Giovanni Battista Martini

Giovanni Battista Martini (born April 24, 1706, Bologna, Papal States—died Aug. 3, 1784, Bologna) was an Italian composer, music theorist, and music historian who was internationally renowned as a teacher.

Martini was educated by his father, a violinist; by Luc’Antonio Predieri (harpsichord, singing, organ); and by Antonio Riccieri (counterpoint). He was ordained in 1729, after becoming chapelmaster of San Francesco in Bologna in 1725. He opened a school of music, and his fame as a teacher made Bologna a place of pilgrimage. Among his pupils were J.C. Bach, Mozart, Christoph Gluck, Niccolò Jommelli, and André Grétry; among his correspondents were the leading men of letters of his time, including Martin Agricola, Pietro Metastasio, Johann Quantz, and Jean-Philippe Rameau.

Martini was a zealous collector of musical literature; his library, estimated at 17,000 volumes by the 18th-century music historian Charles Burney, became the basis for the Civic Museum and Music Library in Bologna. He was a prolific composer of sacred and secular music. His works include the Litaniae (1734), 12 Sonate d’intavolatura (1742), 6 Sonate per l’organo ed il cembalo (1747), Duetti da camera (1763), and masses and oratorios. His most important literary works are the Storia della musica (1757–81; incomplete) and the two-volume Saggio di contrappunto (1774–75).

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