Christian Cannabich

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Johann Christian Innocenz Bonaventura Cannabich (bapt. 28 December 1731 – d. 20 January 1798), was a German composer of the Classical era.

Born in Mannheim, Cannabich was the son of the flautist and composer Martin Friedrich Cannabich (c. 1700-1773) and was also a pupil of Johann Stamitz (1717-1757). He joined the Mannheim court orchestra as a violinist in 1746/1747 when aged only twelve. In 1750, he went on to Rome to study music under Niccolò Jommelli and remained there until 1753. In 1759 he married Maria Elisabeth de la Motte, who was one of the ladies-in-waiting to the Duchess of Zweibrücken, and he obtained the favour of Duke Christian IV, whom he accompanied to Paris in 1764. In 1766 he was in Paris again where he obtained a privilege to print six symphonies and six trios. Most of Cannabich's works after this date were published by Parisian publishers.

In 1774, he succeeded Stamitz as director of the Mannheim court orchestra, and during the same period became a friend of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart said of Cannabich (in a letter to his father Leopold Mozart, dated 9 July 1778): "He is the best music director I have ever seen, and has the love and awe of all under him".

In the 1790s musical activity at the court was declining and Cannabich, like many of his colleagues, complained about the cut-backs in the musical establishment, and more seriously, the withholding of wages. In the last year of Cannabich's life, he received only a third of his usual annual income and found it necessary to undertake concert tours to make up for the losses in his salary.

He died while visiting his son Carl Cannabich in Frankfurt am Main in 1798.

He composed almost seventy symphonies.