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Artist
Franz Paul Grua
19th centurygerman18th century
about
Franz Paul Grua (also: Francesco da Paula Pietragrua ; born February 1, 1753 in Mannheim; died July 5, 1833 in Munich) was a German composer and violinist of the classical period. Franz Paul Grua was a son of the Italian-born musician Carlo Luigi Pietragrua , who worked in the Mannheim court orchestra and gave his son his first lessons in keyboard instruments and thorough bass . He studied composition with Kapellmeister Ignaz Holzbauer and violin with Ignaz Fränzl . A study trip led Grua to Bologna in 1777, to the important composer and music theorist Padre Martini and to Tommaso Traetta in Parma. After his return from Italy, the Mannheim and Munich court orchestras were merged and Grua became vice-kapellmeister under Andrea Bernasconi. After Bernasconi's death in 1784, Grua was given the position of court music director, on an equal footing with Georg Joseph Vogler, also known as Abbé Vogler. Grua composed more than 200 works, mostly sacred music in his later years, including 31 Masses, 3 Requiem, 3 Te Deum, Stabat Mater, 9 Tantum ergo and numerous other works. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart gave a negative verdict after attending a mass, he wrote to his father in November 1780: "one can easily compose half a dozen of this genre every day". User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.