FISCHER, Johann Carl Christian (c.1733-1800) - Symphonie mit acht obligaten Pauken (c.1780)

Johann Carl Christian Fischer (c.1733-1800) - Symphonie (C-Dur) mit acht obligaten Pauken (c.1780)

Performers: Dresden Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra; Alеxandеr Pеtеr (conductor)

Painting: Johann Dallinger von Dalling (1741-1806) - Entrance of the Emperor Franz I. Stephan and his son Joseph (II.) into Frankfurt on March 29, 1764

Further info: Virtuoso Timpani Concertos

---

Johann (Carl) Christian Fischer

(Freiburg, 1733 - London, 29 April 1800)

German oboist and composer. According to Burney he was ‘brought up at one of the common reading schools … where all the children learn music, with reading and writing, as a thing of course’ and learnt to play the violin. He first turned to the oboe ‘in sport’ but found that ‘he could express his feelings better with the reed than the bow’ and went to study with Alessandro Besozzi. He performed Besozzi’s G major Oboe Concerto in Warsaw in 1757 and at around the same time he composed a flute concerto and two oboe concertos. From 1760 Fischer was a member of the Kapelle of Augustus III, King of Poland, in Dresden; following the dissolution of the Kapelle in 1764 he travelled to Berlin and joined the court of Frederick the Great, whose flute playing he accompanied, presumably on a keyboard instrument, for four hours a day for a month. Later that year he travelled to Mannheim and performed at the Concert Spirituel in Paris (with sensational reviews), and in 1765 he was in The Hague, where he was heard by the Mozart family. After visits to Germany and Italy he was for a short time a member of the Dresden opera orchestra (1766) and once more at the court of Frederick the Great in Berlin (1767). After further travels through France and the Netherlands, he arrived in London. His first concert there, on 2 June 1768, is notable for including the first solo public performance, by J.C. Bach, on the newly invented piano. Fischer was soon engaged to perform a concerto every night at Vauxhall Gardens and, according to Burney, such was his playing that the Drury Lane oboist John Parke ‘used to quit his post, and forfeit half his night’s salary in order to run to Vauxhall to hear him’. 

In 1774 he joined Queen Charlotte’s chamber group, alongside his compatriots J.C. Bach and Abel, although his formal appointment did not take place until 1780. He performed at the Bach-Abel concerts where, according to Burney, only Fischer ‘was allowed to compose for himself, and in a style so new and fanciful, that in point of invention, as well as tone, taste, expression, and neatness of execution, his piece was always regarded as one of the highest treats of the night, and heard with proportionate rapture’. Fischer remained in London for the rest of his life, with just a few trips abroad, including concert tours to Dublin in 1771 and 1776. In 1780 he married Thomas Gainsborough’s elder daughter Mary, to the painter’s chagrin and with only his grudging approval (seeillustration): the marriage was short-lived. His performance at the Handel Commemoration in 1784 was highly praised by George III, and in 1786 he left London for a tour of Europe, accompanied by the great Mannheim oboist Friedrich Ramm. Mozart heard him playing again in Vienna in 1787: his negative criticisms of Fischer’s performance are in stark contrast to the otherwise universal praise. Fischer remained active as a performer for the following 14 years. He died (according to Burney) after suffering an apoplectic fit while performing to the royal family. On his deathbed he bequeathed all his manuscripts to the king. These manuscripts preserve cadenzas and elaborations for several of the early concertos, as well as two unpublished concertos.

FREISSLICH, Maximilian Dietrich (1673-1731) - Dixit Dominus à 4 (1726)

Maximilian Dietrich Freisslich (1673-1731) - Dixit Dominus à 4 (1726)

Performers: Capella Gedanensis 

Drawing: Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) - Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Further info: Music Treasures of Old Gdansk

---

Maximilian Dietrich Freisslich [Freislich]

(bap. Immelborn, nr Bad Salzungen, 6 February 1673 - Danzig [now Gdańsk], 10 April 1731)

German composer, half-brother of Johann Balthasar Christian Freisslich. He went as a boy, probably in about 1686-87, to Danzig, where he sang in the choir at the Marienkirche and studied composition as a pupil of the Kapellmeister, J.V. Meder. When in 1699 Meder had to flee from his creditors, Freisslich succeeded him as Kapellmeister and held the post to the end of his life, when he was succeeded by his half-brother. During his 32 years of activity he wrote much religious music and many secular works. The texts of his compositions, including a cycle of church cantatas (1708–9), were printed at Danzig, but the only surviving composition is a Dixit Dominus of 1726 (PL-GD), written in a sound contrapuntal style. Besides Johann Balthasar Christian, two more of his brothers (sons of a pastor, Johann Weigold Freisslich, 1619-89) were musicians: Johann Thobias (1675-?), an organist in Salzungen, and Johann Wigaläus (1679-?), a member of the Kapelle at the Marienkirche, Danzig, from 1701. 

KIRNBERGER, Johann Philipp (1721-1783) - Concerto per il Cembalo Obligato (c.1770)

Johann Philipp Kirnberger (1721-1783) - Concerto (c-moll) per il Cembalo Obligato (c.1770)

previously attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach

Performers: Luciano Sgrіzzі (1910-1994, cembalo); Orchestre Jean-François Pаllаrd

Painting: Christoph Friedrich Reinhold Lisiewski (1725-1794) - Portrait of Johann Philipp Kirnberger

Further info: Johann Philipp Kirnberger (1721-1783) - Flotensonaten

---

Johann Philipp Kirnberger [Kernberg]

(Saalfeld, bap. 24 April 1721 - Berlin, 26 or 27 July 1783)

German theorist and composer. All information relating to his career before 1754 is based on F.W. Marpurg’s biographical sketch (1754), an autograph album described by Max Seiffert (1889) and comments found in letters Kirnberger wrote to J.N. Forkel in the late 1770s. He received his earliest training on the violin and harpsichord at home, and attended grammar school in Coburg and possibly Gotha. He studied the organ with J.P. Kellner in Gräfenroda before 1738, and then the violin with a musician named Meil and the organ with Heinrich Nikolaus Gerber in Sondershausen in 1738. According to Marpurg, Kirnberger went in 1739 to Leipzig, where he studied composition and performance with Bach for two years (the autograph book shows that he was in Sondershausen in 1740 and Leipzig in 1741, which does not preclude his period of study with Bach). In June 1741 Kirnberger travelled to Poland, where he spent the next ten years in the service of various Polish noblemen. He also held a position as music director at the Benedictine convent at Reusch-Lemberg. In 1751 Kirnberger returned to Germany apparently stopping at Coburg and Gotha before going to Dresden, where he studied the violin for a short time. He was then engaged by the Prussian royal chapel in Berlin as a violinist. By 1754 he had resigned that post and obtained permission to join the chapel of Prince Heinrich of Prussia, and in 1758 was given leave to enter the service of Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia, a position he retained to the end of his life. Kirnberger was among the most significant of a remarkable group of theorists, centred in Berlin, which included J.J. Quantz, C.P.E. Bach and Marpurg. 

Almost without exception his contemporaries described him as emotional and ill-tempered, but dedicated to the highest musical standards. Criticized for being inflexible, conservative, tactless, and even pedantic, his detractors still acknowledged his devotion to his students and friends. These included his employer Princess Anna Amalia (whose famous library he helped to assemble), and such eminent musicians as C.P.E. Bach, J.F. Agricola, the Graun brothers, J.A.P. Schulz (his most important pupil) and the encyclopedist J.G. Sulzer, to whose Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste (1771-74) he contributed articles. Most accounts agree that he was a middling performer and that his compositions were correct if uninspired. Many are in a galant style similar to that of C.P.E. Bach; others are in the older ‘strict’ style in the manner of J.S. Bach, but in neither category does Kirnberger display the harmonic or melodic imagination of his models. Although his musical knowledge was wide and profound, it was, according to his contemporaries, disorganized. He found it so difficult to express his ideas in writing that he had to call on others to edit or even rewrite his theoretical works (Die wahren Grundsätze (1773), for example, was written by J.A.P. Schulz under Kirnberger’s supervision). Nonetheless, even his most severe critics, such as Marpurg, considered his theoretical and didactic works to be invaluable. Kirnberger regarded J.S. Bach as the supreme composer, performer and teacher. He regretted that Bach left no didactic or theoretical works and tried through his own teaching and writing to propagate ‘Bach’s method’. His devotion to this cause is reflected in 14 years’ intermittent effort to obtain the publication of all Bach’s four-part chorale settings.

ARNOLD, Georg (1621-1676) - Missa Quarta à 4 voci (1672)

Georg Arnold (1621-1676) - Missa Quarta à 4 voci (1672)

Performers: Johаnna Koslowsky (soprano); Monа Spägеle (aIto); Paul Gerhardt Adаm (tenor); Wilfriеd Jochеns (bass); Musica Cantеrеy Bambеrg; Gеrhаrd Wеinziеrl (Ieitung)

Painting: Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) - Simeon’s Song of Praise (1631)

Further info: Georg Arnold: Missa Quarta

---

Georg Arnold

(Feldsberg [now Valtice], bap. 23 April 1621 - Bamberg, 16 January 1676)

Austrian composer and organist, active in Germany. As early as 1640 he was organist of St Mark, Wolfsberg, formerly in the possession of the Franconian bishopric of Bamberg. After the end of the Thirty Years War, on 14 September 1649, he was appointed court organist at Bamberg through the influence of Prince-Bishop Melchior Otto Voit of Salzburg, who also began the Baroque restyling of the interior of Bamberg Cathedral and called on Arnold to provide a new repertory of masses, vespers and motets. The inclusion of a mass by Tobias Richter in Arnold’s op.2 and a Laudate pueri by G.G. Porro in his Psalmi vespertini indicates that he had contacts with Mainz and Munich, while the presence of 22 of his motets in the Düben Collection and a canon in J.G. Fabricius’s Liber amicorum testifies to his reputation outside the Bamberg area. As an organ expert he was connected with Spiridion and Matthias Tretzscher and helped with the reconstruction of the organs in Bamberg that had been destroyed in the war. He became Hofkapellmeister at Bamberg in 1667. A painting of 1675 by his son Georg Adam, who was appointed court organist in 1685, shows the interior of the restored cathedral with the splendid Baroque organ on the left wall; Arnold is seen standing next to it in court dress and wig. There was a long tradition of polyphonic music in Bamberg, to which Arnold added the Venetian polychoral style, possibly to some extent inspired by the layout of the cathedral, with apses at either end of the nave. The use of the term ‘sacrarum cantionum’ in the titles of his 1651 volume and op.4 is indeed reminiscent of Giovanni Gabrieli and Schütz; intended as open-air music, their contents are well suited to the forces at his disposal. In his masses Arnold adopted the large-scale, south German concertante style: in the single choir works of 1665 the concertante principle is expressed in the alternation and different groupings of the obbligato instruments, while the parody masses of 1672 rely more on dynamic contrasts. In the double choir masses of 1656 Arnold introduced the spatial effects of polychoral writing into this style; his development is also marked by the integration of elements of contrapuntal settings. The marked antiphonal style of the psalms of 1662–3 owes something to Monteverdi and Viadana, in contrast to the more seamless polyphony of op.3, most of whose 47 pieces are canzonas. But it is in the more intimate concerted motets that Arnold is at his most inspired, particularly in the settings of non-liturgical mystical texts.

TORELLI, Giuseppe (1658-1709) - Sinfonia con Tromba (c.1695)

Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709) - Sinfonia con Tromba (c.1695)

Performers: Edwаrd Hаrr (trumpet); Wurttemberg Chamber Orchestra; Jorg Fаerber (conductor)

Painting: Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668) - Soldiers Carousing with a Serving Woman outside a Tent (ca. 1655)

Further info: Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709) - Concerto Grosso

---

Giuseppe Torelli

(Verona, 22 April 1658 - Bologna, 8 February 1709)

Italian composer. Born in Verona in the parish of S Maria in Chiavica, he was the son of Stefano and Anna (Boninsegna) Torelli. He was the sixth of nine children, of whom the youngest, Felice, became famous as a painter. His father was a health inspector for the local customs office and supported his family comfortably. Giuseppe's early musical training, if any, may have come from the Veronese musician Giuliano Massaroti, who lived in the same part of the city. By 15 May 1676, he is recorded as having played violin for vespers at the church of Santo Stefano in Verona and, by August 1684, was engaged as violinist at the cathedral. The next month, he moved to Bologna, having been admitted to the Accademia Filarmonica on 27 June 1684. He was appointed to the regular chapel on 28 September 1686 and then to compositore, probably by 1692. Torelli composed a number of sinfonie for the city’s feast of San Petronio between 1692 and 1708, but he was in demand as a violinist in neighboring cities and was frequently absent from San Petronio. In January 1696, the chapel ensemble was disbanded temporarily for lack of funds, so Torelli moved north to Ansbach in Bavaria, Germany. By 1698, he had secured an appointment as maestro di concerto for the Margrave of Brandenburg at Ansbach. In 1699, he is recorded in Vienna, and the following year, he appears to have applied to the margrave for permission to return to Italy. He is next recorded in 1701 back in San Petronio in Bologna as a member of the newly reconstituted cappella musicale, directed by Giacomo Antonio Perti. Owing to Perti’s influence and his own international reputation, Torelli was granted a special appointment that allowed traveling. Torelli was buried by the Confraternity of the Guardian Angel in Bologna. Best known today as a composer of instrumental music for strings, Torelli was credited by Johann Joachim Quantz in 1752 for inventing the concerto with his publication of Sinfonie a 3 e Concerti a 4, Opus 5 (Bologna, 1692). Among his published works are 10 trio sonatas, 18 sinfonie, 12 concertos for two violins, 12 concertos for one violin and one violoncello, 12 concerti grossi, 12 other concertos for various instruments, over 30 works for solo trumpet, and over 30 other unpublished sonatas, sinfonie, and concertos. There are also a few arias and cantatas and one oratorio, Adam auss dem irrdischen Paradiess verstossen (“Adam Expelled from Earthly Paradise”). 

HELLENDAAL, Pieter (1721-1799) - Concerto Grossi (in g) No.1, Op.3 (c.1758)

Pieter Hellendaal (1721-1799) - Concerto Grossi (in g) No.1, Op.3 (c.1758)

Performers: Ensemble Benedetto Marcello

Engraving: Sir Abraham Hume, 2nd Baronet (1749-1838) - A group of musical amateurs at Cambridge (c.1770)

Further info: Hollandse Meesters

---

Pieter (Pietro, Petrus, Peter) Hellendaal

(Rotterdam, bap. 1 April 1721 - Cambridge, 19 April 1799)

Dutch violinist, composer and organist, active also in England. When he was nine the family moved to Utrecht, where he was appointed organist of the Nicolaikerk on 11 January 1732. In 1737 the family moved to Amsterdam. The music lover Mattheus Lestevenon, Secretary of Amsterdam, enabled Hellendaal to study with Tartini. Before November 1743 he returned from Italy and appeared as a violinist in certain Amsterdam inns. On 14 February 1744 he obtained a privilege for publishing his compositions, and his first two sets of violin sonatas were issued in Amsterdam. He married the daughter of an Amsterdam surgeon in June 1744. From 1749 to 1751 Hellendaal was at Leiden, where he enrolled at the university and did his utmost to obtain a foothold in academic music-loving circles. He made frequent public appearances there and at The Hague and Delft. Yet he found little opportunity for building up a livelihood in the Netherlands. On 9 October 1751 he gave his last concert in Leiden and left for London. In the ensuing years Hellendaal participated considerably in London's musical life. He appeared in concerts in Hickford's Room and other places, and his fellow performers could be reckoned among ‘the best Hands in Town’ (The General Advertiser, 28 February 1752); on 13 February 1754 he took part in Handel's Acis and Galatea, playing violin solos between the acts. While he was in London he published his Six Grand Concertos op.3, for which he was granted a Royal Privilege, dated 23 April 1758. At the end of 1759 he applied for the post of conductor of the Music Room orchestra at Oxford. He directed a concert there on 5 November and played a concerto of his own; but the other candidate, J.B. Malchair, was appointed. In August 1760 Hellendaal gave a concert in King's Lynn Town Hall. Soon afterwards, on 5 September 1760, he was appointed organist of St Margaret's there in succession to Charles Burney. 

In 1762 Hellendaal moved to Cambridge. Here he worked at first as a performer, later as a teacher of the violin and of theory (among his pupils was Charles Hague, who was appointed professor of music in 1799). According to the Cambridge Chronicle of 19 November 1762, Hellendaal was then appointed organist of Pembroke Hall Chapel. He took part in many concerts of particular interest in Cambridge and other places, especially in East Anglia. A Hellendaal took part in the Handel Commemoration in London in 1784 but it is not known whether it was father or son. In 1769 Hellendaal's Glory be to the Father was awarded the annual prize of the Noblemen and Gentlemen's Catch Club. About this time his six sonatas for violin and continuo, op.4, were published. In April 1777 he was appointed organist of Peterhouse Chapel, in succession to Dr Randall, professor of music at Cambridge. From this time, the amount of information about concerts given by Hellendaal sharply declines. He moved to Trumpington Street, opposite Peterhouse, and on 11 July 1778 invited subscriptions for ‘Twelve of his Solos for the Violin’. About 1780 his Eight Solos for the Violoncello with a Thorough Bass were published at his own expense and dedicated to the Cambridge flour merchant John Anderson. His last numbered collection, Three Grand Lessons op.6, was published in London, and dedicated to Miss Anderson. During the last decades of Hellendaal's life a number of vocal works, some with instrumental accompaniment, and a collection of metrical psalms, were published at the composer's house. Hellendaal's son Peter collaborated in the latter, and in 1790 he was also responsible for selecting and arranging various hymns and psalms from his father’s Collection of Psalms and Hymns for use in parish churches. Hellendaal died in 1799 and was buried at Cambridge at St Mary the Less, next to Peterhouse.

WIDERKEHR, Jacques (1759-1823) - Simphonie Concertante (c.1800)

Jacques Widerkehr (1759-1823) - Simphonie Concertante (en Do majeur) pour Cor et Basson (c.1800)

Performers: Pеtеr Arnοld (horn); Ebеrhаrd Buschmаnn (bassoon); SWR Rundfunkorchester Kаiserlаutern

Painting: Abraham Ignace Bolkman (1704-1772) und Jacques de Lajoue (1686-1761)

Bolkman und Lajoue Elegante Gesellschaft

Further info: Jacques Christian Michel Widerkehr (1759-1823) - Oboe Sonatas

---

Jacques(-Christian-Michel) Widerkehr [Wiederkehr, Viderkehr] [l'aîné]

(Strasbourg, 18 April 1759 - Paris, April 1823)

Alsatian composer and cellist. According to Choron and Fayolle he was a pupil of F.X. Richter. In the title-pages of his works his name appears as J. Widerkehr l'aîné and in his six violin duos opp.3 and 4 (c.1794) he identified himself as the pupil of Dumonchau, professor of the cello in Strasbourg and father of the pianist Charles-François Dumonchau. Choron and Fayolle maintained that Widerkehr came to Paris in 1783 as cellist of the Concert Spirituel and the Concert de la Loge Olympique; however, the absence of his name among the cellists in Les spectacles de Paris (1794-1800) and other almanacs implies that he never held a regular post in a major Parisian orchestra. He probably made his living as a teacher, occasionally as a performer, and as a composer of instrumental works, which appeared regularly from the early 1790s. Widerkehr achieved considerable fame as an instrumental composer, above all for his symphonies concertantes for several wind instruments, of which Fétis, seconding the opinion of Choron and Fayolle, wrote: ‘These works and those of Devienne were for many years the best of that genre known in France’. Around 1800, when most of Widerkehr's works in this form were written, the symphonie concertante was more popular than the symphony itself on French concert programmes. Widerkehr's 12 to 15 essays in this genre were written for a variety of solo combinations, predominantly two or three wind instruments; they were performed by outstanding virtuosos in several Parisian concert halls and ‘chez le Premier Consul’. No.4 in F was ambitiously orchestrated for clarinet, flute, oboe, horn, two bassoons and cello as solo instruments, with an orchestra of strings, two oboes and two horns. The few extant examples of these works are melodious, well-wrought and light in mood. Widerkehr’s chamber works, written mainly for the large amateur market of the time and frequently allowing for the substitution of instruments, were likewise successful. His ten string quartets are tuneful and show the hand of an experienced string player; the two quintets have rather demanding first violin parts, but the other parts are simple and purely accompanimental. The Mercure de France (August 1794) described his Trois duo concertants op.4 as delighting both amateurs and artists alike, and one of his Trois duos pour piano et violon ou hautbois was quite favourably received in Germany (G.L.P. Sievers: ‘Musikalisches Allerley aus Paris, vom Monate July’ AMZ, xx, 1818, cols.641–6, esp.642). Widerkehr is sometimes confused with Philippe Widerkehr le jeune (fl. Paris, 1793-1816), a trombonist, composer and teacher who may have been his brother. The name appears several times in Les spectacles de Paris among the trombonists, and as the composer of a two-volume Pot-pourri pour le forte piano (Paris, c.1803). In 1793 he was a corporal and trombonist in the Parisian National Guard, and from 1795 to 1816 he was a professor of solfège at the Conservatoire.

ELSNER, Jozef (1769-1854) - Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi (1837)

Jozef Elsner (1769-1854) - Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, Op.65 (1837)

Performers: Agniеszkа Kurowskа (soprano); Miroslаwа Rеzler (alto); Lеszek Swidzinski (tenor); Jozеf Frаkstеin (bass); Wаrsаw Symphony Orchestra & Chamber Choir; Jаcеk Kаspszyk (conductor)

Painting: Carl Bloch (1834-1890) - Christ with Mocking Soldier

Further info: Józef Elsner (1769-1854) - Missa Sancti Josephi (c.1826)

---

Józef Antoni Franciszek Elsner

(Grodków, 1 June 1769 - Warsaw, 18 April 1854)

Polish composer and teacher of German origin. As a schoolboy he sang in the church choir of Grodków. His interest in music developed while he was a pupil at the Dominican school, then at the Jesuit Gymnasium in Breslau (now Wrocław) (1781-88), where he sang the solo soprano part in Graun’s Der Tod Jesu. He also sang in the opera chorus, played the violin in chamber music and began to compose, chiefly religious music (now lost). At the University of Breslau he read theology and medicine; in 1789 he went to Vienna to study medicine, but gave it up for music. In 1791-92 he was violinist and conductor of the opera orchestra in Brno and from 1792 to 1799 in Lemberg (now L'viv), where he conducted the theatre orchestra, composed symphonies and chamber music and began to work on operas; at first he used German librettos, but after 1796 turned to Polish texts, especially in collaboration with Wojciech Bogusławski, organizer of the Polish National Theatre. He also arranged weekly concerts for a musical society. In 1799 Elsner settled permanently in Warsaw, where for 25 years he was in charge of the Opera, enriching its repertory with his own works and training many eminent singers. All his life he was very active as a teacher; he founded and organized several music schools on different levels and was the author of a number of works and textbooks. From 1817 to 1821 he taught at the School of Elementary Music and Art, from 1821 to 1826 at the Conservatory and from 1826 to 1831 at the Main School of Music, where he was professor of composition and rector. He taught many composers, above all Chopin. From 1802 until 1806 Elsner ran a music engraving shop in Warsaw, from which he issued several publications, notably 24 numbers of the periodical Wybór pięknych dzieł muzycznych i pieśni polskich (‘Selected beauties of music and Polish songs’). In 1805 he was nominated a member of the Warsaw Society of Friends of Science and in 1805-06, together with E.T.A. Hoffmann, he ran the music club, where Beethoven’s symphonies were among the works performed. He also founded the Society of the Friends of Religious and National Music (1814). From 1811 to 1819 he was correspondent of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, and from 1802 to 1825 contributed many reviews and articles to the Polish press. He was an honorary member of the music society of the Leipzig University Paulinerkirche as well as of many music societies in Poland, and was also a freemason. For his services to music he was awarded the Order of St Stanisław in 1823, and three commemorative medals were struck in his honour. Elsner was twice married, the second time to one of his pupils, Karolina Drozdowska (1784-1852), a leading soprano at the Warsaw Opera.

COCCIA, Carlo (1782-1873) - Sinfonia in sol maggiore

Carlo Coccia (1782-1873) - Sinfonia in sol maggiore

Performers: Orchestra Carlo Coccia; Gianna Fratta (conductor)

Painting: Alexandre Francia (1813-1884) - Tarantella, Naples with Vesuvius in the background

Further info: Carlo Coccia (1782-1873)

---

Carlo Coccia

(Naples, 14 April 1782 - Novara, 13 April 1873)

Italian composer. The son of a violinist in the S Carlo orchestra in Naples, he showed an early disposition for music and at the age of ten was admitted to the S Maria de Loreto Conservatory, where his teachers included Saverio Valente (singing) and Fedele Fenaroli (counterpoint). After leaving, he continued his studies with Paisiello, who procured for him the post of piano accompanist to the private concerts of Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples (1806-08). His first opera, Il matrimonio per lettera di cambio (1807, Rome), failed; but, encouraged by Paisiello, his persistence was rewarded with the success of Il poeta fortunato (1808, Florence). During the next decade he produced 20 operas, mostly for the smaller theatres of Venice, where he entered into unequal competition with the young Rossini; and it was not until after the latter's departure for Naples that he won general acclaim with Clotilde (1815, Venice). A semiseria opera in the traditional Neapolitan style, it has something of the melancholy sweetness of Paisiello and was much praised for its treatment of the chorus as an active participant in the drama. Coccia's subsequent attempts to come to terms with Rossinian floridity met with little success, and in 1820 he accepted an invitation to Lisbon as composer and musical director at the S Carlos theatre. From Portugal he proceeded to London in 1824 to occupy a similar post at the King's Theatre. His appointment as professor of singing and harmony at the newly founded RAM brought him into contact with the German classics, his study of which bore fruit in the opera Maria Stuart, regina de Scozia (1827), composed for Giuditta Pasta. 

Based, like Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, on Schiller's play, it adheres far more closely to the original and is thus clogged with a superabundance of characters, which makes for a slow dramatic pace and an unwieldy overall structure. Returning to Italy in 1828, he persevered in his aim to graft Germanic subtlety of harmony on to the prevailing post-Rossinian style. Again the critics were respectful and the public stayed away. He did, however, gain a genuine triumph with Caterina de Guisa (1833, Milan; revised 1836, Turin), aided by a finely paced libretto by Felice Romani. But it was a solitary moment of glory. In 1835 Bellini wondered at Coccia's ability to secure commissions, since there was ‘nothing left in his brain’. After the failure of Il lago delle fate (1841, Turin) he gave up operatic composition to devote himself to church music. In 1836 Coccia was nominated director of the new singing school of the Accademia Filharmonica, Turin, passing thence to Novara, where he succeeded Mercadante as maestro di cappella at the church of S Gaudenzio. He was sufficiently eminent to be invited to contribute a ‘Lachrymosa’ to the collaborative requiem mass for Rossini set up at Verdi's instigation in 1868. Here his idiom could be described as ‘sophisticated Donizetti’: an unaccompanied men's chorus with the flavour of a Neapolitan popular song followed by a ‘learned’ fugue for full choir, its counterpoint diluted by homophonic sequences. Active till the last, he died on the eve of his 91st birthday.

FIORENZA, Nicola (c.1700-1764) - Concerto per il flauto obligato (c.1730)

Nicola Fiorenza (c.1700-1764) - Concerto (en re maggiore) per il flauto obligato (c.1730)

Performers: Bettina Benziger (flute); Orchestre De Chambre De La Sarre;

Karl Ristenpart (1900-1967, conductor)

Painting: Jean-Baptiste Pater (1695-1736) - On the Terrace (c.1733)

Further info: Musique A Naples

---

Nicola Fiorenza

(c.1700 - Naples, 13 April 1764)

Italian violinist and composer. His earliest dated composition is a concerto for flute, two violins and continuo of 1726. For some years this highly talented but rather tumultuous individual was teacher of string instruments at the Neapolitan music conservatory S Maria di Loreto. He was elected to this post by a curious procedure. Unable to decide between five candidates for the post, the Loreto governors at their meeting of 22 May 1743 finally put the five names in a box and selected one at random; Fiorenza's name was drawn. He was dismissed on the last day of 1762 after complaints extending over several years that he was maltreating his students. Fiorenza was also a violinist in the Neapolitan royal chapel, to which he was appointed some time before 1750. Records of salary payments to chapel members (I-Na) show that he received pay increases on 23 April 1750, 22 May 1756, 24 April 1758 (when he was appointed head violinist of the chapel in succession to Domenico de Matteis, who had just died), and 14 February 1761. His surviving music is in manuscript at the Naples Conservatory S Pietro a Majella. The bulk of it consists of 15 concertos for various combinations of instruments and nine symphonies (many of them containing important solos for string or wind instruments and coming close to belonging to the concerto category). Nine of the concertos are dated and were composed during 1726-28. Several other concertos and symphonies may be assigned to the same approximate period on the evidence of their style and structure. Though a minor figure in the history of instrumental music, Fiorenza deserves more credit than he receives for his part in the development of the concerto and the symphony in southern Italy during the first half of the 18th century.

PHILIDOR, André Danican (c.1652-1730) - Concert de Hautbois (1680)

André Danican Philidor (c.1652-1730) - Concert de Hautbois (1680)

Performers: La symphonie du Mаrаis; Hugο Rеynе (conductor)

Engraving: Basset (18th Century) - Gezicht op het Stadhuis te Parijs met een stoet ter afkondiging van de vrede

Further info: Marches, Fêtes Et Chasses pour Louis XIV

---

André Danican Philidor [l’aîné; le père after 1709]

(Paris?, c.1652 - Dreux, 11 August 1730)

French music librarian, composer and instrumentalist, son of Jean Danican Philidor. The date of his birth is unknown, but his death certificate gave his age as ‘approximately 78’. In 1659 he was named to the position formerly held by Michel Danican in the Cromornes et Trompettes Marines and from 1667 to 1677 he served as hautbois in the royal musketeers. From 1670 his name appears in librettos of Lully’s ballets and operas as a performer on a number of woodwind and percussion instruments. In 1678 he was named a drummer in the Fifres et Tambours and he was appointed to the prestigious 12 Grands Hautbois du Roi in 1681; from 1682 he served as ordinaire de la musique de la chapelle and in 1690 he and three other wind players officially joined the Petits Violons. As a member of these ensembles Philidor played for military ceremonies, balls, theatrical works and services in the royal chapel, and also took part in military campaigns. Although Philidor l’aîné probably composed occasional pieces (marches, signal airs, dances etc.) throughout his career, he did not begin to compose for the stage until after Lully’s death in 1687. A flurry of compositional activity in 1687-68 suggests that he may have been trying to position himself as a candidate for Lully’s post of surintendant of the king’s music, but in 1689 the position went to Michel-Richard de Lalande. During the carnival season of 1700, Philidor, his nephew Pierre and his son Anne composed a number of divertissements for performance at Marly, largely for the entertainment of the Duchess of Burgundy, wife of the king’s eldest grandson. 

Philidor l’aîné married twice; by his first marriage in 1672 to Marguerite Mouginot he had 17 children, among whom were Alexandre Danican Philidor (1676-1684), who despite his tender age held a post among the Cromornes et Trompettes Marines from 1679-83, Anne Danican Philidor (1681-1728), Michel Danican Philidor (1683-1723), a timpanist to the king and godson of Michel-Richard de Lalande, and François Danican Philidor (1689-1717), a flautist who composed two volumes of Pièces pour la flûte traversière (Paris, 1716 and 1718) and who is often confused with his cousin of the same name. By his second marriage in 1719 to Elisabeth Leroy he had six children, including François-André Danican Philidor (1726-1795). Philidor l’aîné is best remembered for his work as the king’s music librarian, in which capacity he presided over an enormous effort to collect and preserve music not only from Louis XIV’s reign, but as far back as that of Henri IV. 1684 is often cited (without documentation) as the year of his appointment, but in 1694 Philidor himself claimed that he had been working as music librarian for 30 years. (The earliest known score he copied for the royal library is dated 1681.) Philidor shared the post with the violinist François Fossard until the latter’s death in 1702 and thereafter occupied it alone. Although Philidor had a number of assistants, he himself copied dozens of volumes. The dedications to the king in the series of Lully ballets he prepared reveal his consciousness of the historical value of his work. In addition to his work for the king, Philidor copied music for other aristocratic and royal patrons. In 1694 he and Fossard were granted a privilege to print some of the music from the king’s collection, but they published only a single anthology of Airs italiens (Paris, 1695). Philidor had intended that his son Anne succeed him as music librarian, but it was his son-in-law Jean-Louis Schwartzenberg, known as Le Noble, who took up the post.

GIROUST, François (1737-1799) - Super flumina Babylonis (1767)

François Giroust (1737-1799) - Super flumina Babylonis (1767)

Performers: Bernadette Degelin (soprano); Catherine Vandevelde (soprano); Jean Nirouet (counter tenor);

Howard Crook (tenor); Michel Verschaeve (bass); Chœur de chambre de Namur;

Musica Polyphonica; Louis Devos (1926-2015, conductor)

Drawing: Charles-André van Loo (1705-1765) - The Sacrifice of Iphigenia (c.1755)

Further info: François Giroust (1737-1799) - Benedic anima mea (1764)

---

François Giroust

(Paris, 10 April 1737 - Versailles, 28 April 1799)

French composer. He was a member of the choir school of Notre Dame from January 1745 until October 1756, where he studied with Louis Homet and Antoine Goulet. As head boy he had two works performed on 17 June 1756: the motet Lauda Jerusalem and a Magnificat. He was ordained and took minor orders before leaving to become maître de musique at Orléans Cathedral. Giroust also led the Académie de Musique in Orléans. Some programmes survive from the ambitious weekly concerts he led (1764-65 and 1768-69). These usually included opera extracts (Rameau, Campra, Mouret and others) and a grand motet – often by Giroust himself. At least 22 of his motets date from this period, although most survive only in later revisions. His works were first performed at the Concert Spirituel in Paris in 1762. His Exaudi Deus, performed four times in 1764, was praised by Rameau, whom Giroust admired greatly. He subsequently wrote a Dies irae for Rameau which was played at a memorial service held in Orléans on 15 January 1765. For a contest sponsored by the Concert Spirituel in 1768, Giroust submitted two settings of Super flumina Babylonis. There were three finalists, and when Giroust was revealed as the composer not only of the first prize, but also of a specially demanded second prize, there was a great sensation. The second setting was compared with the work of Pergolesi and it seems d’Alembert and others supported it believing it to be by Philidor. For the next seven years Giroust was the most frequently performed composer at the Concert Spirituel, aside from the director, Dauvergne. In 1769 he became maître de musique at Saints-Innocents in Paris. Two years later he married Marie Françoise d’Avantois de Beaumont, a soprano at the Concert Spirituel and Académie Royale who was related to the Archbishop of Paris. 

They had nine children; Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette stood, by proxy, as godparents to the first child born in Versailles, Louisa Antoinette. On 17 February 1775 Giroust replaced Gauzargues as sous maître de chapelle at the Chapelle Royale in Versailles. He composed many motets for the chapel, together with the Coronation Mass for Louis XVI and a memorial Missa pro defunctis for Louis XV. On 16 June 1780 he purchased the position of surintendant de musique, en survivance, from de Bury, assuming the post in 1785. He retained the post of maître de chapelle, to the chagrin of Le Sueur and others. Some secular works, including masonic entertainments, date from this period. Giroust stayed in Versailles after the fall of the monarchy in 1792 and, whether from fear or desperation, threw in his lot with the Revolution. He conducted nearly all the Revolutionary ceremonies in the city, and wrote over 50 songs, hymns and occasional pieces for them. Many were to texts by Félix Nogaret, a fellow freemason and radical colleague of Robespierre. The Chant des versaillais was performed for the National Convention and circulated throughout the country, becoming his most famous work and one of the best-known tunes of the Revolution (it survives in more than 50 versions and parodies). He suffered some financial hardship during this time, but in May 1793 was given the modest post of concièrge at the Château in Versailles, and in 1795 was awarded a government pension. On 13 February 1796 he became the first non-resident composer elected to the Institut de France, joining Méhul, Gossec and Grétry. He was much appreciated by the Commune of Versailles and received many tributes at his death, although later he was criticized for his political turn-around.

PONS, Joseph (1770-1818) - Sinfonía en si bemol mayor

Joseph Pons (1770-1818) - Sinfonía en si bemol mayor

Performers: Orquesta y Banda Sinfonica La Artistica de Buñol; David Gálvez (director)

Map: Johannes van Keulen (1654-1715) - Paskaart von de Zee-kusten von Valence, Catalonien, Languedocq en Provence tusschen C. San Martin en C. de Toulon, met de eylanden Yvica, Majorca, en Minorca. 'T Amsterdam (1683)

Further info: Josep Pons (1770-1818) - Simfonies

---

Joseph (José, Josep) Pons

(Girona, 8 April 1770 - Valencia, 2 August 1818)

Spanish composer. Son of Pere Pons and Josepha Pons y Mota, he was a choirboy at Girona Cathedral, where he studied with Jaime Balius and probably with Manuel Gonima. In 1789 he is mentioned as ‘a musician of Madrid’. In 1791 he was made choirmaster at Girona Cathedral, and subsequently was appointed vice-choirmaster at Córdoba Cathedral. In 1793 he was named choirmaster of Valencia Cathedral, where he remained until his death. All his known works are religious, apart from a few overtures and symphonies (ed. in The Symphony 1720-1840, ser. F, v, New York, 1983), which were, however, composed for the religious concerts that took place in some cathedrals at the more important feasts. He wrote masses, psalms, Lamentations for Holy Week, motets and villancicos. Particularly noteworthy are his responsories for Christmas. His work survives in several Spanish archives. He was a gifted composer and a solid technician whose individuality emerges more vividly in large-scale works than in small. Pons enjoyed a considerable reputation in his lifetime.

REUTTER, Johann Georg (1708-1772) - Servizio di tavola (1757)

Johann Georg Reutter (1708-1772) - (Partita) Servizio di tavola (1757)

Performers: Mainz Chamber Orchestra; Günter Kehr (1920-1989, conductor)

Painting: Anonymous - Innenansicht einer Wiener Freimaurerloge (c.1785)

Further info: Johann Georg Reutter (1708-1772) - Portus felicitatis

---

Johann (Adam Joseph Karl) Georg (von) Reutter

(Vienna, bap. 6 April 1708 - Vienna, 11 March 1772) 

Austrian composer, son of Georg Reutter (1656-1738). He was the 11th of 14 children born to Georg Reutter and received his early musical training from his father, assisting him as court organist. A period of more formal instruction from Antonio Caldara ensued, leading to the composition of an oratorio and, in 1727, his first opera for the imperial court, Archidamia. On three separate occasions during this period Reutter applied for a position as court organist and was each time rejected by Fux. At his own expense he travelled to Italy in 1730 (possibly in 1729); in February 1730 he was in Venice and in April 1730 in Rome. He returned to Vienna in autumn 1730, and early in the following year he successfully applied for a post as court composer, the formal beginning of a lifetime of service at the Habsburg court. His training with Caldara and his journey to Italy had laid the foundations of a secure understanding of modern operatic style, and over the next decade Reutter established himself as a leading theatre composer in Vienna with over a dozen works, performed in private in various rooms and halls in the Hofburg and at the imperial summer palace in Laxenburg. In 1731 he married one of the court singers, Ursula Theresia Holzhauser. Two children were born in the 1730s, Karl and Elisabeth Christina, named in obvious deference to Emperor Charles and his wife. When his father died, in 1738, Reutter succeeded him as first Kapellmeister at the Stephansdom, initiating a decisive move away from a career as an opera composer to that of a composer and administrator of church music. 

As Kapellmeister he was in charge of the choir school and Joseph Haydn, Michael Haydn and Ignaz Holzbauer were three of his charges during the next few years. He was ennobled in 1740 and in the following year began the diplomatically skilful (but not always financially rewarding) process of accruing ever increasing influence and authority in the imperial court: from 1741, following the death of Fux, he regularly assisted the first Kapellmeister, Luca Antonio Predieri, with church music; in 1747 he was officially named second Kapellmeister; in 1751 he became acting first Kapellmeister; in 1756 he assumed the duties of second as well as first Kapellmeister at the Stephansdom; and in 1769 he formally became court Kapellmeister. For nearly 30 years in the middle of the century, therefore, Reutter was the single most influential church musician in Vienna. His duties at court also included the supervision of instrumental performances. Reutter's influence in court circles was shown again in 1760 when the new director of court and chamber music, Count Giacomo Durazzo, attempted to increase Gluck's role in the musical life of the court. A protracted dispute was resolved largely in Reutter's favour. The last decade of Reutter's service was less eventful, as court, church and musicians alike acclimatized themselves to the changing status of sacred music. Reutter was buried in a tomb in the Stephansdom. His son Karl had become a monk (eventually abbot) at the abbey of Heiligenkreuz outside Vienna, where the largest single collection of Reutter's autographs is to be found, together with a pastel portrait of the composer.

PUCCINI, Domenico (1772-1815) - Concerto di Piano-Forte

Domenico Puccini (1772-1815) - Concerto (en si bemolle maggiore) di Piano-Forte

Performers: Eugen List (1918-1985, piano); Austrian Tonkuenstler Orchestra; Zlatko Topolski (conductor)

Painting: Sebastian Gutzwiller (1801-1872) - A Family Concert in Basel (1849)

Further info: Domenico Puccini (1772-1815) - Overture Il Ciarlatano & Concerto in Si bemolle maggiore

---

Domenico (Vincenzo Maria) Puccini

(Lucca, 5 April 1772 - Lucca, 25 May 1815)

Italian composer, son of Antonio Puccini (1747-1832) and grandson of Giacomo Puccini (1712-1781). He was first taught by his parents and – with a bursary from the Lucca authorities, like his father – continued his studies in Bologna (1793-96) under Mattei and in Naples (1797-99) under Paisiello, which undoubtedly directed him – the first of his family – towards a theatrical career, and he remained in frequent, friendly correspondence with him. Having returned to Lucca, after the dispersal of the Cappella di Palazzo where he worked with his father (he also played beside him on the organ of S Martino), Domenico was from 1806 to 1809 director of the small Cappella di Camera (founded by Napoleon’s sister, Elisa Baciochi, then Regent of Lucca) and of a municipal chapel from 1811 to 1815. His sudden death in that year was not, as has been claimed, the result of poisoning for political reasons. In an early 19th-century engraving by Luigi Scotti, Domenico appears with other well-known contemporary musicians, a sure sign of the esteem that his music enjoyed. Domenico’s output is more varied than that of his father and grandfather: besides sacred music, often sensitive to changing political conditions, he wrote instrumental and vocal chamber works, but was chiefly involved in opera composition. His style is completely theatrical, even in sacred and vocal chamber compositions; it differed from that of his father so much that his father could not complete his unfinished Te Deum. The style is very simple and fluid; in his operas, especially the comic ones, he reveals an outstanding dramatic sense and a fresh and spontaneous inspiration, along with the assimilation of styles present in the comic operas of the time, particularly those of the farsa. His son Michele Puccini (1813-1864) was a teacher and composer. 

RATHGEBER, Johann Valentin (1682-1750) - Missa VIII. S. Rosarii B.V. Mariæ. (1730)

Johann Valentin Rathgeber (1682-1750) - Missa VIII. S. Rosarii B.V. Mariæ. (1730)

Performers: Bеrufsfachschulе für Musik Bad Königshofеn

Painting: Bartolomeo Manfredi (1582-1622) - Playing music

Further info: Johann Valentin Rathgeber (1682-1750) - Messe von Muri

---

Johann Valentin Rathgeber

(Oberelsbach, 3 April 1682 - Banz, 2 June 1750)

German composer. He received his earliest musical education from his father, who held the combined posts of village organist and schoolmaster. In 1701 he entered the University of Würzburg to study theology, and in 1704 became a schoolmaster and organist at the Juliusspital in Würzburg. He went to the Benedictine abbey of Banz early in 1707 as chamber musician and servant to the abbot, and by the end of the year had become a novice. In 1711 he was ordained, and about the same time was appointed choirmaster at Banz, a post which he held, with one interruption, for the rest of his life. In 1721 the Augsburg firm of Lotter issued the first of his many publications, a volume of masses. Eight years later, when he had established a considerable reputation as a composer of church music, he sought permission to leave Banz for a European tour; he was refused and left without it. He visited Würzburg, Augsburg, Bonn, Cologne, Trier and Benedictine houses in Swabia and around Lake Constance. One of his reasons for making this tour seems to have been to gather information about performance conditions and liturgical customs in the Catholic areas of Germany; in the preface to his op.9 Vespers he said that he had added settings of the Compline psalms as, though sung Compline was not customary in his part of Germany, it was more common in the Rhineland and he had been asked to provide music for it. He also turned his attention to secular vocal music. The first two volumes of the Ohren-vergnügendes und Gemüth-ergötzendes Tafel-Confect, a collection of popular songs which he edited and arranged, were published by Lotter in 1733 and 1737 respectively. Although he was reinstated as choirmaster after his return to Banz and readmission to the community, Rathgeber produced no more church music after 1739. He continued to work on the Tafel-Confect, whose last volume appeared in 1746, and in 1743 his last original composition was published, a set of short and simple keyboard pieces. He died in 1750 after a long illness.

ASPLMAYR, Franz (1728-1786) - Quartetto concertante Ex D (1769)

Franz Asplmayr (1728-1786) - Quartetto concertante Ex D, Op.2 (1769)

Performers: Quatuor à cordes Oistersek de Cologne

Painting: Daniel Niklas Chodowiecki (1726-1801) - Interior scene with concert

Further info: 4 Quatuors Rococos

---

Franz Asplmayr [Aspelmayr, Aspelmeier, Aschpellmayr, Appelmeyer etc.]

(Linz, bap. 2 April 1728 - Vienna, 29 July 1786)

Austrian composer and violinist. He probably received his first musical instruction from his father, a dancing-master. After his father's death he found employment by 1759 as secretarius and violinist to Count Morzin during Haydn's tenure as music director. He was by then an established composer, with works published in Paris perhaps as early as 1757. He married in 1760, and after the disbanding of Morzin's musical establishment in 1761 he worked as ballet composer for the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna, succeeding Gluck. There is no primary evidence that he was an imperial court composer and member of the Hofkapelle, as often reported. When Gassmann replaced him as ballet composer Asplmayr continued as a professional violinist, meanwhile composing substantial quantities of instrumental music. His activities as a composer of dance music led to a collaboration with the choreographer J.-G. Noverre (from 1768) and Noverre's successor Gaspero Angiolini, resulting in his writing music during the 1770s for at least ten major dramatic ballets, nine of which survive; also extant are scenebooks of Iphigénie en Tauride and Alexandre et Campaspe de Larisse (A-Ws) and a scene synopsis of Acis et Galathée (Wn). The most famous of these ballets, Agamemnon vengé, achieved international acclaim. Asplmayr also composed the music for the first German-language melodrama in 1772 (on a translation of Rousseau's Pygmalion) and a Singspiel, Die Kinder der Natur, for the first season of the German Nationaltheater at the Burgtheater. 

He was a founding member of the Tonkünstler-Societät, serving as an elected officer, and was a member of the quartet, also including Alois Luigi Tomasini, Pancrazio Huber and Joseph Weigl, that first performed Haydn's op.33 in 1781. His career then began to decline, and after an illness he died in poverty. Asplmayr was an innovative composer, even an experimental one. His principal fame came as the result of his collaboration with Noverre. Agamemnon vengé, based on characters from Greek antiquity, contains 39 numbers as well as symphonies before each act. In addition to the usual set pieces there are passages of highly programmatic music to accompany mimed episodes. Asplmayr's Die Kinder der Natur was the most substantial of the earliest Viennese Singspiele. Although the music is excellent, the work suffered from an exceptionally bad libretto and disappeared from the repertory. Asplmayr's instrumental music is equally interesting. He composed more than 40 string quartets and over 40 symphonies. Several of the string quartets look forward to the style of Haydn's op.9. The symphonies, two of which appeared under Haydn's name, represent the Viennese mainstream styles of the 1760s and 70s. They are particularly advanced with respect to harmony and developmental techniques. Asplmayr also composed string trios, of which two were attributed by Hoboken to Haydn, as well as a great many divertimentos for strings, wind partitas, sonatas, concertinos and pieces of dance music. He has yet to find his place in the history of the Viennese Classical period.