Johann Joseph Vilsmayr (1663 – 11 July 1722) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

ist and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...

. From 1 September 1689 he worked at

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...

's Hofkapelle, where he almost certainly became a pupil of

Heinrich Ignaz Biber Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber ( bapt. 12 August 1644, Stráž pod Ralskem – 3 May 1704, Salzburg) was a Bohemian-Austrian composer and violinist. Biber worked in Graz and Kroměříž before he illegally left his employer, Prince-Bishop Karl ...

, one of the best contemporary European violinists. Judging from the regular increases of his salary, Vilsmayr must have quickly attained a good reputation at the court. He kept the Salzburg position until his death on 11 July 1722. Vilsmayr's only surviving music is a collection published in Salzburg in 1715, titled ''Artificiosus Concentus pro Camera''. It contains six

partita Partita (also ''partie'', ''partia'', ''parthia'', or ''parthie'') was originally the name for a single-instrumental piece of music (16th and 17th centuries), but Johann Kuhnau (Thomaskantor until 1722), his student Christoph Graupner, and Johann ...

s ''à Violino Solo Con Basso bellè imitate''—a description that, until recently, was taken as "for solo violin and basso continuo". The bass part was presumed to be lost. However, scholar Pauline H. Nobes has recently demonstrated that the partitas were probably meant for violin solo, and ''Con Basso bellè imitate'' may refer to the polyphonic texture of the works.Letzbor, Gunar. Liner notes to "Johann Joseph Vilsmayr - Artificiosus Concentus pro Camera. Gunar Letzbor (violin). Arcana/Westdeutscher Rundfunk Kõln, 2003. Catalogue number: Arcana A 328.

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Austrian Baroque composers Austrian classical composers Austrian classical violinists Male classical violinists 1663 births 1722 deaths 18th-century classical composers 18th-century Austrian male musicians Austrian male classical composers {{austria-composer-stub