Giovanni Marco Rutini

Giovanni Marco Rutini (25 April 1723 – 22 December 1797) was an Italian composer. He is most known for his sonatas which influenced Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Haydn. Biography He was born in Florence and studied at the Naples Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini. At the conservatorio, he studied composition under the guidance of Leonardo Leo, harpsichord with Nicola Fago and violin with Vito Antonio Pagliarulo. He graduated in 1744, but stayed to teach for several years. In 1748 he moved to Prague and joined the Locatelli ensemble. In the beginnings of his career he devoted himself mainly to the kapellmeister activities, and composed predominantly the cembalo sonatas. Rutini performed his first “Prague opera”, Alessandro nell´Indie, in 1750. Another opera, Semiramide riconosciuta, was dedicated to the “nobility of the Czech Kingdom”. Rutini later moved with Locatelli and his group to Russian St. Petersburg. He composed there the comic operas, mainly to the librettos of Carlo Goldoni. He was also the piano teacher of Catherine II, the future Russian empress. In the early 1760s he returned to Florence, and continued composing operas. He married in April 1761. He continued t