826 during opera rehearsals in London.

Stations in life:
Eutin, Dresden

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

Heinrich Schütz was born in Bad Köstritz near Gera in 1585. He wrote Daphne, the first German opera, after travelling to Italy and coming into contact there with the new style of opera. Sadly, along with many other major works of art, Daphne was lost in the great upheavals of the Thirty Years War, but many of Schütz's works - church music - did survive. The foremost German composer of the early baroque period, he held posts at a number of courts and churches: Kassel, Wolfenbüttel, Halle, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Braunschweig and Hanover. After a life of extensive travel, Schütz died in Dresden at the grand old age of 87.

Stations in life:
Bad Köstritz, Kassel, Dresden

Christoph Willibald Ritter (knight) von Gluck was born in 1714 in Erasbach in the Upper Palatinate. Prague, Milan, Paris, Dresden and Vienna are just a few of the places in which this most "European" of 18th-century composers sojourned. In his 107 operas (of which only 47 survive), Gluck pursued a new ideal of dramatic stringency that used powerful, real emotions. This placed restraints on the effusive style of virtuoso singing and opened a new chapter in operatic history.

Stations in life:
Erasbach, Dresden

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach's eldest son, was born in Weimar in 1710. After disagreeing with the church authorities, he gave up his permanent duties as organist in Halle and chose instead to live in Berlin as a freelance musician "without commitments". His works are all in the pre-revolutionary spirit of Sturm und Drang (storm and stress).

Stations in life:
Weimar, Dresden, Halle