Spontini, Gasparo Luigi Pacifico 1774-1851
Italian composer

Born near Ancona, he was intended, like his brothers, for the priesthood, but determined to follow a musical career. He studied at Naples, where he began to compose. In 1803 he settled in Paris, and his operas La Vestale (1807, 'The Vestal Virgin') and Ferdinand Cortez (1809) were greeted with enthusiasm. He was conductor at the Berlin Court Opera from 1820 to 1842, and caused much hostility by favouring Italian works at the expense of the newer works in German, despite his own Agnes von Hohenstaufen (1829).