JUST, Johann August (c.1750-1791) - Sonata III, Op.13 (1781)

Johann August Just (c.1750-1791) - Sonata (III) for the Piano Forte with Accompanyment, Op.13 (1781)

Performers: Camerata Classica ensemble

Painting: Hendrik Pothoven (1725-1807) - View of the Binnenhof in The Hague with the Ridderzaal (1787)

Further info: Johann August Just (c.1750-1791) - Klaviertrios Op. 2 (c.1770)

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Johann August Just

(Gröningen, c.1750 - The Hague, December 1791)

German keyboard player, composer and violinist. According to early chroniclers, he studied with Kirnberger in Berlin and subsequently with Schwindl at The Hague. By 1767 he was at the court of William V, Prince of Orange and Nassau, where he served as music master to Princess Wilhelmine; he remained connected with the court throughout his career. Early in his life he may have visited London; by 1772 his publications there had reached op.3, and most works published on the Continent were promptly reprinted in London. Fétis’s statement that Just followed the court into exile in England (January 1795) must be false, as royal archives imply an earlier death. As Burney wrote only on deceased composers for Rees’s Cyclopaedia, Just must have died before Burney’s brief article on him was written (c.1804). Just was described by Gerber as being among ‘the best keyboard players in the new manner’. His compositions are largely for keyboard, but he also wrote at least three Singspiele, of which De Koopman van Smyrna was performed in German translation in Bonn and Frankfurt in 1783. The style of the Singspiele resembles the popular works of J.A. Hiller, but they also share characteristics with current Parisian comedies. The keyboard works are marked by their frankly pedagogic orientation and include many sonatinas and divertimentos; use of the latter title, two-part writing and other points of style suggest the possible influence of the widely circulated keyboard music of Wagenseil. Keyboard publications include variations on popular songs; one set (1773) used ‘Lison dormait dans un bocage’ from Dezède’s Julie. (It was later similarly used by Mozart in his nine variations k264.) Just’s simple pieces generally possess refinement and charm and are still attractive teaching material. At a time when the piano was coming into vogue his teaching collections continued to specify the harpsichord. Many sets include fashionable violin accompaniments, but in op.6 the violin is obbligato and a true concertante equality between the instruments often results. Fétis’s attribution to Just of the keyboard method New and Compleat Instructions for the Harpsichord, Piano-Forte or Organ (London, c.1798) has not been verified but is reinforced by Just’s lifelong concern with didactic materials and by selections in it entitled ‘The Prince’s Favourite’ and ‘Stadtholder’s Minuet’. (A possible alternative compiler is the court pianist J.A. Colizzi.)

IVANSCHIZ, Amandus (1727-1758) - Missa (ex C) à 4 voci (c.1755)

Amandus Ivanschiz (1727-1758) - Missa (ex C) à 4 voci (c.1755)

Performers: Cаtеrina Prеstеlе (soprano); Kаtаrzyna Holysz (alto); Piotr Szеwczyk (tenor); Miroslаw Bοrczynski (bass); Accаdеmia dеll'Arcаdiа; Vox humаnа; Bаrtlomiеj Stаnkowiak (conductor)

Painting: Theodoor van Thulden (1606-1669) - Allegory of the Farewell of William III from Amalia van Solms following the transfer of Regency to the States General (1661)

Further info: Amando Ivanschiz (1727-1758) - Missa in C

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Amandus (Matthias Leopold) Ivanschiz [Ivanschitz, Ivanschütz, Ivanscics, Ivančić, Ivančič]

(Wien, bap. 24 December 1727 - Ort?, 1758)

Austrian composer of south Slav extraction. Only fragmentary information about his life is available. He entered the Pauline order in his hometown and choose the name of Amandus likely by the end of 1742. After his novitiate in the Ranna monastery at the age of 16 (Dec. 25, 1743) he took his monastic vows. He then studied in Maria Trost and Wiener Neustadt, where he was ordained a priest on November 15, 1750. Between 1751 and 1754 he stayed in Rome as an assistant to the Procurator General of the order, from where he returned to Wiener Neustadt. In 1755 he was sent again to the Maria Trost monastery, where he died in 1758, at the young age of 31. He was evidently a prolific and popular composer: there survive about 100 works by him in manuscripts, dating mostly from 1762 to 1772 and scattered throughout the Habsburg Empire and in south Germany. His music is characteristic of the transition from late Baroque to early Classical style, and his best works are his masses and symphonies. The masses are mostly scored for four soloists, four-part choir, two violins and bass and a pair of trumpets; some are of considerable dimensions, and they show distinct Neapolitan traits. The symphonies, many of which have four movements, are scored for strings, sometimes with a pair of trumpets or horns. The trios, entitled variously ‘Divertimento’, ‘Nocturno’, ‘Sinfonia’, ‘Sonata’ and ‘Parthia’, are mostly in three movements in the same key; Ivanschiz’s frequent use of the viola as the second solo instrument is a forward-looking trait. 

TARTINI, Giuseppe (1692-1770) - Concerto a Violoncello principale obligato

Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) - Concerto a Violoncello principale obligato (c.1740)

Performers: Mstislav Rostropovitch (1927-2007, violoncelle); Collegіum Musіcum de Zurіch;

Paul Sacher (1906-1999, conductor)

Painting: Anonymous - Portrait of Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770)

Further info: Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) - I concerti per flauto

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Giuseppe Tartini

(Pirano, [now Piran, Slovenia], 8 April 1692 - Padua, 26 February 1770)

Italian composer, violinist, teacher and theorist. Tartini's father Giovanni Antonio, of Florentine origin, was general manager of the salt mills in Pirano. Giuseppe, destined for the church by his pious parents, was to have been first a minore conventuale, a branch of the Franciscan order, and subsequently a full priest. To this end he was educated in his native town and then in nearby Capodistria (now Koper, Slovenia) at the scuole pie; as well as the humanities and rhetoric, he studied the rudiments of music. In 1708 he left his native region, never to live there again, but carrying in his memory the peculiarities of the local musical folklore. He enrolled as a law student at Padua University, where he devoted most of his time, always dressed as a priest, to improving his fencing, a practice in which, according to contemporary accounts, few could compete with him. A few months after his father's death, Tartini openly rebelled against his parents' intentions, and on 29 July 1710 he married Elisabetta Premazore, a girl of lower social standing and two years his elder. He was then compelled to leave Padua and took refuge in the convent of S Francesco in Assisi, where he was sheltered by the superior, Padre G.B. Torre, from Pirano. There Tartini remained for at least three years, devoting himself determinedly to practising the violin, always without tuition. Although direct evidence is lacking, he probably studied composition during this period with Padre Bohuslav Černohorský, then organist of the basilica in Assisi. 

By 1714, he was a violinist in the Ancona opera and spent the next years playing at various theaters in northeastern Italy. On 16 April 1721, he was appointed primo violino e capo di concerto at San Antonio of Padua. From 1723 to 1726, he was in Prague, in service to the Kinsky family, where he met Johann Joseph Fux, Antonio Caldara, and Sylvius Weiss, among others. Then he returned to Padua, started his school, and about 1730, brought out his first published volume of violin works. In an age when composing for the church or the theater was the sure path to success, Tartini refused to do either and embarked upon an idiosyncratic career establishing an international reputation as violinist and philosopher of music, writing five treatises contesting the ideas of Giovanni Battista Martini, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, among others, and leaving an oeuvre concentrated on the violin: about 135 solo violin concertos, about 135 violin sonatas with continuo, 30 unaccompanied sonatas, and about 40 trio sonatas. He also composed 2 flute concertos, 2 concertos for viola da gamba, 4 motets, and 20 Italian sacred songs. Most of his living was made as a freelance violinist. In the late 1720s, he founded his own school of violin playing, the first of its type, known as “school of the nations” because it attracted students from all over Europe. About 1740, he suffered a stroke that adversely affected his playing, and he devoted more and more time to music theory in his last years.

HANDEL, Georg Friederich (1685-1759) - Horn Concerto in F (1715)

Georg Friederich Händel (1685-1759) - Horn Concerto in F (1715)

Performers: Mеir Rіmon (1946-1991, horn); Isrаеl Philarmonic Orchestra

Painting: Thomas Hudson (1701-1779) - George Frederick Handel (1756)

Further info: Georg Frederich Händel (1685-1759) - Dixit Dominus

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George Frideric (Georg Friederich) Handel [Händel, Hendel]

(Halle, 23 February 1685 - London, 14 April 1759)

English composer of German birth. Handel’s father, Georg Händel (1622-1697), wanted his son to study law but Herr Händel was also the barber-surgeon to the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, who once happened to hear the boy play. The duke changed Georg Händel’s mind. Then he studied harpsichord, organ and composition with Friedrich Zachow. Handel’s future career may have been stimulated by a visit to Berlin in 1702, where he met opera composer Giovanni Bononcini and heard his Cefalo and Polifemo. In summer 1703, he left Halle for Hamburg and joined the opera orchestra there as second violinist and continuo harpsichordist. During the fortuitous absence of Reinhard Keiser, the Hamburg Theater’s principal composer, Handel composed his first operas in 1705, Almira and Nero. In the latter half of 1706, Handel traveled to Italy, probably visiting Florence but certainly Rome by early 1707, where he quickly earned the patronage of Carlo Cardinal Colonna and Benedetto Cardinal Pamphili. Handel composed a number of motets, two Italian-style oratorios and a dramatic cantata. Working in these genres, derived from opera, honed Handel’s musical-dramatic skills. Finally, in Venice, his full-length opera Agrippina opened the Carnival season on 26 December 1709, to great acclaim. In 1710, Handel returned to Germany. The elector of Hanover, future King George I, began his family’s long association with Handel by appointing him court Kapellmeister. But Handel, allowed to travel by the terms of his appointment, went on to London ahead of the elector in the autumn of 1710. Though later than most cities on the continent, London was falling under the spell of imported Italian opera. Arrangements and excerpts had been heard since 1705, but Handel’s Rinaldo of 1711 was the first original full-length Italian opera for London with an Italian cast. In May 1719, Handel was commissioned by the lord chamberlain to go to the continent and engage opera singers to establish the Royal Academy of Music, a joint stock company supported by King George I and financed by subscribers who hoped to profit. The Royal Academy, with operatic contributions from Giovanni Porta, Bononcini, and Attilio Ariosti, provided all Handel’s operatic activity until it closed in 1728. 

On 29 January 1728, John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera opened at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theater. Its popular success, with its simple English songs and satire of the Royal Academy, is sometimes regarded as the beginning of the end of Handel’s opera career in England. But Handel went back to Europe from February until July in 1729 and engaged new singers to sing in a reconstituted Royal Academy. Over the next 12 years, he persevered under various auspices and venues with 17 more Italian operas despite political opposition, operatic competition fueled by a feud between King George II and Frederick Prince of Wales, and a debilitating illness in April 1737. Many of these operas were not successful and had to close after a few performances, despite the excellence of the music. But in 1741 he composed his most famous work, Messiah, an English-language oratorio, premiered in Dublin on April 1742. After an initially modest public reception, the oratorio gained in popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music. On 21 January 1751, Handel began to compose an oratorio on the same story as the Giacomo Carissimi work that he knew well, Jephtha. But the work was interrupted by rapidly deteriorating eyesight, and he did not complete the score until 30 August. He composed no large new pieces after that, although, through the aid of his assistant, John Christopher Smith, he managed to effect revisions and contribute some new songs and arias to revivals. William Blomfield, royal surgeon, operated unsuccessfully on Handel’s eye in November 1752, as did John Taylor in August 1758. Handel continued to participate in performances and to revise and revive his work throughout the 1750s, finishing in 1759 with a revision of his 1749 oratorio Solomon. On 6 April, he attended a last performance of Messiah and died on 14 April. At his own request, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, and it is reported that 3,000 people attended the burial service.

CZERNY, Carl (1791-1857) - Variations on 'Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser' (1824)

Carl Czerny (1791-1857) - Variations on 'Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser', Op. 73 (1824)

Performers: Felicja Blumental (1908-1991, piano); Vienna Chamber Orchestra;

Hellmuth Froschauer (1933-2019, conductor)

Painting: Josef Danhauser (1805-1845) - Wein, Weib und Gesang

Further info: Carl Czerny (1791-1857) - Lieder

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Carl Czerny

(Vienna, 21 February 1791 - Vienna, 15 July 1857)

Austrian piano teacher, composer, pianist, theorist and historian.The primary source of information about Czerny is his autobiographical sketch entitled Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben (1842). Czerny, an only child, was born in Vienna. He and his parents resided together until his mother's death in 1827, and his father's in 1832. He never married, and lived alone for the remainder of his life. Czerny describes his childhood as ‘under my parents’ constant supervision… carefully isolated from other children’. He began to study the piano with his father at an early age, and by ten was ‘able to play cleanly and fluently nearly everything of Mozart [and] Clementi’. His first efforts at composition began around the age of seven. In 1799, he began to study Beethoven's compositions, coached by Wenzel Krumpholz, a violinist in the Court Opera orchestra, who introduced him to Beethoven when he was ten. Beethoven indicated that he wanted to teach Czerny several times a week, and told his father to procure C.P.E. Bach's Versuch. Czerny describes the lessons as consisting of scales and technique at first, then progressing through the Versuch, with the stress on legato technique throughout. The lessons stopped around 1802, because Beethoven needed to concentrate for longer periods of time on composition, and because Czerny's father was unable to sacrifice his own lessons in order to take his son to Beethoven. Czerny neverthless remained on close terms with the composer, who asked him to proofread all his newly published works, and entrusted him with the piano reduction of the score of Fidelio in 1805. In 1800, Czerny made his public début in the Vienna Augarten hall, performing Mozart's C minor Concerto k491. He was renowned for his interpretation of Beethoven's work, performing the First Concerto in C major in 1806, and the ‘Emperor’ in 1812. Beginning in 1816 he gave weekly programmes at his home devoted exclusively to Beethoven's piano music, many of which were attended by the composer. Apparently he could perform all of Beethoven's piano music from memory.

Although his playing was praised by many critics (‘uncommonly fiery’, according to Schilling), he did not pursue a career as a performer. Instead, he decided to concentrate on teaching and composition. He spent a good deal of time with Clementi when the latter was in Vienna in 1810, becoming familiar with his method of teaching, which Czerny greatly admired and incorporated into his own pedagogy. In his early teens Czerny began to teach some of his father's students. By the age of 15, he was commanding a good price for his lessons, and had many pupils. In 1815, Beethoven asked him to teach his nephew, Carl. As his reputation continued to grow, he was able to command a lucrative fee, and for the next 21 years he claims to have given 12 lessons a day, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., until he gave up teaching entirely in 1836. In 1821, the nine-year-old Liszt began a two-year period of study with Czerny. The teacher noted that ‘never before had I had so eager, talented, or industrious a student’, but lamented that Liszt had begun his performing career too early, without proper training in composition. Czerny also taught, among others, Döhler, Kullak, Alfred Jaëll, Thalberg, Heller, Ninette von Bellevile-Oury and Blahetka. Around 1802, Czerny began to copy out many J.S. Bach fugues, Scarlatti sonatas and other works by ‘ancient’ composers. He describes learning orchestration by copying the parts from the first two Beethoven symphonies, and several Haydn and Mozart symphonies as well. He published his first composition in 1806 at the age of 15: a set of 20 Variations concertantes for piano and violin op.1 on a theme by Krumpholz. Until he gave up teaching, composition occupied ‘every free moment I had’, usually the evenings. Czerny was a central figure in the transmission of Beethoven's legacy. Many of his technical exercises remain an essential part of nearly every pianist's training, but most of his compositions – in nearly every genre, sacred and secular, with opus numbers totalling 861, and an even greater number of works published without opus – are largely forgotten. A large number of theoretical works are of great importance for the insight they offer into contemporary musical genres and performance practice.

DE HITA, Antonio Rodríguez (1724-1787) - Missa in Conceptione Beatae Mariae Virginis (1771)

Antonio Rodríguez de Hita (1724-1787) - Missa in Conceptione Beatae Mariae Virginis (1771)

Performers: Lа Grаndе Chаpеllе; Scholа Antiquа; Albеrt Rеcаsеns (director)

Drawing: Anónimo español (s. XVIII) - Proyecto de torres para la fachada de la iglesia de la Casa Profesa de los Jesuitas, en Madrid

Further info: Rodriguez De Hita: Misa O Gloriosa Virginum

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Antonio Rodríguez de Hita [Ita, Yta]

(Valverde de Alcalá, 18 January 1722 - Madrid, 21 February 1787)

Spanish composer and theorist. He attended the choir school of the prebendary church of Alcalá de Henares and was maestro de capilla of that church from 1738 to 1744. In 1744 he became maestro de capilla of Palencia Cathedral; three years later he was ordained to the priesthood. His works for Palencia Cathedral included Escala diatónico-chromático-enharmónica (1751), a cycle of 75 short imitative pieces for up to five wind players, as well as Latin sacred works and villancicos. Following the liberal ideas defended by B.J. Feijoo in his Cartas eruditas y curiosas, he justified innovations as long as they provided aural pleasure, thus opposing the rationalist view of music. This aspect of the treatise was criticized by the moderate A.V. Roel del Río in his Razón natural i científica de la música (1760). During this period, he applied unsuccessfully for more prestigious posts; eventually in September 1765 he succeeded José Mir y Llusá as maestro de capilla of the Monasterio de la Encarnación in Madrid, which enjoyed royal patronage. Barely three years after his arrival, he began a short but brilliant career as a composer of stage music, collaborating mainly with the dramatist Ramón de la Cruz (1731-1794). These productions took place during the enlightened period of rule under the Count of Aranda, president of the Council of Castille between 1766 and 1773; their first joint work, the serious zarzuela Briseida, was chosen to open the first special summer season of daily performances at the municipal theatres of Madrid. Rodríguez's second comic zarzuela, Las labradoras de Murcia (1769), shows the clear influence of opera buffa. In his last important stage work, Scipión en Cartagena (1770), Rodríguez collaborated with a little-known writer, Pablo Agustín Cordero, who centred the work on the conquest of the Spanish port of New Carthage (Cartagena) during the Second Punic War. 

With these four zarzuelas, Rodríguez became the Spanish composer with the largest number of works premièred in the commercial theatres of Madrid between 1760 and 1770, and at the end of the 1760s his zarzuelas were the only ones that could rival the operas adapted from Piccinni and Galuppi. With the two comic works he effectively established the comic zarzuela, which was then cultivated in the 1770s by Fabián García Pacheco, Ventura Galván, Antonio Rosales and others; these works in turn opened the way to the zarzuela of the 19th century. After the poor reception of Scipión en Cartagena, Rodríguez composed no more zarzuelas, although he contributed some pieces to stage works, and wrote interludes for the neo-classical tragedy Hormesinda by Nicolás Fernández de Moratín (1770). The 1770s were his most productive years as a composer of sacred music; notable among the surviving works are a large number of villancicos, mostly for Christmas and Corpus Christi, as well as works to Latin liturgical texts. From 1781 onwards his sacred compositions were compiled in two bound volumes entitled Música práctica de romance and Música motética práctica. The majority of his Latin liturgical works, especially those for the Office and the masses, are scored for two choirs and are in the stile antico. In works such as the psalms, hymns, antiphons and Magnificat settings, homophonic choral writing predominates, alternating with contrapuntal passages and solos or duos. The influence of Italian operatic style is evident in the villancicos and other Spanish sacred pieces as well as in some Latin works, such as the Lamentations for Holy Week. Like other Spanish composers of the time, Rodríguez varies the formal pattern of the Baroque villancico, and in many instances a sequence of recitative and aria replaces the coplas.

ALBERTI, Giuseppe Matteo (1685-1751) - Sonata a quattro

Giuseppe Matteo Alberti (1685-1751) - Sonata a quattro

Performers: Helmut Wobisch (1912-1980, trumpet); Zagrebački Solisti; Antonio Janigro (1918-1989, conductor)

Engraving: Martin Engelbrecht (1684-1756) - Faiseur de trompettes, etc-Trompeten Posaun u Waldhornmacher (c.1740)

Further info: The Virtuoso Trumpet Vol 2

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Giuseppe Matteo Alberti

(Bologna, 20 September 1685 - Bologna, 18 February 1751)

Italian composer and violinist. He studied the violin with Carlo Manzolini, and counterpoint with P.M. Minelli and Floriano Arresti. He became a member of the Accademia Filarmonica, Bologna, in 1705, and from 1709 played the violin in the orchestra of S Petronio. His first set of concertos, published in 1713, were first performed under the composer's direction at the house of Count Orazio Bargellini. In 1721 Alberti was chosen president (principe) of the Accademia Filarmonica, a post to which he was re-elected in 1724, 1728, 1733, 1740 and 1746. A set of violin sonatas, op.2 (1721), was followed by a further set of concertos, collectively entitled ‘Sinfonie’, and issued by Le Cène in 1725 – presumably without the composer's authorization as they are incorrectly designated op.2. (This possibly inadvertent duplication of an opus number led to the renumbering of the violin sonatas as op.3 when published by Walsh shortly afterwards.) From 1726 until his death Alberti was maestro di cappella of S Giovanni in Monte, Bologna, and from 1734 he deputized for G.A. Perti as maestro di cappella of S Domenico. The success enjoyed by Alberti's concertos, particularly in England, doubtless owed much to their clarity of expression, tautness of construction and moderate technical requirements. They were among the first concertos by an Italian composer to show Vivaldi's direct influence, which is seen most clearly in op.1 in the five examples with an obbligato principal violin part. The distinction between ritornello and episode in their outer movements is a notable feature. Similar general qualities characterize the violin sonatas, which remain, however, firmly in the post-Corellian mould.

KAYSER, Aemilian (1749-1831) - Magnificat (1793)

Aemilian Kayser (1749-1831) - Magnificat (1793)

Performers: Ulrikе Johаnna Jöris (sopran); Ruth Sаndhοff (alt); Obеrschwäbischеr Kammerchor;

SWF Sinfonieorchesters Bаdеn-Bаdеn; Ernο Sеifriz (leitung)

Painting: Francisco Bayeu y Subías (1734-1795) - Caída de los gigantes (1764)

Further info: Musik In Oberschwäbischen Klöstern

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Aemilian Kayser

(Obendorf am Neckar, 1749 - Weingarten?, 1831)

German priest and composer. He was born in Obendorf am Neckar, studied theology in Eichstätt and composition with Abbé Vogler in Mannheim. Although he was ordained priest of the Benedictine monastery in Peterhausen, he settled in Weingarten abbey where he composed, among others, two extensive Vespers for the local monasteries. 

WAGNER, Richard (1813-1883) - Sinfonia (E-Dur) Nr. 2 (1834)

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) - Sinfonia (E-Dur) Nr. 2 (1834) [WWV 35]

Performers: Tοkyο Metrοpοlitan Symphοny Orchestra; Hiroshi Wakasugi (1935-2009, conductor)

Painting: Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach (1851-1913) - Bildnis Richard Wagner

Further info: Richard Wagner: Symphonies in E Major & C Major

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(Wilhelm) Richard Wagner

(Leipzig, 22 May 1813 - Venice, 13 February 1883)

German composer. He was the ninth child of Carl Wagner, a clerk in the Leipzig police service. Richard’s father died six months after his birth. Soon after, Richard’s mother started living with her late husband’s friend named Ludwig Geyer. After a while, she and her family moved to Geyer’s residence in Dresden. Richard lived here until he turned 14. Geyer loved theater and this interest was shared by Richard who took part in his performances. In 1820, Richard was enrolled at Pastor Wetzel’s school near Dresden. Here, he received piano instruction from a Latin teacher. After Geyer’s death in 1821, Richard was sent to a boarding school of Dresdner Kreuzchor, which was paid for by Geyer’s brother. When Richard turned nine, he was impressed by the Gothic elements of Carl Weber’s opera Der Freischutz. During this time, Richard entertained ambitions as a playwright. By 1827, the family went back to Leipzig. His first lessons in harmony were taken between 1828 and 1831. In January of 1828, he heard Beethoven’s 7th Symphony and later in March, the same composer’s 9th Symphony. In 1831, Richard joined Leipzig University. He became a member of the Saxon student fraternity. Richard also took composition lessons from Thomaskantor Weinlig. In 1833, Richard’s brother managed to get a position for him as a choir master at a theatre in Wurzburg. When he turned 20 that same year, Richard composed his first complete opera entitled Die Feen, which means The Fairies. In 1834, he went back to Leipzig where he held a short appointment as a musical director at the Magdeburg opera house. During this time, he wrote Das Liebesverbot, or The Ban on Love. This composition was based on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. In 1840, Richard completed Rienzi. With a lot of support from Giacomo Meyerbeer, this was accepted for performance by the Dresden Court Theatre in 1842. Richard lived in Dresden for the next six years. 

During his time here, he was appointed the Royal Saxon Court-Conductor. However, his involvement with left-wing politics terminated his stay in Dresden. After leaving Dresden, Richard was unable to enter Germany for the next 11 years due to great political instability. During this time, he wrote Opera and Drama and then started developing his popular Ring Cycle. This work combined literature, music, and visual elements in a way that would anticipate the future of film. In 1843, Wagner completed The Flying Dutchman, which was considered one of the greatest works of the time. In 1845, Richard produced Tannhauser and then started working on Lohengrin. In 1862, Richard returned to Germany. He was invited by the king to settle in Bavaria. In 1869 and 1870, Richard’s first two operas were presented in Munich. Richard died of a heart attack on February 13, 1883. He was 69 years old and died while on vacation in Venice. His body was shipped back to Bayreuth where he was buried. Until his final years, Richard’s life was characterized by political exile, poverty, turbulent love affairs and repeated flight from creditors. His controversial music, drama and politics have attracted extensive comment in the recent decade. The effect of his ideas can actually be traced in many arts throughout 20th century. Their influence spread beyond composition to philosophy, visual arts, theatre and literature. During his lifetime, his work was deeply loved by many and influenced other composers. He was able to revolutionize opera through his concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, which translates to “total work of art.” His compositions, and especially those of later years, are notable for their complex textures, orchestration, rich harmonies and elaborate use of leitmotifs. His musical language composed of extreme use of chromaticism and shifting tonal centers greatly influenced the development of classical music.

FUX, Johann Joseph (1660-1741) - Missa pro Gratiarum Actione

Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741) - Missa (G-Dur) pro Gratiarum Actione

Performers: Cаppellа Novа Grаz; Ottο Kаrgl (leitung)

Painting: Jacob van Schuppen (1670-1751) - Portrait of Johann Joseph Fux (c.1725)

Further info: Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741) - Kaiserrequiem (1720)

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Johann Joseph Fux

(Hirtenfeld, 1660 - Vienna, 13 February 1741)

Austrian composer and music theorist. Fux's exact date of birth is unknown. According to his death certificate he was 81 when he died. His father, Andreas (c.1618-1708), married twice, and Johann Joseph may have been his eldest child. Although a peasant, Andreas Fux was a parish official attached to the church at St Marein and came into contact with a number of musicians, among them the Graz organist J.H. Peintinger and the Kantor Joseph Keller, who probably influenced his son's early musical development. In 1680 Fux enrolled as a ‘grammatista’ at Graz University, and in 1681 he entered the Jesuit Ferdinandeum as a student of grammar and music. By August 1685 he had taken a position as organist at St Moritz in Ingolstadt. Fux's movements between the beginning of 1689, when a new organist was appointed at St Moritz, and his marriage in 1696 remain uncertain. Although Fux's employment as court composer in Vienna dates officially from April 1698, he himself was ambiguous about his length of service in this capacity. In various documents, he implied that he began to work for the imperial household in 1695, or even 1693. Together with the recently appointed composers Badia, Giovanni Bononcini and Marc’Antonio Ziani, Fux effectively began to introduce elements of late Baroque style into the sacred and secular genres cultivated at court. After the death of Leopold I in 1705 and the accession of his son Joseph I, Fux retained the office of court composer. In the same year he was appointed deputy Kapellmeister at the Stephansdom, where in 1712 he succeeded J.M. Zacher as first Kapellmeister. He retained this office until the end of 1714, and during the same period he also directed services at the Salvatorkirche. His duties as deputy Kapellmeister at the Stephansdom centred on the music performed before the statue of Our Lady of Pötsch, which the emperor had had placed on the high altar of the cathedral in 1697. After the unexpected death of Joseph I on 17 April 1711, the empress-regent Eleonora dissolved the Hofmusikkapelle, and many of its personnel, including Bononcini and Badia, were pensioned. 

By October 1711 Fux had been appointed deputy Kapellmeister to the court. In January 1715 Charles VI appointed Fux as Hofkapellmeister, a position he held for the rest of his life. As a composer who served three emperors, Fux undertook an especially taxing combination of duties. His coronation opera, Costanza e Fortezza, nominally in celebration of the Empress Elisabeth Christine's birthday but effectively written to mark the coronation of Charles VI as King of Bohemia, represents the peak of his public office. The publication of the Gradus ad Parnassum in 1725 has been compared in importance with the publication of Fischer von Erlach's Entwurf einer Historischen Architektur (Vienna, 1721). Both works embody the concept of Habsburg style selfconsciously, and persuasively relate their author's achievements to a coherent past. On 8 June 1731 Fux's wife died, and some seven months later the composer drew up his will (5 January 1732). His activities at court notably decreased, with many of his responsibilities being assigned to Caldara and others. He had complained of serious illness at the close of the Gradus, and by the late 1720s his rate of composition had sharply declined. His last testimonial is dated 10 March 1740. On 13 February 1741 he developed a ‘raging fever’ and died. He was much mourned at court. The most outstanding of his many students were Gottlieb Muffat, G.C. Wagenseil and J.D. Zelenka. According to C.P.E. Bach, J.S. Bach placed him first among those contemporary composers whom he most admired. Fux represents the culmination of the Austro-Italian Baroque in music. His compositions reflect the imperial and Catholic preoccupations of the Habsburg monarchy no less than does the architecture of Fischer von Erlach or the scenic designs of the Galli-Bibiena family. His Gradus ad Parnassum (1725) has been the most influential composition treatise in European music from the 18th century onwards.

DAUVERGNE, Antoine (1713-1797) - Première concert, œuvre III (1751)

Antoine Dauvergne (1713-1797) - Première concert, œuvre III (1751)

Performers: Gérard Cartigny Chamber Orchestra; Gérard Cartigny (conductor)

Painting: French School - Elegant figures in a park, some strolling in the foreground

while others sit in groups and converse (c.1780)

Further info: Antoine Dauvergne (1713-1797) - Concerts de Symphonies

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Antoine Dauvergne [D’Auvergne]

(Moulins, 3 October 1713 - Lyons, 11 February 1797)

French composer, violinist and administrator. His father, Jacques Dauvergne, was a musician and probably his first teacher. Antoine began his career as a violinist in Moulins and Clermont-Ferrand before moving to Paris in the late 1730s. According to Pierre de Bernis, he studied composition with Rameau (not with Leclair, as stated by La Laurencie and Pincherle). In 1739 he became a violinist in the chambre du roi and registered the privilege to publish his op.1, Sonates en trio (granted in 1740). He joined the Opéra orchestra in 1744 and by 1752 had assumed some of the conducting responsibilities. His first stage work, Les amours de Tempé, a ballet in four acts, was presented at the Opéra in 1752 and received a favourable review in the Mercure de France. Dauvergne’s most enduring operatic success, Les troqueurs, was staged the following year and established a theatrical career which was to last over 20 years. Dauvergne was named composer to the chambre du roi and successor to François Rebel as master of the chambre du roi in 1755, and surintendant of this establishment nine years later. In 1762 he became, with Nicolas-René Joliveau and Gabriel Capperan, a co-director of the Concert Spirituel. The repertory was modified (Mondonville having resigned as director and removed all his manuscripts), new artists were introduced to the orchestra and chorus, and Pierre Gaviniès was appointed leader-conductor. Dauvergne’s sacred works were all written for this organization, mostly in the earlier part of his 11-year term there. His tenure passed without notable incident until administrative and artistic misfortunes beset his final two years. In 1769 Dauvergne became, with Joliveau, P.-M. Berton and J.-C. Trial, a director of the Opéra. 

Perhaps the most significant aspect of his first term as director of the Opéra was his involvement in negotiations with Gluck (1772-74). Dauvergne was unimpressed by Roullet’s proposal to bring Gluck and his operas to Paris, so Gluck himself wrote to Dauvergne, enclosing the first act of Iphigénie en Aulide as a sample. Although Dauvergne admitted the novelty and potential influence of Gluck’s work, he continued to discourage the composer by demanding five other operas. Marie-Antoinette then intervened, and the première of Iphigénie at the Opéra in 1774 was a triumph. Dauvergne’s 1773 arrangement of Destouches’ Callirhoé stimulated much adverse criticism of his knowledge of contemporary taste. Nevertheless, he was named composer to the Opéra in March 1776, and the following month resigned as director. In 1780 he again became its director, but shortly thereafter numerous musicians complained in writing of his perpetual nagging and inept management. He was unable to rally support, and resigned in 1782, pleading for an adequate pension. In 1783 and 1784 he was urged to assume the directorship of the newly established Ecole Royale de Chant but declined the offers because of the low salary. He became director of the Opéra for the third time in 1785. Although his merit, honesty and wisdom were cited in the appointment, another series of letters, critical of his age, taste and management, made this term as unpleasant as the last. The death of his second wife in 1787, the increasing political instability (which inevitably caused financial and artistic difficulties) and his diminished abilities forced him to retire in 1790. He died, nearly forgotten, seven years later.

DE GAMBARINI, Elisabetta (1731-1765) - Lessons for the Harpsichord, Op.2

Elisabetta de Gambarini (1731-1765) - Lessons for the Harpsichord, Op.2 (1748)

Performers: Bаrbаra Hаrbаch (cembalo)

Engraving: Nathaniel Hone (1718-1784) - Portrait of Elizabetta de Gambarini (1748)

Further info: Elisabetta de Gambarini (1731-1765) - Sets de Lessons

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 Elisabetta de Gambarini

(London, 7 September 1731 - London, 9 February 1765)

Soprano and composer of Italian descent. She was a daughter of Charles Gambarini, counsellor to the Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel. She took the second soprano part at the first performance of Handel’s Occasional Oratorio in 1746, and in the Covent Garden revival a year later assumed most of Duparc’s role as well. She created the Israelite Woman in Judas Maccabaeus in 1747, and probably sang Asenath in Joseph and his Brethren the same year. Her name appears in the performing scores of Samson and Messiah, but it is not certain when she sang in these works. Her voice seems to have been a mezzo with a regular compass of d' to g'', extended occasionally down to b and up to a''. About 1748-50 she published some harpsichord pieces and songs in Italian and English, including a setting of ‘Honour, riches, marriage-blessing’ from The Tempest. Her op.2 has a frontispiece portrait engraved by Nathaniel Hone in 1748; it gives the date of her birth as above, but this may understate her age. She had a benefit at the Great Room, Dean Street, on 15 April 1761, when an ode of her composition was performed together with a cantata by the aged Geminiani; he may have been her teacher. In May 1764, as Mrs Chazal, she is said to have given a concert at which she appeared as organist and composer. According to Gerber’s Lexikon she was also a painter.

AZOPARDI, Francesco (1748-1809) - Sinfonia in Re maggiore, No.22

Francesco Azopardi (1748-1809) - Sinfonia in Re maggiore, No.22

Performers: Orchestral Ensemble; Josеph Vеllа (conductor)

Map: Vicenzo Maria Coronelli (1650-1718) - Isole di Malta, olim Melita (c.1689)

Further info: Francesco Azopardi (1748-1809) - Messa de Morti (1792)

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Francesco Azopardi [Azzopardi]

(Rabat, 5 May 1748 - Rabat, 6 February 1809)

Maltese composer, organist and theorist. After early studies with Michel'Angelo Vella, he entered the Conservatorio di S Onofrio a Capuana on 15 Oct 1763 as a convittore to study under Carlo Contumacci and the German Joseph Doll. He left in 1767 but stayed on as maestro di cappella in Naples and continued to study with Niccolò Piccinni, who is said to have esteemed him greatly. In summer 1774, following an advantageous offer from Mdina Cathedral, he returned permanently to Malta as Cathedral organist with the right to succeed the then maestro di cappella, Benigno Zerafa. His growing interest in pedagogy resulted in Il musico prattico on the art of the counterpoint, published in the form of French translations and introduced as a textbook in Paris by A.-E.-M. Grétry: Cherubini based the 19th chapter of his treatise Cours de contrepoint (1835) on its analysis of imitation. His students included the composers P.P. Bugeja, Nicolò Isouard and Giuseppe Burlon (1772-1856). Zerafa's failing health led to Azopardi's appointment in 1785 as substitute maestro, with an increased salary; he inherited the full title in March 1804. Most of Azopardi's works, written mainly for the cathedral, are extant. Recent revivals have disclosed a gifted composer who fused contemporary Classical techniques with the austere contrapuntal practices of earlier periods. This approach, which shows Piccinni's influence, is most evident in his large-scale ‘Kyrie–Gloria’ masses. That composed in 1776, for example, for soloists, double chorus and double orchestra, contains an eight-movement Gloria in which the inner sections of virtuoso arias in flexible ternary form and an eight-voice, madrigal-like ‘Qui tollis’ are framed by double-chorus numbers, with the closing ‘Cum sancto spirito’ starting homophonically but swelling into a majestic double fugue. The essentially symphonic conception of a whole movement is often dramatic, without however destroying a scrupulous concern for the music's appropriateness to textual spirit and meaning. Azopardi's few instrumental works, though inventive and melodious, are of less significance.

GILLES, Jean (1668-1705) - Te Deum (1697)

Jean Gilles (1668-1705) - Te Deum (1697)

Performers: Edith Selig (1929-2020, soprano); Jean-Jacques Lesueur (tenor); Pierre Germain (baritone); Georges Abdoun (bass); Chorale des Jeunesses Musicales de France; Orchestre De L'Association Dеs Concеrts Pаsdеloup; Louis Martini (1912-2000, conductor)

Engraving: Anoniem - Plattegrond van Toulouse (c.1690)

Further info: Jean Gilles (1668-1705) - Laudate nomen Domini

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Jean Gilles

(Tarascon, 8 January 1668 - Toulouse, 5 February 1705)

French composer. The son of an illiterate labourer, he enrolled on 6 May 1679 in the choir school of the Cathedral of St Sauveur at Aix-en-Provence. His teacher was Guillaume Poitevin, who also taught a number of Provence’s other most reputable composers, including Campra and Blanchard. In 1687 he left the boys’ choir but continued in the service of the cathedral. On 5 November 1688, at Poitevin’s request, he shared the positions of sous-maître and organist with another student, Jacques Cabassol. Poitevin retired on 4 May 1693 and he succeeded him as maître de musique. But despite an increase in his salary and several remunerative privileges his action in April 1695 in leaving without notice to become maître de musique of Agde Cathedral indicates that he was dissatisfied with his lot at Aix. He soon attracted the attention of the Bishop of Rieux, who wanted him to succeed Campra as maître de musique of the Cathedral of St Etienne at Toulouse, although the position had recently been given to Michel Farinel. Farinel, for unknown reasons, left Toulouse in November 1697, and on 18 December 1697 Gilles, who was in Toulouse at the time, was appointed to direct the choir school. In 1701 the Duke of Burgundy and the duc de Berry, grandsons of Louis XIV, visited Toulouse with great ceremony. With the attention this event brought him, Gilles’s reputation grew, and in July 1701 he was offered the directorship of the choir school at Notre Dame des Doms, Avignon. Evidently he agreed to accept, and Rameau was appointed to deputize until he arrived, but although Gilles may have spent a short time at Avignon he never left his post at Toulouse. He renewed his contract there for four years on 3 December 1701 and the chapter records show that he was still there when he died. 

In the 18th century Gilles’s Messe des morts became one of the most famous works in all France. According to M.A. Laugier's Sentiment d’un harmoniphile (1756), ‘Today there is seldom a funeral service with music without a performance of Gilles’s mass’. It was performed at services for Rameau in 1764 and for Louis XV ten years later. It was praised by many critics, including Mattheson, who called it ‘one of the most beautiful of musical works’. With the motets of Lalande, Gilles’s Requiem and the motets Diligam te and Beatus quem elegisti remained popular at the Concert Spirituel during the first three-quarters of the 18th century. Diligam te remained in the repertory of the royal chapel at Versailles until the fall of the monarchy in 1792. Gilles’s motets are constructed on the same principles as Lalande’s, that is in the form of the Versailles grand motet. Like Lalande’s, his orchestra is relatively independent of the chorus. His harmony is less dissonant than Lalande’s. His fast movements often suggest dance rhythms, with frequent use of hemiola in those in triple time. His motets show his early maturity, and his earliest surviving works demonstrate exceptional expression and pathos, particularly the Lamentations, which constitute one of the few choral settings for Holy Week by a French composer. The choral writing in Gilles’s later works shows a convincing balance between polyphony and homophonic declamation. His well crafted and expressive fugal choruses usually contribute substantially to the overall structure of his works. In the Messe des morts, for example, after a pattern alternating polyphony with homophonic, dance-like textures, the fugal ‘Requiem aeternam’ crowns a polyphonic development that has been unfolding throughout the work. In the Te Deum (1697) two choral fugues (‘Te per orbem’ and ‘Aeterna fac’) frame an arresting trio, ‘Tu devicto mortis’ for three basses-tailles, which forms the centre of a completely symmetrical 11-movement structure.

HERRANDO, José (c.1720-1763) - Sonata III (1754)

José Herrando (c.1720-1763) - Sonata (en Sol mayor) III (1754)

Performers: Marianne Ronez (violon d'amour); Elisabeth Tascher (cello); Ernst Kubіtschеk (hammerklavier)

Engraving: Luis González Velázquez (1715-1763) - Retrato de José Herrando (1756)

Further info: José Herrando (c.1720-1763) - Violin Sonatas (1754)

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José (Joseph) de Herrando

(Valencia, c.1720 - Madrid, 4 February 1763)

Spanish violinist and composer. His father was José de Herrando (c.1700–c.1750), a composer and performer in musical comedies. Herrando was the most important violinist in 18th-century Spain: he played for the most prestigious musical institutions and wrote the only substantial Spanish violin tutor of the time. He may have received musical training from Giacomo Facco. He entered the service of the Real Convento de la Encarnación in Madrid probably in the 1740s and became principal violinist in 1756. Farinelli employed him as one of 16 violinists at the Coliseo del Buen Retiro; he appears in its records for 1747 and 1758. He was also selected for Farinelli's orchestra at Aranjuez. His high reputation in these circles is born out by one of Jacopo Amiconi's official royal portraits in which three musicians, Herrando, Farinelli and Domenico Scarlatti, are depicted in a balcony overlooking the royal family. A tapestry in La Granja depicts the same triumvirate appearing in a window. Some of Herrando's compositions were written at Farinelli's request, such as the six sonatinas for five-string violin. Herrando also forged professional affiliations with the well-respected Geminiani family. Miguel Geminiani (brother of Francesco) also played violin at the Buen Retiro, and Herrando was his successor as principal violinist at the royal chapel; Geminiani held the post until 1758, it then fell to Francisco Manalt and eventually to Herrando in 1759, despite the fact that his poor eyesight caused him to miss several notes during the sight-reading exam. In the 1750s and early 1760s he worked with José de Parra's company in the major theatres in Madrid. 

He was closely associated with the dukes of Alba and Arcos the latter being his patron and dueño. It has been suggested that Herrando possibly went to Paris to oversee the printing of his violin treatise and probably met Francesco Geminiani there. Geminiani used the engraving from the beginning of Herrando's treatise (in which Herrando is seen playing the violin) in the French translation of his own violin method (Paris, 2/1762), substituting his own head for Herrando's. It may have been Geminiani who brought Herrando's music to England, thus explaining the publication of some of his sonatas in London. Herrando's Arte y puntual explicación is a comprehensive compendium of advice on violin technique and performing practice. His 28 violin exercises are roughly analogous to Bach's Das Wohltemperirte Clavier in that Herrando wrote one study in each of the major and minor keys. The set works progressively through the sharp keys and then the flat keys, continuing, unlike Bach's set, to the extremes of C major and A minor and C major and A minor. The pieces become longer and technically more demanding as the book progresses, and they run the gamut of techniques and effects. In many ways they are worthy cousins to Corelli's op.5 sonatas. One of Herrando's most fascinating pieces is his sonata El Jardín de Aranjuez en tiempo de primavera con diversos cantos de páxaros y otros animales (‘The Aranjuez garden in springtime with the diverse songs of birds and other animals’). It incorporates bird calls (e.g. canary, cuckoo, quail and dove) and other natural sounds (e.g. a murmuring brook and a tempest) reproduced on the violin.

GANSWIND, Robert (1772-1833) - Concerto ex D à Viola d'Amour

Robert Ganswind (1772-1833) - Concerto ex D à Viola d'Amour

Performers: Dorothea Jappe (Viola d'Amore); Capella Clementina

Painting: Caspar Netscher (1639-1684) - A Violin Player

Further info: Concerti Per Viola D'Amore

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Robert Ganswind [Ganswint, Kontzwindt]

(Bohemia?, 1772 - Praga?, 1833)

Bohemian composer and teacher. Almost nothing is known about his life and career. He was mainly active as a teacher in Praga where his pupils included Jan Josef Eberle, Frantisek Richter and Jin Tolis. As a composer, only a Viola d'Amore concerto has survived. This piece is conceived for a seven-string instrument tuned to a D major triad. Virtuoso elements are to be found above all in the playing of high passages. During the solo sections the lower instruments of orchestra pause, allowing the tonal qualities of the viola d'amore to have their full effect.