During the second half of the last century the art of violoncello playing had already very extensively spread throughout Germany and had many more noteworthy representatives than in Italy and France. In the latter country the higher pursuit of music was confined chiefly to Paris, and in Italy, as we have already remarked in a previous paragraph, the opera was most decidedly in the foreground, while there was no great demand for instrumental music. On the contrary, Germany called out more instrumental vigour in order to satisfy the need of good musicians for the numberless Courts. According to Gottlieb Friedrich Krebel’s European genealogical handbook of the year 1770, there were, including the Romaic-German Emperor and the King of Prussia, over two hundred secular and spiritual princes and sovereign counts, the greater number of whom supported Kapelle (bands) or at least chamber music. These persons considered it of utmost importance to have about them not only good violin and wind instrument players, but also capable violoncellists, and consequently more talented young men devoted themselves in Germany to instrumental music, and especially to violoncello playing, than elsewhere. We have already seen that the introduction of the Violoncello from Italy to Germany was by way of Vienna. At least, up to the present time, there are no proofs that the appreciation of this instrument and its reception into the orchestra had taken place sooner in other German places than in the Austrian capital. There was an eager demand for music from the reign of Maximilian I., to which the musical inclinations of the Imperial family contributed. Maximilian II., Ferdinand III., Leopold I., Charles VI., Francis I., and Joseph II., each in his own way, presented to the inhabitants of Vienna a good example as regarded the encouragement of music. Already several decades before the birth of the last-mentioned prince, who himself played the violoncello, this instrument had been naturalised in Vienna as an orchestral instrument. Under his reign, after the advent of Franciscello, whose performances gave an impulse to emulation, Vienna was already in possession of some remarkable solo cellists. To them belong the two SCHINDLÖKERS and JOSEPH WEIGL, who have already been mentioned, as well as JOHANN HOFFMANN, member of the Court band, MARTEAU, HAUER, and KÜFFEL;[75] somewhat later followed the cellists CAJETAN, GOTTLIEB, SCHEIDL, and HAUSCHKA.