Giuseppe Cambini

Who was Giuseppe Cambini?

Giuseppe Maria Gioacchino Cambini was an Italian composer and violinist.

Born in Livorno, it is likely that Cambini studied violin with Filippo Manfredi; the only evidence for this is however Cambini's own unreliable account, which also claims inaccurately that he worked with Luigi Boccherini and Pietro Nardini, and was a friend of Joseph Haydn. Another legend about Cambini, circulated by François-Joseph Fétis, claimed that Cambini and his fiancée had been kidnapped by Barbary pirates and ransomed by a music-lover.

Cambini arrived in Paris some time before or in 1773, and after one of his symphonies was played at a Concert Spirituel, his music began to be published, quickly building up an oeuvre of much instrumental music and fourteen operas, only two of which survive complete. He was extremely prolific, writing 82 symphonies concertantes, nine symphonies, seventeen concertos and over 100 string quintets.

When Mozart was in Paris, a Concert Spirituel with Mozart's Symphonie Concertante, K. 297b, was cancelled, and Mozart blamed Cambini for sabotaging his performance. Gluck on the other hand estimated Cambini as an honest fellow.