Christian  Cannabich

Johann Christian Innocenz Bonaventura Cannabich (bapt. 28 December 1731 in Mannheim – 20 January 1798 in Frankfurt am Main), was a German violinist, composer, and Kapellmeister of the Classical era. A composer of some 200 works, he continued the legacy of Johann Stamitz and helped turn the Mannheim orchestra into what Charles Burney described as "the most complete and best disciplined in Europe". The orchestra was particularly noted for the carefully graduated crescendos and diminuendos characteristic of the Mannheim school. Together with Stamitz and the other composers of the Mannheim court, he helped develop the orchestral texture that paved the way for the orchestral treatment of the First Viennese School.

Christian Cannabich was the third child of Martin Friedrich Cannabich (1690–1773), a flautist, oboist and music teacher at the Mannheim court. Cannabich père was the personal flute teacher of the Prince elector Carl Theodor which in itself created favourable conditions for Christian Cannabich's later career. 
As a boy, he studied violin with Johann Stamitz (1717–1757), composer, violinist, concertmaster and leader of the Mannheim court orchestra. He joined the violin section of the orchestra as a scholar (i.e. aspirant) at age twelve (1744), becoming a full member two years later. In the year 1748 he is listed in the annual court and state calendar (Churpfälzischer Hof- und Staatskalender) as a violinist living together with his father in Moritz lane.
In 1750, Charles Theodore, Prince elector of the Electorate of the Palatinate, sent Cannabich to Rome to continue his studies with Niccolò Jommelli, maestro coadiutore of the Papal Chapel and also a successful opera composer. He remained in Rome until 1753, and followed his teacher to Stuttgart after Jommelli's appointment as Ober-Kapellmeister in the Swabian capital of the court orchestra. In 1756 Cannabich returned to Italy for a second time, this time to Milan, where he undertook additional studies with Giovanni Battista Sammartini.
In the spring of 1757, after the premature death of Johann Stamitz, he was called back to Mannheim to assume Stamitz's post as first violinist (together with Carl Joseph Toeschi).

During the 1760s and 1770s Cannabich visited Paris frequently, had his music performed at the Concert Spirituel, and his symphonies and trios printed there. Most of Cannabich's works after this date were published in Paris.
In 1774 Cannabich became director of the Mannheim court orchestra; as such he not only led the orchestra as concertmaster, but also had the duty to compose the ballet music for the court ballets choreographed by Etienne Lauchery, the Maître de Danse (court ballet master). Four years later (1778) he moved with the court to Munich when Charles Theodore, his lord and master, became elector of Bavaria.

In the 1780s the elector cut back on the orchestra's budget and reduced the number of musicians from 95 to 55. The musicians complained about cutbacks in payment and reduced income. It is alleged that Cannabich himself had to live on one-third of his former stipend during the last years of his life, which forced the aged musician to go on concert tours and, perhaps for the first time in his life, to do what other, less fortunate musicians had to do all their lives — scramble for money.

Cannabich died while visiting his son, Carl, in Frankfurt am Main in 1798.