GORCZYCKI, Grzegorz Gerwazy (c.1665-1734) - Missa Rorate Coeli

Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki (c.1665-1734) - Missa Rorate Coeli

Performers: Aldona Bartnik (soprano); Matthew Venner (alto); Maciej Gocman (tenor); Tomáš Král (bass);

Andrzej Kosendiak (conductor)

Painting: Marcin Zaleski (1796-1877) - Wnetrze kosciola OO.Dominikanów w Krakowie (1849)

Further info: Gorczycki - Sacred music

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Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki [Gorczyca, Gorczyce, Gorzzyski]

(Rozbark, c.1665 - Kraków, 30 April 1734)

Polish composer. He studied philosophy at Prague University from about 1678 to 1683, and then theology at Vienna University until 1689. At the beginning of 1690 at the latest, he moved to Kraków, where he was ordained in spring 1692. Soon afterwards he was appointed professor at the Congregatio Missionis at Chełmno, Pomerania; one of his duties there was to direct the music in the chapel. In 1694 he returned to Kraków and became a curate and from 1696 the penitentiary of Wawel Cathedral. He was composing by this time, since one of his works, 'Tota pulchra es, Maria', is dated 1694. In 1698 he was made director of music at Wawel Cathedral, a position that he retained until his death. From 1702 he was also a senior member of the chapel of the Angelists at the cathedral. In 1705 he became canon of the collegiate church of Skalbmierz and from about 1720 parish priest of one of the Kraków churches. He conducted the Wawel chapel at the coronation of the Elector August III of Saxony at Kraków on 17 January 1734, and died shortly afterwards. He was mainly a composer of liturgical music to Latin texts. He was long remembered, particularly in Kraków.

SALULINI, Paolo (1709-1780) - Concerto con Saltero (1751)

Paolo Salulini (1709-1780) - Concerto (Sol maggiore) con Saltero e VV. (1751)

Performers: Karl-Heinz Schickhaus (1938-2007, dulcimer); Münchener Kammerorchester;

Hans Stadlmair (1929-2019, conductor)

Painting: Carlo Lodi (1701-1765) & Antonio Rossi (1700-1753) - Telemaco vede mentore trasformarsi in Minerva

Further info: Concerto Con Salterio

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Paolo Salulini

(Siena, 1709 - Siena, 1780)

Italian composer. He received his initial musical training in Siena under 'Il Cavaliere de la Cioja' before undertaking advanced studies with Padre Giovanni Battista Martini at the Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna. Following his education, he returned to Siena, serving for several years as principal violinist of the opera orchestra. On 5 May 1765, he was appointed maestro di cappella at Siena Cathedral, a position he held until his death. During his fifteen-year tenure at the cathedral, he produced an extensive body of sacred music, including a complete annual cycle of modern-style orchestral services for Sundays and feast days. Among his liturgical works, his Requiem Mass for Emperor Francis I (1765) is particularly noted for its structural and counterpuntal merit. Although his sacred output remains largely unstudied, he is occasionally remembered for his secular instrumental output, notably a 'Concerto con Saltero' (1751).

SALIERI, Antonio (1750-1825) - Serenade in F-Dur (c.1773)

Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) - Serenade in F-Dur (c.1773)

Performers: Heidelberger Sinfoniker; Timo Jouko Herrmann (conductor)

Painting: Jacques François Joseph Swebach (1769-1823) - Halte de cavaliers dans un paysage vallonné

Further info: Salieri - Strictly Private

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Antonio (Anton) Salieri [Saliori]

(Legnago, 18 August 1750 - Vienna, 7 May 1825)

Italian composer, mainly active in Vienna. After studying with his brother Francesco Salieri, he received further education from Giuseppe Simone, a student of Padre Giovanni Battista Martini. After the deaths of his parents between 1763 and 1765, he was taken as a protégé by Giovanni Mocenjo in Venice. There he continued his studies with Giovanni Pescetti and Ferdinando Pacini until 1765. The following year he was taken by Florian Gassmann to Vienna, where in 1770 his first operas were performed. In 1778 he returned to Italy and succeeded in establishing a reputation for his works for the stage, and upon his return to Vienna in 1780 he wrote a German Singspiel, Der Rauchfangskehrer, for his newly emerging national theatre. Thereafter Christoph Willibald von Gluck took him on as a disciple, allowing him secretly to compose Les Danaïdes for Paris. This and work as a tutor to the royal family allowed him to be appointed as hofKapellmeister in 1788. By 1790 he began to withdraw from active duty, leaving much of the work to his student, Joseph Weigl, and although he had a revived career as an opera composer a few years later, his last work, Die Neger, was written in 1804. As a teacher, Salieri had numerous pupils who made major contributions to the world of music, including Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert. For many years he was the head of the Tonkünstlersozietät and in 1815 was responsible for programming the music that accompanied the Treaty of Vienna conference. Although his reputation has suffered through mostly unfounded rumors of his relationship with Mozart, he must be considered one of the main composers of the entire era. His music demonstrates good orchestrational skill, dramatic use of harmony, excellent attention to form, and a good grasp of theoretical principles. A prolific composer, his works include 41 operas, five oratorios, five Masses, two Requiems, 13 graduals, 31 offertories, 18 introits, seven Psalms, 10 hymns, 12 motets, 17 choruses, 96 insertion or concert arias, 13 secular cantatas, 180 canons, 20 vocal quartets, 70 vocal trios, 50 vocal duets, 45 songs, five ballets, four symphonies, seven concertos and sinfonia concertantes, five serenades, and a large amount of smaller chamber works. He cataloged his own sacred music around 1817, but his works have been cataloged according to A numbers.

FOCKING, Hendrik (1747-1796) - Sonata pour la flûte traverse

Hendrik Focking (1747-1796) - Sonata in D-Dur des

'VI Sonates pour la flûte traverse solo avec une basse continuo ... œuvre première'

Performers: Wilbert Hazelzet (traverso); Amsterdams Barok Ensemble

Drawing: Pierre Fouquet (1753-1799) - Gezicht op het Stadhuis, de Nieuwe Kerk en de Waag op de Dam te Amsterdam

Further info: Music from the Netherlands

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Hendrik Focking

(Danzig, 17 August 1747 - Amsterdam, 7 April 1796)

Dutch composer, organist and carillonneur. His parents were Mennonites from Haarlem who lived in Danzig from 1739 to 1752, when they moved to Amsterdam. He was blind, and it may be assumed that he received his musical instruction from the blind organist Jacob Potholt. From 1769 until his death he was carillonneur at the Oude Kerk and the Regulierstoren (now Munttoren), Amsterdam. In 1780 he became organist of one of the Mennonite communities in Amsterdam, the one usually called ‘bij het Lam en bij de Toren’, after the locations of its churches. Focking taught the well-known blind Amsterdam organist and carillonneur Daniël Brachthuyzer (1779-1832). His only known compositions are the 'VI sonates pour le flute traverse solo, avec une basse continuo, oeuvre première'. They follow the pattern of the mid-18th-century three-movement solo sonata and their style resembles that of North German composers. They were published privately by the composer, lack a dedication and are undated. His son Cornelis Focking (1770-?) was also an organist.

BUTNER, Crato (1616-1679) - Te Deum Laudamus (1662)

Crato Bütner (1616-1679) - TE DEUM LAUDAMUS: ... 12. Vocibus & 8. Instrumentis binisq; Tubis & Tympano, | unà cum | BASSO CONTINUO PRO ORGANO ... | ANNO M DC LXII. (1662)

Performers: Cappella Gedanensis; Alina Kowalska-Pinczak (Conductor)

Painting: Neapolitan school (18th century) - The Pool of Bethesda

Further info: Te Deum Laudamus

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Crato (Cratone) Bütner [Büthner, Bytner, Buthnerus et al.]

(Gotha or Sonneberg, 1616 - Danzig, 1679)

German composer and organist. Nothing is know of his early years. From 1650 he was organist of St Saviour, on the outskirts of Danzig. He soon became Kantor and director of music at St Catherine; according to Hermann Rauschning he was appointed in 1652, though he still described himself as organist of St Saviour in publications up to 1654. In both parishes he was required to teach in schools, and as director of music at St Catherine he could rely on the services on average of eight instrumentalists and six singers. It was to his directorship that the church owed its prominent position in the musical life of Danzig. Evidence of Bütner's activities and of the extensive and varied cultivation of music in the Danzig of his day was afforded by a collection of printed music, consisting of some 150 pieces, both instrumental and vocal, by Italian, Polish and German composers and including over 50 sacred vocal works by Bütner himself. His numerous surviving works are very varied both in their forms and in the forces for which they are scored, some of the latter being substantial. Most of them are Lutheran settings of German words which introduced the sacred concerto to Danzig. Typical features of his music include short-winded motivic writing, simple harmony, a quick succession of short, compressed sections and the setting off against each other of homophonic groups of voices. The style of his music, even if it is somewhat inexpressive, was something quite new in Danzig.