Jewish classical composers

Günter Raphael (30 April 1903 – 19 October 1960) was a German composer. Born in Berlin, Raphael was the grandson of composer Albert Becker. His first symphony was premiered by Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1926 in Leipzig with the Gewandhaus Orchestra. From 1926 to 1934 he taught in Leipzig, but illness and the rise of Fascism – he was declared a "half-Jew" – made this difficult for him. He received the Franz Liszt Award for composition in 1948. His students include Kurt Hessenberg.
His compositions include five symphonies, concertos for violin and for organ, six string quartets, numerous solos and duos for strings and winds with and without piano of which several have been recorded. Raphael also composed organ, piano and choral works. He was also responsible for arranging a performance version of Antonín Dvořák's Cello Concerto in A major (1865) when its piano and cello score was discovered in 1918.He was also an editor of classical and baroque scores for Breitkopf and Härtel, preparing editions of, for example, flute sonatas by Frederick the Great and works by Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach (some of these can be found in the Cornell University Library).

Gerald Raphael Finzi (14 July 1901 – 27 September 1956) was a British composer. Finzi is best known as a choral composer, but also wrote in other genres. Large-scale compositions by Finzi include the cantata Dies natalis for solo voice and string orchestra, and his concertos for cello and clarinet.

Walter Braunfels (German pronunciation: [ˈvaltər ˈbʁaʊnfɛls]; 19 December 1882 – 19 March 1954) was a German composer, pianist, and music educator.

Paul Ben-Haim (or Paul Ben-Chaim, Hebrew: פאול בן חיים) (5 July 1897 – 14 January 1984) was an Israeli composer. Born Paul Frankenburger in Munich, Germany, he studied composition with Friedrich Klose and he was assistant conductor to Bruno Walter and Hans Knappertsbusch from 1920 to 1924. He served as conductor at Augsburg from 1924 to 1931, and afterwards devoted himself to teaching and composition, including teaching at the Shulamit Conservatory in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Ben-Haim emigrated to the then British Mandate of Palestine in 1933 and lived in Tel Aviv, near Zina Dizengoff Square. He Hebraized his name, becoming an Israeli citizen upon that nation's independence in 1948. He composed chamber music, works for choir, orchestra and solo instruments, and songs. He championed a specifically Jewish national music: his own compositions are in a late Romantic vein with Middle Eastern overtones, somewhat similar to Ernest Bloch.His students include Eliahu Inbal, Henri Lazarof, Ben-Zion Orgad, Ami Maayani, Shulamit Ran, Miriam Shatal, Rami Bar-Niv and Noam Sheriff. [See: List of music students by teacher: A to B#Paul Ben-Haim.] Ben-Haim won the Israel Prize for music in 1957.The archive of Ben-Haim is preserved in the National Library of Israel.

Michaël Lévinas (born 18 April 1949) is a French composer and pianist.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (3 April 1895 – 16 March 1968) was an Italian composer, pianist and writer. He was known as one of the foremost guitar composers in the twentieth century with almost one hundred compositions for that instrument. In 1939 he immigrated to the United States and became a film composer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for some 200 Hollywood movies for the next fifteen years. He also wrote concertos for Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky.

Benjamin Louis Paul Godard (18 August 1849 – 10 January 1895) was a French violinist and Romantic-era composer of Jewish extraction, best known for his opera Jocelyn. Godard composed eight operas, five symphonies, two piano and two violin concertos, string quartets, sonatas for violin and piano, piano pieces and etudes, and more than a hundred songs. He died at the age of 45 in Cannes (Alpes-Maritimes) of tuberculosis and was buried in the family tomb in Taverny in the French department of Val-d'Oise.