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Christian Cannabich
December 12, 1731 - January 20, 1798
born in Mannheim, composed during the Classical period
Biography
A prolific composer, Christian Cannabich was also a violinist and conductor who presided over the Mannheim court orchestra during its period of greatest glory, helping it perfect the carefully guaged crescendos and decrescendos that became a trademark of the Mannheim school of composition.

His early violin training from his father was so thorough that Cannabich entered the Mannheim orchestra at age 12. He studied composition as well as violin with the orchestra's director, Johann Stamitz, whose family was developing a new, pre-Classical style of music coming out of Baroque models. Cannabich spent the early 1750s under the tutelage of composer Niccolò Jommelli, first in Rome and then in Stuttgart; during this period, Cannabich discovered the music of such Italians as the Sammartini brothers, which would influence his own work. He was back in the Mannheim orchestra by 1756, and was joint concertmaster by 1759; that position's duties included conducting the orchestra and preparing high-profile concerts. Mozart thought Cannabich was the best concertmaster he'd ever encountered, although his father called him a "wretched scribbler of symphonies."

In the 1760s and 1770s, Cannabich wrote some 20 ballets and 50 symphonies, and much of his music was published in Paris, as well as in Britain and the Low Countries.