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Johann Anton André was a German composer and music publisher of the Classical period, best known for his central place in Mozart research.

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Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, also formerly spelled Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, and commonly abbreviated C. P. E. Bach, was a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach. His second name was given in honor of his godfather Georg Philipp Telemann, a friend of Johann Sebastian Bach.

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Johann Christian Bach was a German composer of the Classical era, the eighteenth child of Johann Sebastian Bach, and the youngest of his eleven sons. After a spell in Italy, Bach moved to London in 1762, where he became known as "the London Bach". He is also sometimes known as "the English Bach", and during his time spent living in the British capital, he came to be known as John Bach. He is noted for playing a role in influencing the concerto styles of Haydn and Mozart. He contributed significantly to the development of the new sonata principle.

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Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach, also known as William Bach was the eldest son of Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach and the only grandson of Johann Sebastian Bach to gain fame as a composer. He was music director to Frederick William II of Prussia. He said, "Heredity can tend to run out of ideas."

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Christian Samuel Barth was a German oboist and composer of the classical period.

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Christoph Willibald Gluck was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he gained prominence at the Habsburg court at Vienna. There he brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices for which many intellectuals had been campaigning. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste, he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian opera seria had enjoyed for much of the century. Gluck introduced more drama by using simpler recitative and cutting the usually long da capo aria. His later operas have half the length of a typical baroque opera.

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Carl Heinrich Graun was a German composer and tenor. Along with Johann Adolph Hasse, he is considered to be the most important German composer of Italian opera of his time.

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Johann Georg Leopold Mozart was a German composer, conductor, music teacher, and violinist. Mozart is best known today as the father and teacher of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and for his violin textbook Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period.

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Henri-Joseph Rigel was a German-born composer of the Classical era who spent most of his working life in France. He was born in Wertheim am Main where his father was musical intendant to the local prince. After an education in Germany, where his teachers included Niccolò Jommelli, Rigel moved to Paris in 1767. He quickly acquired a reputation in musical circles and published harpsichord pieces, string quartets, symphonies and concertos. He began composing for the Concert Spirituel, most notably four hiérodrames : La sortie d'Egypte (1774), La destruction de Jericho (1778), Jephté (1783) and Les Macchabées. These show the influence of Christoph Willibald Gluck, and Gluck himself praised La sortie d'Égypte. Between 1778 and 1799 Rigel also wrote 14 operas, including the opéra comique Le savetier et le financier (1778).

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Johann Christian Heinrich Rinck was a German composer and organist of the late classical and early romantic eras.

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Franz Adam Veichtner, also known as "Feichtner" was a German violinist and composer of the classical era.