Year 1816 (MDCCCXVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar. This year was known as the 'Year Without a Summer' because of low temperatures in the northern hemisphere, the result of the Mount Tambora volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1815.

Johann Nepomuk Hummel or Jan Nepomuk Hummel (November 14, 1778 – October 17, 1837) was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era.

Hummel was born in Pressburg, Hungary, then a part of the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy (now Bratislava in Slovakia). His father, Johannes Hummel, was the director of the Imperial School of Military Music in Vienna and the conductor there of Emanuel Schikaneder's theater orchestra at the Theater auf der Wieden; his mother, Margarethe Sommer Hummel, was the widow of the wigmaker Josef Ludwig. He was named after St John of Nepomuk. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart offered the boy music lessons at the age of eight after being impressed with his ability. Hummel was taught and housed by Mozart for two years free of charge and made his first concert appearance at the age of nine, at one of Mozart's concerts.

Hummel's father then led him on a European tour, arriving in London, where he received instruction from Muzio Clementi and stayed for four years before returning to Vienna. In 1791, Joseph Haydn, who was in London at the same time as young Hummel, composed a sonata in A-flat for Hummel, who played its premiere in the Hanover Square Rooms in Haydn's presence. When Hummel finished, Haydn reportedly thanked the young man and gave him a guinea.

José Maurício Nunes Garcia (September 20, 1767 – April 18, 1830) was a Brazilian classical composer, one of the greatest exponents of Classicism in the Americas.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, son of mulattos, Nunes Garcia lost his father at an early age, and his mother perceived that her son had an inclination for becoming a musician and, for this reason, improved her work to allow him to continue his musical studies.

Nunes Garcia became a priest and, when prince John VI of Portugal came to Rio de Janeiro with his 15,000 people, Nunes Garcia was appointed Master of the Royal Chapel. He sang and played the harpsichord, performing his compositions as well as those of other composers such as Domenico Cimarosa and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was a very prestigious musician in the royal court of John VI.

His musical style was strongly influenced by Viennese composers of the period, such as Mozart and Haydn. Today, some 240 musical pieces written by Nunes Garcia survive, and at least 170 others are known to have been lost [1]. Most of his compositions are sacred works, but he wrote also some secular pieces, including the opera Le due gemelle and the Tempest Symphony.

Ferdinand Ries (b. Bonn, baptised 28 November 1784, d. Frankfurt am Main, 13 January 1838) was a German composer.

Born into a musical family of Bonn, Ries was a friend and pupil of Beethoven who published in 1838 a collection of reminiscences of his teacher, co-written with Franz Wegeler. He was also a composer who left eight symphonies, a violin concerto, eight piano concertos and numerous other works in many genres, including 26 string quartets. Of these, the symphonies, some chamber works—most of them with piano—and his piano concertos have been recorded, demonstrating a style which is not surprisingly somewhere between that of the Classic and early Romantic eras.

The French dissolved the Electoral court of Bonn and disbanded its orchestra, but in the early months of 1803 the penniless Ries managed to reach Vienna, with a letter of introduction to Beethoven, who had received some early instruction at Bonn from Ries's father, Franz Anton. Beethoven took great care of the young man, teaching him piano, sending him to Albrechtsberger for harmony and composition and securing for him positions as piano tutor in aristocratic households in Baden and Silesia. Ries made his public debut as a pianist in July 1804, playing Beethoven's C minor concerto, Op. 37, with his own cadenza, to glowing reviews.