“ On his way thither he stopped at Vienna, where the emperor Joseph II. received him with marked favour, and where he made the acquaintance of Mozart. He reached St Petersburg in 1785, and at once took the direction of the opera, for which he composed many new pieces, besides some very striking sacred music, including a Te Deum for the victory of Ochakov, in which he introduced the firing of real cannon. He remained in Russia until 1801, when his health was so broken that he solicited permission to return. The emperor Alexander dismissed him in 1802 with a liberal pension ”

“ In 1770 he obtained a post in Venice as music master at the Conservatorio dell' Ospedaletto. In 1779 he was elected maestro di cappella at the cathedral of Milan, where he remained until 1784. Here he exercised his true vocation—composing, in addition to at least twenty of his most successful operas, a vast quantity of sacred music for the cathedral, and educating a number of clever pupils, the most distinguished of whom was Cherubini. ”