Karl Stamitz who later changed his given name to Carl, was a German composer of partial Czech ancestry (his mother was German), and a violin, viola and viola d'amore virtuoso. He was the most prominent representative of the second generation of the so-called Mannheim School. Carl Stamitz 1789. He was the first composer to specify a left-hand pizzicato (an important virtuoso device) in a composition. This occurs in his famous Viola Concerto in D major where the passage in question is designated by an "0" above the notes. This happened decades before Paganini would designate the same effect with an "X" above the notes.