As a boy I was given a book called 'Fifty of the Famous Music Composers'.
It is dated 1945 and is thought-provoking both for its inclusions and
omissions.  The composers listed are:

Bach, Balfe, Beethoven, Bellini, Berlioz, Bizet, Boccherini, Borodin,
Brahms, Cherubini, Chopin, Debussy, Delibes, Donizetti, Dvorak, Flotow,
Gluck, Gounod, Grieg, Handel, Haydn, Herold, Humperdinck, Lecocq,
Leoncavello, Liszt, Lvov, Macdowell, Mascagni, Massenet, Mendelssohn,
Mozart, Mussorgsky, Nicolai, Offenbach, Puccini, Purcell, Rossini,
Schubert, Schumann, Smetana, Strauss, J.  (father), Strauss, J.  (son),
Sullivan, Suppe, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Wagner, Wallace, Weber

Geoff Ponton