Franz Danzi

Taught by his father, the cellist Innocenz Danzi, Franz Danzi entered the Mannheim orchestra as a young musician. Kapellmeister posts in Munich, Stuttgart and Karlsruhe followed, in opera and concert life alike, and he wrote operas, symphonies, concertos, sacred music, chamber works and songs. His chamber music includes wind quintets for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon. Born at Schwetzingen in 1763, he encouraged the young Carl Maria von Weber. He died in 1826. Georg Joseph Vogler taught him alongside his father, and he entered the orchestra of the Elector Karl Theodor in 1778, returning to the court in Munich as principal cellist in 1784 in the place his father had held, a player Mozart praised at the first performance of Idomeneo. In 1790 he married the singer and composer Maria Margarethe Marchand and travelled with an opera troupe to Leipzig, Prague, Venice and Florence; by 1798 he was assistant Kapellmeister in Munich, leaving in 1807 for Stuttgart and the court of Frederick I of Württemberg, and five years later for the court at Karlsruhe, where he died.