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Prolific German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist who dominated 18th-century European music. Telemann produced over 3,000 compositions spanning sacred cantatas, operas, orchestral suites, and chamber works. Self-taught, he held key positions in Leipzig, Eisenach, Frankfurt, and Hamburg. Despite family opposition to his musical career, he became Europe's most celebrated composer during his lifetime, influencing contemporaries like Bach and Handel.

• Telemann's mother confiscated his instruments and forbade music study after his father's death, forcing him to compose secretly as a teenager.
• He survived a near-fatal shipwreck in 1705 while traveling to Sorau, later composing the orchestral suite 'Wassermusik' possibly inspired by this trauma.
• His second marriage to Maria Catherina Textor ended disastrously when she accumulated massive gambling debts and fled Hamburg in 1736, leaving Telemann bankrupt.
• Despite being offered J.S. Bach's position in Leipzig in 1722, Telemann declined and recommended Bach after securing better pay as Hamburg's Musikdirektor.
• He died of a 'chest ailment' (likely pneumonia) in 1767 after decades of declining health, having outlived both Bach and Handel.