Giovanni Battista Ferrandini

Giovanni Battista Ferrandini (c. 1710 – 25 October 1791), an Italian composer of the Baroque and Classical eras, was born in Venice, Italy and died in Munich, at the age of about 81. He was a child prodigy and entered the service of Duke Ferdinand Maria Innocenz of Bavaria at the age of 12 as an oboist. The newly constructed Bavarian Court Theatre (the Old Residenztheater, now known as the Cuvilliés Theatre after the architect) in Munich opened on 12 October 1753 with Ferrandini's opera Catone in Utica. A recording of the opera made 250 years later in the same theatre is available (Oehms Classics OC 901).In 1755, Ferrandini retired to Padua, where in 1771, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his father Leopold Mozart visited him in retirement.