LEFEVRE, Jean Xavier (1763-1829) - Quatrième concerto pour clarinette

Jean Xavier Lefèvre (1763-1829) - Quatrième concerto pour clarinette

Dedié à Monsieur A. Bronice... Exécuté par l'auteur, au théâtre des arts... [en si b] (1797)

Performers: Eduаrd Brunnеr (1939-2017, clarinet); Munіch Chamber Orchestra; Reinhard Goebel (conductor)

Painting: Johann Heinrich Bleuler Jr. (1787-1857) - Lausanne, Montbenon

Further info: Concertos pour Clarinette

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Jean (Giovanni) Xavier Lefèvre [Lefèbvre, Lefévre, Le Févre, Lefévre]

(Lausanne, 6 March 1763 - Paris, 9 November 1829)

French clarinettist and composer of Swiss birth. He studied the clarinet with Michel Yost in Paris, joined the Gardes Françaises in 1778 and was a member of the Garde National from 1789 to 1795. Between 1783 and 1791 he performed at the Concert Spirituel; he also played in the Opéra orchestra from 1791 to 1817 and was principal clarinettist in the Imperial Chapel (later the Royal Chapel) from 1807 until 1829. In 1814 he was made Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. Lefèvre taught at the Paris Conservatoire from its foundation (1795) until 1824. Many of his pupils became well-known performers and composers including César Jannsen, Claude-Gabriel Péchignier, Claude François Buteux and Bernhard Crusell. His thorough 'Méthode de clarinette' (1802) was used there for many years, and translated into German and Italian. He was the first to use the now standard range from e to c'''' and trill fingerings from e to e''', and played with the reed against the upper lip. His compositions include concertos, symphonies concertantes and chamber music, all of which use the clarinet prominently. Lefèvre noted in his method that he had the Parisian maker Jean-Jacques Baumann add a c '/g '' key to the standard five-keyed clarinet; this happened in about 1790, although the fingering chart in the method was intended for a five-key instrument. It was added to clarinets during the early 19th century by the use of a pillar attached to a metal base by Baumann, Simiot and other French makers. It is not known whether Lefèvre was related to the woodwind maker François Lefèvre (?-1856) or to Lefèvre of Nantes, a manufacturer of clarinet mouthpieces during the first half of the 19th century.

ZOMB, František Xaver (1779-1823) - Vesperae Cassovienses

František Xaver Zomb (1779-1823) - Vesperae Cassovienses

Painting: Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691-1765) - The Pool at Bethesda

Performers: Livia Aghοvá (soprano); Marta Bеňačkοvá (alto); Ludovit Ludhа (tenor); Peter Mіkulás (bass);

Spevácky zbor mesta Bratislavy; Statna filharmónia Kosice; Richard Zimmеr (conductor)

Further info: Zomb - Missa Brevis & Vesperae

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František Xaver Zomb

(Košice, 9 November 1779 - Košice, 20 December 1823)

Slovakian composer and teacher. Almost nothing is known about his life. He was mainly active as a regens chori, teacher and composer in his hometown. In 1819 he was appointed choirmaster at the Košice Cathedral in a post he held the rest of his life. He was also documented as music critic to the 'Allgmeine musikalische Zeitung' in Leipzig and Vienna. As a composer, he mainly focused on sacred music, among them, a collection of ten masses from 1812 and a set of Vespers.

KALKBRENNER, Friedrich (1784-1849) - Grande Sonate Brillante (c.1840)

Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1784-1849) - Grande Sonate Brillante Pour le Piano ... 

Dediée à Mr. Sigismond Thalberg, Op: 177 (c.1840)

Performers: Adrian Ruiz (piano)

Drawing: Henri Grevedon (1776-1860) - Portrait of Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1829)

Further info: Thalberg - Grande Sonate & Friedrich Kalkbrenner - Grande Sonate Brillante

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Friedrich (Frédéric) (Wilhelm Michael) Kalkbrenner

(Kassel, 7 November 1785 - Enghien-les-Bains, 10 June 1849)

German pianist, teacher and composer. He was born while his parents were en route from Kassel to Berlin. His father, Christian Kalkbrenner (1755-1806), of Jewish extraction, was a professional musician of some repute, whose own inflated sense of self-worth led him in 1803 not only to re-arrange Mozart’s Don Giovanni for the Parisian theatre but to interpolate fresh pieces into the opera. Soon after Friedrich’s birth, Christian Kalkbrenner was appointed choirmaster at the Prussian Court (1788) and subsequently (1790-96) for Prince Heinrich, brother of Frederick II 'The Great', at his castle at Rheinsberg. It was in this exotic environment that the young Kalkbrenner grew up. By the age of five-and-a-half he was advanced enough to play a Jospeh Haydn concerto before the Queen of Prussia. At eight, he spoke four languages fluently. Having abandoned Germany in 1796, the Kalkbrenners travelled through Italy for two years, before visiting Vienna where, it is said, young Friedrich was among the violinists in the first performance of Joseph Haydn’s The Creation in March 1799. His father, having procured an engagement as choirmaster at the Paris Opéra, enrolled his son in the Conservatoire. Here he studied from 1799 to 1801 with Louis Adam and František Nicodami (piano) and Charles-Simon Catel (harmony), winning first prizes for piano and composition in a ceremony graced by the presence of Napoleon. Introduced by Joseph Haydn to Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, he studied counterpoint in Vienna from 1803, striking up a warm friendship with Johann Nepomuk Hummel and passing his leisure time in the company of Ludwig van Beethoven and Muzio Clementi. The latter made a deep impression on him and he remained a firm adherent of Clementi’s methods for the rest of his life. Kalkbrenner plunged into a dazzling career as a soloist, but only for a short while. 

His father’s death in 1806 affected him profoundly and, for several years, he turned his back on music, buying an estate at Praslin where, in the company of an unidentified lady, he turned his attention to agriculture. The estate speedily doubled in value. Unluckily, his banker became bankrupt and Kalkbrenner sailed for England in 1814 in an attempt to recover his losses. Having opened his musical campaign in Bath, he settled in London where he lived for the next ten years. His success as a pianist and teacher was extraordinary. Pupils flocked to him (at a guinea for forty minutes, his fee was the highest in the capital); and in 1818 he added to his considerable earning power by buying into an invention called the 'Chiroplast'. Dreamt up by a German emigrant musician, Johann Logier, this contraption had two parallel mahogany rails attached to the instrument in front of the keyboard to restrict extreme vertical motion of the wrists and forearm. Kalkbrenner brought out his own simplified version, his 'Guide-Mains'. It was said to be still available in England as late as the 1870s. Among those he put to work on it was his pupil Camille Stamaty, who in turn introduced it to his pupils Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Camille Saint-Saëns. The latter spoke up in favour of its use for 'forming the young pianist in the execution of works written for the clavecin and earliest pianofortes, of which the notes spoke without effort on the player’s part'. With his fortune and ego substantially inflated, Kalkbrenner returned to Paris in 1824 where he became a partner in the firm of Camille Pleyel, 'a man famous for his pianos and his wife’s adventures' as one contemporary wag put it. Here he remained as a fashionable teacher and successful pianist until his death. 'After my death or when I stop playing', he informed Frédéric Chopin, 'there will be no representative of the great pianoforte school'. 

MENAULT, Pierre (c.1642-1694) - Magnificat Anima Mea (1693)

Pierre Menault (c.1642-1694) - Magnificat Anima Mea

des 'Vespres à deux chœurs, avec symphonies' (1693)

Performers: Arsys; La Fenice; Jean Tubéry (conductor)

Painting: Circle of Jacques-François Courtin (1672-1752) - Elegant Women Playing Music

Further info: Vepres pour le Pere la Chaize

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Pierre (Richard) Menault

(Beaune, c.1642 - Dijon, 1694)

French composer. He attended the choir school of the collegiate church of Notre Dame, Beaune, from 1650 to 1660 and was taught by Jacques Huyn, the 'maître de chapelle', and Claude Chardenet, the organist. He was appointed 'maître de musique' at Châlons-sur-Marne Cathedral, and he then occupied the same post in the collegiate church of his native city from 1671 to 1676. He was back in Châlons-sur-Marne from 1676 to 1687. In 1683 he took part in the competition for the appointment of 'sous-maîtres' to the royal chapel at Versailles, but he did not get past the first round. He ended his career in Dijon, where he became choirmaster of the large collegiate church of St Etienne. The works by Menault which have come down to us were published by Christophe Ballard between 1676 and 1693. The five Masses are in the old Franco-Flemish style and, like many others of the period, use the same head-motif at the beginning of several sections. The 'Vespres à deux chœurs, avec symphonies' (1693) is ambitious in both its dimensions (five psalms, antiphons and motets) and its scoring (for few voices, strings, organ and continuo).

ALBERTINI, Thomas Anton (c.1660-1736) - Entrée à 10 (1694)

Thomas Anton Albertini (c.1660-1736) - ENTREE. | à 10 |

2- Hautbois | 2- Clarini: | 2- Violin: | 2- Violi | Violone et Fagotto (1694)

Performers: Societas Incognitorum; Eduard Tomaštík (conductor)

Painting: Jan Peeter Verdussen (1700-1763) - A Military Encampment, Depicting the Household Cavalry of The duke of Savoy (1744-1745) with a Standard Bearer and Horses by a Tent

Further info: Music of the Kappelmeisters at St. Wenceslas' cathedral in Olomouc

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Thomas Anton Albertini

(c.1660 - Olomouc, 3 October 1736)

German composer. Nothing is known of his early years. After 1690 he came to Olomouc from Vienna and entered the services of the Olomouc chapter. In 1691 he was appointed chapel master at the cathedral after Philipp Jakob Rittler death. In 1696 he married Magdalena Cecilie Zindel, daughter of the cathedral organist. Although his salary was raised from 100 to 300 florins by 1702, he complained throughout his life of the low pay and engaged in continual battles with the chapter, which refused to meet his demands and blamed him for the decline of music in the cathedral. In 1708 he requested special leave to perform his compositions before the Emperor Joseph I in Vienna; he overstayed his leave and the chapter gave him notice, which was revoked only after the emperor’s direct intervention. In spite of perpetually strained relations with the chapter he remained in his post until his death. As a composer, all that survive of his extensive works are two orchestral suites from the year 1694, dedicated to the Bishop Liechtenstein-Kastelcorn, a pastoral sonata for strings, a Mass and a Te Deum. He was probably related to the Ignaz Albertini who applied for a musical post in Olomouc as early as 1671. His son Reymund Albertini (1701-?) was a musician in the orchestra of Count Rottal in Holešov (c.1734-37) and later with Count Leopold Dietrichstein in Brno.