divendres, 18 de juliol del 2025

BRESCIANELLO, Giuseppe Antonio (1690-1758) - Sinfonia à 4 (1738)

Maximiliaan Blommaert (fl. c.1696) - The private concert


Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello (1690-1758) - Sinfonia à 4 in g-moll, Opera I (1738)
Performers: Ensemble Barocco Sаns Sοuci

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Italian violinist and composer. He first appears in documents when in 1715 the Elector of Bavaria brought him from Venice to Munich as a violinist. In October 1716, after the death of his predecessor Pez, he became musique directeur, maître des concerts de la chambre at the Württemberg court in Stuttgart, and in 1717 chief Kapellmeister. Between 1717 and 1718 he wrote the pastoral opera La Tisbe, which he dedicated to his employer Archduke Eberhard Ludwig. Hoping this opera would be produced at the Stuttgart Opera, Brescianello wrote in his Präparationen that he had suited its melodies to the theatre taste: but that did not gain him a performance. From 1719 to 1721 he had to face heated battles with his rival Reinhard Keiser, who sought unsuccessfully for Brescianello’s position. In 1731 Brescianello became Rath und Oberkapellmeister. When the court’s finances collapsed in 1737, the Stuttgart opera troupe was dissolved and Brescianello lost his post, which spurred him on to increased activity as a composer. In 1738 (according to EitnerQ) he wrote 12 concerti e sinphonie op.1 and other works, and somewhat later ‘18 Piecen fürs Gallichone’. When the regency of the generous artistic patron Duke Carl Eugen began in 1744, Brescianello was reinstated as Oberkapellmeister ‘on account of his particular knowledge of music and excellent competence’, and until his retirement he brought the opera and court music to renewed fame. He was pensioned off on 29 November 1751 according to Sittard, on St James’s Day 1755 according to other sources. His successor was Ignaz Holzbauer, then Jommelli. In his two decades as Kapellmeister, Brescianello helped to put his stamp on the musical life of Stuttgart and Ludwigsburg. His importance lies in his compositions, which mainly follow the conventions of his time (sequences and imitations, influences of the galant style, generally in loosened suite form). Apart from Tisbe, two cantatas and a mass (occasional and commissioned works), Brescianello wrote mainly chamber music using the violin, with which he was most acquainted through his training as a violinist: these works are thus among his most successful. 

dimecres, 16 de juliol del 2025

HEINICHEN, Johann David (1683-1729) - Concerto à 7

Christophe Huet (1700-1759) - Singerie The Dance (c.1739)


Johann David Heinichen (1683-1729) - Concerto (G-Dur) à 7, SeiH 215
Performers: Accademia Bizantina

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German composer and theorist. He was the son of David Heinichen who, after an education at Leipzig's Thomasschule and the university, moved to Krössuln for a lifelong career as pastor. Johann David also attended the Thomasschule Leipzig. There he studied music with Johann Schelle and later received organ and harpsichord lessons with Johann Kuhnau. The future composer Christoph Graupner was also a student of Kuhnau at the time. Heinichen enrolled in 1702 to study law at the University of Leipzig and in 1705-06 qualified as a lawyer (in the early 18th century the law was a favored route for composers; Kuhnau, Graupner and Georg Philipp Telemann were also lawyers). Heinichen practiced law in Weissenfels until 1709. However, Heinichen maintained his interest in music and was concurrently composing operas. In 1710, he published the first edition of his major treatise on the thoroughbass. He went to Italy and spent seven formative years there, mostly in Venice, with great success with two operas, Mario and Le passioni per troppo amore (1713). Mario was staged again in Hamburg in 1716 with the German title, Calpurnia, oder die romische Grossmut. In 1712, he taught music to Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, who took him as composer. The same prince would appoint Johann Sebastian Bach Kapellmeister at the end of 1717. In 1716, Heinichen met in Venice Prince Augustus III of Poland, son of King Augustus II the Strong, and thanks to him was appointed the Royal-Polish and Electoral-Saxon Kapellmeister in Dresden. His pupils included Johann Georg Pisendel. In 1721, Heinichen married in Weissenfels; the birth of his only child is recorded as January 1723. In his final years, Heinichen's health suffered greatly; on the afternoon of 16 July 1729, he was buried in the Johannes cemetery after finally succumbing to tuberculosis.

dilluns, 14 de juliol del 2025

ALBICASTRO, Henricus (1661-1730) - Concerti à quatro (1704)

Circle of Jan Miense Molenaer (1610-1668) - A musical gathering


Henricus Albicastro (1661-1730) - Concerti (V, g-moll) à quatro, opera settima (1704)
Performers: Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin; Julian Doyle (conductor)

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German composer and violinist. In 1686, he moved to Leiden, in the Netherlands, where he registered at the University of Leiden as a Musicus Academiae, but his name does not appear in the university's archives. In 1696, a collection of twelve of his trio sonatas appeared, entitled 'Il giardino armonico sacro-profano'. Edited by François Barbry, it was published in Bruges by François van Heurck; no copies of the last six, or of Albicastro's opus 1 or opus 2 from Bruges seem to have survived. In Amsterdam a separate set of opus numbers were published by Estienne Roger: collections of violin sonatas (Opp. 2, 3, 5, 6 and 9), trio sonatas (Opp. 1, 4 and 8), and string concertos (Op. 7) in a Corellian idiom. During the last phases of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713), he served as a captain of cavalry. He remained active in this position until 1730, when he died in Maastricht. One source erroneously suggests he may have died in 1738. 

diumenge, 13 de juliol del 2025

Gessel (18th Century) - Vater ich will daß wo ich bin

Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674) - The Adoration of the Shepherds


Gessel (18th Century) - Festo Ascensionis Christi | Vater, ich will, daß wo ich bin, auch die
Performers: Bettina Ranch (alto); Stefan Geyer (bass); Goldberg Baroque Ensemble;
Andrzej Mikołaj Szadejko (conductor)

divendres, 11 de juliol del 2025

DE NEBRA, José (1702-1768) - Sinfonía Octava

Circle of Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743) - A fête champetre


José de Nebra (1702-1768) - Sinfonía Octava en Do mayor
Performers: Los Elementos

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Spanish composer and organist. Born to a family of musicians, he began his musical training under his father José Antonio Nebra (1672-1748), who had settled in Cuenca as cathedral organist and teacher of the choirboys (1711-1729) and later became maestro de capilla (1729-1748). In 1719 José de Nebra became organist at the convent of Descalzas. In 1722 he served in the Osuna household as a musician, and in 1724 he was appointed as one of the organists of the royal chapel in Madrid. By 1751 he had become vice-maestro and a teacher at the Colegio de niños cantores, later serving at the Jeronimos convent as organist. His students include Antonio Soler. Nebra’s focus as a composer was on native Spanish stage works, including the autos sacramentales, zarzuelas, and comedias. His music includes 21 autos sacramentales, 51 theatre works, 40 villancicos, 10 versos, 16 keyboard sonatas, two Masses, 18 Lamentations, four vespers, 16 Salve Reginas, a Requiem, 23 Psalms, 22 hymns, 21 responsories, toccatas, and a number of smaller sacred works. His two brothers were also musicians: Francisco Javier Nebra (1705-1741) was organist at La Seo, Zaragoza (1727-1729) and then in Cuenca (1729-1741), and Joaquín Nebra (1709-1782) was organist at La Seo, Zaragoza, from 1730 until his death. His nephew Manuel de Nebra Blasco (1750-1784) was an organist and composer.