Birth Location, Migration and Clustering of Important Composers: Historical Patterns

This paper examines the 522 most important composers in the last 800 years, as identified by Murray (2003), in terms of their birth location and migration. It also looks at detailed patterns of migration and tendencies to cluster in certain cities for those composers born from 1750 to 1899. This information is compiled from the large on-line Grove encyclopaedia of Music. There is also some discussion of the biases evident in choosing ‘significant’ composers. The data show a marked level of migration of important composers going back many centuries suggesting that phenomenon of globalisation had impacted on composers many centuries before its effects were more widespread. The data also show a marked level of clustering in certain cities.