Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga

Juan Crisóstomo Jacobo Antonio de Arriaga y Balzola (27 January 1806 – 17 January 1826) was a Spanish Basque 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 (due to both having been born on the feast of St. John Chrysostom), 27 January (fifty years apart). Life Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga was born in Bilbao, Biscay, on what would have been Mozart’s fiftieth birthday. His father (Juan Simón de Arriaga) and the boy’s older brother first taught him music. Juan Simón had some musical talent and at age seventeen Juan Crisóstomo was an organist at a church in Berriatúa. sent Juan Crisóstomo to Paris, where in November of that year Arriaga began his studies. Music The amount of Arriaga’s music that has survived to the present day is quite small, reflecting his early death. It includes: * Opera: Arriaga wrote an opera, Los esclavos felices (“The Happy Slaves”), in 1820 when he was fourteen. It was produced in Bilbao. Only the overture and some fragments have survived. * Sympho