Un portal on escoltar i gaudir de l'art musical dels segles XVI, XVII, XVIII i XIX. Compartir la bellesa de la música és l'objectiu d'aquest espai i fer-ho donant a conèixer obres de compositors molt o poc coneguts és el mètode.
Czech composer, harpsichordist, oboist, organist, musicologist and
pedagogue. After graduating from the Prague Conservatory majoring in
organ studies, he went on to study oboe at the Janáček Academy of Music
and Performing Arts. He had worked as an oboist for the Prague Radio
Symphony Orchestra and Prague Chamber Orchestra. He was known for his
tenure as a professor of the Prague Conservatory where he had taught a
number of notable Czech oboe players (among them, his son Jan Thuri and
the soloist Vilém Veverka), who constitute the main corpus of current
soloists in Czech orchestras and solo oboe performers. In the Czech
Republic he was often called 'the last baroque composer', having written
an extensive number of works in baroque and early classicism style.
Spanish guitarist and composer. Younger brother of the foremost composer
Ramon Carnicer i Batlle (1789-1855), he received early musical lessons
in the musical chapel of the La Seu d'Urgell cathedral. He later studied
guitar with José Joaquín de Virués Spinola and Dionisio Aguado the
style of whom he emulated in his own works. He established himself in
Sevilla, where he taught and composed guitar pieces, most of them
currently lost. As a performer, he was a brilliant concert player who
contributed to diffusion of the guitar as a concert instrument.
German violinist and composer, son of Gerhard Heinrich Romberg
(1745-1819). He learnt the violin with his father and made his début in
Münster at the age of seven with his cousin Bernhard Heinrich Romberg
(1767-1841). Since then, he was inseparable from his like-aged cousin
with whom he shared an identical training and early career, both being
students of Andrea Luchesi. He was taken on tour with his father in
1782, where he performed at the Concerts spirituels with some success.
He and his cousin then obtained positions with the Bonn court orchestra,
only to have to flee to Hamburg in 1793 in advance of the French
occupation. In 1795 he visited Italy and the following year Vienna,
where he and his cousin parted ways. In 1800 he returned to Hamburg,
where he was an active teacher and performer, receiving a doctorate in
music from the University of Kiel in 1809. In 1815 he was appointed
Kapellmeister at the court in Gotha. A prolific composer, his works are
characterized by a dramatic content, often expansive in terms of form
and structure. These include eight operas, a setting of Friedrich
Klopstock’s epic Messias, a Mass, a Te Deum, two odes, several Psalms,
over 20 Lieder, nine symphonies, 20 violin concertos (and five sinfonia
concertantes), 25 string quartets, 10 quintets, an octet, three violin
sonatas, and 17 duos for strings.
Italian composer, violinist and viola player. He studied counterpoint in Milan with G.A. Fioroni, a pupil of Leonardo Leo. Having decided to devote himself to the viola, he performed a viola concerto of his own in the church of S Ambrogio at some time between 1772 and 1774, probably under the direction of G.B. Sammartini, and in 1778 he played the viola in the orchestra for the inauguration of the Regio Ducal Teatro alla Scala. In 1782, possibly thanks to Sarti, he was appointed first viola player in the Parma orchestra, becoming its leader and conductor in 1792. In 1802, on the death of the Duke of Parma, he was summoned by the impresario Ricci to conduct the La Scala orchestra, where he remained until 1833, directing operas by Mozart, Mayr, Paer, Rossini, Bellini, the young Donizetti and Mercadante. He also served as first violinist and conductor of the court orchestra of Viceroy Eugenio di Beauharnais from 1805, and from 1808 to 1835 he was first professor of violin and viola at the newly opened Milan Conservatory. Rolla's conducting style was described by some of his contemporaries: Spohr (1860-61) praised his ‘force and precision’, while Stendhal (1816) mentioned that Rolla lacked ‘brio in the virtuoso pieces’; similarly the journal I teatri (1828), having defined him as ‘supreme in controlling orchestras’, attributed to him ‘a certain predilection for the old style and old music’. It is safe to say that the widely praised string sound of the La Scala orchestra in the period of Bellini and Donizetti was the fruit of Rolla's school. Many young musicians who went on to become famous had connections with him: Paganini played for Rolla in 1795 and later gave concerts with him (many of them in 1813-14) and remained a close friend, and in 1832 Verdi consulted Rolla when looking for a private teacher in Milan. Continuing the northern Italian tradition of Sammartini and others, Rolla was very active in the field of instrumental music. In 1813 he performed excerpts from Beethoven's Prometheus music at La Scala and gave private performances of Beethoven's fourth, fifth and sixth symphonies in Milan, and in 1823 he gave the first public performance of a Beethoven symphony at La Scala. After retiring from the conservatory he began private performances of chamber music in his own home; here too he was a pioneer in his emphasis on Beethoven. One of those involved, from 1840 onwards, was the young Antonio Bazzini, later the leading Beethoven interpreter in Italy.
Italian writer on music, teacher and composer. His father, Antonio Maria
Martini, a violinist, taught him the elements of music and the violin
and he later learned singing and harpsichord playing from Padre
Pradieri, and counterpoint from Antonio Riccieri and Giacomo Antonio
Perti. Having received his education in classics from the priests of the
Oratory of Saint Philip Neri, he afterwards entered the novitiate of
the Conventual Franciscans at their friary in Lago, at the close of
which he professed religious vows and received the religious habit of
the Order on 11 September 1722. In 1725, though only nineteen years old,
he received the appointment of chapel-master at the Basilica of San
Francesco in Bologna, where his compositions attracted attention. He
established a composition school at the invitation of amateur and
professional friends, where a number of well-known musicians received
their education. As a teacher, he consistently expressed his preference
for the practices of the earlier Roman school of composition. Martini
was a zealous collector of musical literature, and possessed an
extensive musical library. Burney estimated it at 17,000 volumes; after
Martini's death a portion of it passed to the Imperial library at
Vienna, the rest remaining in Bologna, now in the Museo Internazionale
della Musica (ex Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale). Most contemporary
musicians spoke of Martini with admiration, and Leopold Mozart
consulted him with regard to the talents of his son, Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart. The latter went on to write the friar in very effusive terms
after a visit to the city. The Abbé Vogler, however, makes reservations
in his praise, condemning his philosophical principles as too much in
sympathy with those of Fux, which had already been expressed by P.
Vallotti. His Elogio was published by Pietro della Valle at Bologna in
the same year. In 1758 Martini was invited to teach at the Accademia
Filarmonica di Bologna. He died in Bologna. Referred to at his death as
‘Dio della musica de’ nostri tempi’, he was one of the most famous
figures in 18th-century music.
Among Martini's pupils: Grétry, Mysliveček, Berezovsky, his fellow
Conventual Franciscan friar, Stanislao Mattei, who succeeded him as
conductor of the girls choir, as well as the young Mozart, Johann
Christian Bach and the famous Italian cellist Giovanni Battista Cirri.
The greater number of Martini's mostly sacred compositions remain
unprinted. The Liceo of Bologna possesses the manuscripts of two
oratorios as well as three intermezzos, including L'impresario delle
Isole Canarie; and a requiem, with some other pieces of church music,
are now in Vienna. Litaniae atque antiphonae finales B. V. Mariae were
published at Bologna in 1734, as also twelve Sonate d'intavolalura; six
Sonate per l'organo ed il cembalo in 1747; and Duetti da camera in 1763.
Martini's most important works are his Storia della musica (Bologna,
1757-81) and his Esemplare di contrappunto (Bologna, 1774-75). The
former, of which the three published volumes relate wholly to ancient
music, and thus represent a mere fragment of the author's vast plan,
exhibits immense reading and industry, but is written in a dry and
unattractive style, and is overloaded with matter which cannot be
regarded as historical. At the beginning and end of each chapter occur
puzzle-canons, wherein the primary part or parts alone are given, and
the reader has to discover the canon that fixes the period and the
interval at which the response is to enter. Some of these are
exceedingly difficult, but all were solved by Luigi Cherubini. The
Esemplare is a learned and valuable work, containing an important
collection of examples from the best masters of the old Italian and
Spanish schools, with excellent explanatory notes. It treats chiefly of
the tonalities of the plain chant, and of counterpoints constructed upon
them. Besides being the author of several controversial works, Martini
drew up a Dictionary of Ancient Musical Terms, which appeared in the
second volume of GB Doni's Works; he also published a treatise on The
Theory of Numbers as Applied to Music. His celebrated canons, published
in London, about 1800, edited by Pio Cianchettini, and his unpublished
set of 303 canons, show him to have had a strong sense of musical
humour.
Dutch composer of German birth. Nothing is known about his early years.
The first mention of him is in Rotterdam in 1749, the year of his
marriage. He was a wine merchant, but was closely associated with
musical circles in Rotterdam. One of his daughters married the violinist
Cornelis Antoni Steger, a leading figure in the city's cultural life.
In 1753 he had published by A. Olofsen (Amsterdam) and I. Hutte
(Rotterdam), a harpsichord concerto and a sonata for violin with an
obbligato harpsichord; both works were published as one collection. Of
these only some parts for the keyboard instrument remain. Apart from
this there is a collection of two harpsichord concertos (in B flat and
C) which remain complete (published by Alexis Magito in Rotterdam). The
most striking feature of Lentz’s two complete extant concertos is the
solo violin which appears during the many harpsichord solos. It is not
directly a concerto grosso, nor a doublé concerto, but where the two
solo instruments appear together it is an example of the curious 18th
century genre ‘harpsichord sonata with violin'.
German composer and clarinettist, active in France. The date of birth
given is an approximation based on the appearance of his first published
works in 1762 and the publication of two instrumental works by his son,
Charles Roeser, in 1775. Around 1754 or 1755 he settled in Paris where
he played as instrumentist on Johann Stamitz's sextet for two clarinets,
two horns and two bassoons, as he mentions in his "Essai d'instruction à
l'usage de ceux qui composent pour la clarinette et le cor" (1764).
According to Mercure de France (February 1762, p.155), his work "six
sonates à trois ou à tout l'orchestre op.1" was available for sale "chez
l'Auteur, rue de Varenne, à l'hôtel de Matignon". In 1766 his title was
given as virtuoso di camera to the Prince of Monaco. Three years later
Roeser was in the service of the Duke of Orléans and had moved to the
home of Lamy, a clock-maker in the rue Fromenteau. After 1775 he was
mentioned in press announcements primarily in connection with his
publications. He probably died in 1782 as his name ceases to appear in
the Paris press after that time.
German composer and theorist. He was the son of David Heinichen who,
after an education at Leipzig's Thomasschule and the university, moved
to Krössuln for a lifelong career as pastor. Like his father, Heinichen
studied at the Thomasschule, having displayed considerable musical gifts
as a child. (According to his own testimony in Der General-Bass in der
Composition, these involved composing and conducting sacred music in
local churches.) He enrolled at the Thomasschule on 30 March 1695 and
his education included harpsichord and organ lessons with Johann Kuhnau.
Heinichen's talent impressed Kuhnau, who employed the young student as
his assistant, with responsibility for copying and correcting Kuhnau's
own manuscripts. In 1702 Heinichen entered Leipzig University as a law
student, completing the degree in 1706 and immediately moving to
Weissenfels to begin a practice as an advocate. Here the musical life of
the court, under the patronage of Duke Johann Georg, seems soon to have
attracted Heinichen away from his career in law. Johann Philipp
Krieger, the Kapellmeister, apparently encouraged Heinichen to write
music for court occasions. In addition, Heinichen came into contact with
other composers including Gottfried Grünewald, Krieger's assistant, the
court organist Christian Schieferdecker, and for a while Reinhard
Keiser, Hamburg's leading opera composer. In 1709 Heinichen returned to
Leipzig at the request of the manager of the opera house, for which he
composed several operas. He also became the director of the collegium
musicum that met at Lehmann's coffee house. During this period Heinichen
was appointed composer to the court of Zeitz and opera composer to the
court of Naumburg. During this year, if not earlier, he found time to
write the first version of his thoroughbass treatise, published in 1711.
In 1710 Heinichen gave up his successful career in Leipzig to travel to
Venice, the centre of Italian operatic music, the style of which
Heinichen was determined to learn at first hand.
In Venice he was commissioned to write two operas for the Teatro S
Angelo, Mario and Le passioni per troppo amore, both successfully
produced in 1713. In Venice Heinichen came into personal contact with
numerous important Italian musicians and composers, including Gasparini,
Pollaroli, Lotti and Vivaldi. In 1712 he went to Rome, where he gave
music lessons to the young Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, later J.S.
Bach's patron. No further details of Heinichen's travels in Italy have
been found. He remained in Italy, mainly in Venice, until 1716. His
growing fame as a composer attracted the attention of the Prince-Elector
of Saxony, who engaged him as Kapellmeister to the court at Dresden, a
post Heinichen assumed in 1717 and retained all his life. In Dresden
Heinichen shared the duties as Kapellmeister with Johann Christoph
Schmidt. The court of August the Strong maintained one of the most
important musical establishments in Europe. In the court orchestra
Heinichen found such outstanding musicians as the violinists Veracini,
Volumier and Pisendel (one of Heinichen's pupils), the flautists
Buffardin, Hebenstreit and Quantz, and the lutenist S.L. Weiss. For the
court theatre he wrote only one opera, Flavio Crispo, which was never
performed. For reasons which remain obscure, the Italian opera company
at court was dissolved by order of the king when quarrels broke out
between the composer and the singers Senesino and Berselli. The score of
Flavio Crispo breaks off without explanation near the end of the final
act, as if the composer gave it up at the time of these disagreements.
Although opera no longer had any significance in Heinichen's career, he
wrote a large amount of music, both secular (in the form of cantatas,
serenades and instrumental works) and sacred, in numerous scores largely
performed in the royal chapel. During Heinichen's final years he
revised and rewrote his earlier thoroughbass manual, publishing it in
1728 at his own expense. He died from tuberculosis, and was buried on 19
July 1729 in the cemetery of the Johanniskirche.
Austrian composer. According to Hochreiter himself, one of his ancestors
(perhaps his father) had been a treble at the monastery in Lambach in
about 1650, had learnt to play the organ, and from 1662 had been
employed (possibly as organist) there; he had also completed an
important music inventory. Hochreiter himself was organist at the abbey
at Lambach in Upper Austria from 1696 to 1721; he also trained the
choirboys and some organists there, and set down his experiences in the
manuscript Praecepta quaedam observanda, quae pro emolumento bonae
musices maxime proderunt, dummo observentur (c.1710, A-LA). He was at
that time a close friend of Stephan Hieber, organist at the monastery in
Kremsmünster (Upper Austria); he dedicated a mass to the abbot of that
monastery in 1705 for the abbot’s nameday. In the same year he dedicated
the Missa ad multos annos and the Missa genethliaca to Abbot Maximilian
Pagl of Lambach, for his birthday and for his installation. In 1721 he
relinquished his post in favour of the composer Maximilian Röll and, on
the recommendation of Abbot Pagl, became cathedral organist at Salzburg
and organist to the prince-archbishop; he held that office until his
death. His name is not mentioned in the Necrologium of Lambach, so he
could not have been in holy orders. From his compositions Hochreiter
emerges as a skilful contrapuntist, and his vigorous orchestration is
striking. In so far as conclusions can be drawn about his teaching
activity from his vocal music, he must have been an outstanding choir
trainer. In his masses he follows the grand polychoral style of the 17th
century, still practised in Rome.
Spanish pianist, composer and teacher. He was the son of Mateo Pérez de
Albéniz (c.1755-1831), a keyboard player and composer, from whom he
received his first music lessons. Later he went to Paris for further
training; he studied piano with Henri Herz and composition with
Friedrich Kalkbrenner, and became a friend of Rossini. Upon his return
to Spain he was organist at the church of S María in San Sebastián, and
later at a church in Logroño. When Queen María Cristina founded the
Madrid Conservatory he was appointed a professor, on 17 June 1830, and
in 1834 he became organist of the royal chapel. He gave private
instruction to Queen Isabel II, and was the first to introduce modern
methods of keyboard technique and pedagogy into Spain. Although his
compositions are of little interest, and are generally inferior to his
father’s sonatas, he wrote a Método completo para piano (Madrid, 1840),
which was the official textbook of the Madrid Conservatory. He is not
related to Isaac Albéniz.
German composer. He received his musical education at the minorite
monastery of Maihingen, at the Benedictine abbey of Neresheim and at the
Jesuit school in Augsburg in 1777. In 1778 he entered the Benedictine
abbey of Donauwörth; he took vows in 1779, adopting the monastic name of
Gregor, and was ordained priest on 5 June 1784. After obtaining
permission to live outside the community in 1794, he became
Kapellmeister and composer at the Palazzo Menz in Bolzano, and in 1798
at the latest assistant organist at the parish and collegiate church
there. From 1801 to 1822 he was Kapellmeister of Augsburg Cathedral. As a
composer Bühler was influenced especially by J.M. Demmler and Antonio
Rosetti. Settings of the mass are at the heart of his extensive output,
which ranges from simple hymns to the monumental Passion oratorio Jesus,
der göttliche Erlöser and includes over 100 publications; careful
instrumentation, attention to the interpretation of words and distinct
early Romantic tendencies are notable features of his music. After the
secularization of 1802-03, Bühler composed sacred works (mostly
published by Lotter and Böhm of Augsburg) suitable for simple
circumstances. Interest in his sacred music was aroused in America and
England when a transcription of a Mass in F was published by the Handel
and Haydn Society of Boston in 1832. Between 1840 and 1876 other
arrangements and vocal scores were published in London, Paris and
Cincinnati, and were distributed in Boston, New York and Mexico. Bühler
also wrote several pedagogical and theoretical works.
French composer, organist and teacher. He was the son of Jean Taperet
(1700-?), an organist who held posts in Nomeny, Jussey (1740), Gray
(1746), Dole (1753) and finally Besançon (1763). Taperet had a
reputation as a fine teacher, and in 1755 he published a figured bass
method, Abrégé de l’accompagnement du clavecin. Jean-François had at
least six siblings, of whom three can be identified as organists and
harpsichordists: Jean-Baptiste (1741-?) entered Cîteaux Abbey (south of
Dijon); Claude-Antoinette (1744-1815) became organist at the Hôpital de
la Sainte-Famille in Fontainebleau; and Henri-Philibert (1748-?) dazzled
the court in Versailles with his harpsichord playing at the age of
seven. A newspaper account of Henri-Philibert provides the only clue to
the birth date of Jean-François, referring to him as the composer of an
organ concerto at the age of 18 in 1757; it also hailed him as one of
the most skilful organists in the realm. He must have studied with his
father, and one early biographer stated that he was also a pupil of one
Monsieur Dancier, a student of Domenico Scarlatti. He was co-titulaire
with his father at Notre-Dame in Dole when he was 16 or 17. In 1756 he
composed a set of concertos for harpsichord or organ with strings,
published in 1758, but later ignored in his opus numbering. In 1765 he
moved with his father to Besançon. He was already married to
Elizabeth-Simone Lejeune, with whom he was to have three children.
Tapray spent the summers of 1767 and 1768 in Paris and then moved there,
becoming the first titulaire of the new organ at the Ecole Militaire in
1772. That chapel was attached to the Ordres Royaux Militaires et
Hospitaliers de Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel et de Saint-Lazare de
Jérusalem in 1779, and Tapray retained this name in his primary title
for the rest of his life, adding ‘former’ when he resigned from the post
in 1786 because of poor health. His reputation in Paris rested
primarily on his ability as a harpsichord teacher.
Grétry selected him to instruct one of his daughters at about the time
of his retirement from the Ecole Militaire, and he was still listed as a
teacher in Paris in 1789 when his keyboard method (op.25) was
published. During the Revolutionary years there are references to him
conducting two orchestral concerts in Fontainebleau (1793, 1794), where
his sister lived, and he published his last works without address just
before 1800. In the first biography (Choron, 1811), it is not clear if
he was still living, and he is not mentioned in his sister's death
certificate of 1815. Fétis claimed that he died in Fontainebleau about
1819. Virtually all of Tapray's output was for harpsichord and piano,
spanning the era of transition from one to the other. He, like most of
his contemporaries in Paris, made no significant stylistic distinction
between the two instruments, and thus it is uninstructive to compare his
harpsichord sonatas to those which include ‘piano’ on the title-page.
He was the most published French member of the Paris school of
keyboardists in the two decades before the Revolution, a world dominated
by Germans and Alsatians. His style is essentially in the same idiom as
that of the resident foreigners, however, and only occasionally
individual. The keyboard part is normally accompanied, and almost always
carries the thematic material, allowing no meaningful division of the
music into ‘solo’, ‘chamber’ and ‘orchestral’ categories. The almost
improvisatory spinning out of charming melodic ideas over figural
accompaniments with minimal development and simple modulation was much
appreciated in France, but found little favour in Germany, especially
after the late works of Mozart were known. Tapray was singled out in
1800 by the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in a lengthy and scathing
analysis of his last opus, the only one known in Germany. This review
has coloured subsequent evaluations of Tapray's music, lamenting the
lack of tonal variety, formal coherence and correctness in modulatory
passages, and holding up Mozart as the ideal.
Antonio Rosetti (c.1750-1792)
- Der sterbende Jesus (1786)
Performers: Liesbeth Devos (soprano); Petra Noskaiová (contralto); Yvan Goosens (tenor); David Pastor (bass);
Chamber Choir of the Palau de la Música Catalana; Il Fondamento; Paul Dombrecht (conductor)
Bohemian composer and double bass player. The precise date and location
of his birth remain uncertain. When he died in 1792, the death register
in Ludwigslust recorded his age as 42, placing his birth in the year
1750. In documenting his marriage in 1777, the Wallerstein parish
records identified him as a court musician from Leitmeritz, Bohemia, but
the parish registers there record no birth of an Anton Rösler in 1750,
leading some scholars to suggest that the composer was a Franciscus
Xaverius Antonius Rössler born on 25 October 1746 in Niemes (now Mimoň),
Bohemia. This Rössler, however, was throughout his life a shoemaker in
Niemes, where he died on 11 June 1779. Some time before 1773 Rosetti
adopted the Italian form of his name, and he thereafter consistently
referred to himself as Antonio Rosetti. The existence during this period
of several musicians who shared one or the other of the composer’s
surnames has led to considerable confusion in the identification of his
music. Rosetti received his early education and musical training from
the Jesuits in Bohemia. After the abolition of the Jesuit order in
Bohemia, he moved away and in September 1773 joined the Hofkapelle of
Kraft Ernst, Prince (Fürst) von Oettingen-Wallerstein, near Augsburg, as
a livery servant and double bass player; in July 1774 he was promoted
to the official position of Hofmusikus. Following the death of Kraft
Ernst’s wife, Maria Theresa (born Princess of Thurn und Taxis), on 9
March 1776, as a result of complications following childbirth, Rosetti
rapidly composed a Requiem in E flat major which was first performed on
26 March 1776.
A turning-point in Rosetti’s career occurred in 1781, when he was
granted a leave of absence to visit Paris. During his five-month stay
there, he actively promoted his music, and his works were performed by
the best ensembles of the city, including the orchestra of the Concert
Spirituel, for which he composed several new symphonies. When Rosetti
returned to Wallerstein about 20 May 1782, his recognition as a composer
was assured. In 1785 Rosetti assumed the duties of Kapellmeister. One
of his first priorities was to improve Wallerstein church music.
Rosetti’s life at Wallerstein was plagued with financial difficulties.
His debts continued to mount, and in 1789, after numerous financial
setbacks, he requested release from the prince’s service in order to
accept the position of Kapellmeister to Friedrich Franz I (1756–1837),
Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Reluctantly, on 9 July 1789 Kraft Ernst
agreed, and later that month Rosetti moved to Ludwigslust. His years at
Ludwigslust were less frustrating than those in Wallerstein. Thanks to a
generous salary, he was for the first time financially secure, and his
growing reputation as a composer brought him a number of important
commissions. Unlike that at Wallerstein, the Ludwigslust Kapelle
included several talented singers, and during his years there Rosetti
composed a number of large-scale works for soloists, chorus and
orchestra, including a chamber opera, an oratorio and a cantata. His
Requiem of 1776 was used at a memorial ceremony for Mozart in Prague in
1791. In the spring of 1792, Rosetti, who had suffered from poor health
for most of his life, became seriously ill, and he died on 30 June; he
was buried at Ludwigslust three days later.
English musician, composer and music historian. His father, James
Macburney, was a dancer, violinist and portrait painter who dropped the
prefix from his surname about the time that Charles was born. Charles
and his twin sister Susanna, born to Macburney's second wife, were the
last of 20 children in the family. Before the age of eight he was sent
to Condover under the care of a nurse. He returned to Shrewsbury to
enrol in the Free School, and in 1739 rejoined his family in Chester,
where he entered Chester Free School as a King's Scholar. Here the early
introduction to music he had received at Condover was continued under
the direction of the organist of the cathedral, and he was soon able to
perform the services. His education and interest in music were
heightened by the many famous musicians who travelled through Chester on
their way to or from Ireland. In 1744 he became a protégé of Thomas
Arne, who provided further education leading to membership in the
Freemen of the Musicians Company in 1749. He directed and provided music
for several staged works, most significantly The Cunning Man, a
translation of Le devin du village by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In 1770 he
began a series of musical tours, first to Italy and France and in 1772
to Germany and Holland, which resulted in published diaries that are
significant descriptions of the music and musicians of the period. In
1776 he published his first volume of the General History of Music (two
other volumes followed in 1782 and 1789), which gained him prominence in
English society, as did his work as official chronicler of the Handel
Centenary Festival in 1785. Burney's Tours and the General History of
Music remain wellsprings of observation and insight into 18th-century
musical life and practice.
The History remains an impressive, if inconsistent, work of great value
even after more than 200 years of specialized scholarship. He wrote for a
specific audience and sought the help of his collaborators,
particularly Thomas Twinning (1735-1804) as much to assist him with the
literary and general interest aspects of his work as with its musical
content. By 1801 he had taken on additional work writing music articles
for Reese’s Encyclopedia. In 1806 he received a pension of £200 a year.
In 1810 he was appointed a Correspondant of the Institut de France
Classe des Beaux-Arts. During the final years of life Burney worked on
his memoirs, attempted to bring order to an immense correspondence and
spent time organizing his very extensive library. After his death, his
library was separated into three lots. The Miscellaneous Library and his
collection of music were sold at two separate auctions. His extensive
library of books on music was sold as he had wished, without being
separated, to the British Museum. In 1817 a monument to Burney was
erected in the North Choir Aisle of Westminster Abbey. Burney was known
during his lifetime and afterward as one of the first major historians
of music, though he also wrote on scientific matters such as astronomy.
Burney's compositions are competent and reflect his activities as a
performer, impresario and church musician. None has achieved lasting
fame, although the link to Rousseau's Le devin du village has attracted
attention to The Cunning Man. Late in life he described his own music as
negligible. His works include three operas, two odes, 12 canzonetts, 16
trio sonatas, 21 keyboard sonatas and other works, six violin duets,
and a number of songs, catches, and glees.
Italian composer. According to the Dizionario biografico degli italiani,
he entered the Loreto Conservatory, Naples, in 1744 and there
specialized in the violin. Having left the conservatory about 1752, he
played in the orchestra of one of the small Neapolitan theatres. After
about ten years in that profession (Ginguené), he decided to become a
composer and took composition lessons from Sacchini and Piccinni. His
first opera, La serva spiritosa, was produced at the Teatro Capranica,
Rome, in Carnival 1763, but he only gradually established himself as a
leading opera composer. According to Burney, he wrote some music for
Sacchini’s operas at the composer’s request, while Ginguené and Grossi
state that Piccinni obtained opera commissions for him between 1771 and
1773 at the Teatro delle Dame, Rome, and that he achieved success only
with the third of these, L’incognita perseguitata (1773). There is no
doubt of the success of L’incognita, which gained for Anfossi a degree
of celebrity he had not previously enjoyed. During the 1770s Rome and
Venice were the main centres of Anfossi’s activities. For part of this
period he was maestro di coro at the Venetian girls’ conservatory called
the Derelitti or Ospedaletto, for which he wrote music between 1773 and
1777. It has not been possible, however, to determine from the
surviving conservatory records the exact dates of his appointment or
resignation. Commissions for Turin, Armida (1770) and Gengis-Kan
(Carnival 1777), as well as a resetting of the Turinese libretto
Motezuma for Reggio nell’Emilia in 1776 offered Anfossi the opportunity
to compose spectacle operas on exotic subjects which that theatre
favoured. A nod towards the Franco-Italian synthesis taking place in
nearby Mannheim and Stuttgart, these operas infuse italianate dramaturgy
with military and machine spectacle, pantomime and ballet. His Armida,
together with Jommelli's Armida abbandonata for Naples in the same year,
spawned a dozen subsequent versions, among them Haydn's Armida of 1783.
The tragedy Motezuma represents an early departure from longstanding
operatic conventions. Anfossi also participated in the lavish spectacle
operas the revisionist Stuttgart librettist Verazi presented for the
opening of La Scala during Carnival 1779. It is said that he went to
Paris in 1780, but if so, he composed no new operas there. The statement
in the Dizionario biografico degli italiani that he moved directly from
Paris to London is dubious. His first opera for London, Il trionfo
della costanza, was produced at the King’s Theatre on 19 December 1782,
and there is no evidence that he was in London much before then; the new
operas that he had performed in Venice and Rome between 1780 and 1782
prove that he must have been working in Italy during this period. Off
and on during the years 1782–6 he served as music director for the
King’s Theatre, where five new operas as well as several of his earlier
works were produced. He also supervised the production of operas by
other composers, including a version (first staged at the King’s in May
1785) of Gluck’s Orfeo with additional music by Handel and J.C. Bach.
His last London opera, L’inglese in Italia, was unsuccessful, being
performed only twice (20 and 27 May 1786); an extract from the General
Advertiser for 22 May reads, ‘The music evidently labours under a
tedious monotony’. By the following autumn Anfossi was back in Venice.
At the start of 1787 he was in Rome for the production of his Le pazzie
de’ gelosi, a work which, according to Gerber, caused a fresh wave of
enthusiasm for his music among the Romans. In 1790, however, his
production of new operas, uninterrupted since the 1770s, came to an
abrupt stop and he spent his last years in the service of the church. In
August 1791 he was promised the post of maestro di cappella at S
Giovanni in Laterano, Rome, on G.B. Casali’s resignation or death; he
was appointed in July 1792 and held this position for the rest of his
life.
English composer. His father, Stefano Storace was an Italian double bass
player, who was working in Dublin in 1750, and in London by 1758. His
mother (née Elizabeth Trusler) was a daughter of the owner of Marylebone
Gardens. After learning the violin and harpsichord as a youth, he was
sent to the S Onofrio Conservatory in Naples to study composition.
Thomas Jones, a painter who took him on sketching expeditions around
Naples in the late 1770s, indicated that Storace treated his studies
lightheartedly. His parents and his younger sister, Nancy Storace,
visited him in late 1778, before the whole family travelled in Italy. By
autumn 1779 he and his sister were performing in Florence, she singing,
he playing second harpsichord at the opera house. In Livorno they met
the Irish tenor Michael Kelly, who became their friend and colleague and
whose memoirs include many anecdotes about the Storace family.
Storace’s earliest known composition, Orfeo negli elisi, a cantata for
two voices (now lost), was from this time. In the early 1780s Storace
returned to England, where he tried to settle in both London and Bath.
His earliest published works were songs and chamber music from this
period, but his later output was to be mainly operatic. He made several
trips to Vienna, where his sister was employed as a singer. His two
opere buffe, Gli sposi malcontenti (1785, Vienna) and Gli equivoci
(1786, Vienna), were probably commissioned through Nancy’s influence on
Emperor Joseph II. Storace was in Vienna for the premières of these two
operas, in both of which his sister and Michael Kelly sang. The Storaces
became friends of Mozart and invited him to London, but this plan never
came to fruition. Although Storace was clearly influenced by Mozart,
there is no evidence that he was Mozart’s pupil, as is sometimes
claimed. On 20 February 1787, a few days before he was due to return
permanently to London, Storace was briefly jailed for disorderly
behaviour. He described the incident in a letter from prison to J.
Serres, a friend in London. Back in London, both Stephen and Nancy
Storace joined the Italian opera company at the King’s Theatre.
In 1787 they made their London operatic débuts in Paisiello's Gli
schiavi per amore, he as director. Storace’s Italian opera for London,
La cameriera astuta, lasted for only a few performances. In the same
year he sued the publishers Longman & Broderip for printing his
substitute aria ‘Care donne che bramate’ without permission, and
eventually won his case. In the summer of 1788 Storace joined the
Society of Musicians, sponsored by Samuel Arnold. On 23 August he
married Mary Hall, daughter of John Hall, historical engraver to the
king. Their only surviving child, Brinsley John, died in 1807. By the
beginning of the 1788-89 season, Storace had moved to Drury Lane, where
Thomas Linley, the house composer and a family friend, seems to have
happily delegated his responsibilities. For his first project, Storace
worked with James Cobb, Linley’s librettist, in using Dittersdorf’s
Doktor und Apotheker as the basis for an afterpiece. In the following
season they followed that success with a full-length opera, The Haunted
Tower. For the rest of his career Storace composed almost entirely for
the Drury Lane company, usually collaborating with Cobb for mainpieces
and with Prince Hoare for afterpieces. Storace and Hoare first worked
together on No Song, No Supper (1790). All of their afterpieces were
first staged as benefits for Storace’s principal singers – Nancy Storace
and Michael Kelly, and their less distinguished partners, John
Bannister and Anna Maria Crouch – and subsequently adopted into the
repertory of the theatre. Storace derived his own income from sharing
benefit nights with his librettists and by selling the copyright of his
music to publishers – normally his operas were published in vocal score
as soon as they were established as successes on stage. When Storace
died at the age of almost 34, his career in the English theatre had
lasted less than eight years. His innovations had little influence on
his contemporaries and successors, who continued to segregate drama and
music. Although some of his operas remained popular for several decades,
his contribution to the history of English opera was small.
Spanish composer and theorist. His birth date is usually given as 1665,
but Pavia i Simó (1990) proposed a date of about 1671, based on evidence
from Valls’s Missa regalis. In 1688 he was placed in charge of the
music at the Mataró parish. Later that year he was made maestro de
capilla at Gerona Cathedral, and early in 1696 took up a similar
appointment at S María del Mar, Barcelona. When Joan Barter retired as
maestro de capilla of Barcelona Cathedral in December 1696, Valls was
appointed to succeed him, first as substitute, then as interim and
finally, on 18 February 1709, as titular maestro. According to Martín
Moreno (Historia de la música española, IV: Siglo XVIII, 152-154,
417-419, 425; 1985), Valls had retired from the post by 1726; León Tello
(La teoría española de la música en los siglos XVII y XVIII, 550-579,
1974), however, placed his retirement much later, at 1741. Valls was a
prolific composer, and his works survive in archives throughout Spain,
but he was known in his lifetime (and has been remembered since)
primarily for the controversy that surrounded his Missa ‘Scala aretina’
and for his impressive treatise Mapa armónico. The polemics to which the
mass gave rise centred on the second soprano’s entry on an unprepared
9th at ‘miserere nobis’ in the Gloria. Gregorio Portero, maestro de
capilla at Granada Cathedral, fired the first salvo in 1715; he was
joined the following year by Joaquín Martínez de la Roca, the organist
at Palencia, who argued that ‘music consists of established principles
and general rules; when these are broken the very essence of music is
destroyed’. Valls defended himself ‘not so much for my own reputation as
for the freedom and honour of the art of music’. Over 50 Spanish
musicians joined the debate in writing, and even Alessandro Scarlatti,
in Italy, became involved. Other issues touched on in the dispute
included the question of whether or not the 4th should be viewed as a
consonance (Valls argued that it should), the use of B in the scale on
F, and matters of text expression. Valls’s treatise Mapa armónico,
dating from 1741-42, was not published in his lifetime, but circulated
widely in Spain. It contains a wealth of information on modal theory,
harmony and counterpoint, continuo realization, instruments, national
styles, genres and matters affecting performance. There are numerous
music examples, many of them complete compositions.
