BELISSEN, Laurent (1693-1762) - Laudate Pueri

Laurent Belissen (1693-1762) - Laudate Pueri | Motet a grand choeur et Simp. e | Par M.r. Belissen. | Maitre de Musique du Concert de Marseille | & de L'abbaye de Saint Victor de la Meme Ville

Performers: Les Festes D'Orphée; Guy Laurent (conductor)

Painting: Gérard de Lairesse (1641-1711) - The Marriage Feast of Peleus and Thetis

Further info: Grands Motets en Provence

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Laurent Belissen [Bellissen, Bellissens]

(Aix-en-Provence, 8 Aug 1693 - Marseilles, 15 July 1762)

French composer. His home was near the Cathedral of St Sauveur in Aix; although there is no evidence that he was admitted to the choir school, he was probably one of the last composers to study with Guillaume Poitevin, maître de musique there. By 1722 Belissen was in Marseilles, where he made his career. He followed Blanchard as maître de musique at the Abbey of St Victor, and held this position for the rest of his life, also directing the Académie de Concerts in Marseilles. Many of Belissen's works are lost or in uncatalogued collections. The extant works, principally grands motets, reveal a style markedly different from the Versailles motets of Lalande, Campra and Mondonville. Belissen preferred a four-voice texture to the five-voice one popular with the Versailles composers. His choral style combines French and Italian characteristics: his choral fugues are highly developed and repeat the text continuously in the Italian manner. His orchestral treatment in the motets also reflects Italian practices, with the use of ritornello passages as an important articulatory device.

TITZ, Anton Ferdinand (1742-1810) - Sinfonia in C-Dur

Anton Ferdinand Titz (1742-1810) - Sinfonia in C-Dur

Performers: Pratum Integrum Orchestra

Drawing: Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) - A Musical Family (1802)

Further info: Instrumental Music

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Anton (August) Ferdinand Titz [Tietz, Dietz, Dietzsch]

(Nuremberg, 1742 - St Petersburg, 25 December 1810)

German violinist and composer. He was orphaned at an early age and was taught painting in Nuremberg by his uncle and aunt. By the age of 16 he was a violinist at St Sebaldus’s church there. After an unhappy love affair a few years later he went to Vienna, where he played in the opera orchestra and may have studied with Joseph Haydn. In 1771 he became a member of the Hofkapelle in St Petersburg; Catherine the Great paid him the highest salary of any of her court musicians. He also taught at the theatre school, gave the future Tsar Aleksandr I violin lessons, directed a court chamber orchestra (which included the clarinettist Joseph Beer and other outstanding musicians), and performed publicly, for instance in 1782, but most of his performances were at court, as a violinist and viola d'amore player. Later in life he suffered a mental disorder that sometimes prevented him from working, but he was encouraged and protected by Senator Aleksey Grigoryevich Teplov, a St Petersburg amateur musician. He dedicated three string quartets to Teplov and three more to Aleksandr I. Ludwig Spohr remarked in 1803 that his former technique, noted particularly for sensitivity in adagios, had largely vanished. His salon cantata, 'Le pigeon bleu et noir gémit', was a favorite with private audiences in St. Petersburg on into the 19th century. Anton Ferdinand Titz established a reputation in Europe for his development of the string quartet, of which he composed 18. Other works include 11 violin sonatas, 10 string quintets, three duos for two violins, a symphony, and a violin concerto. Other works composed for the Russian court have been lost. He has often been confused with the Dresden violinist Ludwig Tietz (1774-1827).

HERNANDEZ Y LLANA, Francisco (c.1700-1780) - Cantada de Navidad (1765)

Francisco Hernandez y Llana (c.1700-1780) - Aria 'Barbaro' de la Cantada de Navidad 'Allende el orbe' (1765)

Performers: Mariví Blasco (soprano); Harmonia del Parnàs; Marian Rosa Montagut (conductor)

Painting: Franz Carl Remp (1675-1718) - Der Tanz um das goldene Kalb

Further info: Bárbaro

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Francisco Hernández y Llana [Yllana, Illana]

(Alzira, c.1700 - Burgos, 9 May 1780)

Spanish composer. Originated from Lubiano (Álava), he was born in Alzira (Valencia). He began his career in 1723 upon being appointed maestro de capilla at Astorga Cathedral, during which time he also made unsuccessful attempts to secure the post at Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in 1723 and 1724. He subsequently moved to Valencia in 1728 to serve at the Royal College Seminary of Corpus Christi (El Patriarca), before being appointed maestro de capilla at Burgos Cathedral in 1729, a prestigious position he held for over five decades until his death. As a composer, he cultivated a vast repertoire primarily dedicated to sacred music, characterized by liturgical works and vernacular compositions; notably, his surviving output includes sacred pieces housed across his former places of employment (Astorga, El Patriarca, and Burgos) as well as archives in El Escorial, Segorbe, and Arantzazu (which preserves three Spanish-texted religious works), alongside nine instrumental recercadas preserved at El Patriarca. 

PEREYRA DA COSTA, Antonio (c.1697-1770) - Concerto grosso (1741)

Antonio Pereyra da Costa (c.1697-1770) - Concerto grosso (b-moll) 'Concertos grossos com doys violins, e violão de concertinho obrigados: e outros doys violins, viola e orgão, de concerto grosso a arbitrio

... opera premeira' (1741)

Performers: Ensemble Bonne Corde; Diana Vinagre (conductor)

Painting: Jan Josef Horemans (1682-1759) - A park landscape with a musical party outside an Italianate villa

Further info: Concerti Grossi

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Antonio Pereyra da Costa [Pereira da Costa]

(Funchal, c.1697 - Funchal, 14 April 1770)

Portuguese composer and priest. His early years are unknown. He served as the mestre de capela at the Cathedral of Funchal in Madeira from around 1740 until his death. While contemporary accounts, such as the 1750 Gazeta de Lisboa, attest to his composition of vocal works for regional religious observances, his enduring musicological significance rests upon his surviving Opus 1, a collection of twelve concerti grossi (1741). This corpus constitutes a critical milestone in Iberian music history, representing both the sole extant set of 18th-century concerti grossi of Portuguese provenance and the first printed musical publication by a Madeira-based musician. Stylistically, Pereira da Costa’s instrumental work demonstrates a rigorous mastery of the Corellian Italianate structural model, which he innovatively synthesized with distinct Iberian melodic and rhythmic idioms to produce a highly localized and vibrant expression of the late Baroque aesthetic. He also published 12 Serenatas for the Guitar (London, c.1755).

MÜLLER, Johann Kasper (1743-1804) - Magnificat

Johann Kasper Müller (1743-1804) - Magnificat aus 'Vesperae ex C'

Performers: Cantus et Musica Freiburg; Raimund Hug (conductor)

Painting: Francesco Panini (1745-1812) - Innenansicht von St. Peter in Rom mit päpstlicher Prozession

Further info: Freiburger Kirchenmusik des 18

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Johann Kasper Müller [Muller]

(1743 - Freiburg?, 1804)

German composer. Nothing is known of his life and career. He was probably active as a composer in Freiburg im Breisgau. He presumably served as a parochial organist or Kapellmeister, contributing functional sacred repertoire to the Catholic liturgical traditions of southwestern Germany. While much of his output remains lost, his legacy rests upon a recently recovered collection of Vesperae ex C. This extant manuscript offers insight into regional sacred composition, demonstrating a conservative yet refined adherence to late 18th Century choral counterpoint and homophonic textures characteristic of the southern German church style.