Sammartini, Giovanni Battista

 (1701-1775)

Italian composer, one of the earliest composers of symphonies.

An organist and choirmaster in his native Milan, he began as a church composer but later produced a great quantity of instrumental music, including 70 symphonies and more than 200 ensemble sonatas. Sammartini's major contribution was the extensive development of thematic material in symphonic form.

He was also significant as the teacher of the German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck and as a model for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Christian Bach, and, according to some scholars, for Joseph Haydn.