Un portal on escoltar i gaudir de l'art musical dels segles XVI, XVII, XVIII i XIX. Compartir la bellesa de la música és l'objectiu d'aquest espai i fer-ho donant a conèixer obres de compositors molt o poc coneguts és el mètode.
Leopold Strach (1699-1755)
- Missa Solemnis (c.1730)
Performers: Mieke van der Sluis (sopran); Bernhard Landauer (alt);
Wilfried Jochens (tenor); Wolf Matthias Friedrich (bass); Kammerchor des
Ferdinandeums; Concerto Armonico Budapest; Josef Wetzinger (conductor)
Bohemian composer and church musician. His early life and training
remain unknown. Born in Kolín, his documented career began in 1727 when
he was employed as a bassist and court composer under the Prince-Bishop
of Brixen. By 1728, he provisionally assumed the duties of
Vice-Kapellmeister for Prince-Bishop Kaspar Ignaz von Künigl, a
leadership position over the court and cathedral choir (Hof- und
Domkapellmeister) that he officially secured in 1730 and held for the
rest of his life. Strach was a prolific creator of sacred music, much of
which was performed at the Stams Abbey (Abbatia B. M. V. et Sancti
Ioannis Baptistae), but he also composed secular theatrical music for
the Brixen Gymnasium, including Conradinus (1737) and Genovefa (1739).
Following his death in Brixen in June 1755, he left behind an extensive
library of roughly 3,000 sheets of usable musical material, which the
cathedral chapter purchased from his widow for 100 florins on the advice
of his successor, Simon Judas Thaddäus Mayr.
Italian composer and violinist. Referred himself as Roman, he came from a
family of musicians active in Rome. His father, Bartolomeo Mossi, and
brother Giuseppe Mossi, and Gaetano Mossi, a tenor at the papal chapel.
Introduced into the musical circles of Rome by his father, he was active
as a violinist from 1694. His career there can be divided into three
periods. An initial phase as an instrumentalist for local courts and
churches, a highly productive middle period (1716-1733) during which he
published his entire instrumental catalogue in Amsterdam (comprising
three sets of sonatas and three of concertos), and a final phase of
gradual retirement. Though he briefly served Baldassarre Odescalchi,
Duke of Bracciano, his compositions, consisting of solo sonatas and
orchestral concertos, remain firmly rooted in the Roman tradition of
employing four violin parts, while increasingly favoring the first
violin as a soloist. Furthermore, while the long-standing claim that he
was a pupil of Arcangello Corelli lacks documentary proof, Corelli's
influence on his work is undeniable, even though Mossi maintained a
distinct originality and stylistic independence that aligned closely
with his contemporary, Giuseppe Valentini.
German organist and composer. The youngest son of a smith, after study
at the Jesuit Gymnasium in Ellwangen, he obtained his only position, the
organist and schoolmaster (later choirmaster and Kantor) at the parish
church of St Maria, which he retained for over 40 years. After the
secularization of the foundation in 1802-03, he remained in his post as
organist and Kapellmeister. As a composer, his works include 24 sonatas
for organ, chamber sonatas, six Requiems, 24 vesper Psalms, six Tantum
ergos, 26 Masses (six published as “simple country Masses” as his Op.
2), six symphonies, three Marian antiphons, and six Misereres. His
music, little studied, is characterized by a studied simplicity and
nearby to Michael Haydn on style terms. He was one of the most
successful composers of sacred music of his time. His music was
distributed throughout Europe, Russia and North America. His sons,
Heinrich Dreyer and Johann Baptiste Dreyer, were also musicians.
German composer. Son of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and Anna
Magdalena Bach (1701-1760), he was known as the ‘Bückeburg Bach’. He
received his musical education from his father and his cousin Johann
Elias Bach (1705-1755) at the Thomasschule. After leaving the
Thomasschule, he is thought to have studied law briefly, but there is no
record of his matriculation at Leipzig University. In 1750, upon the
death of his father, he was offered a position as harpsichordist with
Count Wilhelm von Schaumberg-Lippe in Bückeburg. In 1759 he was elevated
to concertmaster, a position he retained for the remainder of his life.
He did not travel, save for a visit to his youngest brother, Johann
Christian Bach (1735-1782), in London in 1778, preferring the calm
surroundings of his small town. He was able to create music that was
different from his brothers, thanks both to the intellectual stimulus of
people such as Johann Gottfried Herder and his patron’s penchant for
Italian music. His son, Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach (1759-1845), was
trained in this environment, becoming the third direct generation of the
family of Johann Sebastian to pursue a career in music. The arrival in
Bückeburg about 1793 of the Bohemian musician Franz Neubauer presented
Bach with unaccustomed competition in the last years of his life. It
inspired him to write new works (including a dozen large-scale
symphonies and several double concertos) but it also intensified the
latent depression from which he had been suffering since the death of
his half-brother Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) and which may
have hastened the course of the chest ailment that brought about his
death on 26 January 1795. In his obituary his friend Karl Gottlieb
Horstig, superintendent at Bückeburg from 1793, described him as an
industrious composer, always ready to be of service, and praised his
upright character and ‘kindness of heart’. As a composer, his music,
cataloged by Hansdieter Wolfarth (and using BR numbers), includes eight
oratorios, a Miserere, nine sacred cantatas, 55 secular cantatas, odes,
or other similar works, 79 Lieder, 28 symphonies, 16 piano concertos,
three sinfonia concertantes (titled “concerto grosso” by Bach himself), a
septet, six flute quartets and six string quartets, 13 trio sonatas,
six piano trios, 22 sonatas (for flute, violin, or cello), 43 keyboard
sonatas, and around 92 miscellaneous pieces for the keyboard. He was
known for his ability to imbue drama into his works, particularly the
oratorios, as well as his adherence to sonata principles and a
progressive sense of harmony and orchestral color. Although much of his
music did not survive the Second World War, what is left demonstrates
that he was as innovative in his own way as his siblings. Among the
better known of his pupils, in addition to his son Wilhelm Friedrich
Ernst, were the future Thomaskantor August Eberhard Müller and perhaps
Adolf, Baron von Knigge. For teaching purposes he wrote a number of
pedagogically valuable keyboard works, including the 'Sechs leichte
Clavier-Sonaten', variations, concertos and sonatas for four hands.
Spanish composer. Born in Catalonia, he was trained as a choirboy at the
Cathedral of Sigüenza before moving to Madrid, where by 1707 he worked
as a composer and instructor for the Royal Chapel. After briefly
returning to Sigüenza as maestro de capilla following a competitive
examination (oposición), he was appointed maestro de capilla at the
royal monastery of Las Descalzas Reales in Madrid in 1711, working
alongside organist José de Nebra. In the musicological field, he
participated in the 'Valls controversy', writing a text that defended
Francisco Valls's use of an unprepared dissonance in the Missa Scala
Aretina. His surviving works, which include masses, villancicos, and
pastorelas, are preserved in Spanish archives such as Montserrat, El
Escorial, and the Sanctuary of Arantzazu, with some manuscript copies
dating up to 1751.
