A major (or the key of A) is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C♯, D, E, F♯, and G♯. Its key signature has three sharps.

Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor. The key of A major is the only key where a Neapolitan sixth chord on Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \hat2

In the treble, alto, and bass clefs, the G♯ in the key signature is placed higher than C♯. However, in the tenor clef, it would require a ledger line and so G♯ is placed lower than C♯.

Although not as rare in the symphonic literature as sharper keys, examples of symphonies in A major are not as numerous as for D major or G major. Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, Bruckner's Symphony No. 6 and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 comprise a nearly complete list of symphonies in this key in the Romantic era. Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quintet are both in A major, and generally Mozart was more likely to use clarinets in A major than in any other key besides E-flat major.

Daniil Trifonov (Russian: Даниил Трифонов, born March 5, 1991 in Nizhny Novgorod) is a Russian concert pianist.

Trifonov is a top prize winner of several major international piano competitions, including the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, and the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. At the age of 21, he is quickly emerging as one of the most outstanding pianists of his generation, having the potential to build a major international performing career.

At 17, he won Fifth Prize at the 4th International Scriabin Competition in Moscow, and the first prize at the 3rd International Piano Competition of San Marino,where he also received the Special Prize for the best performance of Chick Corea’s composition.

In 2010, Trifonov became a medalist of the distinguished XVI International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, where he won Third Prize and the Special Prize of Polish Radio for the best mazurkas performance.

In 2011, Trifonov won the First Prize at the 13th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel-Aviv, winning also the Pnina Salzman Prize for the Best Performer of a Chopin piece, the Prize for the Best Performer of Chamber Music and the Audience Favorite Prize .

Alfred Brendel KBE (born 5 January 1931) is an Austrian pianist, born in Czechoslovakia and a resident of the United Kingdom. He is also a poet and author.

Brendel was born in Wiesenberg, Czechoslovakia, now Loučná nad Desnou, Czech Republic, to a non-musical family. They moved to Zagreb when Brendel was six, and later to Graz, where they lived during World War II, towards the end of which the 14-year old Brendel was sent to Yugoslavia to dig trenches. However, he developed frostbite and was taken to hospital. Brendel began piano lessons when he was six with Sofija Deželić, and at 14 he studied piano with Ludovica von Kaan and composition in the Graz Conservatory for the next two years, but otherwise had little formal music education.

After the war, Brendel composed music, as well as continuing to play the piano and to paint. However, he never had more formal piano lessons and although he attended masterclasses with Edwin Fischer and Eduard Steuermann, he was largely self-taught.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (8 March 1714 – 14 December 1788) was a German classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and second (surviving) son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach. His second name was given in honor of his godfather Georg Philipp Telemann, a friend of Emanuel's father.

Emanuel Bach was an influential composer working at a time of transition between his father's baroque style and the classical and romantic styles that followed it. His personal approach, an expressive and often turbulent one known as Empfindsamer or 'sensitive style', applied the principles of rhetoric and drama to musical structures. Bach's dynamism stands in deliberate contrast to the more mannered rococo style also then in vogue.

Emanuel Bach was born in Weimar in 1714 to Johann Sebastian Bach and his first wife, Maria Barbara. The composer Georg Philipp Telemann was his godfather. When he was ten years old he entered the St. Thomas School at Leipzig, where his father had become cantor in 1723. He was one of four Bach children to become a professional musician; all four were trained in music almost entirely by their father. In an age of royal patronage, father and son alike knew that a university education helped prevent a professional musician from being treated as a servant. Emanuel, like his brothers, pursued advanced studies in jurisprudence at the University of Leipzig (1731). He continued further study of law at Frankfurt (Oder) (1735). In 1738, at the age of 24, he obtained his degree. He turned his attention at once to music.

Antonín Leopold Dvořák (/ˈdvɔrʒɑːk/ DVOR-zhahk or /dɨˈvɔrʒæk/ di-VOR-zhak; Czech: [ˈantoɲiːn ˈlɛopolt ˈdvor̝aːk] ( listen); September 8, 1841 – May 1, 1904) was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many of other orchestral and vocal-instrumental pieces.

His best-known works include his New World Symphony, the Slavonic Dances, the Symphonic Variations, "American" String Quartet, Piano Quintet No 2, the opera Rusalka, Cello Concerto in B minor and choral works Stabat Mater, Requiem and Te Deum. Today, he is considered to be one of the most important composers of the Romantic era.

Dvořák was born on September 8, 1841, in the Bohemian village of Nelahozeves, near Prague (then part of Bohemia in the Austrian Empire, now Czech Republic), where he spent most of his life. He was baptized as a Roman Catholic in the church of St. Andrew in the village. Dvořák's years in Nelahozeves nurtured the strong Christian faith and love for his Bohemian heritage that so strongly influenced his music. His father, František Dvořák (1814–1894), was an innkeeper, professional player of the zither, and a butcher. Although his father wanted him to be a butcher as well, Dvořák pursued a career in music. He received his earliest musical education at the village school, which he entered in 1847, aged six. From 1857 to 1859 he studied music in Prague's only organ school, and gradually developed into an accomplished player of the violin and the viola. He wrote his first string quartet when he was 20 years old, two years after graduating.