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.
Italian composer, active in Spain. A priest, he was apparently maestro
di cappella at Bergamo Cathedral when he was appointed to the equivalent
post at Santiago di Compostela in 1769. Besides numerous sacred works,
he wrote at least two operas, De las glorias de España, la de Santiago
es la mejor (1773) and La birba (1774). Nothing survives of the first, a
kind of oratorio or ‘poema sacromelodramático’ to a libretto by Amo y
García de Lois. La birba, in three acts, was composed for the feast of
St James the Apostle, and from surviving parts it was evidently a comic
opera, possibly the first ever performed in Santiago. The many arias and
eloquent duets are particularly brilliant and carry the whole action;
the few recitatives that survive are unusually elaborate for the time.
German composer and violinist, son of Alessandro Toeschi (before
1700-1758) by his second marriage. A pupil of Johann Stamitz and Anton
Fils, he soon became a good concert violinist, and from 1752 was a
member of the Mannheim court orchestra. In 1759 he became Konzertmeister
and in 1774 music director of the electoral cabinet. During these years
he directed performances of opera and ballet and frequently travelled
to Paris, where from 1760 most of his instrumental works appeared in
print, and where until 1783 his works were frequently performed at the
Concert Spirituel. In 1778 he chose to follow the Elector Carl Theodor
to Munich, as did most of the Mannheim orchestra. His French wife
Susanna (née Nayer), in Gerber’s estimation an outstanding singer, was a
member of the Munich court opera until 1802. As the composer of more
than 66 symphonies, about 30 ballets and numerous chamber works, Toeschi
is one of the foremost representatives of the second generation of the
Mannheim school. His style was based primarily on the works of Stamitz
and Fils, but also on Italian models such as Pergolesi and Jommelli.
After unconvincing early attempts in a severe Baroque-like style, and
other superficial efforts in the manner of Fils, in the 1760s he was
able to develop a personal style which, through the influence of the
French opéra comique, was distinguished by singable melodies and clarity
of form and instrumentation. His symphonies of this period are
noteworthy for their frequent passages of imitation and for their fusion
of single-motif and dualistic sonata form principles. By 1770 he was
regarded in Paris, along with Cannabich, as one of the leading German
symphonists; many striking characteristics of Mozart’s Paris Symphony
(k297/300a) resemble Toeschi’s symphonic style of the 1770s, of which
the Symphony in D (published 1773; in Riemann, 1902: thematic catalogue,
D major, no.11) is a particularly good example. He was no less highly
regarded as a composer of ballets, to which his style was particularly
well suited. With his quatuors dialogués (1762–6) Toeschi also played an
important role in the differentiation of instrumental roles in chamber
music, and his flute compositions, praised by his contemporary Junker as
‘epoch-making’, are among the earliest works for this instrument to
depart from Baroque style.
German lutenist. He was the son of Johann Christian Falckenhagen, a
schoolmaster. When he was ten he went to live for eight years with his
uncle Johann Gottlob Erlmann, a pastor in Knauthain near Leipzig. There
he underwent training ‘in literis et musicis’, particularly the
harpsichord and, later, the lute. He then perfected his lute playing
with Johann Jacob Graf in Merseburg, where in 1715 he is mentioned as a
footman and musician in the service of the young Count Carl Heinrich von
Dieskau. In the winter term of 1719 he entered Leipzig University; a
year later he went to Weissenfels, where he remained for seven years as a
lute teacher. From about 1724 he was also employed as a chamber
musician and lutenist at the court of Duke Christian, where his presence
is documented for 1726, together with that of his wife, the singer
Johanna Aemilia. During this time he undertook various tours and enjoyed
several months’ instruction from the famous lutenist Silvius Leopold
Weiss in Dresden. After two years in Jena, he was in the service of Duke
Ernst August of Saxony-Weimar from May 1729 to 15 August 1732. By 1734
he was employed at the Bayreuth court. In 1736 Margrave Friedrich
appointed him ‘Virtuosissimo on the Lute and Chamber Musician Second to
the Kapellmeister Johann Pfeiffer’. About 1746 he referred to himself as
‘Cammer-Secretarius Registrator’ of Brandenburg-Culmbach. Falckenhagen
was one of the last important lute composers. Although some of his works
are rooted in the Baroque tradition like those of his teacher, Weiss,
they show a progressive tendency towards the galant style. His
keyboard-influenced lute writing is freely contrapuntal and usually
limited to two voices. His output ranges from modest pieces suitable for
amateurs to others (e.g. the Sonata op.1 no.5 and the concertos) of
much greater difficulty, exploiting virtuoso techniques. His Preludio
nel quale sono contenuti tutti i tuoni musicali, lasting over 20 minutes
in performance, contains labelled sections in the 24 major and minor
keys. There may be a more direct connection with J.S. Bach in the strong
possibility that the tablature version of the G minor Suite bwv995 was
arranged by Falckenhagen himself. The ornament signs and other technical
signs are the same as those used exclusively by Falckenhagen in his
printed works and found in a manuscript table of signs associated with
his Bayreuth period.
Italian writer on music, teacher and composer. Referred to at his death
as ‘Dio della musica de’ nostri tempi’, he is one of the most famous
figures in 18th-century music. He had his first music lessons from his
father Antonio Maria, a violinist and cellist; subsequent teachers were
Angelo Predieri, Giovanni Antonio Ricieri, Francesco Antonio Pistocchi
and Giacomo Antonio Perti. In 1721, he was sent to the Franciscan
Conventual monastery in Lugo di Romagna. He returned to Bologna towards
the end of 1722 and played the organ at S Francesco. In 1725 he
succeeded Padre Ferdinando Gridi as maestro di cappella of S Francesco.
He occupied that post until the last years of his life, and lived in the
convent attached to the church. Martini received minor orders in 1725,
and four years later was ordained a priest. His first extant works date
from 1724 and the first publication of his music appeared in 1734,
Litaniae atque antiphonae finales Beatae Virginis Mariae; only three
other collections of his music, all secular, were published during his
lifetime. In 1758, he was made a member of the Accademia dell’Istituto
delle Scienze di Bologna. In the same year he was also admitted to the
Accademia Filarmonica. Martini’s relationship with the Accademia is a
matter of controversy. He was certainly not the author of the Catalogo
degli aggregati della Accademia filarmonica di Bologna, an important
manuscript long attributed to him but actually by O. Penna (c.1736). In
any case, Martini seems to have remained somewhat independent of the
Accademia and its members. In 1776 he was elected a member of the
Arcadian Academy in Rome, with the name Aristosseno Anfioneo. Martini
devoted himself assiduously to composing, writing and teaching, and he
seldom left Bologna. He visited Florence, Siena and Pisa in 1759, and
Rome. He was offered positions in the Vatican, but he chose to remain in
the city of his birth.
Although he lived to the age of 78, he
apparently suffered from poor health, which may account for the fact
that he travelled so little. According to contemporary accounts,
Martini’s pupil and successor at S Francesco, Padre Stanislao Mattei,
was alone with him when he died; Martini’s last words to Mattei were
reported to have been: ‘Muoio contento; so in che mani lascio il mio
posto ed i miei scritti’
Although the extent of his teaching activities with individual students
is not always clear, at least 69 composers learnt substantially from him
and 35 others received some less clearly defined instruction. Among the
former were J.C. Bach, Bertoni, Grétry, Jommelli, Mozart and Naumann;
Martini taught them primarily counterpoint, often preparing advanced
students for admission to the Accademia Filarmonica. He also devoted
some time to singing instruction, as witness a number of surviving
solfeggi. Martini’s network of students was important for his activity
as a collector of music and music-related documents; he probably used
income from teaching to increase his music library, which was estimated
by Burney at about 17,000 volumes in 1770. One of Martini’s most
important legacies is his extensive correspondence (about 6000 letters),
only a small part of which has been published. He was also famed for
his collections of music and portraits of composers, over than 300
portraits, many of whom were commissioned at his behest. As a
theoretician, his most famous work was the unfinished Storia della
musica, which purported to begin with Adam and end with an overview of
modern 18th-century composers and styles. Martini was considered the
model by Charles Burney, who consulted the theorist on his own
endeavors. As a composer, Martini was less well known with circa 1500
extant works; 32 Masses, five operas, two oratorios, a Requiem, a
litany, over 100 smaller sacred works, 24 symphonies, 94 keyboard
sonatas, a variety of smaller chamber works and hundreds of organ
canons.
German composer and organist mainly active in England. Smith arrived in
England in 1720, having been called to London by his father, who in turn
had immigrated there in 1716 to serve as George Frederick Handel’s
chief copyist and financial advisor. He received his musical education
from Johann Pepusch, Thomas Roseingrave, and probably Handel, serving
Handel as his private secretary after 1730. In 1733 he premiered his
first opera, Ulysses, which gave him a reputation as one of Handel’s
disciples. He eventually wrote three other opera serias: Dario, Il Ciro
rinconosciuto, and Issipile. In 1753, he took over conducting Handel’s
oratorio series when the elder composer was no longer able to do so,
eventually partnering with John Stanley after 1760. During this period
he also composed for Drury Lane Theatre three operas, two of which, The
Fairies (1755) and The Tempest (1756), were based upon Shakespeare.
David Garrick himself wrote the libretto for his last opera, The
Enchanter of 1760. Smith also served as the chief organist of the
Foundling Hospital, where many of the oratorios were performed. He
retired to Bath following the composition of a funeral service for the
Prince of Wales in 1772. Smith was one of the major composers of the
English oratorio; between 1760 and 1772 he wrote no fewer than seven,
beginning with Paradise Lost. The remainder consists of Tobit,
Jehoshaphat, Redemption, Nabal, Rebecca, and Gideon, the last three of
which are arrangements of music by Handel. He also published five
volumes of pieces for the keyboard (1732-1763). While this composer
influenced his use of counterpoint and vocal style, his style was much
more akin in his music to his colleague Thomas Arne.
Composer, music publisher and piano maker. He founded a major publishing
house and a piano factory and his compositions achieved widespread
popularity in Europe and North America. Pleyel’s baptismal certificate
in the parish office names his father Martin, a schoolteacher, and his
mother Anna Theresia. He is said to have studied with Vanhal while very
young, and in about 1772 he became Haydn’s pupil and lodger in
Eisenstadt, his annual pension being paid by Count Ladislaus Erdődy,
whose family at Pressburg was related to Haydn’s patrons, the
Esterházys. The count showed his pleasure at the progress of his protégé
by offering Haydn a carriage and two horses, for which Prince Esterházy
agreed to provide a coachman and fodder. Little is known of the daily
activities of Haydn’s several pupils. A few incidents concerning
Pleyel’s apprenticeship are recounted in Framery’s Notice sur Joseph
Haydn, in which the author claimed that ‘these various anecdotes were
furnished me by a person who spent his entire youth with him and who
guarantees their authenticity’. That person is generally identified as
Pleyel, living in Paris when the Notice appeared there in 1810. The
assumption is strengthened by the manner in which the narrative favours
Pleyel, always emphasizing the closeness of his relationship with Haydn
and the master’s affection and esteem for him. During this period
Pleyel’s puppet opera Die Fee Urgele was first performed at Eszterháza
(November 1776), and at the Vienna Nationaltheater. Haydn’s puppet opera
Das abgebrannte Haus, or Die Feuersbrunst, was also first performed in
1776 or 1777, with an overture (or at least its first two movements) now
generally accepted as being by Pleyel.
By around 1780 he traveled to Italy where an amateur composer and
diplomat, Norbert Hardrava, became his patron in Naples. By 1784 he
arrived in Strasbourg, where he was appointed as assistant to Franz
Xaver Richter, eventually becoming Richter’s successor in 1789. When the
religious centers were abolished during the Revolution, he was able to
travel to London to participate in the Professional Concerts in 1791,
but he soon returned to France, settling in Paris in 1795. At that time
he opened a publishing house, which soon came to dominate music
publishing in France. Among the innovations Pleyel introduced were
miniature scores (1802). Further travels back to Austria resulted in a
pan-European reach, and he expanded his activities to the development
and construction of keyboard instruments. He retired in 1820 to a farm
outside of Paris. As a composer, Pleyel was conscious of the need to
balance pleasing music with progressive development. He had an innate
sense of melody, often coupled with progressive harmonies and expanded
formal structures. He did not, however, fulfill the oft-quoted
reflection of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that he might become Haydn’s
successor in the world of music. His works include two operas, two
Masses, a Requiem, four Revolutionary hymns, 32 Scottish songs, 40
symphonies, nine concertos (several with interchangeable alternative
solo instruments), six sinfonia concertantes, nine
serenades/divertimentos/notturnos, 95 quartets, 17 quintets, 70 trios,
85 duos, and around 65 works for fortepiano, as well as numerous smaller
compositions. His music is known by Ben [Benton] numbers.
German lutenist, composer and writer on music. Neither Baron’s life nor
his works have as yet been fully explored by scholars. His father
Michael was a maker of gold lace and expected his son to follow in his
footsteps. The younger Baron showed an inclination towards music in his
youth, however, and later made it his profession. He first studied the
lute from about 1710 with a Bohemian named Kohott (not to be confused
with the later Karl von Kahaut). In Breslau he attended the Elisabeth
Gymnasium, and from there went in 1715 to Leipzig, where he studied
philosophy and law at the university for four years. Much of the period
from 1719 to 1728 was spent in travels from one small court to another.
He first visited Halle for a short period, then in quick succession
Cöthen, Schleiz, Saalfeld and Rudolstadt. He arrived in Jena in 1720 and
remained for two years. Thereafter he travelled to Kassel, Fulda,
Würzburg, Nuremberg and Regensburg, returning in 1727 to Nuremberg where
his Historisch-theoretische und practische Untersuchung des Instruments
der Lauten, the work for which he is principally remembered, was
published the same year. In 1728 he replaced the lutenist Meusel, who
had recently died, at Gotha and held the post for four years. With the
death of the Duke of Gotha he moved on to Eisenach. In 1737, after
visits to Merseburg, Cöthen and Zerbst, Baron joined the musical
ensemble of Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia. He was immediately
granted permission to go to Dresden to purchase a theorbo, and there met
the highly esteemed lutenists S.L. Weiss and Hofer. When Frederick
became king in 1740, Baron continued to serve as theorbist in the much
expanded royal musical establishment. He remained at this post until his
death. Baron’s Untersuchung is a valuable though not always reliable
source of information about lutenists and lute playing in the late
Baroque era, when the instrument was still widely cultivated in solo and
ensemble performance in Germany. The work is divided into two main
parts. The first deals with the history of the lute, and contains
important references to contemporary players. The second is devoted to
the practice of the instrument. Baron’s other writings, as yet
incompletely studied, supplement the Untersuchung, and explore several
other subjects. The few accessible examples of Baron’s compositions
suggest that he cultivated a characteristic late Baroque idiom in his
suites, but moved in the direction of the galant style in his concertos.
The latter are in fact trio sonatas in texture, cast in the
three-movement form of the concerto.
Brazilian composer. He was the most important composer of his time in
Brazil, where he is generally referred to as José Maurício. He was the
son of a modest lieutenant, Apolinário Nunes Garcia, and a black woman,
Victoria Maria da Cruz. There is no evidence that he studied music at
the Fazenda Santa Cruz, established by the Jesuits outside Rio de
Janeiro, as has often been reported. It seems that he had some training
in solfège under a local teacher, Salvador José, and he did receive
formal instruction in philosophy, languages, rhetoric and theology. In
1784 he participated in the foundation of the Brotherhood of St Cecilia,
one of the most important professional musical organizations of the
time, and he officially entered the Brotherhood São Pedro dos Clérigos
in 1791. He was ordained priest on 3 March 1792: the fact that he was a
mulatto does not seem to have interfered in the process of his
ordination. Many of his contemporaries praised his intellectual,
artistic and priestly qualities. On 2 July 1798 Garcia was appointed
mestre de capela of Rio de Janeiro Cathedral, the most significant
musical position in the city. The appointment required him to act as
organist, conductor, composer and music teacher; and he also had the
responsibility of appointing musicians. Before that date he had begun a
music course open to the public free of charge. He maintained this
activity for 28 years, teaching some of the best-known musicians of the
time, including Francisco Manuel da Silva.
By the arrival of Prince (later King) Dom João VI and the Portuguese
court in 1808, Garcia’s fame was well established in the colony; he had
by then composed several works, including graduals, hymns, antiphons and
masses. Following the tradition of the Bragança royal house, Dom João
was a patron of music; and Garcia’s talents were immediately recognized.
In 1808 he was appointed mestre de capela of the royal chapel, for
which he wrote 39 works during 1809 alone. The prince’s appreciation was
marked by the bestowal of the Order of Christ. Soon the composer became
fashionable and famous for his skills in improvisation at the keyboard
in noble salons. The Austrian composer Sigismund Neukomm (1778-1858), a
former pupil of Haydn who lived in Rio from 1816 to 1821, referred to
Garcia as ‘the first improviser in the world’. But after the arrival in
1811 of Marcos Portugal, the most famous Portuguese composer of his
time, Garcia’s position and production tended to decline. His humility
and benevolence kept him from counteracting Portugal’s intrigues. His
activities as composer and conductor concentrated henceforth on the
city’s brotherhoods, although his position at the royal chapel was
nominally maintained. In about 1816 his health began to decline,
considerably reducing his working capacity. Yet on 19 December 1819 he
conducted the première in Brazil of Mozart’s Requiem, an event reported
by Neukomm in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. The return of Dom
João and part of the court to Portugal in 1821 had the effect of
reducing the importance of the city’s musical life. Although Emperor
Pedro I was himself a musician, the years following independence (1822)
were not favourable for artistic development. Financial difficulties and
precarious health undermined Garcia’s last nine years, and he died in
extreme poverty.
Italian composer and organist. He initially studied under Giuseppe
Giordani and Giambattista Borghi. Later he was a pupil of Padre Martini
in Bologna and in 1764 was admitted to membership of the Accademia
Filarmonica. In 1775 he was appointed maestro di cappella at Pergola,
near Pesaro, and in 1778 departed for Senigallia, where he remained the
rest of his life. He composed several operas, mostly for small Italian
cities, as well as instrumental pieces. His son Giovanni Morandi
(1777-1856), an organist and composer, was married to the singer Rosa
Morandi (1782-1824).
Composer, son of Innocenz Danzi (c.1730-1798). He studied the piano, the
cello and singing with his father and at the age of 15 joined the
celebrated Mannheim orchestra. When the Elector Palatine Carl Theodor
transferred his court to Munich in 1778, Danzi remained in Mannheim, in
the orchestra of the newly established Nationaltheater. He studied
composition with G.J. Vogler and before leaving Mannheim wrote a
duodrama, a Singspiel and incidental music for at least eight plays. In
1784 he was appointed to replace his father as principal cellist in the
court orchestra at Munich. Although he wanted to compose operas for the
court, Danzi received no major commissions until 1789; Die
Mitternachtstunde (formerly dated 1788) was not performed until 1798. In
1790 he married the singer Margarethe Marchand. The couple visited
Hamburg, Leipzig, Prague, Florence and Venice, spending two years in the
Guardasoni company. In 1796 they returned to Munich. After the
successful première of Die Mitternachtstunde, Danzi was appointed
vice-Kapellmeister on 18 May 1798 and placed in charge of German opera
and church music. He was recognized at this time not only as one of
Munich’s leading musicians, but also as a prominent member of the city’s
literary circles, with articles in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung
(including an unsigned proposal in 1804 encouraging the development of
German opera), the literary journal Aurora, and other publications. The
next few years were marked by a series of personal and professional
setbacks. Danzi’s father died in 1798, and his wife died in 1800 after a
long illness.
The death of Carl Theodor in 1799 had a greater impact on Danzi’s
career: the new elector, Maximilian IV Joseph, was less sympathetic to
German opera and imposed financial restrictions on the theatres.
Further, Danzi faced opposition from rivals, including the new intendant
Joseph Marius Babo and the Kapellmeister Peter Winter. When his serious
German opera Iphigenie in Aulis was finally given in 1807, it was
poorly prepared and had only two performances; bitter and disappointed,
Danzi left Munich for Stuttgart. In October 1807, the King of
Württemberg offered Danzi the position of Kapellmeister at Stuttgart,
where Zumsteeg had been active. There Danzi met Carl Maria von Weber and
encouraged the younger composer as he completed his Singspiel Silvana.
In 1811 the king established an institute for music: Danzi was appointed
a director, to teach composition and supervise instruction on wind
instruments. However, he was so overworked between court duties and the
institute that he apparently had no time for composition, producing only
a single one-act opera and very little other music in his five years in
Stuttgart. Danzi left Stuttgart in 1812 to become Kapellmeister in
Karlsruhe. The musical organization there was inexperienced and weak,
and he spent the rest of his tenure trying to build a respectable
company. He remained an active correspondent with Weber and directed his
operas soon after their premières. None of his own operas written in
Karlsruhe produced a popular success, but during the last decade of his
life Danzi found a willing outlet for his instrumental compositions in
the publisher Johann André, for whom he provided numerous pieces of
chamber music. Among them were the works for which he is best known
today, his woodwind quintets opp.56, 67 and 68.
Italian composer, son of Michele Caballone. Though baptized with his
father’s patronymic, the composer in later life preferred the spelling
‘Gabellone’, as shown by autograph manuscripts. The facts of his life
and works have often been confused with those of his father. Gabellone
probably first learnt music from Michele; then, starting in 1738, he
studied at the Conservatorio di S Maria di Loreto in Naples as a pupil
of Durante. Later he is said to have taught singing and composition
there, although no records of tenure have been discovered. While a young
man, Gabellone wrote two opere buffe for the Teatro Nuovo in Naples.
His high musical repute, however, derived mainly from compositions for
the church; according to tradition, Paisiello kept for a model a copy of
Gabellone’s large-scale Messa di requiem (now lost). In 1769 Gabellone
was commissioned by the court to write the cantata for soprano solo, Qui
del Sebeto in riva, to celebrate the birthday of Queen Caroline.
Slovenian composer. In 1749 he was mentioned in the register of the
Jesuit University in Graz. In 1757 he went to Kamnik near Ljubljana as a
music teacher and by 1773 he was referred to as Civis chori regens. He
is likely to have taken part in the activities of the Accademische
Confoederation Sanctae Caeciliae, a church music society which existed
at Kamnik between 1731 and 1784. Some time during the 1780s he wrote the
opera Belin, which would make it the first opera of its kind in
Slovene, and among the first to be written in any Slavonic language.
Zupan’s surviving works show that he was close to the style of the
mid-18th-century South German School of church music.
Italian double bass player and composer. A singularly talented musician
with a characterful personality and considerable business acumen, he had
an extraordinary career. He was also a passionate collector of
instruments, music, paintings, snuff-boxes and dolls. Dragonetti's
parents, Pietro Dragonetti and Cattarina Calegari, also had a daughter,
Marietta, for whom Domenico provided financial assistance after leaving
Venice. Pietro may have been a musician and also a gondolier. Francesco
Caffi's biography (1846) is the main source for Dragonetti’s Venetian
years. It is said that Dragonetti received instruction from Michele
Berini, a bassist in the theatres and at S Marco. He practised
assiduously, performed to popular acclaim in the streets of Venice,
learnt from friendships with Sciarmadori (a shoemaker) and the violinist
Nicola Mestrino and was a member of the Arte dei Suonatori. At the age
of 24, three years after his first attempt to join the instrumentalists
at S Marco, he was accepted as the fifth of five double bass players on
13 September 1787; by December he had become principal. In 1791 the
procurators rewarded him for his rejection of offers from abroad with a
payment of 310 lire. By autumn 1794, aged 31, Dragonetti could no longer
be retained and on 16 September he left Venice for London with a
two-year leave of absence, which was later extended by a further three
years. Although he returned to Venice in 1799 in order to finalize his
resignation, and visited the city again in 1809, the remainder of his
life was based in London. Dragonetti's career in England was remarkable.
Not only did he irrevocably challenge and alter the reception and
expectations of his instrument but he also carved out for himself a
unique position in music-making in Britain which lasted for more than
half a century. At a time when orchestral musicians commanded meagre
incomes Dragonetti accumulated wealth and security: in June 1846 his
balance at Coutts & Co. stood at £1006 12s. 2d. His popularity and
skill formed a unique commodity which allowed him to negotiate suitable
payment.
In the 1790s he performed his own compositions to widespread
recognition. One critic remarked that Dragonetti ‘by powers almost
magical, invests an instrument, which seems to wage eternal war with
melody, “rough as the storm, and as the thunder loud”, with all the
charms of soft harmonious sounds’ (Bath Chronicle, 14 Nov 1799). Between
1808 and 1814 he was abroad, visiting both Vienna and Venice. After
1815 his income was derived mainly from orchestral work, and his
appearances in chamber music, which included popular transcriptions of
sonatas by Corelli, Handel and Giuseppe Sammartini, as well as original
works by his contemporaries, maintained and consolidated his reputation.
Dragonetti's annual diary featured a fluctuating blend of engagements
during the London season at the King's Theatre, the Ancient Concerts,
the Philharmonic Society and Drury Lane, various subscription series,
and benefit, public and private concerts. During the remaining months he
was a familiar figure at provincial festivals and in the homes of the
aristocracy. His fees were exceptionally high for an instrumentalist:
protracted haggling with the Philharmonic Society led on the one hand to
his absence from the London première of Beethoven's Symphony no.9 in
1825, and on the other to his status as the highest-paid orchestral
player from 1831 to 1842. He died aged 83, basking in the affection of
his many friends. The emotional tribute in The Musical World (9 May
1846) declared: "Dragonetti was not only the greatest performer of his
age on the double bass – possessing the finest instinct of true
excellence in all that concerns his art – but he had moral qualities of a
high order; a benevolent and generous disposition, and an inclination
to friendship, which he exercised with judgment and discrimination in
men and things."
Bohemian composer. He studied the oboe with Besozzi in Dresden, then
became a grenadier in the 50th Infantry regiment, apparently joining it
at Eger in 1762; the regiment was later at Vienna (from 1763), Enns
(1764), Linz (c.1771) and Braunau (1775). From 1768 to 1775 Druschetzky
was a regimental musician and towards the end of his service a
Kapellmeister. His first known composition is a Symphony in G dated 1770
in Linz, where he also published a Concertino in G for harpsichord by
F.X. Dušek. On 15 April 1777 he became a bestallter Landschaftspauker
(‘certified regional drummer’) in the public service of Upper Austria,
conducting the musical performances on official occasions in Linz. In
about 1783 he may have moved to Vienna, where he was a member of the
Tonkünstler-Societät. In 1786 or 1787 he entered the service of Count
Anton Grassalkovics at Pressburg (Bratislava), where he directed and
provided music for the wind band. Following the count’s death in 1794 he
was employed by Cardinal Battyány in Pest at his country estate at
Rechnitz. By 1802 he was music director and composer for the wind octet
of Archduke Joseph Anton Johann in Budapest, city where he died in 1819.
Much of Druschetzky’s output consists of Harmoniemusik. His musical
language is slightly anachronistic, employing an early Classical style.
His music displays a competent, if undistinguished, response to melody
and harmony and his forms are short and devoid of melodic extension. His
textures, however, often feature unusual sonorities and daring
concertante passages, especially for wind instruments. The second
movement of the fourth of his last six oboe quartets (in H-Bn) contains
an early use of the B–A–C–H motif.
German composer, political writer and writer on music. Son of a
lutenist, Johann Reichardt (c.1720-1780), he received his early musical
education from his father, as well as Franz Veichtner and Carl Gottlieb
Richter. He attended Königsberg university, where he became acquainted
with the philosophy of Emanuel Kant, but in 1771 he embarked on an
extensive tour of Germany to further his own musical education. In 1775
he applied for and won the post of Kapellmeister to Frederick II though
he had little experience in musical composition, and in 1777 he married
Julianne Benda, daughter of Franz Benda and composer in her own right.
Tours to Italy and Vienna in 1783 (where he became friends with Joseph
Martin Kraus) as well as France and England in 1785 both broadened his
education and served to implement a Concert spirituel in Berlin. In 1791
he retired to his country home in Giebichenstein due to illness, and
shortly thereafter he was denounced as a revolutionary. After the
Napoleonic invasion, he was offered the post of musical director in
Kassel, but he spent the last years of his life in poverty. Reichardt
can be seen as one of the most intellectual composers of the period. His
views on musical life, published as a series of letters, evoke Charles
Burney, while his 1774 'Über die deutsche komische Oper' must be seen as
a seminal work on the genre. He was close friends with Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller, working with the former in 1789
on the Singspiel Claudine von Villa Bella. His musical style is often
dramatic, with orchestration that foreshadows the Romantic period, and
he can be considered both an adherent of the Sturm und Drang style and
one of the principal composers of Lieder of the Berlin School. His
compositions include 1500 Lieder, 29 operas (mostly Singspiels), 11 sets
of incidental music to plays, two ballets, two oratorios, 13 German
cantatas, a Requiem, two Te Deums, eight Psalms, nine symphonies, 11
concertos (nine for keyboard), three quintets, a quartet, 15 trios, 26
keyboard sonatas, 16 violin sonatas, and over 100 horn duets.
Italian composer. He began his musical activity in Tuscany and Liguria.
One of his first operas, 'Il semplice riflessivo e gli astuti furiosi',
was performed in 1798 at the Teatro della Pallacorda in Florence. In
1807 he settled in Cagliari where he was active as a 'maestro al
cembalo' at the Regio Teatro and from the following year at the Cappella
Civica and again at the Regio Teatro, but now as a composer. In June
1810 he moved to Sassari, where he held the position of 'maestro di
cappella' of the Sassari's Cathedral, post he preserved until his death
in 1820. During his stay in Sassari he wrote two operas, a festive
cantata and some liturgical works, among them the foremost 'Messa a tre
voci con accompagnamento di piena orchestra' (1805).
English composer, organist, theorist and painter. He was an exceptional
child prodigy and became one of the most distinguished English musicians
of his day. Crotch was the youngest son of Michael Crotch, a master
carpenter, and his wife Isabella. At the age of about 18 months he began
to pick out tunes on a small house organ which his father had built,
and soon after his second birthday he had taught himself to play God
Save the King with the bass. He played to a large company at Norwich in
February 1778, and that summer his mother began taking him on a series
of tours in which his phenomenal gifts were exploited. On 1 January 1779
he played to the king and queen at Buckingham Palace. He could
transpose into any key, and name all four notes in a chord by ear.
Burney described his abilities in a report to the Royal Society on 18
February 1779. He then toured the British Isles appearing several times
in Scotland. He could play the organ, piano and violin, had already
begun to compose, and was also talented in drawing and painting. On a
visit to Leicester he played to William Gardiner, who reported that he
could read Handel’s organ concertos at sight. In 1779 he made the
acquaintance of two other infant prodigies, Charles and Samuel Wesley,
who established that he could distinguish between mean-tone and natural
scales. Samuel Wesley and Crotch remained lifelong friends. From 1786 to
1788 he was at Cambridge, as assistant to Professor Randall. In
September 1790 Crotch was appointed organist of Christ Church, Oxford,
while still only 15 years old. From 1793 he began deputizing for the
professor of music, Philip Hayes, as the conductor of the Music Room
concerts, which he continued to direct until 1806. He took the degree of
BMus on 5 June 1794, and that of DMus on 21 November 1799.
In March 1797 he succeeded Hayes as professor of music and organist of
St John’s College and the university church of St Mary the Virgin. In
1806–7 he withdrew from Oxford, resigning his organistships, and settled
in London. In London he became well known as a teacher, composer and
scholar. His appearances as a soloist were infrequent but remarkable. He
sometimes played one of his organ concertos at a benefit concert. He
conducted the Birmingham Festival in 1808, and frequently directed
concerts of the Philharmonic Society in London, of which he had become
an associate on its foundation in 1813. Between 1812 and 1823 he gave
courses annually at the Surrey Institution and during the 1820s at the
Royal Institution and London Institution. On the establishment of the
Royal Academy of Music in 1822 Crotch was appointed its principal. He
resigned the principalship on 21 June 1832. In retirement he devoted
himself to sketching, composing and writing on all manner of subjects,
especially for the benefit of his young nephews, nieces and
grandchildren. He would sometimes visit his son, the Rev. W.R. Crotch,
who was master of the grammar school, Taunton; it was during one such
visit that he died. The evidence of Crotch’s precocity is incontestable,
being based in part on contemporary printed accounts in many sources,
including those of such qualified observers as Barrington and Burney.
The fact that Crotch’s ultimate achievement as a composer hardly lived
up to this promise may perhaps be put down to the psychological damage
he suffered as a child. Crotch himself later confessed: ‘I look back on
this part of my life with pain and humiliation … I was becoming a spoilt
child and in danger of becoming what too many of my musical brethren
have become under similar circumstances and unfortunately remained
through life’.
