Christian Cannabich

A composer of some 200 works, he continued the legacy of Johann Stamitz and helped turn the Mannheim orchestra into what Charles Burney described as "the most complete and best disciplined in Europe.".

This could explain the relative ease with which Cannabich later moved in French aristocratic circles during his frequent stays in Paris and Versailles.

As a boy, he studied violin with Johann Stamitz (1717–1757), composer, violinist, concertmaster and leader of the Mannheim court orchestra.

In the year 1748 he is listed in the annual court and state calendar (Churpfälzischer Hof- und Staatskalender) as a violinist living together with his father in Moritz Lane.

In 1759 Cannabich married Maria Elisabeth de la Motte, lady of the bed chamber to the Duchess of Zweibrücken.

Although Cannabich lived very much in the Age of Enlightenment, which allowed and even fostered a certain permeability between the social classes, it was then still unusual for a man of common birth to marry a titled woman.

It was during this journey that Cannabich met the Mozarts who, then on their family grand tour, spent the time between November 1763 and April 1764 in the French capital.

During the 1760s and 1770s, Cannabich visited Paris frequently, had his music performed at the Concert Spirituel, and his symphonies and trios printed there.

On each side ten or eleven violins, four tenors, two hautboys, two flutes, and two clarionets, two corni, four violoncellos, four bassoons, and four double basses, besides trumpets and kettle-drums.