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.
