Composers

Johann Sebastian Bach
1685-1750
Born in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany, J.S. Bach was a church organist and composer of the Baroque era. He was most famous for his advancement of the contrapuntal style. Even to this day, he is regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. His most influential works include the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Art of the Fugue, the Brandenburg Concerti, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B Minor, and the St. Matthew Passion. Bach also composed numerous works for keyboard instruments as well as over 200 cantatas.

Sebastian Duron
1660-1716
Duron, born in 1660 in Brihuega (Guadalajara), Spain, is considered to be one of the greatest composers of Spanish Baroque music. At age 8, he was put under the care of chapel master of the Cathedral of Cuenca who took care of his education. Duron toured to different cites around Spain as an organist, finally settling in Palencia where he became organist of the Real Chapel in 1691. By 1702, he was responsible for all musical activities of the court, both religious and theatrical. However, in 1706, Durón was exiled from Spain by Felipe V because of his open allegiance with Austria. Durón spent his exiled years in France, not returning to the Spanish court until 1714. He died in 1716 of tuberculosis.

Giovanni Gabrieli
1555-1612
Gabrieli, Italian composer and organist, was one of the most famous musicians of his time. Born in Venice, he represents the shift from the Renaissance to the Baroque idioms, as well as the culmination of the Venitian school. He was a student of Orlando de Lassus in Munich. After returning to Venice, he was named principal organist for the church of San Marco in 1585. San Marco had a well-documented history of musical excellence, and so Gabrieli’s responsibilities there propelled his career forward. He required his students to study both Venitian sacred music as well as Italian madrigals, which eventually became a very influential style on the German Baroque. For the last six years of his life, Gabrieli became sick and could not perform. He died in 1612 of complications from a kidney stone.

Johann Heinrich von Schmelzer
1623-1680
Schmelzer, born in 1623 in Scheibbs, Austria, was a composer and violinist of the Baroque era. He was trained as a musician in the Emperor’s service and became a famous violinist across Europe. By 1679, he held the position of Kapellmeister to Leopold I. Unfortunately, he died from the plague the following year in Prague, where the court had fled from Vienna. Schmelzer is often regarded as the first composer to integrate the tunes of Viennese street musicians into sophisticated instrumental court music.

Giuseppe Tartini
1692-1770
Tartini was born in 1692 in Pirano in the Republic of Venice, which is now known is Piran, Slovenia. Though his father intended for him to enter the priesthood, Tartini eventually picked up the violin and became a musician, composer, and music theorist instead. Tartini’s most famous work is arguably the Devil’s Trill Sonata, which legend says was inspired by a dream where Tartini saw the Devil playing the violin at the foot of his bed. Tartini opened a violin school in 1726, which drew students from all over Europe. From 1750 until the end of his life, he wrote many treatises on acoustics and harmony, and is credited with the discovery of sum and difference of tones.

Georg Phillip Telemann
1681-1767
Telemann, a German Baroque composer, was born in Magdeburg in 1681. Telemann studied law at the University of Leipzig. He was self-taught in music as his parents disapproved of his musical talents. Telemann was a contemporary of J.S. Bach, and though in modern day, Bach is more well-known, in the 1700s, Telemann was the bigger star. In fact, the Guinness Book of World Records credits Telemann as being the most prolific composer of all time, with more than 800 works accredited to his name. Throughout his life, Telemann traveled widely and held several important jobs. From 1720 until the end of his life in 1767, he was music director of Hamburg’s five largest churches. Telemann was succeeded in these positions by his godson, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

Antonio Vivaldi
1678 - 1741
Vivaldi, Italian priest, violinist, and Baroque composer, was born in Venice in 1678. Nicknamed Il Prete Rosso (the Red Priest), most likely because of his red hair, was discharged from saying Mass by the age of 26 because of his ill health. Instead, he became the violin teacher at the orphanage Pio Ospedale della Pietà, where he elevated the status of the musicians there and gained much of his own fame. Throughout his life, Vivaldi was a prolific and well-liked composer who wrote 46 operas and over 500 concerti, including the famous work The Four Seasons.

Domenico Zipoli
1688-1726
Zipoli was an Italian composer from the Baroque era. Born in 1688 in Prato, Italy, he studied in Florence under Giovan Maria Casini and in Naples under Alessandro Scarlatti. In 1716, Zipoli joined the Jesuit order and traveled to South America, eventually settling in Argentina. There, he studied theology and philosophy in preparation for the priesthood, all the while composing Masses, psalm settings, oratorios and operas. Zipoli died in Argentina in 1726, before a Bishop could arrive to ordain him as a Priest.

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