The book provides brief and accurate information about the life and activities of the main composers of each era, with a possible complete list of their works. The foreign department begins with biographies of St.. Ambrose and Pope Gregory I, as the first compilers of the corpus of church songs, ends the department with the biography of Richard Strauss, an outstanding representative of German musical creativity. The Russian department begins with the biography of the Italian composer Araya, during the reign of Empress Anna Ioannovna invited as a court composer to St. Petersburg, for 28 years he wrote 17 operas there and is rightly considered the founder of Russian opera. The Polish department begins with a biography of St. Wojciech, creator of the text and music of the first Polish anthem "God Rodzitz" Foreign and Russian Department, edited by A. Ilyinsky, Polish Department, edited by G. Pakhulsky .