Giovanni Battista Martini occupation composer
Giovanni Battista or Giambattista Martini, O.F.M. Conv. (24 April 1706 - 3 August 1784), also known as Padre Martini, was an Italian Conventual Franciscan friar, who was a leading musician, composer, and music historian of the period and a mentor to Mozart.Biography
Giovanni Battista Martini was born in Bologna, in that era part of the Papal States. His father, Antonio Maria Martini, a violinist, taught him the elements of music and the violin and he later learned singing and harpsichord playing from Padre Pradieri, and counterpoint from Antonio Riccieri and Giacomo Antonio Perti. Having received his education in classics from the priests of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri, he afterwards entered the novitiate of the Conventual Franciscans at their friary in Lago, at the close of which he professed religious vows and received the religious habit of the Order on 11 September 1722.In 1725, though only nineteen years old, he received the appointment of chapel-master at the Basilica of San Francesco in Bologna, where his compositions attracted attention. He established a composition school at the invitation of amateur and professional friends, where a number of well-known musicians received their education. As a teacher, he consistently expressed his preference for the practices of the earlier Roman school of composition. Martini was a zealous collector of musical literature, and possessed an extensive musical library. Burney estimated it at 17,000 volumes; after Martini's death a portion of it passed to the Imperial library at Vienna, the rest remaining in Bologna, now in the Museo Internazionale della Musica (ex Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale).
Most contemporary musicians spoke of Martini with admiration, and Leopold Mozart consulted him with regard to the talents of his son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The latter went on to write the friar in very effusive terms after a visit to the city. The Abbé Vogler, however, makes reservations in his praise, condemning his philosophical principles as too much in sympathy with those of Fux, which had already been expressed by P. Vallotti. His Elogio was published by Pietro della Valle at Bologna in the same year.In 1758 Martini was invited to teach at the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna. He died in Bologna.
Among Martini's pupils: the Belgian André Ernest Modeste Grétry, the Bohemian Josef Mysliveček, the Ukrainian Maksym Berezovsky, his fellow Conventual Franciscan friar, Stanislao Mattei, who succeeded him as conductor of the girls choir, as well as the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Christian Bach and the famous Italian cellist Giovanni Battista Cirri.
job profession career vocation employment