Giovanni Battista Martini (1707-1784)
- Salvete Sacra Stigmata & Magnificat à 4
Performers: Ensemble cantissimo; L'arpa festante; Markus Utz (conductor)
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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.
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