| Italian composer, one of the
earliest composers of symphonies. An organist and choirmaster in his native
Milan, Sammartini began as a church composer but later produced a substantial
quantity of instrumental music, including 70 symphonies and more than 200
ensemble sonatas. Sammartini's principal contribution to music was the extensive
development of thematic material in symphonic form. He was also significant
as the teacher of the Austrian composer Christoph Willibald Gluck and as
a model for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the German composer
Johann Christian
Bach and, according to some scholars, for the Austrian composer
Joseph Haydn. |