Georg Frideric Handel was a composer from the Baroque period. Handel wrote primarily music-dramatic works: 42 operas, 29 oratorios, more than 120 cantatas, trios and duets, which comes to a total amount of almost 2000 arias! Furthermore, he composed English, Italian and Latin sacred music, serenades and odes. Among his instrumental music are several organ concertos, concerti grossi, overtures, oboe sonatas and violinsonates, along with many solo works for harpsichord and organ.

Together with Johann Sebastian Bach, who was born in the same year (1685), Handel is viewed as one of the greatest composers of his time. He was extremely prolific and wrote in total more than 610 works, many of which are still performed today.

Compared to his contemporaries Bach, Telemann and Scarlatti, Handel was by far the most cosmopolitan. When Handel was a child, his father, who was a surgeon at the court of Saxe-Weissenfels, imagined a juridical career for him. But his musical talents did not go unnoticed at the court, which forced the father to let him study music. In Hamburg, Handel befriended Mattheson. Together they visited Buxtehude, the greatest organ player of his time, in 1703 (two years before Bach did). At that time, Handel was already an excellent musician, but it wasn't until his stay in Italy - the land of opera - that his talents and skills truly started to flourish. Back in Germany, he received a position at the court of Hannover, where the noblemen had a connection to the British throne. Thanks to these connections, Handel decided to move to London, after which a puzzling history of intrigues and political games started. For example, it is unclear what the exact political message of his famous Water Music is, which was composed for a boat ride on the river Thames by King George. Initially, Handel focused on Italian opera during his stay in London, but from the 1730s onwards he started composing English spoken oratorios, with the celebrated Messiah at its peak.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose actual name is Joannes Chrysotomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a composer, pianist, violinist and conductor from the classical period, born in Salzburg. Mozart was a child prodigy. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. Along with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart is considered to be one of the most influential composers of all of music's history. Within the classical tradition, he was able to develop new musical concepts which left an everlasting impression on all the composers that came after him. Together with Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven he is part of the First Viennese School. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position. From 1763 he traveled with his family through all of Europe for three years and from 1769 he traveled to Italy and France with his father Leopold after which he took residence in Paris. On July 3rd, 1778, his mother passed away and after a short stay in Munich with the Weber family, his father urged him to return to Salzburg, where he was once again hired by the Bishop. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death.

Claudio Monteverdi was an Italian composer and conductor, whose work marked the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque. Moreover, he composed the earliest operas that are still regularly performed today.
Monteverdi worked as maestro di capella at the court of the duke of Mantua and at the San Marco in Venice. He was a famous musician during his lifetime, but his compositions also provoked opposition. The conservative theorist Giovanni Maria Artusi criticized the technical flaws in some of Monteverdis madrigals. The composer defended himself by making a distinction between two styles of composition, the prima prattica, in which the harmony is dominant, and the seconda prattica , in which the music is subordinate to the text. Monteverdi championed the seconda prattica, and eventually broke with traditional Renaissance polyphony and began to employ the basso continuo and recitative to do better justice to the text.
Monteverdi wrote amongst others eight books of madrigals, two collections of liturgical music and various operas. The opera L'incoronazione di Poppea is considered a culminating point of Monteverdi's work. It contains tragic, romantic, and comic scenes and warmer melodies than previously heard.

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) is one of most important tango composers of all time. Surprisingly, he spent a large part of his youth in New York. In 1937, Piazzolla returned to his mother country Argentina. There, he started to focus on a career as a classical pianist while in the evening he would play accordion in tango cabaret. From 1955, he worked on his own compositions and wove these two influences together to a new, refreshing sound: the 'tango neuvo'.

At the wedding of crown prince Willem-Alexander and Máxima Zorreguieta, Carl Kraayenhof made a spectacular impression with his performance of Adios Noniño. Piazzolla died in 1992.