 juan crisÃ³stomo jacobo antonio de arriaga y balzola (january 27, 1806january 17, 1826) was a spanish 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; and they shared the same birthday, january 27 (fifty years apart). ==life== juan crisÃ³stomo arriaga was born in bilbao, biscay, on what would have been mozart's fiftieth birthday. his father (juan simÃ³n de arriaga) and the boy's older brother first taught him music. juan simÃ³n had some musical talent and at age seventeen was an organist at a church in berriatÃºa. he worked in guernica and in 1802 moved to bilbao and became a merchant in wool, rice, wax, coffee, and other commodities. the income generated in this way allowed juan simÃ³n to think about providing his son, who had shown prodigious musical talent, a way of developing those gifts. in september 1822 arriaga's father, with the encouragement of composer josÃ© sobejano y ayala (1791â1857), sent juan crisÃ³stomo to paris, where in november of that year arriaga began his studies. these included the violin under pierre baillot, counterpoint with luigi cherubini and harmony under franÃ§ois-joseph fÃ©tis at the paris conservatoire. from all evidence, arriaga made quite an impression on his teachers. in 1823, cherubini, who had become director at the conservatoire the previous year, famously asked on hearing the young composer's stabat mater, "who wrote this?" and learning it was arriaga, said to him, "amazing â you are music itself." arriaga soon became a teaching assistant in fÃ©tis's class, and also became noted both among the students and other faculty at the conservatoire for his talent. cherubini referred to arriaga's fugue for eight voices (also lost) based on the credo et vitam venturi simply as "a masterpiece", and fÃ©ti
1806_births 1826_deaths Basque_classical_musicians Basque_composers Child_classical_musicians Classical-period_composers Conservatoire_de_Paris_alumni Romantic_composers Spanish_classical_composers