Giovanni Battista Martini

(24 April 1706 – 3 August 1784), also known as Padre Martini, was an Italian Conventual Franciscan friar, who was a leading musician, composer, and music historian of the period and a mentor to Mozart.

[1] In 1725, though only nineteen years old, he received the appointment of chapel-master at the Basilica of San Francesco in Bologna, where his compositions attracted attention.

Among Martini's pupils: the Belgian André Ernest Modeste Grétry, the Bohemian Josef Mysliveček, the Ukrainian Maksym Berezovsky, his fellow Conventual Franciscan friar, Stanislao Mattei, who succeeded him as conductor of the girls choir, as well as the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Christian Bach and the famous Italian cellist Giovanni Battista Cirri.

The Liceo of Bologna possesses the manuscripts of two oratorios as well as three intermezzos, including L'impresario delle Isole Canarie;[3] and a requiem, with some other pieces of church music, are now in Vienna.

The former, of which the three published volumes relate wholly to ancient music, and thus represent a mere fragment of the author's vast plan, exhibits immense reading and industry, but is written in a dry and unattractive style, and is overloaded with matter which cannot be regarded as historical.

[4] The Esemplare is a learned and valuable work, containing an important collection of examples from the best masters of the old Italian and Spanish schools, with excellent explanatory notes.