Antonio Rosetti

About this artist

Francesco Antonio Rosetti was a classical era composer and double bass player, and was a contemporary of Haydn and Mozart. The occasional disambiguation with a supposed, but non-existent, "Antonio Rosetti born 1744 in Milan", is due to an error by Ernst Ludwig Gerber in a later edition of his Tonkünstler-Lexikon having mistaken Rosetti for an Italian in the first edition of his own Lexikon, and therefore including Rosetti twice - once as an Italian, once as a German-Czech.
Rosetti was born about 1750 in Litoměřice, a town in Northern Bohemia. He is believed to have received early musical training from the Jesuits in Prague. In 1773 Rosetti left his native country and found employment in the Hofkapelle of Prince Kraft Ernst of Oettingen-Wallerstein whom he served for sixteen years, becoming Kapellmeister in 1785. In July 1789 Rosetti left Wallerstein to accept the post of Kapellmeister to the Duke Friedrich Franz I of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in Ludwigslust where he died in service of the duke on 30 June 1792 at the age of 42 years. In 1777, he married Rosina Neher, with whom he had three daughters. In late 1781 he was granted leave to spend 5 months in Paris.