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In a world without recorded music, talent with an instrument was a valuable gift. But even more admired were the people who actually composed the music others would play; those so endowed could aspire to attain unending renown...and if not, at least a lucrative career.
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Joseph Abaco

aka: Joseph dall|Abaco
bornactivedied
1710, Mar 271729-18051805, Aug 31
an Italian violoncellist and composer. He wrote nearly 40 cello sonatas, the Capricci for Violoncello Solo, and other works. Many of his compositions were written in an old-fashioned, Baroque style.
Links (1)


Ludwig Abeille

bornactivedied
1761, Feb 201782-18321838, Mar 2
a German pianist and composer. He wrote several folk songs, concerts, and two operas, Amor und Psyche and Peter und Ännchen, in the same style as Mozart. Abeille also wrote two sonatas for keyboard with accompanying violin (1783) as well as several instrumental works.
Links (1)


Carl Friedrich Abel

borndied
17231787
a German composer of the Classical era. He was a renowned player of the viola da gamba, and composed important music for that instrument.
Links (7)


Clamor Heinrich Abel

borndied
16341696
a German composer, violinist and organist. Among his best-known works are compositions for string orchestra and chamber music. He composed a collection of 59 individual works under the title Erstlinge musikalischer Blumen. They included works for four instruments and basso continuo - allemandes, courantes, preludes, sarabandas and sonatinas.
Links (1)


Girolamo Abos

borndied
17151760
a Maltese-Italian composer of both operas and church music. After 1758 he composed a good deal of church music, including seven masses and several litanies. He died in Naples.
Links (1)


Harriett Abrams

borndied
17581821
an English soprano and composer. Particularly praised for her performances in the repertoire of George Frideric Handel, Abrams enjoyed a successful concert career in London during the 1780s. Music historian Charles Burney praised the sweetness of her voic...
more
Links (1)


Franz Abt

borndied
18191885
a German composer and choral conductor. He composed roughly 3,000 individual works mostly in the area of vocal music. Several of his songs were at one time universally sung, and have obtained a more or less permanent place in the popular repertory. During his lifetime, Abt was a renowned choral conductor and he spent much of the last three decades of his lif...
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Links (1)


Marcial del Adalid y Gurrea

aka: Adalid y Gurréa
borndied
18261881
a Spanish composer who studied music in London with Ignaz Moscheles and it is possible that he also studied with Frederic Chopin in Paris. Both men had an impact on the style and form of his musical compositions. His most important compositions were vocal art ...
more
Links (1)


Adolphe Adam

borndied
18031856
a French composer, music critic and prolific composer of operas and ballets, he is best known today for his ballets. He was a noted teacher, who taught Delibes and other influential composers.
Links (18)


Thomas Adams [2]

borndied
17851858
an English organist and composer for organ. His published organ works include many fugues, voluntaries, ninety interludes, and several variations on popular airs. He also wrote variations for piano and many anthems, hymns, and sacred songs. He was known for his skill in improvisation and for years was in charge of performances on Flight & Robson's Apollonico...
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Links (1)


Cross-listed in Writers

John Addison

borndied
1765 ca1844
a British composer and double-bass player. He wrote six operettas which were very popular at the time, and also authored a book on singing instruction.
Links (1)


Anton Cajetan Adlgasser

borndied
17291777
a German organist and composer at Salzburg Cathedral and at court, and composed a good deal of liturgical music (including eight masses and two requiems) as well as oratorios and orchestral and keyboard works.
Links (1)


Emmanuel Adriaenssen

borndied
1554 ca1604
a Flemish lutenist and influential author of Pratum Musicum (Antwerp, 1584) (reprinted with alterations several times until 1600). This contains lute solos, and more importantly settings of madrigals for multiple lutes and different ensembles involving lutes and voices giving much study material for the researcher into renaissance performance practice. The b...
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Links (1)


Josina van Aerssen

aka: Josina van Boetzelaer
borndied
17331787
a Dutch composer, painter, lady in waiting and noble. She was born in The Hague to Cornelis van Aerssen and Anna Albertina van Schagen Beijeren and in 1786 married Baron Carel van Boetzelaer. She was the lady in waiting to Anne, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange, the spouse of prince William IV of Orange. She was a dilettante painter and made a portrait ...
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Links (1)


Johan Agrell

borndied
17011765
a late German/Swedish baroque composer, born in Löth parish, Memming district, Östergötland, a province in Sweden, and studied in Uppsala. He was Kapellmeister in Nuremberg and wrote occasional vocal works and numerous symphonies, harpsichord concertos and sonatas, many of which were published. He was a fluent composer in the north German galant style of ...
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Links (1)


Alexander Agricola

borndied
1445/461506
a Netherlandish composer of the Renaissance writing in the Franco-Flemish style. A prominent member of the Grande chapelle, the Habsburg musical establishment, he was a renowned composer in the years around 1500, and his music was widely distributed throughout Europe. He composed music in all of the important sacred and secular styles of the time.
Links (1)


Cross-listed in Performers

Johann Friedrich Agricola

aka: Flavio Anicio Olibrio
borndied
17201774
a German composer, organist, singer, pedagogue, and writer on music. He sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Flavio Anicio Olibrio.
Links (1)


Martin Agricola

borndied
14861556
a German composer of Renaissance music and a music theorist. Among his theoretical works is Musica instrumentalis deudsch (1529), a study of musical instruments, and one of the most important works in early organology; and one of the earliest books on the Rudiments of music.
Links (1)


Carl Christian Agthe

borndied
17621797
a German organist and composer. Born in Hettstedt, Agthe served as court organist to Frederick Albrecht, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg. Among his compositions are six Singspiele, a ballet, and piano sonatas. He died in Ballenstedt; a son, Albrecht Agthe, was a music teacher.
Links (1)


Dionisio Aguado y Garcia

aka: Aguado y García
borndied
17841849
a Spanish classical guitarist and composer. Aguado's major work Escuela de Guitarra was a guitar tutor published in 1825. Aguado's other works include Trois Rondos Brillants (Opus 2), Le Menuet Affandangado (Opus 15), Le Fandango Varie (Opus 16), as well as numerous waltzes, minuets, and other light pieces. The more extended works require a virtuoso techniqu...
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Links (1)


Sebastian Aguilera de Heredia

borndied
15611627
a Spanish monk, musician and composer. He was first the organist at the cathedral in Huesca from 1585 to 1603, and then moved to a more prestigious position as maestro de música at La Seo Cathedral in Saragossa. He published a collection of works in 1618, and eighteen of his keyboard works survive. He is considered the first major figure of the Aragonese Sc...
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Links (1)


Cross-listed in Writers

Johann Georg Ahle

borndied
16511706
a German composer, organist, theorist, and Protestant church musician. In 1671 his first book of arias was published, Neues Zehn Geistlicher Arien; all copies of this work are now lost, though a fragment survives. He, like his father, also became a city councilman in Mühlhausen. In 1680 he was named poet laureate by Emperor Leopold I. Ahle's most well-known...
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Links (1)


Johann Rudolph Ahle

borndied
16251673
a German composer, organist, theorist, and Protestant church musician. In 1648 he published the Compendium per tenellis, a theoretical treatise on choral singing which was reprinted several times during his lifetime and for a last time 50 years later by his son Johann Georg (the last edition appeared in 1704). Much of his compositional output consists of sac...
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Links (1)


Maria Theresia Ahlefeldt

borndied
17551810
a Danish (originally German) composer. She is known as the first female composer in Denmark. She composed music for several ballets, operas, and plays of the royal theatre.
Links (1)


Karl Stefan Aichelburg

borndied
17821817
a mandolin virtuoso and composer who lived at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Vienna and there wrote Opus 1, Potpourri for mandolin (or violin) and guitar, Opus 2, Variations for mandolin and guitar, Opus 3, Nocturne concertantes for mandolin and guitar and Opus 4, Variations concertantes for mandolin and guitar.
Links (1)


Leopold Aimon

aka: Léopold
borndied
17791866
a French composer. His compositional output includes 10 operas, some symphonies (only one of which survives), 2 bassoon concertos, a cello concerto, two cantatas, several sacred vocal works, more than 30 string quartets, and other chamber music.
Links (1)


Mateo Albeniz

aka: Albéniz, Mateo Pérez de Albéniz
borndied
17551831
a Spanish composer and priest. He held a post as Maestro de Capilla in San Sebastián and in Logroño from 1795 to 1800, when he returned to San Sebastián until his retirement in 1829. Albéniz wrote chiefly for the harpsichord and fortepiano. The work by which he is best known today is the Sonata in D major, of which a popular transcription for guitar has ...
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Links (1)


Sebastian Ramon de Albero y Ananos

aka: Sebastián Ramón de Albero y Añaños
borndied
17221756
a Spanish composer. There is very little information available about the details of his life. He served as Fernando VI's service. From 1748 onwards, he served as the royal chapel organist.


Cross-listed in Writers

Heinrich Albert

borndied
16041651
a German composer and poet of the 17th century. He was a member of the Königsberg Poetic Society (Königsberger Dichterkreis). As a song composer, he was strongly influenced by Heinrich Schutz.
Links (1)


Cross-listed in Performers

Domenico Alberti

borndied
1710 ca1740, Oct 14
an Italian singer, harpsichordist, and composer, born in Venice and studied music with Antonio Lotti. He wrote operas, songs, and sonatas for keyboard instruments, for which he is best known today. These sonatas frequently employ a particular kind of arpeggiated accompaniment in the left hand that is now known as the Alberti bass. It consists of regular brok...
more
Links (1)


Giuseppe Matteo Alberti

borndied
16851751
an Italian Baroque composer and violinist. His works were influenced by Antonio Vivaldi and they were much played in England. He wrote mostly instrumental works and published 12 symphonies as well as 10 concertos in six parts for violins.
Links (1)


Joachim Albertini

aka: Gioacchino Albertini
borndied
17481812
an Italian-born composer, who spent most of his life in Poland. His opera Don Juan albo Ukarany libertyn (Don Juan, or the Libertine Penalized) was performed in the 1780s with both Italian and Polish libretti.
Links (1)


Tomaso Albinoni

borndied
16711751
an Italian Baroque composer. While famous in his day as an opera composer, he is mainly remembered today for his instrumental music, such as the concertos.
Links (1)


Johann Georg Albrechtsberger

borndied
17361809
an Austrian musician. His published compositions consist of preludes, fugues and sonatas for the piano and organ, string quartets, etc.; but the greater proportion of his works, vocal and instrumental, exists only in manuscript.
Links (1)


John Alcock

borndied
17151806
an English organist and composer. He wrote instrumental music, glees and much church music. Much detail of his life is included in his semi-autobiographical novel, The Life Of Miss Fanny Brown published under the pseudonym John Piper in 1771. He also held a position as private organist to the Earl of Donegall.
Links (1)


Amancio Jacinto Alcorta

borndied
18051862
an Argentine composer, policy maker and politician. A prolific composer, he created numerous waltzes, minuets, nocturnes and contra dances, as well as numerous pieces of chamber music for piano and flute. Among his numerous works of sacred music, he published The Agony, a canto for tenor, baritone and organ, for Good Friday observations in 1843; the majority...
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Links (1)


Charles-Valentin Alkan

borndied
18131888
a French composer and pianist. At the height of his fame in the 1830s and 1840s he was, alongside his friends and colleagues Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt, amo...
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Links (1)


Gregorio Allegri

borndied
15821652
an Italian composer of the Roman School and brother of Domenico Allegri; he was also a priest and a singer. He was born and died in Rome. The famous Miserere, copied from memory on two hearings by the 14-year-old Mozart, performed yearly on Wednesday and Friday of Passion Week, in the papal chapel, is his composition.
Links (1)


Cross-listed in Writers

Richard Allison

borndied
1565 ca1608 ca
an English composer. He wrote de la Tromba, a fine broken consort piece which has several professional recordings and first became well known due to the Julian Bream Consort. His publications are: The Psalms of David in Meter (1599) and An Hour's Recreation in musicke, apt for instruments and voyces (1606). His work also appears in Michael East's and Thomas ...
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Links (1)


Francisco Antonio de Almeida

aka: Francisco António
borndied
17021755
a Portuguese composer and organist. In 1726, he became organist of the Royal and Patriarchal Chapel. In 1728, the first of his serenatas, Il trionfo della virtù, was performed in Lisbon at the palace of Cardinal João da Mota e Silva. His comic opera, La pazienza di Socrate, was performed at the royal palace in 1733. It was the first Italian opera in Portug...
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Links (1)


Joao Pedro de Almeida Mota

aka: João Pedro
borndied
17441817
a Portuguese composer. The musical studies of João Pedro de Almeida Mota were probably as a choirboy, either in the Sé of Lisbon or in the São Vicente de Fora church, both churches being the center of musical activity in Lisbon at the time.
Links (1)


Johann Ernst Altenburg

borndied
17341801
a German composer, organist and trumpeter. He is not to be confused with a similarly named composer in the 1620s who contributed to the collection Angst der Hellen und Friede der Seelen.
Links (1)


Michael Altenburg

borndied
15841640
a German theologian and Baroque composer. Much of his compositional output consists of vocal concertos, motets and chorales.
Links (1)


Johann Christoph Altnikol

borndied
17201759
a German organist, bass singer, and composer. He was a son-in-law and copyist of Johann Sebastian Bach. Many of his works, including a magnificat and two cantatas, have been lost. His compositions are not valued highly today; Bach spoke well of his compos...
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Links (1)


Elias Parish Alvars

aka: Albert Alvars
borndied
18081849
an English harpist and composer. Traveled extensively throughout Europe, alternately performing and composing, notably a fantasy on Moses and his Variations for harmonic notes on the Naiads Chorus from Oberon.
Links (7)


Alexander Alyabyev

borndied
17871851
a Russian composer known as one of the fathers of the Russian art song. He wrote seven operas, twenty musical comedies, a symphony, three string quartets, more than 200 songs, and many other pieces.
Links (1)


Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel

aka: Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel
borndied
17391807
a German princess and composer. Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, regent of the states of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach. She transformed her court and its surrounding into the most influential cultural center of Germany.
Links (1)


Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia

borndied
17231787
Princess of Prussia, Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Princess-Abbess of Quedlinburg. As a composer she achieved a modest amount of fame and is most known for her smaller chamber works, which included trios, marches, cantatas, songs and fugues. In 1758, Anna Amalia began a serious study of musical theory and composition, engaging as her tutor more
Links (1)


Cross-listed in Writers

Princess Amalie of Saxony

aka: A. Serena, Amalie Heiter
borndied
17941870
a German composer writing under the pen name A. Serena, and a dramatist under the name Amalie Heiter. She began writing music in 1811 and composed numerous operas, popular among the Dresden elite. Her most popular compositions were her comedic operas. In 1829/30, she published two dramas. Others of her plays were also adapted to the French stage.
Links (1)


Johann Andreas Amon

borndied
17631825
a German virtuoso guitarist, horn player, violist, conductor and composer. Amon composed around eighty works, including symphonies, concerti, sonatas, and songs. He also wrote two masses, various liturgical works, and two operettas.
Links (1)


Juan de Anchieta

borndied
14621523
a leading Spanish Basque composer of the Renaissance, at the Royal Court Chaplaincy in Granada of Queen Isabel I of Castile.
Links (1)


Johann Andre

aka: André
borndied
17411799
a German musician, composer and music publisher. He was born and died in Offenbach am Main. In 1774, as the patriarch of a Huguenot family, André founded one of the first music publishing houses to be independent of a bookshop, in Offenbach am Main. Among his closest friends in Offenbach were more
Links (1)


Johann Anton Andre

aka: André
borndied
17751842
a German composer and music publisher best known for his central place in Mozart research. He wrote operas, symphonies, masses, and lieder, as well as an unfinished Lehrbuch der Tonsetzkunst (Textbook of the Art of Composition) in two volumes.
Links (1)


Pasquale Anfossi

borndied
17271797
an Italian opera composer. Born in Taggia, Liguria, he studied with Niccolo Piccinni and Antonio Sacchini, and worked mainly in London, Venice and Rome. He w...
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Links (1)


Giovanni Animuccia

borndied
1500 ca1571
an Italian composer of the Renaissance who was involved in the heart of Rome’s liturgical musical life. He was one of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's most important predecessors and possibly his mentor. As maestro di capella of St Philip Neri's Oratory and the Capella Giulia at St Peter's, he was composing music at the very center of the Roman Catholic ...
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Links (1)


John Antes

bornactivedied
1740, Mar 241769-18091811, Dec 17
the first American Moravian Missionary to travel and work in Egypt, one of the earliest American-born chamber music composers, and the maker of perhaps the earliest surviving bowed string instrument made in America. Although Antes is often recognized for his choral works, such as Go Congregation Go! and Surely he has Bourne our Griefs, the myst...
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Links (5)


Azzolino della Araja

aka: Azzolino della Ciaia
borndied
16711755
an Italian organist, harpsichordist, composer and organ builder. An expert in organ building, he worked on the organ of Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri, a large 5- manual and more than 60 stop organ. Very important are the Six Sonatas for Harpsichord published in Rome in 1727.


Francesco Araja

aka: Araia, Araya
bornactivedied
1709, Jun 251729-17651768 ca
an Italian composer who spent 25 years in Russia and wrote at least 14 operas for the Russian Imperial Court including Tsefal i Prokris, the first opera in Russian.
Links (3)


Jean-Baptiste Arban

borndied
18251889
a cornetist, conductor, composer, pedagogue and the first famed virtuoso of the cornet à piston or valved cornet. He was influenced by Niccolo Paganini's virtuosic technique on the violin and successfully proved that the cornet was a true solo instrument by d...
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Links (1)


Cross-listed in Performers

Michael Arne

borndied
1740/411786, Jan 14
an English composer, harpsichordist, organist, singer, and actor. He was the son of the composer Thomas Arne and the soprano Cecilia Young, a member of the famous ...
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Links (1)


Thomas Arne

borndied
1710, Mar 121778, Mar 5
an English composer, best known for the patriotic song Rule, Britannia!. He also wrote a version of God Save the King, which became the British national anthem, and the song A-Hunting We Will Go. Arne was the leading British theatre composer of the 18th century, working at Drury Lane and Covent Garden.
Timeline (1)Links (1)


Samuel Arnold

borndied
1740, Aug 101802, Oct 22
an English composer and organist, born in London (his mother is said to have been Princess Amelia; his father was Thomas Arnold), and began writing music for the theatre in about 1764. A few years later he became director of music at the Marylebone Gardens, for which much of his popular music was written. In 1777 he went to work for George Colman the Elder a...
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Links (1)


Juan Crisostomo Arriaga

aka: Juan Crisóstomo
borndied
1806, Jan 271826, Jan 17
a Spanish Basque composer. He was nicknamed "the Spanish Mozart" after he died, because, like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, he was both a child prodigy and an accomplished composer who died young. They also shared the same first and second baptismal names; an...
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Links (1)


Emilio Arrieta

borndied
1823, Oct 211894, Feb 11
a Spanish composer, born in Puente la Reina, Navarre. His Italian musical training led him, under the favour of Queen Isabel II, to concentrate on operatic writing; and though he later composed zarzuelas, he remained less committed to the renascent art form than his contemporaries such as Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, who continued to write in an essentially It...
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Links (1)


Elena Asachi

borndied
17891877
a Romanian pianist, singer and composer of Austrian birth. She was the daughter of Austrian composer Anton Teyber and niece of concertmaster Franz Teyber.
Links (1)


Joseph Ascher

borndied
1829, Jun 31869, Jun 20
a Dutch-Jewish composer and pianist who was active in London and Paris for most of his life. He composed about 170 works for piano, piano four- and eight-hands, as well as ballads and display pieces for solo singers with piano accompaniment.
Links (1)


Thomas Ashewell

borndied
1478 ca1513+
an English composer of the Renaissance. He was a skilled composer of polyphony, and may have been the teacher of John Taverner. Only scattered remnants of Ashwell's music survives. As was common for pre-Reformation music in England in Latin, the large majority of manuscripts were destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries by more
Links (1)


Bonifazio Asioli

borndied
17691832
a composer of classical and church music. He was also a child prodigy, having commenced to study music when five years of age and composing several masses and a piano concerto by age eight. By the time he was eighteen, he had composed five masses, twenty-four other works for church and theatre, and many instrumental pieces.
Links (1)


Franz Asplmayr

aka: Aspelmayr, Aschpellmayr, Appelmeyer
borndied
17281786
an Austrian composer and violinist, best known for an opera on Greek myths, and for a few symphonies and string trios of his which were attributed to Joseph Haydn at one time. Among the few scholars who have studied his music, there are many differing opinions as...
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Links (1)


Thomas Attwood [1]

bornactivedied
1765, Nov 231787-18381838, Mar 24
an English composer and organist. His compositions, which show the influence of his teacher Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, are now largely forgotten except for a few short anthems.
Links (7)


Daniel Auber

aka: Daniel-François-Esprit
borndied
17821871
a French composer celebrated for high-spirited opéra comiques such as Fra Diavolo and Le domino noir. His grand opera La muette de Portici attained unexpected political influence when a performance in Brussels in 1830 sparked off a revolution which led to the creation of Belgium.
Timeline (1)Links (1)


Georg Daniel Auberlen

borndied
17281784
a musician and composer Württemberg. With 55 cantatas, he was the first of the family Auberlen, who was known for his musical talent.


Wilhelm Amandus Auberlen

borndied
17981874
a württembergischer teacher, musician and composer, the third famous representatives of Fellbacher teacher and musician family Auberlen.


Jacques Aubert

aka: le Vieux (the Elder)
borndied
16891753
a French composer and violinist, born in Paris and a student of Jean Baptiste Senaillé. His first position was as violinist in the service of the Prince of Condé. Thereafter he was a member of the Vingt-quatre Violons du Roy. From 1728 to 1752, he was the first violinist at the Paris Opéra. He regularly and successfully appeared for a dozen years beginnin...
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Links (1)


Marianna von Auenbrugger

borndied
17591782
an Austrian pianist and composer who was the daughter of the physician Leopold Auenbrugger. She was a highly regarded pianist and composer in Vienna. Together with her sister Caterina Franziska, she was a student of Joseph Haydn and Antonio Salieri. In 1780 Haydn...
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Links (1)


Josepha Barbara Auernhammer

borndied
17581820
an Austrian pianist and composer. Auernhammer wrote mainly piano music, especially variations, which are characterized by extensive knowledge of pianistic techniques and artful use of the instrument.
Links (1)


Pietro Auletta

borndied
16981771
an Italian composer known mainly for his operas. In 1725 he wrote his first comic opera , The Triumph of Love or The Marriage between friends; The following years saw the performances of his new works: in 1726 La Carlotta, his second comic opera, and in 1728 the 'Ezio, his first serious opera, which was presented in Rome .
Links (1)


Charles Avison

borndied
17091770
an English composer during the Baroque and Classical periods. He was a church organist at St John The Baptist Church in Newcastle and at St. Nicholas's Church (later Newcastle Cathedral). He is most known for his 12 Concerti Grossi after Scarlatti and his Essay on Musical Expression, the first music criticism published in English.
Links (1)


Giuseppe Avitrano

borndied
16701756
an Italian composer and violinist. He came from a family of musicians. From about 1690 until his death he was member of the Neapolitan court orchestra.
Links (1)


Francesco Azopardi

borndied
17481809
a Maltese composer and music theorist. One of his successes was a setting of Metastasio's libretto La Passione di Gesù Cristo he conducted at the Manoel Theatre in Valletta in 1782. He is known especially through his work Il Musico Prattico, which appeared in French translation by Nicolas-Étienne Framéry.
Links (1)

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