Giovanni Battista Sammartini

Giovanni Battista Sammartini (c. 1700 – 15 January 1775) was an Italian composer, violinist, organist, choirmaster and teacher. He counted Gluck among his students, and was highly regarded by younger composers including Johann Christian Bach. It has also been noted that many stylizations in Joseph Haydn’s compositions are similar to those of Sammartini, although Haydn denied any such influence. Sammartini is especially associated with the formation of the concert symphony through both the shift from a brief opera-overture style and the introduction of a new seriousness and use of thematic development that prefigure Haydn and Mozart. Some of his works are described as galant, a style associated with Enlightenment ideals, while “the prevailing impression left by Sammartini’s work… is that he contributed greatly to the development of a Classical style that achieved its moment of greatest clarity precisely when his long, active life was approaching its end”. Sammartini quickly became famous as a church composer and obtained fame abroad. Over the years he joined many churches for work (eight or more by his death ) and wrote music to be performed at state occasions and in the houses of