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.
German composer. Nothing is known about his youth and musical training.
By 1767 he was active in Russia, where he remained his whole life. There
he was appointed music director at the Moscow University. In the
mid-1770s, he established a shop in St. Petersburg, offering a diverse
array of sheet music, musical instruments, wines, and other curated
goods. For an extended period, George's musical legacy remained largely
unknown. However, a decisive discovery at the National Library of
Ukraine in Kyiv brought his work to light. An inventory of their
holdings revealed a substantial collection of his handwritten scores,
notably within the extensive music archive of Count Alexei Razumovsky, a
prominent political figure and generous patron of the arts. It resulted
in the identification of approximately 30 previously unknown George
compositions, each preserved in unique, single-copy manuscripts, and
among them, symphonies, a sinfonia concertante and chamber pieces.
German wind player and composer. Almost nothing is known about his life.
He is initially documented as a recently arrived oboe player at the
Saxon Court of the Kingdom of Poland in Warsaw during the 1732-33 season
with a salary of 230 Thaler, under the Court 'compositeur' Giovanni
Alberto Ristori. By 1736, he is documented as a flautist and oboist at
the Court of Bayreuth under the Kapellmeister Johann Pfeiffer. In
September 1744, he is mentioned as a chamber flautist during a hunting
party of the Margravine Wilhelmine (1709-1758) and Margrave Friedrich
(1711-1763), in which he was accompanied by the bassoonist Johann
Gotthelf Liebeskind, the flautist Johann Stephan Kleinknecht, the
concertmaster Johann Wolfgang Kleinknecht, and the castrato Stefano
Leonardi. He remained at the Court of Bayreuth at least until the
1760-61 season. As a composer, he published a set of 'Six sonatas pour
la flûte traversière seule avec la basse chiffrée ... œuvre I'
(Nürnberg, c.1749). He also left a 'Concerto a 5 | Flauto Traverso |
Violino Imo | Violino 2do | Viola e Basso' only preserved in manuscript
copy and previously attributed to Johann Joachim Quantz.
Michele Mascitti (1664-1760)
- Concerto a sei stromenti des 'IV Concerti a sei stromenti, due
violini e basso del concertino e un violino, alto viola, col basso di
ripieno ... opera settima, libro secondo' (1727)
Italian composer and violinist. He was a pupil of his uncle Pietro
Marchitelli, a violinist in the Naples royal chapel. After travels
throughout Europe, he settled in Paris in 1704. He soon attracted the
attention of the Duke of Orléans and through him gained the opportunity
to play before the king, the dauphin and the whole court. He became a
figurehead of Italian instrumental music in France and was regarded as
the peer of Arcangelo Corelli and Tomaso Albinoni. Possessing the
advantage over his fellow-nationals of residence in Paris, where all
nine of his published collections were first issued between 1704 and
1738, he enjoyed enormous popularity with the French public. In 1739 he
became a French citizen by naturalization. All of his 116 printed works
are for strings; 100 are solo sonatas, 12 are trio sonatas, and four are
concertos of rather Corellian design.
English teacher and composer. Son of Joseph Reinagle (?-c.1775), a
German immigrant, he received his earliest musical education from his
father and Raynor Taylor, musical director of the Theatre Royal in
Edinburgh where Reinagle made his first known public appearance on 9
April 1770. Although trained as a merchant, he was active in the concert
life of Edinburgh, publishing his first works there during the 1770s.
On 23 October 1784, he accompanied his brother Hugh Reinagle (1759-1785)
to Portugal. On 8 January 1785 he appeared in a public concert and a
week later performed for the royal family. After his brother's death, he
returned to England and became a member of the Royal Society of
Musicians in London. In 1786 he moved to New York, where he was active
as a teacher, and two months later he settled in Philadelphia, where he
wrote operas for the New Chestnut Street theatre, becoming one of the
leading musicians in the city. From 1790 he was a partner with the
English actor Thomas Wignell and Wignell’s successors in a theatrical
company operating in Philadelphia and Baltimore. In his 15 years with
the company he composed or arranged music for hundreds of productions,
the extent of his responsibility ranging from a single incidental song
to a completely new score, or the orchestration of an existing score. In
1803 he moved to Baltimore to take over the direction of the Holliday
Street theatre. As a composer, his works include 25 operas, three medley
overtures, four keyboard sonatas, as well as various marches and dance
tunes. He also wrote several cantatas, odes, and dirges, such as the
Monody on the Death of George Washington of 1799. His music is
characterized by its use of Scottish tunes, as well as a good foundation
in melody and harmony. As a teacher, his pupils included Nellie Custis,
the granddaughter of George Washington, with whom he was on friendly
terms. His younger brother Joseph Reinagle Jr. (1762-1825) was also a
composer.
Bohemian cellist, horn player and composer. Almost nothing is known
about his life. He was active as horn player at the Dresden court
orchestra from 1734 to 1756 and as a cellist there from 1756 to 1773. He
wrote one concerto for horn in D (also found in a version for viola in
E) and has another concerto in E attributed to him in the same
collection. These works, show him to have been a master of the high
(so-called clarino) register. Thus Knechtel developed the tradition of
virtuoso first horn players in Dresden in the first half of the 18th
century (others there during the period included Johann Adalbert Fischer
and J.A. Schindler) whilst expanding upon this tradition through his
skill in the performance of quick chordal figures and large leaps in a
quasi-violinistic idiom. Knechtel is also thought to have composed
several symphonies an a set of 12 ‘Menuets et Polonaises’ (1755).
Italian composer. The youngest of six children born to Amico and Livia
Carissimi, nothing is known of his early training. He sang in the choir
at Tivoli Cathedral from 1623 and played the organ there from 1624. In
1628, he was appointed maestro di cappella at San Ruffino in Assisi.
Before his 24th birthday, he joined the Collegio Germanico e Hungarico,
an important Jesuit seminary with a reputation for excellent music in
Rome, and upon the departure of the maestro di cappella, Lorenzo Ratti,
about 1 December, he was appointed in his place two weeks later,
remaining there for the rest of his life. As his reputation spread, he
attracted private pupils, including Marc-Antoine Charpentier about 1654,
Johann Caspar Kerll before 1656, Christoph Bernhard in 1657, and
possibly Agostino Steffani in the early 1670s. His reputation also
attracted offers from other cities. Authorities in Venice asked
Carissimi to stand to replace Claudio Monteverdi as maestro di cappella
at San Marco in 1643, and numerous potentates tried to recruit him for
the service of Archduke Leopold William in Brussels, son of the Holy
Roman Emperor. Carissimi ultimately refused all such offers, preferring
to remain in his native city where his excellent post allowed him to
augment his income from various sources nearby. In 1656, Queen Christina
of Sweden, living in Rome, appointed him maestro di cappella del
concerto di camera. When Carissimi died, the Jesuit authorities at the
Collegio Germanico obtained an order from Pope Clement X prohibiting
anyone, under pain of excommunication, from removing any of Carissimi’s
autograph scores from the college. As a composer, his output include his
11 influential oratorios, especially Jephte. He also composed a mass
for five voices, at least 110 Latin motets, and 148 Italian cantatas.
There may be other stage and sacred works by him, as there are many
unauthenticated attributions. The most important composer in
mid-17th-century Rome, he established the characteristic features of the
Latin oratorio. Through his pupils and the wide dissemination of his
music he influenced musical developments in north European countries.
Flemish composer and violinist of uncertain extraction. The origins of
Francesco Venturini remain obscure. He probably owed his Italian family
name to the Italianate fashions of the period, but his native region is
thought to be Flanders, given that the baptismal registers for his
children describe him as ‘Bruxellensis’. In the court records at
Hanover, where most of his career took place, his name always appears
next to those of the French musicians, of whom there were many in the
orchestra. A pupil of Jean-Baptiste Farinel, who was also active in
Hanover although a native of Grenoble, he replaced the latter in the
post of Konzertmeister in 1713. Despite his fidelity to the court, he
seems to have aroused the wrath of the Elector Georg Ludwig by composing
on the occasion of the latter’s departure to ascend the throne of
England a cantata to the text 'Herr, gedenke mein, wenn du in dein Reich
kommst' (‘Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom’).
However this act of 'lése-majesté' must have been forgiven, appointed
Kapellmeister soon afterwards. Despite his important position, he left
little music; apart from the published 'Concerto di camera a 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, e 9 instromenti... opera prima' (c.1715), only some cantatas and
instrumental works have survived in manuscript. Several other musicians
by the name of Venturini are known to have been active in Hanover and
other German cities at the same time. Some were relatives (including a
son, August, and a presumed son, Georg), but others, including two who
shared his first name, to the further confusion of biographers, were
apparently not. A Franciscus Venturini served in the Württemberg court
orchestra at Stuttgart from 1700 to 1745 as a violinist, while Francesco
Maria Venturini, a Venetian singer, was engaged by the Bavarian court
in 1715.
Johann Gottlieb Naumann (1741-1801)
- Der 96. Psalm | Singet dem Herrn ein neues φ| â | 2 Clarini. |
Tÿmpani. | 2. Corni | 2. Oboi | 2. Flauti | 2. Violini | Viola | Violone
| C. A. T. B. | & | Organo (c.1786)
Performers: Bettina Eismаnn (soprano); Elisabeth Wіlke (alto); Werner
Gürа (tenor);
Körnеrscher Sing-Verein Dresden; Drеsden Instrumental
Concert; Peter Kοpp (conductor)
German composer and violinist. His earliest education was at a local
town school, but he was soon sent to Dresden to the Kreuzschule, where
his teacher was Gottfried August Homilius. In 1757 the Swedish violinist
Anders Wesstrom took him to Italy, where he received valuable
instruction from Giuseppe Tartini in Padua, Padre Martini in Bologna,
and Johann Adolph Hasse in Venice. Here his opera 'Il Tesoro insidiato'
received such acclaim that he began to receive attention as Hasse’s
successor as 'Il caro sassone'. Hasse recommended him as his successor
in Dresden in 1764, and his work soon began to achieve considerable
success throughout central Europe. In 1776 he was appointed
Kapellmeister in Dresden. In 1777 he was commissioned by Swedish king
Gustav III to write an opera, 'Amphion', that led to other commissions
from the north, including 'Cora och Alonzo' with which the new Royal
Opera in Stockholm was inaugurated in 1782. Although his last Swedish
work, the nationalist 'Gustaf Wasa', was ready for performance in 1786,
he was lured to Denmark to write works for the Danish Opera. In 1792 he
married Catharina Magdalena Grodtschilling (1767-1838), the daughter of a
Danish admiral. In 1789 he was active in Berlin, and by the time of his
death he was probably one of the most respected and popular composers
in Europe. As a composer, his works include 21 Masses, 15 Kyries, 13
oratorios, 20 offertories, 19 Marian antiphons, at least three Te Deums,
nine vespers, eight Psalm cantatas, over 130 songs, two concertos for
keyboard, 25 operas (in Italian, Swedish, and Danish), 16 symphonies, 12
sonatas for glass harmonica, 15 chamber works, and a host of smaller
compositions for the voice and chamber ensembles. His music incorporates
a mixture of the various late 18th-century styles and forms, always
well constructed and dramatically intense. His 'Vater unser' was
considered the epitome of German sacred music of the time, while his
cantatas were more in the Italian style with fluid melodies and
progressive harmony. He had an interest in the glass harmonica, writing a
substantial amount of music for this instrument. Johann Gottlieb
Naumann can be considered one of the most significant composers of the
last half of the 18th century. His brother Friedrich Gotthard Naumann
(1750-1821) was a painter, his son Carl Friedrich Naumann (1797-1873)
was a mineralogist and geologist, and his grandson Ernst Naumann
(1832-1910) was an organist and composer.
Italian composer and violinist. After training from his father,
Francesco Barbella, maestro di violino and composer at the Conservatorio
di Santa Maria di Loreto, he studied with Angelo Zaga and Pasqualino
Bini before completing his training in theory and composition with
Michele Cabbalone and Leonardo Leo. In 1744 he was taken to England by
Leo, where he had his debut as a violinist. After his return to Naples,
he was appointed to positions at the Teatro Nuovo in 1753 and the Teatro
San Carlo in 1761 in a post he held the rest of his life. Although
there is no evidence that Barbella ranked among the finest Italian
violinists, he was respected as a performer and admired as a teacher and
composer. Charles Burney, who became his friend and relied on his
knowledge, confessed to some disappointment in his playing, complaining
of lack of variety, ‘drowsiness of tone’, and ‘want of animation’. Yet
he found much to praise also, especially when hearing Barbella in a
small room, and spoke of his ‘taste and expression’ and of his
‘marvellously sweet tone’. His music, mostly in the style of Giuseppe
Tartini, includes two concertos, 33 trio sonatas, 29 violin sonatas, 33
duets for two violins, two operas, and several smaller works. He wrote a
number of pieces for the mandolin, including a concerto, sonatas and
duets. Many of his pieces were also published in England and France, so
that they were well known in Europe.
Romanus Pinzger (1717-1755)
- Missa in C-Dur aus 'Laus dei jucunda et sonora, ... cum vocibus
ordinariis canto, alto, tenore, basso, II. violinis et organo obligatis,
clarinis vero et tympano ad libitum ... opus II' (1750)
Performers: Choir und Orchester Seeon; Andrea Wittmann (conductor)
German priest and composer. Very few details are known of his life. Son
of Mathias Pinzger (1691-1729), he came from a family of violin makers
and musicians. In 1728, he entered the Gymnasium in Salzburg, where ten
years later he composed the music for the Benedictine theater. There he
probably received music lessons from Matthias Sigismund Biechteler von
Greiffenthal and Johann Ernst Eberlin. In 1738 he was novice at the
Seeon Abbey, where in 1741 was ordained a priest. As a composer, he
published two collections of sacred music; 'Sacrificium laudis in voce'
(1747) and 'Laus dei jucunda et sonora' (1750). Additionally, he wrote a
piece entitled 'Musik f. die Münchener Fastenmeditationen' (c.1749).
His brothers Willibaldus Pinzger (1720-1761) and Johann Paul Pinzger
(1722-1772) were also musicians and priests, mainly active in Salzburg.
French composer. Son of Jean-Bertrand Mouret and Madeleine Menotte, he
is believed to have received his musical training at the Notre Dame des
Doms choir school in Avignon. After settling in Paris (1707), he became
'maitre de musique' to the Marshal of Noailles; within a year or so, he
was made 'surintendant de la musique' at the Sceaux court. He was
director of the Paris Opera orchestra (1714-18), and became
composer-director at the New Italian Theater (1717), remaining there for
two decades. He was also made an 'ordinaire du Roy' as a singer in the
king's chamber (1720), and served as artistic director of the Concert
Spirituel (1728-34), where he brought out many of his cantatas, motets,
and cantatilles. In 1718 he was granted a royal privilege to published
his own music. Stricken with a mental disorder in 1737, he was placed in
the care of the Fathers of Charity in Charenton in 1738. Among his most
successful works were the opera-ballet 'Les Fetes ou Le Triomphe de
Thalie' (Paris, 1714), the comedie lyrique 'Le Manage de Ragonde et de
Colin ou La Veillée de village' (Sceaux, 1714), various divertissements
for the Italian Theater, and the Suites de simphonies (c.1729).
Austrian organist and composer. Although born into a musical family,
little is known about the details of his early life, save that he was a
chorister at Klosterneuburg, where he no doubt learned enough about
music to become an organist there around 1731. His other positions were
at the monastery in Melk and subsequently around 1736 at the Karlskirche
in the Viennese suburb of Wieden. He was also active at the Holy Roman
court, where his instrumental music was extremely popular. His life was
cut short prematurely by a lung ailment, probably pneumonia, although he
suffered from ill health his entire life. His most important student
was Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, probably for whom Monn created a
treatise titled 'Theorie des Generalbasses in Beispielen ohne
Erklärung', which remained unpublished. As a composer, his works include
16 symphonies, eight concertos (six for keyboard, one for violin, one
for cello, plus another arrangement of a harpsichord concerto for cello
or contrabass), partitas, three fanfares, and three preludes and fugues
for organ. His style represents the infusion of the homophonic texture,
contrasting themes of the early sonata principle, and fundamental
modulatory patterns that reflect the predominant style of the late 18th
century. He was also one of the first to create the fourmovement
symphony by adding a minuet in one of his works. His brother Johann
Christoph Monn (1726-1782) was also a composer and teacher.
German composer and violinist. He came from a family of musicians. From
1696 he was active in Berlin, where he was student of Johann Theile.
Also there, he was second violinist in the court chapel at Berlin by
1710. He visited London in 1721 and remained at least until winter
1724-25. After 1725 he became the first violinist in the opera orchestra
at Hamburg under the direction of Reinhard Keiser. During the season
1725-1726, he participated in performances of operas by George Frideric
Handel under the direction of Georg Philipp Telemann. In August 1728, he
became the ducal Kapellmeister in Mecklenburg-Strelitz. There, he led
the orchestra, which comprised at least 14 musicians, and was also
responsible for developing a music library. In 1742, Johann Christian
Hertel assumed direction of the orchestra, and Linike became the court
keyboardist. In 1752, the orchestra was disbanded, and it was not until
1761 that he received a pension. As a composer, he wrote the cantata
'Quando sperasti', four concertos and several chamber pieces. His works
show relatively conservative Baroque traits in the prevalence of
imitative entries at the beginning of movements, a pervasive two-part
texture, and a tendency towards consistent motivic extension within
individual movements. His brother Christian Bernhard Linike (1673-1751)
was a cellist and composer, active in Berlin and Cöthen.
German composer, keyboard player and music theorist. His intelligence
and musical talent were evident early on, so he was sent to study in
Dresden in 1670. By 1671, he was a chorister at the Kreuzkirche, where
he attracted the attention of the Kapellmeister Vincenzo Albrici.
Another member of the Kreuzkirche staff, Erhard Titius, who had become
cantor at Zittau, invited Kuhnau to continue his education at the
prestigious Johanneum school there. After Titius died in 1682, Kuhnau
filled in as cantor. He then moved to Leipzig, matriculated in law at
the university, and after an unsuccessful application in 1682, won the
post of organist at Thomaskirche in 1684. He published his law thesis in
1688 and began to practice. In 1689, he married and eventually had
eight children. Before the turn of the century, he published all his
keyboard music, built up his renown as an organist, and engaged in
literary and linguistic scholarship. When the Thomaskantor Johann
Schelle died on 10 March 1701, the authorities quickly elected Kuhnau as
his successor, and he took up his new and prestigious post in April
1701. His career as cantor was not without difficulties. The growing
Leipzig opera drew promising young singers away from enrolling at
Thomasschule. Then, in 1701, Georg Philipp Telemann arrived in Leipzig
to study law and immediately founded his Collegium Musicum, which also
attracted some of Kuhnau’s students, and Telemann even inveigled the
mayor, going over Kuhnau’s head, to allow himself to compose for
Thomaskirche. Frequent illness troubled Kuhnau during this period, and
in 1703, he learned that the city council had inquired of Telemann
whether he might wish to succeed Kuhnau should he die. In the end, such
intrigues counted as mere annoyances, and Kuhnau’s career at
Thomaskirche was generally characterized by the esteem of Germany’s best
musicians. Johann Kuhnau was a major figure in German music at the turn
of the 18th century, and the immediate predecessor of Johann Sebastian
Bach as cantor of Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Although Kuhnau composed at
least 62 church cantatas, 14 Latin motets, a Magnificat, a passion
according to St. Mark, and 2 masses, this considerable body of sacred
music remained unpublished, and his single opera and a few other early
stage pieces are lost, so he influenced his contemporaries principally
through his published keyboard music: 14 suites, 2 preludes, 2 fugues, a
toccata, and 14 sonatas, including the famous Biblical Sonatas for
harpsichord (1700, Leipzig). Unlike Johann Sebastian Bach, he exhibited
all the various talents and interests that the Leipzig city council
evidently desired in the Thomaskantor: Kuhnau was not only an esteemed
composer and organist but also had built a distinguished law career,
translated scholarly works from French and Italian into German, learned
mathematics, Greek, and Hebrew, and had written a satirical novel, 'Der
musicalische Quack-Salber'. These self-motivated studies allowed him to
carry out the multifarious teaching, administrative, and musical duties
of his post with distinction. Much information about Kuhnau’s life comes
from his autobiography published in Johann Mattheson’s collection,
'Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte' (1740).
Italian teacher and composer. Following studies at the Conservatorio di
Santa Maria di Loreto under Pasquale Anfossi and Antonio Sacchini, he
was appointed as a violin teacher at Torre Annuziata in 1772. In 1781
his opera 'Montezuma' achieved success, allowing him to receive
commissions throughout Italy, where he became one of the leading
composers of opera. He attempted to achieve the same success in Paris in
1790, writing some works in collaboration with his pupil Isabelle de
Charrière, though these all failed and the Revolution forced his return
to Italy. In 1793 he was appointed maestro di cappella at the Cathedral
of Milan and in 1795 he assumed the same post at Santa Casa in Loreto,
Rome. By 1804 he was maestro di cappella at St. Peter’s in Rome, but a
conflict with the French occupiers landed him in prison. He was released
only at the special intervention of Napoleon. After Giovanni
Paisiello’s death in 1816 he was also appointed musical director of
Naples Cathedral. Zingarelli was an incredibly prolific composer
throughout his entire life, writing in virtually all genres. His works
include dozens of masses, eight oratorios, 57 operas, many Mass
movements and insertion arias, 15 Requiems, 55 Magnificats, 23 Te Deums,
541 Psalm settings, 21 Stabat maters, and 50 motets, as well as
numerous litanies, responsories, and sacred cantatas. He also wrote 20
secular cantatas, three large odes or hymns, 79 symphonies (mostly
singlemovement sinfonia da chiesa), eight string quartets, three duos,
eight sonatas, 11 pastorals, and 60 other works for organ. He was
considered the last great composer of opera seria, and he spent much of
his later years composing sacred music when his operas were overshadowed
by other Italians such as Giaocchino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini. His
music conforms to the late Italian style of the Classical period and,
thus, may have seemed anachronistic. He was renowned as a teacher,
numbering Bellini, Mercadante, Carlo Conti, Lauro Rossi, Morlacchi, and
Michael Costa among his students.
Italian composer and theorist. After being orphaned as a child, he spent
his early years as an apprentice silk merchant before going to Naples,
where he studied under Giovanni Paisiello and Gaetano Latilla. In 1787
he became a court musician at the Tuileries in Paris, and was active as
accompanist to the queen, voice teacher to the nobility, and maestro al
cembalo at the Theatre de Monsieur. After the French Revolution, he
settled in London in 1792 and pursued his career as a composer and voice
teacher; among his students was the Prince of Wales. His 'Complainte de
la reine de France' the following year is one of the most important
pieces of antirevolutionary music written. In England he was a
successful composer, theorist, and singing teacher with close ties to
George IV. His music, little studied, includes seven operas, two piano
concertos, 20 violin sonatas, six Italian ariettas, as well as a number
of works for harp, violin, and keyboard. He also published several
books, among them, 'Breve tratto di canto italiano' (London, 1818),
'Studio di musica teorica pratica' (London, 1830), and 'Anedotti
piacevoli e interessanti occorsi nella vita Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari da
Rovereto' (London, 1830). His son Adolfo Angelico Gotifredo Ferrari
(1807-1870), a pupil of Domenico Crivelli, taught singing at the Royal
Academy. Adolfo’s wife, Johanna Thomson, and his daughter Sophia Ferrari
were also singers.
