BACH, Johann Christian (1735-1782) - Sinfonia (g-moll) a Più Stromenti

Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782) - Sinfonia (g-moll) a Più Stromenti (1770)

Performers: Pratum Integrum

Painting: Elias Van Nijmegen (1667-1755) - Baroque Instruments

Further info: Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782) - Symphonien

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Johann Christian Bach

(Leipzig, 5 September 1735 - London, 1 January 1782)

German-English composer of international stature. The youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, he received his earliest musical training from his father and a cousin, Johann Elias Bach. After serving as a secretary to his father the final year of his father’s life, he moved to Berlin in 1750, receiving further instruction from his brother Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. In 1755 he left for Milan, where he eventually obtained the patronage of Count Agostino Litta. Following study with Padre Giovanni Battista Martini and conversion to Roman Catholicism, he was appointed second organist at the Milan cathedral in 1760. A commission for an opera from the Teatro Regio in Turin the same year, however, altered his fortunes; the work, Cantone in Utica, was a success that led both to commissions throughout Italy and an international reputation as a composer of Italian opera. In 1762 he was invited to London, where he set the opera Orione. Its success and the appointment as Music Master to the Queen allowed him to reside permanently there. A further trip to Paris solidified his ability to publish his music, and, finally, his lodging with compatriot Carl Friedrich Abel resulted in a collaborative concert series beginning in 1764. For the next decade he traveled regularly to Paris where his works were highly esteemed, and in 1772 he was invited to Mannheim to set the opera Temistocle. In 1779 he wrote his first tragédie lyrique for Paris, Amadis de Gaule. Despite the successes, competition with rival concert a difficult economic situation, and ill health led to his early death. Bach can be considered one of the pivotal composers of the age. Unlike his brothers Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, he fully immersed himself in the Italian style, creating works that feature clear period lyrical themes, solid harmonic foundations, and distinct formal structures. His orchestration, often using obbligato instruments, is colorful, and Bach used various Mannheim orchestral devices to great effect. He was one of the most popular composers of the period, whose music had circulation throughout Europe, influencing a later generation of composers, such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was a prolific composer in virtually all genres. His works include 39 operas, three serenatas, an oratorio, seven Mass/Requiem movements, 28 other sacred works, 15 concert arias and cantatas, 45 songs/canzonetts, 34 symphonies, 19 sinfonia concertantes, 28 keyboard concertos, 11 other concertos (violin, flute, oboe, and bassoon), six wind symphonies, 11 marches, a sextet, 13 quintets (string and piano), 20 quartets (string, flute, and piano), 14 trio sonatas, 12 trios (almost all piano trios), 26 violin sonatas, two viola da gamba sonatas, 23 keyboard sonatas (four for keyboard four hands), and numerous miscellaneous pieces for the keyboard and harp. His music has been cataloged according to Terry (T) or Warburton (W or CW) numbers.

BACHSCHMID, Anton Adam (1728-1797) - Flauto Traverso Concerto: In G

Anton Adam Bachschmid (1728-1797) - Flauto Traverso Concerto: In G (1771)

Performers: Felix Rengli (flute); Nova Stravaganza

Painting: De Sacy (fl. 1716) - Nature morte aux instruments de musique (1716)

Further info: Anton Adam Bachschmid - Concertos

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(Johann) Anton (Adam) Bachschmidt [Bachschmid]

(Melk, Lower Austria, 11 February 1728 - Eichstätt, 29 December 1797)

German composer and violin virtuoso of Austrian birth. He came from a long line of musicians who emigrated to Melk late in the 17th century from Traunstein, Bavaria. While still a young man he was appointed Thurnermeister (director of instrumental music) in Melk, a post which he held from July 1751 to May 1753. He left his native town for travels as a virtuoso and may have been employed briefly at Würzburg (or Wurzbach) before settling in Eichstätt. There he established himself as a versatile musician in the court orchestra of Prince-Bishop Johann Anton II, using steadily in rank from violinist (September 1753) to Konzertmeister (March 1768) and finally to court Kapellmeister (July 1773). Although he developed a reputation primarily as a church composer, Bachschmidt wrote a number of dramatic works for Eichstätt’s theatres. His turn from Latin school drama to Italian opera reflects the closing of the Jesuit theatre in Eichstätt in 1773.

TAUSCH, Franz (1762-1817) - Symphonie concertante, Op.26 (c.1800)

Franz Tausch (1762-1817) - Symphonie concertante (B-Dur) pour deux clarinettes avec accompagnement de l'orchestre ... op. 26 (c.1800)

Performers: Daniel Pacitti (clarinet); Nicola Bulfone (clarinet); Orchestra da camera di Udine; Walter Themel (conductor)

Drawing: Anoniem (19th Century) - Gezicht op Heidelberg en Schloss Heidelberg

Further info: Franz Wilhelm Tausch (1762-1817) - Clarinet Concertos

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Franz (Wilhelm) Tausch

(Heidelberg, 26 December 1762 - Berlin, 9 February 1817)

German clarinettist, basset-horn player and composer. He founded the German playing style, which put beauty of tone above technique. He was a child prodigy: at the age of eight he played in the Mannheim orchestra with his father Jacob Tausch, who taught him. Moving with his father to Munich, Franz became a notable soloist and made several concert tours. He was chamber musician to the dowager Queen of Prussia in 1789 and from 1797 to Friedrich Wilhelm III. In 1805 Tausch opened the Conservatorium der Blasinstrumente in Berlin, where Heinrich Baermann and Crusell were among his pupils. His compositions are noteworthy, and make considerable demands on the player. They include a number of clarinet concertos, six quartets for two basset-horns and two bassoons (with two horns ad lib), duos for violin and viola and for two clarinets, and other chamber music for wind. After his death the conservatory continued under the direction of his son Friedrich Wilhelm Tausch (1790-1845), himself a fine player.

HOMILIUS, Gottfried August (1714-1785) - Weihnachtsoratorium (1777)

Gottfried August Homilius (1714-1785) - Weihnachtsoratorium (1777)

Performers: Christiane Kohl (sopran); Annette Markert (alto); Marcus Ullmann (tenor); Tobias Berndt (bass); Sächsisches Vocalensemble; Virtuosi Saxoniae; Ludwig Güttler (conductor)

Drawing: Louis Glackens (1866-1933) - Puck Christmas (1903)

Further info: Homilius: Oratorio De Navidad

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Gottfried August Homilius

(Rosenthal, 2 February 1714 - Dresden, 2 June 1785)

German composer, organist and Kantor. The son of a Lutheran pastor, he spent his childhood from 1714 in Porschendorf (Pirna district). After his father’s death in 1722 he attended the Annenschule in Dresden, where in 1734 he composed his earliest extant work, the cantata 'Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild'. He sometimes stood in for the organist at the Annenkirche, J.G. Stübner, who was probably his organ teacher. On 14 May 1735 he matriculated at Leipzig University in law; a class report from the professor A. Kästner (16 September 1741) reads: ‘For three years the candidatus juris has availed himself of my praelectionum iudicarum and striven to master the fundamenta iuris. He has, however, always allowed music to be his main task’. At this time he also took lessons from Bach in composition and keyboard playing, as mentioned by J.A. Hiller (Lebensbeschreibungen, 1784) and confirmed by Forkel (Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke, 1802); he was probably also a pupil of, and assistant to, the organist at the Nikolaikirche, Johann Schneider. In 1741 Homilius applied unsuccessfully for the organist’s post of St Petri in Bautzen, submitting five chorale settings for organ of which two had obbligato parts for horn. His first post as organist was granted him in May 1742 by Dresden’s Frauenkirche, which possessed a new Silbermann organ. An application on 5 November 1753 for the post of organist at the Johanniskirche, Zittau, failed. On 10 May 1755, however, he was appointed Kantor at the Kreuzkirche in Dresden and teacher (Collega V) of the Kreuzschule (‘as he is skilled in Greek and all else, but is pre-eminent in music’), and at the same time music director of Dresden’s three principal churches – the Kreuzkirche, Frauenkirche and Sophienkirche; a month later the appointment was ratified by the Dresden town council. After the Kreuzkirche was destroyed in 1760 (during the Seven Years War), Homilius directed his activity mainly to the Frauenkirche. Tirelessly active until an advanced age, he composed a full yearly cycle of cantatas in the last years of his life, and in 1784 dedicated 12 Magnificat settings and a Latin motet (destroyed in World War II) to the Dresden council. He suffered a stroke in December of that year, and in the following March was retired.

VOGL, Georg (1725-1761) - Sinfonia Pastoritia (G-Dur) à 4 voci (c.1760)

Georg Vogl (1725-1761) - Sinfonia Pastoritia (G-Dur) à 4 voci (c.1760)

Performers: Europasommers Orchestra

Painting: Hendrik Meyer (1744-1793) - A Winter Scene (1787)

Further info: Georg Vogl (1725-1761) - Sinfonia Pastoritia

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Georg Vogl

(Tremmersdorf, 23 May 1725 - Naples, 19 November 1761)

German violinist and composer. After early training in Freising at the Jesuit schools as a chorister, he was taken on by Count Clemens von Bayern as an ordinary musician. His early studies were with Placidus von Camerloher, but in 1758 he was sent to Italy to complete his training. There he became known for his violin playing and operas, written both for Italian theatres and for Jesuit seminaries in Germany. Also in Italy he was acclaimed as a 'violin virtuoso'. His Italian and German operas have not survived; his remaining music includes three symphonies, a violin concerto, a Requiem, and two litanies. His brothers, Pater Benedikt Vogl (1718-1790) and Pater Christoph Vogl (1722-1767) were also musicians but focused as a monastic composers in a Benedictine abbeys.

RISTORI, Giovanni Alberto (1692-1753) - Motetto Pastorale

Giovanni Alberto Ristori (1692-1753) - Motetto Pastorale "O admirable mysterium"

Performers: Christine Wolff (soprano); Britta Schwarz (alto); Martin Petzold (tenor); Dresden Kornerscher Sing-Verein; Dresden Instrumental Concert; Peter Kopp (conductor)

Drawing: Louis Licherie de Beurie (1629-1687) - A Concert (c.1679)

Further info: Giovanni Alberto Ristori (1692-1753) - Messa per il Santissimo Natale

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Giovanni Alberto Ristori

(Bologna?, 1692 - Dresden, 7 February 1753)

Italian composer. He was the son of Tommaso Ristori, a versatile musician and actor, and the director of a travelling company of Italian comedians which, shortly before Giovanni’s birth, was in the service of the Saxon elector Johann Georg III at Dresden. Neither the place nor the exact date of Giovanni’s birth is documented, but his birthplace is variously given as Bologna (in La BordeE and GerberL), Vienna, by a Saxon passport of 1715, and Venice. His first opera, Pallade trionfante in Arcadia, had its première at the Teatro degli Obizzi, Padua, in the summer of 1713, and in November his Orlando furioso was given in the Teatro S Angelo, Venice; both were revived in Venice the following year when, in addition, his Euristeo was performed in Venice and Bologna and his Pigmalione in Rovigo. In December 1715 Tommaso Ristori and his Italian comedians were engaged by the elector Friedrich August I at the Saxon court. Giovanni and his wife Maria accompanied his parents to Dresden, but he held no official position there until 1717 when he was appointed composer to the Italian comic theatre managed by his father; at the same time he became director of the cappella polacca with a salary of 600 thalers. The cappella, which accompanied August II on his journeys to Poland, consisted of a dozen musicians including J.J. Quantz, first employed as an oboist, and the violinist Franz Benda. Although Lotti was the resident opera composer at Dresden between 1717 and 1719, Ristori had Cleonice (1718). But Italian opera was severely curtailed soon afterwards, and Ristori and his father were among the few Italians not released from service in 1720. During the following years Ristori, who, together with Heinichen and Zelenka, was responsible for the church services at the Saxon court, composed masses, motets, litanies and other liturgical pieces. There is also evidence of an opera performance in Prague in the autumn of 1723. His comic opera Calandro is sometimes called the first Italian opera buffa written in Germany. 

Ristori spent some of 1731-32 in Russia with his father’s troupe at the invitation of the newly crowned Empress Anna Ivanovna. There, a revival of Calandro on 11 December is generally accounted the first performance of an Italian opera in Russia. After a short visit to St Petersburg in early 1732, the company went to Warsaw, where August II was residing. Most of the Italian comedians at Dresden were dismissed when August II died in 1733; he was succeeded by his only legitimate son, Friedrich August II, who was also King of Poland as August III. At this time Ristori was temporarily demoted to the rank of chamber organist with a reduced salary of 450 thalers, but by 1745 it had increased to 1200 thalers. With the retirement of Tommaso Ristori, improvised Italian comedy at the Dresden court came to an end, and serious opera, directed by Hasse the new Kapellmeister, dominated the Saxon stage. Besides Hasse, Ristori regularly distinguished himself with new compositions, writing cantatas for birthdays and name days as well as works for the stage, including the opera Arianna for the elector’s birthday on 7 October 1736. Ristori probably did not supervise the première of his pasticcio Didone abbandonata at Covent Garden, London, on 13 April 1737, but he directed rehearsals and performances of his Temistocle and Adriano in Siria at S Carlo, Naples, in 1738 and 1739; he must have accompanied the Saxon princess Maria Amalia there following her marriage to Charles III, King of the Two Sicilies, in May 1738. By 1744 he had returned to Dresden, where, in that year, he composed three masses, including the Messa per il Santissimo Natale di N.S.; the quality of these and other choral works was acknowledged with his appointment as court Kirchenkomponist in 1746. In 1750 August III again rewarded Ristori for his many years of service and outstanding music by naming him vice-Kapellmeister under Hasse. His last work, a Mass in C, is dated 1752. When he died the following year his widow was given a pension of 400 thalers and was paid for Ristori’s collection of his own scores, some of which were lost in the bombardment of Dresden in 1760 and many others during World War II.

ANONYM (18th Century) - Symphonia Ex C

Anonym (18th Century) - Symphonia Ex C

Performers: Kammerorchester Des Saarländischen Rundfunks

Drawing: Franz Feyerabend (1755-1800) - Militär, Basel (1782)

MENDELSSOHN, Fanny (1805-1847) - Oratorium nach Bildern der Bibel

Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847) - Oratorium nach Bildern der Bibel (1831)

Performers: Ulrike Sonntag (soprano); Robert Wörle (tenor); Helene Schneiderman (alto); Wolfgang Schöne (baritone); Stuttgart Philharmonia Choir and Orchestra; Helmut Wolf (conductor)

Drawing: Wilhelm Hensel (1794-1861) - Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy [Hensel]

Further info: Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847) - Klaviermusik aus der Italienzeit

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Fanny (Cäcilie) Mendelssohn(-Bartholdy) [Hensel]

(Hamburg, 14 November 1805 - Berlin, 14 May 1847)

German composer, pianist and conductor, sister of the composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). She was the eldest of four children born into a post-Enlightenment, cultured Jewish family. Of her illustrious ancestors, her great-aunts Fanny Arnstein and Sara Levy provided important role models, especially in their participation in salon life. Her paternal grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn, was the pivotal figure in effecting a rapprochement between Judaism and German secular culture. In Fanny Mendelssohn’s generation this movement resulted in the conversion of the immediate family to Lutheranism. Despite baptism, however, Fanny retained the cultural values of liberal Judaism. An important element in the family circle was her special relationship with her younger brother Felix. In close contact their entire life, they stimulated and challenged each other musically and intellectually. Fanny played a major role in shaping some of Felix’s compositions, notably his oratorio St Paul (completed in 1837), and advised him on musical matters. Felix, likewise, encouraged her compositional activities, but he discouraged publication. Although his attitudes echoed his father’s views and reflected the prevailing cultural values, they may have been motivated by jealousy, fear of competition, protectiveness or paternalism. In any case, these negative aspects exacerbated Fanny’s own feelings of ambivalence towards composition. She depended on Felix’s good opinion of her musical talents, as expressed in a letter to him of 30 July 1836, where she speaks of a Goethe-like demonic influence he exerted over her, and said that she could ‘cease being a musician tomorrow if you thought I wasn’t good at that any longer’. But after Felix’s marriage in 1837, their relationship became less intense. In 1846 Fanny embarked on publication without her brother’s involvement, as she declared in a letter of 9 July 1846 regarding a forthcoming project that became her collection of Lieder op.1. 

From 1809 Fanny Mendelssohn lived in Berlin. She received her earliest musical instruction from her mother, Lea, who taught her the piano (she is reputed to have noted her daughter’s ‘Bach fingers’ at birth). She then studied the piano with Ludwig Berger, and in 1816 with Marie Bigot in Paris. A few years later she embarked on theory and composition with C.F. Zelter, a conservative musician and early champion of J.S. Bach. Her first composition dates from December 1819, a lied in honour of her father’s birthday. In 1820 she enrolled at the newly opened Berlin Sing-Akademie. During the next few years Mendelssohn produced many lieder and piano pieces; such works were to be the mainstay of her output of about 500 compositions. On 3 October 1829 she married the Prussian court painter Wilhelm Hensel. Their only child, Sebastian, was born the following year (recent evidence shows that there was at least one stillbirth). Beginning in the early 1830s, Mendelssohn became the central figure in a flourishing salon, for which she created most of her compositions and where she performed on the piano and conducted. Her tastes favoured composers who were then unfashionable, including Mozart and Handel, and especially Bach. Her only known public appearance was in February 1838, performing her brother’s First Piano Concerto at a charity benefit. Two trips to Italy, in 1839-40 and 1845, were among the highpoints of her life. In Rome she formed a close relationship with Gounod, who later noted Fanny’s influence on his budding musical career. Her impressions of the first Italian trip are inscribed in Das Jahr, a set of 12 character-pieces that combine musical and autobiographical motifs. Her last composition, the lied Bergeslust, was written on 13 May 1847, a day before her sudden death from a stroke.

SCHLEICHER, Caroline (1794-1873) - Sonatina für Klarinette und Klavier

Caroline Schleicher-Krähmer (1794-1873) - Sonatina für Klarinette und Klavier (1825)

Performers: Luigi Magistrelli (clarinet); Claudia Bracco (piano)

Painting: Friedrich von Amerling (1803-1887) - The Young Eastern Woman (1838)

Further info: Le Repertoire Pour Clarinette De Compositrices

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Caroline (Maria Carolina) Schleicher-Krähmer

(Stockach, 17 December 1794 - Vienna, April 1873) 

Swiss composer. The daughter of the professional bassoonist Franz Joseph Schleicher (1767-1819) and the Swiss musician Josepha Strassburger (1767-1826). She was the sixth child of 13. All children were given to a foster family once they were 3 months old. This enabled the Schleicher couple to go on concert tours together. Only three of the children survived their infancy. Caroline’s older sister Cordula (1788-1820), Caroline herself, and a younger sister called Sophie (1796-1825). All three children received their first lessons in violin and singing from their mother when they were 5 years old. Josepha herself originated from a very musical family. Besides singing she also mastered the violin and the clarinet. Later, at the age of 7, all three daughters were taught the piano and at the age of 9, the clarinet. While Napoleon covered all of Europe with wars, Franz Joseph Schleicher was employed as Regimentskapellmeister in the garrison town of Ellwangen, Germany. Caroline received her first piano lessons at the age of 7 from the Chorregent Melchior Dreyer (1747-1824) and about two years later began the long-desired clarinet classes with her father. In 1804, Franz Joseph Schleicher sold his house in Stockach and traveled with his family to Tyrol in 1805. The “Musikalische Kleeblatt”, featuring Franz Joseph, Cordula and Caroline, traveled to Switzerland instead. There Franz Joseph and Cordula were employed in both musical societies in Zurich. As both girls demonstrated undeniable skill at their instruments, their father soon began taking them on professional tours, and the two girls were raised as virtuoso performers. Later in her career, Caroline worked with the Baden orchestra, where she played first violin, solo clarinet, and often conducted. 

After her father’s death, she continued to perform as a successful clarinet soloist, and enjoyed notoriety and great acclaim during her lifetime. She dedicated her life to performing, composing, and teaching, even after marriage and the birth of her own 10 children, of whom only five survived to adulthood. Caroline Schleicher-Krähmer died in Vienna in April 1873 at the age of 79. Two of her sons, Ernst and Emil, also went on to become professional musicians. While Emil had an appointment as cellist at the Theater Wiesbaden (Germany), Ernst was initially working as a cellist in Graz (Austria), and later also as a composer and music director. Eventually, he taught at a high school in Munich (Germany), where he died in 1913. Caroline Schleicher-Krähmer was considered an exceptional talent from her early youth. The clarinet was always her favorite instrument; she made rapid progress and soon mastered it in an outstanding way. She possessed an excellent technique. In particular her warm tone and the ability to fade a tone from and to silence, is highlighted in almost all reviews. She was compared to the male clarinet players of her time, such as Hermstedt and Baermann. Furthermore, she also mastered the violin and piano on a professional level and played the guitar. In those days it was typical for musicians to play several instruments. It was, however, unusual that a woman mastered such a multitude of instruments on such a high level. She was a composer, copyist and music director, went on concert tours against all social conventions, and performed in public with two instruments that were considered inappropriate for women. Her older sister Cordula also played the clarinet on the highest level. But in contrast to her, Caroline strived for an international career as solo clarinet player.

BARTHELEMON, Cecilia Maria (1767-1859) - Sonata (I) for the harpsichord

Cecilia Maria Barthélemon (1767-1859) - Sonata (I) for the harpsichord, Opera prima (1786)

Performers: Barbara Harbach (cembalo)

Painting: Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797) - Portrait of a Woman (c.1770)

Further info: 18th Century Women Composers Harpsichord

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Cecilia Maria Barthélemon [Hinchcliffe, Henslow]

(London, 1 September 1767 - Tottenhill, 5 December 1859)

English singer, composer, pianist and organist. Daughter of François-Hippolyte and Maria Barthélemon, she went with her parents on their continental tour (1776-77) and sang before the King of Naples and Marie Antoinette. She repeated the scena which she had performed for them at her mother’s benefit concert in London in March 1778 and continued to appear with her parents as a singer, often in duets with her mother, and later as a pianist. She does not appear to have had an independent performing career or to have composed after her marriage to Captain E.P. Henslowe (not W.H. Henslowe; see the memoir Francis Barthélemon, 1896). Haydn was a friend of the Barthélemons and Cecilia treasured memories of his visits to them during his London years. She dedicated her keyboard sonata op.3 to Haydn and was a subscriber (listed as ‘Mrs Ed. Henslow’) to The Creation. After married with Captain E.P. Henslow around December 1796, she definitely stopped performing and composing.

MARTINES, Marianne (1744-1812) - Concerto (A-Dur) da Cimbalo (c.1771)

Marianne Martines (1744-1812) - Concerto (A-Dur) da Cimbalo (c.1771)

Performers: James Kennerley (cembalo); Sonnambula Ensemble

Painting: Anton von Maron (1733-1808) - Marianna Martines (c.1780)

Further info: Marianne Martines (1744-1812)

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Marianne (Anna Katharina) von Martines [Martinez]

(Vienna, 4 May 1744 - Vienna, 13 December 1812) 

Austrian composer of Spanish descent. She was the daughter of a Neapolitan who had come to Vienna as ‘gentiluomo’ to the papal nuncio. She spent her childhood under the educational guidance of Metastasio, a friend of the family who lived in the same house; she was taught singing, the piano and composition by Porpora and Haydn, who were also living there, by Giuseppe Bonno and possibly by J.A. Hasse. As a child she had attracted attention at court with her beautiful voice and her keyboard playing, and in 1761 a mass by her was performed in the court church. She acknowledged in 1773, when she became an honorary member of the Bologna Accademia Filarmonica, that as a composer she took as her principal models Hasse, Jommelli and Galuppi. Not only did she possess a thorough understanding of imitation and fugue, but she also knew how to set words in the Baroque manner. Her predilection for coloratura passages, leaps over wide intervals and trills indicate that she herself must have been an excellent singer. In 1772 Burney praised her singing for all the typical virtues of the Italian school as well as for ‘touching expression’. Burney’s remark that her vocal works were ‘neither common, nor unnaturally new’ applies to her instrumental works as well. A typical composer of the early Classical period in Vienna, she wrote in the Italian style. As a harpsichordist she was influenced by C.P.E. Bach. Sometimes she created a composition of several movements from a single idea (e.g. the Harpsichord Concerto in G, 1772). Her frequent development of motifs, decoration techniques and rapid runs show that she was concerned to impress her public with virtuosity, suiting the taste of the Viennese salons. After Metastasio’s death in 1782, the Martínez family, as heirs of his large estate (Marianne was bequeathed 20,000 florins, Metastasio’s harpsichord and his music library), were able to maintain a substantial household. Many notable personalities, including Haydn and Mozart, attended her musical soirées there; Michael Kelly heard her playing one of Mozart’s four-hand sonatas with the composer and described her as still ‘possessing the gaiety and vivacity of a girl’. In the 1790s she started a singing school in her house, which produced several outstanding singers.

MANNA, Gennaro (1715-1779) - Dies Irae à 4 voci

Gennaro Manna (1715-1779) - Dies Irae à 4 voci

Performers: Abchordis ensemble; Andrea Buccarella

Painting: Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797) - Vesuvius from Posillipo (1789)

Further info: Gennaro Manna (1715-1779) - Arias from Operas

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Gennaro Manna

(Naples, 12 December 1715 - Naples, 28 December 1779)

Italian composer, son of Giuseppe Manna and Caterina Feo (sister of the composer Francesco Feo), and cousin of Cristoforo Manna. He studied at the Neapolitan Conservatorio di S Onofrio a Capuana where his uncle Francesco Feo was primo maestro and Ignazio Prota secondo maestro. His first opera seria, Tito Manlio, was performed on 21 January 1742 in Rome. Its immediate success led to a commission from the Teatro S Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice for the carnival season 1743, for which he wrote Siroe re di Persia. After his return to Naples he collaborated with Nicola Logroscino in composing a festa teatrale. An outbreak of the plague caused the festivities planned for July 1743 to be cancelled, and the work was never performed. Manna then revised Leonardo Vinci's Artaserse, and in 1744 succeeded Domenico Sarro as maestro di cappella to the city of Naples. In January 1745 Manna presented a new work of his own at the Teatro S Carlo, the opera seria Achille in Sciro. Its enthusiastic public reception instantly made him the most sought-after composer in Naples, resulting in commissions from the French ambassador, the Saxon court, the Teatro S Carlo and theatres in other Italian cities. On 1 October 1755, after the death of Francesco Durante, the primo maestro of the Conservatorio di S Maria di Loreto, Manna was appointed interim teacher to assist the secondo maestro Pietro-Antonio Gallo. From 13 February 1756 he served with Gallo as co-maestro, and then also with the aging Nicola Porpora. Manna's last theatrical works were Enea in Cuma, a serenata written for a fête given by the ambassador of the Maltese Knights on 4 September 1760, and (according to some sources) the opera seria Temistocle. He then retired from the operatic scene and composed only sacred music. 

After the death of Francesco Feo in January 1761, he succeeded him as maestro of the SS Annunziata church, and on 9 May of the same year resigned from the Loreto conservatory citing his many duties, which included that of maestro of the cathedral of S Gennaro. On his nameday, 19 September 1762, Gennaro Manna was celebrated with the performance of a cantata written in his honour by Vincenzo Bidognietti. He remained active and revered as a composer of sacred music, and during the last decade of his life produced his major oratorios. Unlike Jommelli, Latilla, Abos and other Neapolitan opera composers of his generation, Manna never ventured into the field of commedia per musica, but concentrated exclusively on opera seria. Although his contributions to opera belong primarily to the first 12 years of his career, they established his contemporary fame as one of the most important composers of his time. He expanded the galant stylistic tendencies of Francesco Feo and solidified pre-Classical characteristics. Many of his arias are guided by the sonata principle and exhibit diversified textures, crescendo patterns, discriminate scoring for wind instruments, and forceful drives to cadences with strong confirmations. Arias in major keys often expressively articulate the beginning of the secondary tonal area with contrasting phrases in the minor key. Contemporaries praised the suavity, vivaciousness and delicate beauty of his arias: Burney, who heard one of Manna's sacred works performed under the composer's direction in Naples (October 1770), noted the ingenious instrumental accompaniment of the vocal solos, and lauded the music for its ‘fancy and contrivance’. Gennaro’s older brother Giacinto (1706-1768) was a harpsichordist at the Neapolitan opera houses S Bartolomeo and Fiorentini as well as S Carlo (1761-65). His sister Teresa married the composer Giuseppe de Majo in 1728; their gifted son Gian Francesco de Majo received some of his musical training from Gennaro.

CHELLERI, Fortunato (1690-1757) - Sinfonia (B-Dur) à 4 (c.1745)

Fortunato Chelleri (1690-1757) - Sinfonia (B-Dur) à 4 (c.1745)

Performers: La Stagione

Painting: French school (18th century) - Carnival scene

Further info: Fortunato Chelleri (1690-1757) - Simphonies Nouvelles

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Fortunato Chelleri [Kellerij, Kelleri, Keller, Cheler]

(Parma, c.1690 - Kassel, 11 December 1757) 

Italian composer of German origin. He was a choirboy at the chapel of the Madonna della Steccata, Parma (1700-03), but after the death of his German father when Fortunato was 12, and of his mother three years later, he was cared for by his maternal uncle Francesco Maria Bazzani, a priest and maestro di cappella of Piacenza cathedral, who instructed him in singing and keyboard playing. It seems that Chelleri's first opera was Zenobia in Palmira, composed in 1709 for Barcelona, which during the war of the Spanish Succession regained its status as a court and mounted an opera season with a group of Italians headed by Caldara, Astorga and Porsile. Chelleri's movements after his return from Spain in 1710 remain undocumented up to 1715, when, at the latest, he was employed as maestro della cappella di camera by the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm and, following his death in 1716, by his brother Karl III Philipp. It is uncertain whether Chelleri attended the electoral court in its various residences in Germany; his frequent engagements in Italy suggest otherwise. After 1718, he may have served the dowager electress Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici in Florence, where she retired after her husband's death. Possibly two of his operas, later given in Padua and Venice, had their première in Florence: Temistocle and L'innocenza diffesa. His main operatic activity spanned the years 1715-22 and took him to several northern Italian centres. In Venice, Vivaldi, responsible for the Teatro S Angelo in 1716-17, entrusted him with the second opera for the season, Penelope la casta, but the unsuccessful outcome provoked an assassination attempt against Chelleri and a 48-verse satire on the ill-fated production. Otherwise his career in Venice was moderately successful; he composed seven operas in eight years, and while he did not receive scritture from the major theatres, he was by far the youngest composer working in the city. 

In 1722 Chelleri joined a group of Veneto-based musicians (among them Giovanni Benedetto Platti) who entered the service of Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn, Prince-Archbishop of Würzburg. He was engaged as Hofkapellmeister and promoted to Court Councillor (Hofrat) in 1723, the year of his marriage to Apollonia Theresia Papius, with whom he had three sons. He wrote mainly oratorios, as required by the bishop and his brother, Count Rudolf Franz Erwein, who often translated Chelleri's oratorio texts into German and employed him in his private orchestra at Schloss Wiesentheid. However, the new post was short-lived as in 1725, soon after Johann Philipp's death, Chelleri became Kapellmeister to the Landgrave Karl of Hesse-Kassel in succession to Ruggiero Fedeli and moved to Kassel, where he spent most of his later life. In October 1726, following an exploratory trip in summer 1725 to Hanover, where George I of England was residing, Chelleri travelled to London, where many of his Italian colleagues were employed, notably Pietro Sandoni and his wife (reportedly Chelleri's former pupil), Francesca Cuzzoni. His hopes for a commission from the Royal Academy of Music never materialized, but during his ten-month stay he briefly became a subscribing member of the Academy of Ancient Music (November 1726) and published a collection of arias and cantatas before returning home to Kassel. When Landgrave Karl died in 1730, his eldest son and successor, Friedrich, King of Sweden since 1720, dissolved the cappella and Chelleri was given an allowance until he found a new post elsewhere. In 1732 he joined Friedrich's court in Stockholm for two years but, unable to bear the northern climate, he returned to Kassel in 1734 with the title of Hofrat to direct music for Friedrich's brother Wilhelm, administrator of the landgravate.

LOMBARDINI, Maddalena Laura (1745-1818) - Concerto di Violino con' Diversi Istrumenti Obbligati (c.1772)

Maddalena Laura Lombardini [Sirmen] (1745-1818) - Concerto di Violino con' Diversi Istrumenti Obbligati (c.1772)

Performers: Angélica Gámez (violin); Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia; Lina González Granados (dirección)

Painting: Orazio Gentileschi (1563-1639) - Young woman with a violin (Saint Cecilia) (c.1612)

Further info: Maddalena Laura Lombardini (1745-1818) - Quartetti (1769)

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Maddalena [Madelena] Laura Lombardini [Sirmen, Syrmen]

(Venice, 9 December 1745 - Venice, 18 May 1818)

Italian composer, violinist and singer. Unusually for a woman composer at that time, there appear to have been no other musicians in her family and she became famous entirely through her own efforts. In 1753 she was admitted to the Ospedale dei Mendicanti in Venice, not as an orphan but as a musician who would be an asset to their all-female choir and orchestra. She must have been an outstanding violinist since in 1760 she was allowed to go to Padua to study with Tartini; as the lessons were delayed, Tartini wrote her a long letter explaining his violin playing methods and the best way to practise. It was copied in Padua before it was sent and by 1770 it was in print in Italy, shortly followed by translations into English (by Charles Burney), German and French. Sirmen was probably taught composition by the maestro di coro at the Ospedale, Ferdinando Bertoni, and probably also by Tartini. The dates of her compositions are unknown, but as most of them were in print before 1774 they may have been composed while she was still at the Ospedale. In 1766, after 13 years at the Ospedale, she wanted to leave. Tartini tried unsuccessfully to find her a husband, but in the next year she married the violinist and composer Lodovico Sirmen (1738-1812). In 1768 the couple started a highly successful European tour, playing in Turin and several times at the Concert Spirituel in Paris, where six of her string quartets were published in 1769. Although the title page says ‘Composta Da Lodovico, E Madelena Laura Syrmen’, stylistic evidence indicates that they are entirely her own work. 

In January 1771 Lodovico was settled in Ravenna with their daughter and Maddalena was in London, advertised as ‘the celebrated Mrs Lombardini Sirmen’. She had two very successful seasons there as a violinist, playing in various concert series (including the Bach-Abel concerts) and at the theatres, followed by a third when she became a singer. Her six violin concertos were published in 1772-73, followed in 1773 by keyboard arrangements of them by Tommaso Giordani. After London she played or sang in various Italian cities, in Paris, Dresden and as principal woman singing at St Petersburg (1783). In 1785 she appeared again at the Concert Spirituel, playing her own violin concertos, but was criticized for her old-fashioned manner. She then settled in Venice and Ravenna, where she spent the rest of her life. Sirmen's music was widely known during her lifetime. A violin concerto was played in Stockholm in 1774, and in a letter from Salzburg of 12 April 1778, to his wife and son Wolfgang, Leopold Mozart said: ‘After the symphony Count Czernin played a beautifully written concerto by Sirmen’. The string quartets, mostly in two movements, are notable for their interesting inner parts. The first movements of the violin concertos are generally in an embryonic sonata form, the slow movements in binary and the finales in rondo form. Her music was widely published and frequently reprinted by several different publishers in Paris, the Low Countries, Germany and London.

FORSTER, Johann Christoph (1693-1745) - Concerto ex Dis dur

Johann Christoph Förster (1693-1745) - Concerto ex Dis dur

Performers: Bruce Atwell (horn); St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic

Painting: Cornelius Norbertus Gijsbrechts (c.1630-c.1675) - Trompe L’oeil With Christian V’s Equipment For Riding To Hounds (1671)

Further info: Johann Christoph Förster (1693-1745) - Oboe concertos

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Johann Christoph (Heinrich) Förster

(Bibra, 30 November 1693 - Rudolstadt, ?5/6 December 1745)

 German composer. He studied first with the organist Pitzler, then left Bibra for Weissenfels where he learnt thoroughbass and composition from Heinichen. When Heinichen went to Italy, Förster became a pupil of Georg Friedrich Kauffmann at Merseburg. In 1717 he was appointed violinist in the Merseburg court orchestra and later became Konzertmeister there. While employed at the court Förster dedicated six sonatas, six cantatas and 12 concertos to the duchess; he also learnt Italian, the predominant language for secular vocal music. Förster was granted leave of absence from Merseburg on several occasions: in 1719 he visited Heinichen at Dresden and in 1723 went to Prague where he met Fux, Caldara, Conti and other eminent musicians involved in the coronation celebrations of Charles VI. In August 1742 he played a leading part (under Johann Graf) in the birthday festivities of Prince Friedrich Anton of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, and the following year was appointed vice-Kapellmeister at Rudolstadt. Among works written for this court is a birthday cantata dedicated to Princess Bernhardine (5 May 1745). When Graf died in 1745 Förster succeeded him as Kapellmeister, but held this post for only a few weeks before his own death. There is some confusion surrounding Förster’s activities between 1739 and 1743. Loewenberg stated that he held an appointment at Sondershausen during this period, but in Förster’s application for the post at Rudolstadt (3 March 1743) he merely said he had been Kammermusikus and Konzertmeister at Merseburg ‘for a long time’.

In his own day Förster was greatly respected as a composer of church music. Gerber thought highly of the cantatas; when a boy he had sung many ‘agreeable’ arias by Förster in the local church at Sondershausen. In his instrumental music, Förster has been described as one of the leading exponents of the French overture: the overture in A major (ed. Riemann) shows a fine sense of form and a keen appreciation of instrumental colour. Whereas the orchestral suites are indebted to French models, the sinfonias and concertos display the influence of the Italian style. Förster’s chamber music invites comparison with Telemann’s. Both composers show the same ability to combine learned counterpoint and melodious themes, the same predilection for voice change and love of short melodic phrases in the galant manner. Few of Förster’s works were printed in the 18th century. The two main publications were a set of six symphonies published by Haffner (Nuremberg, 1747) and six Duetti oder Trii for two violins and optional continuo engraved by Telemann (see Mattheson). Förster was an extremely prolific composer. According to Walther he had written over 300 pieces by 1732, and the Breitkopf catalogues mention numerous works by him. It is obvious that existing work-lists are far from complete. Unfortunately many manuscripts lack the distinguishing Christian name so that authorship is open to dispute.

FASCH, Johann Friedrich (1688-1758) - Missa Brevis (B-Dur) à 4 voci

Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758) - Missa Brevis (B-Dur) à 4 voci

Performers: Solists, choir and orchestra Linden; Walter Reiter (conductor)

Drawing: Gabriel-François Doyen (1726-1806) - Allégorie de la ville de Paris (1765)

Further info: Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758) - Overtures, Sinfonias & Concertos

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Johann Friedrich Fasch

(Buttelstädt, 15 April 1688 - Zerbst, 5 December 1758)

German composer and Kapellmeister. He was one of the most significant German contemporaries of Bach, and his orchestral works are characteristic of the transition from the late Baroque style to the Classicism of Haydn and Mozart. Fasch was descended from a line of Lutheran Kantors and theologians. His earliest musical studies were as a boy soprano in Suhl and Weissenfels, and at 13 he was enlisted by J.P. Kuhnau for the Leipzig Thomasschule; his first compositions followed the style of his friend Telemann. While a student at the University of Leipzig he founded a collegium musicum which rivalled the eminence of the Thomasschule in the city's musical life. In this cosmopolitan city he encountered the concertos of Vivaldi, which greatly influenced his whole generation. Although he had no regular instruction in composition, he soon became so well known as a composer that his sovereign Duke Moritz Wilhelm of Saxe-Zeitz commissioned him to write operas for the Naumburg Peter-Paul festivals in 1711 and 1712. For purposes of study Fasch undertook a long journey through several courts and cities, eventually arriving at Darmstadt, where he studied composition with Graupner and Grünewald. He then held several positions, including those of violinist in Bayreuth (1714), court secretary and organist in Greiz (until 1721) and Kapellmeister to the Bohemian Count Wenzel Morzin in Prague, whose accomplished chapel orchestra earned Vivaldi’s praise. In 1722 Fasch reluctantly accepted the position of court Kapellmeister in Zerbst. In the same year he was twice invited to apply for the position of Thomaskantor in Leipzig, but withdrew from the competition shortly after Telemann did so, deciding that it was too soon to leave Zerbst. 

In 1727 Fasch spent some time at the Saxon court in Dresden, where his friends Pisendel and Heinichen were in charge of orchestral music and the Catholic chapel respectively. Heinichen's death in 1729 is a 'terminus ante quem' for several of Fasch's surviving liturgical pieces, which were performed by the chapel choir under Heinichen, who noted the duration of pieces on the manuscripts (as well as rewriting sections, which Pfeiffer has taken as an indication that the Dresden experience was another learning venture). Surviving correspondence, particularly with Nikolaus Ludwig, Reichsgraf von Zinzendorf, head of the Pietist Brotherhood in Herrnhut, reveals Fasch's unhappiness in strictly Lutheran Zerbst. Only one further application for a formal position is recorded (Freiberg, 1755), but it was unsuccessful, and Fasch remained at Zerbst for the rest of his life. During his 36 years there Fasch was primarily occupied with the composition of church cantatas and festival music for the count. His fame as a composer spread far beyond Saxony: his works were familiar to numerous courts and city churches, from Hamburg (where in 1733 Telemann performed a cycle of his church cantatas) to as far afield as Prague and Vienna. He enjoyed especially close relations with the famed Hofkapelle in Dresden, at which the Kapellmeister Pisendel performed many of his concertos (to some extent in arrangements), and likewise with the court at Cöthen, which attracted him by its Pietist leanings. Through his son C.F.C. Fasch, harpsichordist at the court of Frederick the Great in Berlin from 1756, he was connected with C.P.E. Bach.

HUBLER, Carl Heinrich (1822-1893) - Concertstück für Vier Waldhörner

Carl Heinrich Hübler (1822-1893) - Concertstück für Vier Waldhörner (c.1855)

Performers: Peter Arnold (horn); Charles Tibbets (horn); Ulrike Guggenberger (horn);

Matthias Stier (horn); Rundfunk-Orchester Kaiserslautern

Painting: Erik Henningsen (1855-1930) - Changing of the Guard (1888)

Further info: Hornissimo! Waldhorn Romantics

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Carl (August) Heinrich Hübler

(Wachwitz, 4 December 1822 - Dresden, 14 April 1893)

German hornist and composer. After studying with hornist August Haase, he joined the Dresden Hofkapelle in 1844, where he served as a hornist until his retirement in 1891. In October 1849 he engaged in a private performance in the apartment of Johann Rudolph Lewy in Dresden of Robert Schumann's Konzertstück for four horns and orchestra (op. 86) with the composer in attendance. The event inspired Hübler to compose his own Konzertstück for four horns and orchestra, written c.1855, the single piece for which he is remembered. He was appointed royal chamber musician in 1851, and in 1886 was given the title chamber virtuoso, in recognition of his merits. Hübler was a founder of the Dresden Tonkünstler-Verein and remained a member of its governing board for more than two decades.

GREENE, Maurice (1696-1755) - Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis (c.1735)

Maurice Greene (1696-1755) - Morning Service (in C); Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis (c.1735) 

Performers: Choir of Ely Cathedral

Painting: Federico Barocci (1528-1612) - The Head of Saint John the Evangelist (c.1580)

Further info: Maurice Greene (1696-1755) - Anthems

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Maurice Greene

(London, 12 August 1696 - London, 1 December 1755)

English composer and organist. He came of a well-to-do family which, claiming descent from the medieval Greenes of Green's Norton, had held estates in Essex since the end of the 16th century. His grandfather, John Greene (1616-1659), had been Recorder of the City of London; his father, the Rev. Thomas Greene DD (1648-1720), a chaplain of the Chapel Royal and canon of Salisbury, was vicar of the London parishes of St Olave Jewry and St Martin Pomeroy. As the youngest of seven children, Maurice is said to have been brought up in the choir of St Paul's Cathedral under Jeremiah Clarke and Charles King, and in 1710, to have been articled to Richard Brind, organist of the cathedral since Clarke's death. In March 1714 he took up his first appointment as organist of St Dunstan-in-the-West and in February 1718 he also became organist of St Andrew's, Holborn. A month later Brind died, and he was immediately chosen to succeed him at St Paul's. Though technically a vicar-choral, he was responsible, as organist, not only for the daily round of cathedral services but also for the music at the annual Festival of the Sons of the Clergy, and in that capacity he composed many large-scale orchestral anthems and occasional settings of the Te Deum. By this time too, he had become intimate with Handel who, it appears, had a particular liking for the organ of St Paul's and was a frequent visitor to the cathedral. Later they fell out so violently that, to quote Burney, ‘for many years of his life, [Handel] never spoke of [Greene] without some injurious epithet’. Greene's marriage to Mary Dillingham (1699-1767), a cousin of Jeremiah Clarke, must have taken place shortly after his appointment to St Paul's, for the first of their five children was born in May of the following year. In addition to his duties at the cathedral and his work as a teacher – Travers, Boyce and Stanley were among his first pupils – he was also involved in a good deal of secular music-making, as a founder-member of the Castle Society, and also of the Academy of Ancient Music, at whose weekly meetings some at least of Greene's own works were performed. 

Before long, however, he was caught up in the celebrated Bononcini affair which, in 1731, split the ranks of the academicians and, according to Hawkins, ‘made a great noise in the musical world’. As the agent of the deception by which Giovanni Bononcini sought to pass off a Lotti madrigal as his own, Greene found himself on the losing side and promptly withdrew from the academy, taking the boys of St Paul’s and many of the society’s best performers with him. They then set up a rival body, the Apollo Academy, at the Devil Tavern in Fleet Street, which was apparently devoted mainly to the interests of its three leading composer-members, Greene, Boyce and Festing. In 1738, together with Festing, he was also instrumental in establishing the Fund for the Support of Decay'd Musicians and their Families (later the Royal Society of Musicians). On Croft's death in August 1727, he was appointed organist and composer of the Chapel Royal. On 6 July 1730 the new Senate House in Cambridge was opened with a performance of his setting of Pope's Ode on St Cecilia's Day, specially adapted for the occasion by the poet himself. The next day the composer was formally admitted ‘Doctor in Musica’ and, ‘in compliment to his performance’, was shortly afterwards made professor of music, a purely honorary position which had been vacant since the death of Tudway in November 1726. The Mastership of the King's Musick followed in January 1735. Greene, not yet 40, now held every major musical appointment in the land. In January 1750 Katharine Greene (1729-1797), the composer's only surviving child, married the Rev. Michael Festing, son of one of Greene's oldest friends and professional associates. About this time, his health began to deteriorate: the Apollo Academy was disbanded and the conductorship of the Sons of the Clergy festival passed to Boyce. His last years were largely occupied with preparations for a projected collection of church music, ancient and modern, copies of which he apparently intended to present to every cathedral in England.

WOLF, Ernst Wilhelm (1735-1792) - Sinfonia (G-Dur) à 6 voci (1789)

Ernst Wilhelm Wolf (1735-1792) - Sinfonia (G-Dur) à 6 voci (1789)

Performers: Staatskapelle Weimar

Painting: Unknown artist - Portrait of Ernst Wilhelm Wolf (1735-1792)

Further info: Meister Goethe Zeit

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Ernst Wilhelm Wolf

(Grossen Behringen, bap. 25 February 1735 - Weimar, 30 November 1792) 

German composer. By the age of seven he was skilled in the practice of thoroughbass. He attended the Gymnasien at Eisenach and Gotha and became a choir prefect. In Gotha he was fascinated by works of Graun and C.P.E. Bach and participated in concerts at the court; when one of his works was performed in 1752, Bach praised it. Encouraged by his elder brother, Ernst Friedrich Wolf (a composer, organist and pupil of G.H. Stölzel), he went to the University of Jena in 1755 and there became the director of the collegium musicum, for which he composed a number of works including the cantata Streit zwischen Phöbus und Pan (1758) for the 200th anniversary of the university. When he went to Leipzig in 1758 his reputation increased further in the circle of J.F. Doles and J.A. Hiller. After a period in Naumburg as music teacher to the von Ponickau family, Wolf set off for Italy but ended his journey in Weimar as music tutor to Duchess Anna Amalia's sons; at Weimar he became the court Konzertmeister (1761), organist (1763) and Kapellmeister (1772). In 1770 he married the chamber music singer and harpsichordist Maria Carolina Benda (see Benda family), with whom he made a concert tour to Berlin; Wolf was also related to J.F. Reichardt. It is uncertain whether, at the instigation of the duchess, Wolf refused an offer from Frederick the Great of Prussia to succeed C.P.E. Bach. He remained in Weimar until his death. Wolf was a leading figure at the Weimar court and was in close contact with members of the Musenhof (including Wieland, Goethe, Herder, von Einsiedel, von Seckendorff, Kotzebue, Bertuch and Musäus) and with the duchess herself. He devoted himself above all to creating new modes of expression, and despite some conventional elements his works were known far beyond Weimar during his lifetime. He wrote about 20 Singspiele and numerous pieces for the church and court. The Singspiele are typical of the period in Weimar: Das Rosenfest, Die Dorfdeputierten and Le monde de la lune show the influence of Rousseau and Hiller; Die treuen Köhler, Der Abend im Walde and Ehrlichkeit und Liebe are encumbered with modish and ephemeral features in their idyllic conception of nature. Occasionally, apart from galant phrases, his sensitivity leads to shallowness (e.g. the song Röschen, Gretchen, Lieschen, Hännchen); this corresponds to his imitation of popular elements. However, Friedlaender's assertion that Wolf's melodies are ‘insignificant [and] unattractive’ is only partly correct. In Die Dorfdeputierten folksong elements (as in the trio ‘Ein Hund, ein Kätzchen’, with its ‘Wau, wau’ and ‘Miau, miau’ imitations, and the laughing chorus) are mingled with Singspiel formulae reminiscent of Mozart (e.g. ‘Süsse Hoffnung, Tochter des Himmels’). A simplicity achieved through doubling, monotonous superficial repetitions and the use of a continuo characterizes the other dramatic works and some of the secular cantatas (e.g. Polyxena and Serafina).

DONIZETTI, Gaetano (1797-1848) - Kyrie e Gloria in Re maggiore

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) - Kyrie e Gloria in Re maggiore

Performers: Valentina di Cola (soprano); Emanuela Deffai (mezzosoprano); Roberto Bencivenga (tenor); Carlo di Cristoforo (bass); Symphony Orchestra of Praga; Eduardo Brizio (conductor)

Drawing: Anonymous - Stage Design, Interior of Papal Palace (1777)

Further info: Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) - Sinfonie da Opere

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(Domenico) Gaetano (Maria) Donizetti

(Bergamo, 29 November 1797 - Bergamo 8 April 1848)

Italian composer. A dominant figure in Italian opera, he was equally successful in comic and serious genres, and an important precursor of Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo, the fifth of six children of Andrea and Domenica (Nava) Donizetti. The family lived in extremely modest circumstances: the highest station Andrea Donizetti achieved was that of custodian and usher at Bergamo's pawnshop, the Monte de' Pegni. Donizetti's early encounters with music were made possible by his first composition teacher and lifelong mentor, Simon Mayr, a native of Bavaria who was maestro di cappella at the cathedral of S Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. At the age of nine, Donizetti was admitted as a scholarship student to the Lezioni Caritatevoli, a school Mayr founded in the same year to train musicians for the cathedral. Donizetti took classes in singing and keyboard, and, later, in composition and theory with Mayr himself. In 1815 Mayr arranged for Donizetti to continue his studies at Bologna's Liceo Filarmonico Comunale under Padre Stanislao Mattei. When Donizetti concluded his studies in Bologna in 1817, Mayr helped him to obtain his first professional engagement, a commission that resulted in Enrico di Borgogna, performed in November 1818 at the Teatro di S Luca in Venice. Up to this point Donizetti's professional activities had been confined to northern Italy and to smaller theatres, but in 1821 he was invited – probably again on Mayr's recommendation – to compose a new opera for the Teatro Argentina in Rome. The resulting work, Zoraid di Granata, was Donizetti's most successful yet, winning him an invitation from the leading impresario of the time, Domenico Barbaja, to write for Naples. Donizetti settled in Naples in February 1822 and was to be based there for the next 16 years, although he quickly began to receive performances and commissions across a widening geographical area. 

In 1825-26 Donizetti embarked on a disastrous year at the Teatro Carolino in Palermo, a position that paid him only 45 ducats a month (the prima donna earned more than ten times that sum). The only operatic product of this failed experiment was Alahor in Granata, which was much criticized for the ‘immorality’ of its libretto and for excessive reliance on Rossinian formulas. Upon returning to Naples in 1827 Donizetti signed a new and demanding contract with Barbaja, for four new operas per year over three years. In 1828 Donizetti accepted the position of director of the royal theatres of Naples, a post he would hold until 1838. After more than a decade of what might be called apprenticeship, Donizetti's reputation was established, nationally and internationally, by the success of his 31st opera, Anna Bolena. Performed in 1830 in a special carnival season at the Teatro Carcano in Milan that also included the première of Bellini's La sonnambula, the opera was an immediate success, quickly going on to be performed in Paris and London, and decisively altering many aspects of Donizetti's career. Like that of Rossini and Bellini, Donizetti's success was dependent on the cooperation and support of the singers who performed his operas, and interactions with singers in rehearsal were always a significant influence on the development of his style. Donizetti left Naples in October 1838 and moved permanently to Paris. In March 1842 Rossini attempted to persuade Donizetti to accept the post of maestro di cappella at the cathedral of S Petronio in Bologna, but Donizetti declined in order to accept the far more prestigious position of Hofkapellmeister to the Habsburg court in Vienna and court composer to the Austrian emperor. The Vienna job paid 1000 Austrian lire per month ‘for doing nothing’ (as the delighted Donizetti put it), and allowed for five or six months of leave; the duties were to give lessons at a conservatory, to conduct concerts in the royal apartments two or three times a year, and to write pieces for the chapel and court. He spent his last years in Bergamo where he died due to ‘cerebro-spinal syphilis’.

PISENDEL, Johann Georg (1687-1755) - Concerto (D-Dur) à piu strumenti

Johann Georg Pisendel (1687-1755) - Concerto (D-Dur) à piu strumenti (c.1740)

Performers: Petra Mullejans (violin); Baroque Orchestra of Freiburg

Painting: Edwaert Collier (1640-1707) - A Vanitas Still Life with a Violin, a Recorder and a Score of Music

Further info: Johann Georg Pisendel (1687-1755) - Simfonia, violin concerto & concerto grosso

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Johann Georg Pisendel

(Cadolzburg, 26 December 1687 - Dresden, 25 November 1755)

German violinist and composer. His family came from Markneukirchen, but in 1680 Pisendel's father settled in Cadolzburg as a Kantor. Pisendel entered the Ansbach court chapel as a chorister in 1697, and six years later became a violinist in the court orchestra. While at Ansbach he studied singing with Pistocchi and the violin with Torelli. In 1709 he travelled to Leipzig, breaking the journey at Weimar where he met Bach. Pisendel studied at Leipzig University for some time and was soon accepted in musical circles there. In 1709 he performed a concerto by Albinoni (not Torelli) with the collegium musicum, and when Melchior Hoffmann embarked on a concert tour in 1710, Pisendel deputized for him both in the collegium and in the opera orchestra. The following year Pisendel visited Darmstadt; there he took part in a performance of Graupner's opera Telemach, but declined the offer of a permanent post at court. From January 1712, Pisendel was employed as a violinist with the Dresden court orchestra. He took over the Konzertmeister's duties when Volumier died in 1728, the official title being conferred upon him in 1730. During the early years of his employment Pisendel made several tours in the entourage of the electoral prince, visiting France (1714), Berlin (1715) and Italy (1716-17). The Italian visit influenced Pisendel profoundly: a nine-month stay in Venice (from April 1716) enabled him to study with Vivaldi and a close friendship developed between the two musicians. In 1717 Pisendel moved on to Rome (where he took lessons from Montanari), Naples and other Italian cities before returning to Dresden that autumn. After a visit to Vienna in 1718 his tours became less frequent, but he accompanied his royal patron to Berlin (1728, 1744) and Warsaw (1734). Pisendel was the foremost German violinist of his day. Quantz praised his interpretation of adagio movements and Hasse commented on his assured grasp of tempo. Several leading composers (Vivaldi, Albinoni and Telemann) dedicated works to him. Pisendel was also admired for his success as an orchestral director, in which his precision and thoroughness played a major part. It was said that, before the performance of a new work, he would go through every orchestral part adding detailed bowing and expression marks. Although Pisendel's duties left little time for composition his small output of instrumental music is of the highest quality. A pupil of Heinichen in composition, he also came, through his travels, into direct contact with the French and Italian styles. Italian influence predominates in the violin concertos, which are written in Vivaldian manner but with occasional traces of a more overtly galant idiom. The solo violin sonata (dated ?1716 by Jung), is a fine work in the German tradition and may have influenced Bach's music for unaccompanied violin. Manuscript collections in Dresden show Pisendel to have been among the most important collectors of music in central Germany; many of the scores he owned were later added to those of the Dresden Kapelle and catalogued along with them. The most famous of Pisendel's pupils were J.G. Graun and Franz Benda.

CHILCOT, Thomas (1707-1766) - Organ Concerto in D, No.3 (1765)

Thomas Chilcot (1707-1766) - Organ Concerto in D, No.3 (1765)

Performers: Andrew Wilson-Dickson (organ); Welsh Baroque Orchestra

Map: George Willdey (1676-1737) - Map of Great Britain and Ireland (1715)

Further info: Thomas Chilcot - Songs and Concertos

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Thomas Chilcot

(Bath?, 1707 - Bath, 24 November 1766)

English composer and organist. He was educated at Bath Charity School, and was apprenticed in 1721 to Bath Abbey organist Josias Priest, on whose death in 1725 he became acting organist on full salary. In 1728, when his apprenticeship was due to end, his appointment was confirmed, and he remained in the post until his death, rarely travelling far from Bath. He married Elizabeth Mills of Bath in 1729 and had seven children, of whom four survived. Following Elizabeth's death, he married Anne Wrey, a member of a prominent West Country family, in 1749; Thomas and Anne are depicted on a memorial tablet in Tawstock Church, near Barnstaple. Chilcot was active in the concert life of Bath, rented out instruments, and was a freemason and a founder-member of the Society of Musicians. His large private library, including a collection of Handel manuscripts, was sold by auction in 1767 and again in 1774. His pupils included Thomas Linley. The 12 concertos are sophisticated, large-scale works. The meticulously planned first movements are cast in binary form (occasionally evoking sonata forms), but the relationship between solo and tutti resembles ritornello form. Like the early works of Domenico Scarlatti, the first set of concertos is full of hand crossings, several-octave arpeggios and leaping figures. The second set is more restrained and mature. The slow movements are galant in style: the D minor Adagio from the fifth concerto of the 1765 set, for instance, has long coloratura melodies without losing its sense of direction. Orchestral parts were published for the 1756 concertos, and a set once owned by William Boyce was catalogued in 1928, but all copies are now lost (except for a single violin part at GB-Gm). The second set of concertos was intended to be published in the early 1760s, but was not actually issued until early 1767, shortly after Chilcot's death. The title-page mentions ‘accompanyments’, but it is uncertain whether orchestral parts were ever issued.