Johann Baptist Gänsbacher (8 May 1778 in

Sterzing Sterzing (; ) is a comune in South Tyrol in northern Italy. It is the main town of the southern Wipptal, and the Eisack River flows through the medieval town. It is one of I Borghi più belli d'Italia ("The most beautiful villages of Italy"). Hi ...

– 13 July 1844 in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n musical composer, was born in 1778 in Sterzing in the

County of Tyrol The (Princely) County of Tyrol was an Imperial State, estate of the Holy Roman Empire established about 1140. After 1253, it was ruled by the House of Gorizia and from 1363 by the House of Habsburg. In 1804, the County of Tyrol, unified with th ...

. His father, a schoolmaster and teacher of music, undertook his son's early education, which the boy continued under various masters until 1802 when he became the pupil of the celebrated Abbé G. J. Vogler. To his connection with this artist and with his fellow pupils, more perhaps than to his own merits, Gänsbacher's permanent place in the history of music is due; for it was during his second stay with Vogler, then (1810) living at

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

, that he became acquainted with Weber and

Meyerbeer Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jakob Liebmann Meyer Beer; 5 September 1791 – 2 May 1864) was a German opera composer, "the most frequently performed opera composer during the nineteenth century, linking Mozart and Wagner". With his 1831 opera ''Ro ...

, and the close friendship which sprang up among the three young musicians, and was dissolved by death only, has become celebrated in the history of their art. But Gänsbacher was himself by no means without merit. In 1823–1824, he was one of the 50 composers who composed a variation on a waltz by

Anton Diabelli Anton (or Antonio) Diabelli (5 September 17818 April 1858) was an Austrian music publisher, editor and composer. Best known in his time as a publisher, he is most familiar today as the composer of the waltz on which Ludwig van Beethoven wrote ...

for '' Vaterländischer Künstlerverein''. He creditably filled the responsible and difficult post of director of music at St. Stephen's Cathedral, from 1823 until his death in

; and his compositions show high gifts and accomplishment. They consist chiefly of church music, 17 masses, besides litanies,

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the preeminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to the Eng ...

s, offertories, etc., being among the number. He also wrote several

sonatas In music a sonata (; pl. ''sonate'') literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cantare'', "to sing"), a piece ''sung''. The term evolved through the Music history, history of music, designating a variety of ...

, a

symphony A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning c ...

, and one or two minor compositions of a dramatic kind.

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* 1778 births 1844 deaths 18th-century Austrian people 18th-century Austrian classical composers 18th-century Austrian male musicians 19th-century Austrian people 19th-century Austrian classical composers Austrian conductors (music) Austrian male conductors (music) People from Sterzing Austrian Romantic composers Austrian male classical composers 19th-century male musicians {{Austria-composer-stub