Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga

Juan Crisóstomo Jacobo Antonio de Arriaga y Balzola (January 27, 1806 – January 17, 1826) was a Spanish composer, nicknamed the "Spanish Mozart."

Related Topics:
January 27 - 1806 - January 17 - 1826 - Spanish - Composer - Mozart

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He was born in Bilbao, where his father and older brother prepared him to be a child prodigy. He studied the violin under Pierre Baillot, and counterpoint and harmony under François-Joseph Fétis at the Paris Conservatoire. He was so good, he soon became a teaching assistant in Fétis's class. Arriaga died in Paris at the age of nineteen, of a lung ailment, or exhaustion, perhaps both.

Related Topics:
Bilbao - Child prodigy - Pierre Baillot - François-Joseph Fétis - Paris Conservatoire - Paris

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The amount of music by Arriaga which has survived to the present day is quite small, but despite his early death includes an opera (Los esclavos felices (The Happy Slaves), 1820), a Symphony in D (which uses D major and D minor so equally as to not actually be in either key) and three string quartets, written at the age of eighteen and the only works published during his lifetime.

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In addition to these major works, he also wrote the following:

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an overture, a second opera ('Nada y Mucho'), various pieces of church music (cantatas, a Mass, Stabat Mater, Salve Regina, Et vitam venturi saeculi), vocal works (Agar, Erminia, All' Aurora, Patria, La Hungara) and diverse instrumental compositions (a Nonetto, Tres Estudios de Caracter for piano, and numerous Romances).

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There is nothing characteristically Spanish in his music, rather it is reminiscent of Haydn and early Beethoven.

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Following his early death, with the only reliable biographical material being some reports by Fétis, Arriaga's life story was fictionalized to play into rising Spanish nationalism.

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Similarities with Mozart:

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• Born exactly 50 years later, carrying same name (Juan Crisóstomo... as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus...).
• Plays violin at 3, composes first opera with 13.

A public theatre in his home city carries his name.

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