Vincenzo Manfredini

Vincenzo Manfredini (22 October 1737 – 5 or 16 August 1799) was an Italian composer, harpsichordist and a music theorist. Biography Manfredini was born in Pistoia, in Tuscany. He studied music with his father, Francesco Onofrio Manfredini. Then he studied with Perti in Bologna and Fioroni in Milan. In 1758, his older brother Giuseppe, a castrato, went to Moscow with Locatelli’s opera troupe, and Vincenzo went with him, possibly as one of the troupe. Moving to St. Petersburg, he became maestro di cappella to Peter Fedorovich, who on becoming Emperor in 1762 made him maestro of the court’s Italian opera company. Confirmed in this post by Catherine II, he composed operas and occasional works, but on Galuppi’s arrival in 1765, he was relegated to composing the ballets performed with Galuppi’s operas and to serving as harpsichord teacher to Pavel Petrovich, heir to the throne. In 1769, he returned with a pension to Bologna. He would meet Mozart along with his father a year later in 1770. After two attempts at opera, Manfredini devoted himself mainly to writing and teaching, also publishing a set of symphonies (1776) and string quartets (?1781). When Pavel Petrovich became Emperor in 179