Max von Schillings (1868-1933) was a German composer, conductor and theatre administrator. Born in Düren, he became active in the German operatic and orchestral world around the turn of the twentieth century.

His works include operas, orchestral music, songs and melodramas. His best-known opera is Mona Lisa, which achieved considerable success in its day.

Schillings’s music is rooted in late Romantic German style, with a strong theatrical impulse and command of orchestral colour. It belongs to the musical landscape after Wagner and Strauss.

His reputation is complicated by later politics and by the decline of his music from regular repertory. This page records his historical place without inflating it.