A pupil of Vanhal and then, in 1772, of Joseph Haydn in Eisenstadt, Ignace Joseph Pleyel was encouraged by the patronage of Count Erdödy. He travelled in Italy in the 1780s, and from about 1784 served as assistant and then Kapellmeister of Strasbourg Cathedral. Following the outbreak of the French Revolution he moved in 1791 to London for a season, his presence coinciding with that of Haydn. He returned to a newly acquired property near Strasbourg but in 1795 moved to Paris, where he set up a music publishing business and shop. The former came to an end in 1834. In 1807 he established a piano manufacturing business, continued by his son Camille Pleyel; the firm had a distinguished recital hall, the Salle Pleyel.

Instrumental and Vocal Music
Pleyel was a prolific composer, with a quantity of symphonies, symphonies concertantes and concertos to his credit. He wrote a similar quantity of chamber music, music for piano and for harp, two Mass settings and a Requiem, and, for George Thomson in Edinburgh, arrangements of 32 Scottish songs. Mozart, usually sparing in his praise, found Pleyel’s string quartets pleasing and worthy of Pleyel’s teacher, Haydn.