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A child prodigy who was almost entirely self-taught, Beach became the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music.

Composer, writer, mystic and visionary: the earliest composer in the Western canon whose name is known today was a woman.

The first woman ever to win the prestigious Prix de Rome competition. Who knows what she could have achieved had she not died aged 24.

Chaminade impressed Bizet when she performed her own compositions for him aged just eight. Her piano pieces were audience favourites in America.

A fine viola-player, she was one of the first female professional orchestral musicians in London, and wrote much for her instrument.

French harpsichord player and composer who performed for Louis XIV, the Sun King, aged just five, and wrote the first opera written by a woman to be performed in France.

Lutyens is credited with bringing serialism to Britain. Famous for her scores for Hammer's horror films, she earnt the nickname 'Horror Queen'.

A hugely versatile composer, notably successful in her lifetime. Influenced by Bartok and Janacek, she was the first woman to chair the Composer鈥檚 Guild of Great Britain.

Alma was an accomplished writer of songs. The terms of her marriage with Gustav Mahler were that she forget her own interest in composing, a stipulation he learned to regret.

Older sister of the more conspicuous Felix Mendelssohn. While her brother's musical ambitions were supported, her own suffered from the attitudes of the time.

Known for her vividly dramatic style, Musgrave studied with Nadia Boulanger (Lili Boulanger's sister) and Aaron Copland.

Clara Schumann once wrote: 鈥淎 woman must not desire to compose 鈥� there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?鈥�

Suffragette, composer and author, Smyth attended the celebrated Leipzig Conservatory, to the dismay of her military father.

The daughter of a servant girl and famous for her 鈥榖old and graceful manner鈥�, Strozzi was brought up and educated by the poet Giulio Strozzi, who was probably her father.

A prolific composer and the sole female member of 鈥楲es Six鈥�, which included Milhaud and Poulenc, she was part of the artistic crowd in Paris in the roaring 1920s.

The first woman appointed Master of the Queen鈥檚 Music, Weir is best known for her operas and theatrical works. Her music often draws on medieval history and traditional Scottish stories.

Radio 3 has compiled a definitive playlist of works by seminal female composers.

Listen to female composers speaking in these exclusive archive recordings.