Year 1780 (MDCCLXXX) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar.
Pieter Hellendaal (1 April 1721 – 19 April 1799) was an organist and violinist, and one of the most famous composers of Dutch origin in the 18th century. At age 30, he migrated to England where he lived for the last 48 of his 78 years.
Hellendaal was born in Rotterdam. At age 12, with little musical training, Hellendaal was appointed in 1733 as organist for the St. Nicholas church in Utrecht. Four years later, at age 15, he embarked on an educational journey to Italy for six years (1737–1743). For two years of this journey (1740–1742) he studied in Padua with Giuseppe Tartini, the most famous violinist of that time.
Returning in 1742 from Italy to the Netherlands, Hellendaal sometime in 1744-5 completed his first published work, his Six Violin Sonatas. For two years, 1749 until 1751, he continued his musical studies at Leiden University.
In 1752, at age thirty, Hellendaal moved to England where in London he established himself as a prominent composer and violin soloist. He soon made the acquaintance of George Frideric Handel, and in 1754, he helped Handel with a presentation of Acis and Galatea (HWV49a/b). From 1760 to 1762, he made his living expenses by working as the organist for St. Margaret's Church in King's Lynn, Norfolk, a port town about 97 miles north of London.
Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini (Lucca, Italy, February 19, 1743 – Madrid, Spain, May 28, 1805) was an Italian classical era composer and cellist whose music retained a courtly and galante style while he matured somewhat apart from the major European musical centers. Boccherini is most widely known for one particular minuet from his String Quintet in E, Op. 11, No. 5 (G 275), and the Cello Concerto in B flat major (G 482). The latter work was long known in the heavily altered version by German cellist and prolific arranger Friedrich Grützmacher, but has recently been restored to its original version. Boccherini composed several guitar quintets including the "Fandango" which was influenced by Spanish music.
Boccherini was born in Lucca, Italy, into a musical family. At a young age he was sent by his father, a cellist and double bass player, to study in Rome. In 1757 they both went to Vienna where they were employed by the court as musicians in the Burgtheater. In 1761 Boccherini went to Madrid, where he was employed by Infante Luis Antonio of Spain, younger brother of King Charles III. There he flourished under royal patronage, until one day when the King expressed his disapproval at a passage in a new trio, and ordered Boccherini to change it. The composer, no doubt irritated with this intrusion into his art, doubled the passage instead, leading to his immediate dismissal. Then he accompanied Don Luis to Arenas de San Pedro, a little town at the Gredos mountains; there and in the closest town of Candeleda, Boccherini wrote many of his most brilliant works.
Francesco Antonio Vallotti (11 June 1697 – 10 January 1780) was an Italian composer, music theorist, and organist.
He was born in Vercelli. He studied with G. A. Bissone at the church of St. Eusebius, and joined the Franciscan order in 1716. He was ordained as a priest in 1720. In 1722 he became an organist at St. Antonio in Padua, and would eventually become maestro there in 1730, succeeding maestro Calegari, and would hold that position for the next fifty years. Here he would meet and work with another theorist and composer named Giuseppe Tartini. Vallotti died in Padua on 10 January 1780.
Vallotti spent a great deal of thought on the theory of harmony and counterpoint. His theoretical endeavours would culminate in 1779 with the publishing of his 167-page, four volume work, Della scienza teorica e pratica della moderna musica (On the scientific theory and practice of modern music), just before the end of his life.
One of his most frequently cited contributions to theory was his development of a system of Well temperament, known today as Vallotti temperament, which was one of many systems of instrumental tuning for the accommodation of composition in every key.
January 27th, 1756, 8 p.m.: Mozart is born
September 1761: Mozart composes his first minuet
August 28th, 1777: Mozart is dismissed from archiepiscopal service
August 4th, 1782: Mozart gets married to Constanze
May 1st, 1786: Mozart composes "Die Hochzeit des Figaro"
August 11th, 1787: Mozart composes "Eine kleine Nachtmusik"
October 29th, 1787: Mozart composes "Don Giovanni"
1788: The beginning of Mozart's slow illness
January 2th, 1790: The premiere of "Così fan tutte"
January 5th, 1791: Mozart plays his final piano concert
Beginning of December 1791: Mozart is beginning to compose the requiem
December 5th, 1791: Mozart dies shortly before 1 a.m.
1985: Rock singer Falco sings Rock Me Adameus
February 7th, 1989: Rock singer Falco dies in a car crash