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.
Italian composer and organist. Son of Pietro Auletta (c.1698-1771), he
was active in Naples as a composer of sacred music, but nothing is known
of any appointments he may have held. Domenico's three sons were also
musicians: Raffaele Auletta (1742-1768), composer of a motet 'Alto
Olimpo triumfate', of whose life nothing is known; Ferdinando Auletta, a
singer, who studied at the Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini,
1759-69, with Nicola Fago and Pasquale Cafaro; and the younger Domenico
Auletta (?-1796), who was appointed in November 1779, with Domenico
Cimarosa, ‘supernumerary’ organist without salary in the royal chapel in
Naples and in 1796 second organist (Cimarosa having been promoted to
first). The homonymy between father and son poses problems of
attribution, especially as regards undated works.
German organist and composer. Son of the organist Johann Arnold
Volckmar, in 1707, he succeeded his father as organist at the Peter-und-Paul church in Stettin. In 1712, he moved to Danzig (Gdańsk),
where he first worked at the Trinity church and, from 1717, at St.
Catherine's church. In Danzig, he was considered a modern and virtuosic
organ player. However, Volckmar's modern style was not well-received by
the Danzig pastors, resulting in his unsuccessful applications for the
organist position at St. Mary's church. In 1730, he left Danzig and
moved to St. Mary's church in Köslin. In 1733, he returned to Stettin to
take up the organist position at St. Nicholas' church. In 1746, he
finally was appointed organist at Stettin's largest church, St. James'
church, in a post he held until 1767.
Italian violinist and composer. He was born the eldest of nine children
of Giovanni Battista Vivaldi (1655-1736), a violinist at Basilica San
Marco in Venice. He took the tonsure on 18 September 1693, trained for
the Roman Catholic priesthood, and was ordained on 23 March 1703.
However, a condition that Vivaldi himself described as strettezza di
petto (“tightness of the chest”), probably bronchial asthma, had the
curious effect of preventing his celebrating the mass from 1706 onward
yet allowing his extensive teaching, publishing, and traveling about
Italy to oversee his operatic productions. While training for the
priesthood, he probably learned the fundamentals of violin from his
father and occasionally substituted for him at San Marco. Son Antonio’s
performance as an extra violinist at the basilica for Christmas 1696 is
his first documented public appearance. Thereafter, he developed into a
violinist of international reputation, with technical capacities that
founded much of the innovation of his solo violin concertos. Vivaldi’s
income as a musician came from three different kinds of activity, which
constantly intertwine chronologically: as a salaried violin teacher at
the famous Pio Ospedale at the Pietà, as an independent opera composer
and impresario, and as a composer of instrumental publications for sale.
He was appointed master of violin teaching della Pieta in 1703 by
Francesco Gasparini, and his intermittent and at times tumultuous
relationship with the governors of the Pietà would last until nearly the
end of his life. His duties included teaching the young girls on
various string instruments, maintaining the instruments, directing
ensembles, and composing music for them.
In April 1718, he did not apply for reappointment at the Pietà, perhaps
because he had been invited to Mantua to compose operas. From 1723 to
1729, Vivaldi composed about 140 concertos for the Pietà on commission
and rehearsed them with the girls when he was in Venice. The governors
hired him again, this time as maestro di cappella in 1735 but, tiring of
his many travels, dismissed him in March 1738. The last transaction
between Vivaldi and the Pietà was the sale of 20 concertos in May 1740.
His earliest known opera, Ottone in Villa, opened in the city of Vicenza
in May 1713. Thereafter, he was associated with the public theater at
Sant’ Angelo in Venice. The Hapsburg governor of Mantua, Prince Phillip
of Hesse-Darmstadt, appointed him maestro di cappella di camera. From
1733 to 1735, he composed operas for the Teatro Sant’ Angelo and for
another Venetian venue, Teatro San Samuele, working with the brilliant
young Venetian poet Carlo Goldoni. He was offered a chance
to compose operas for the Carnivals of 1737, 1738, and 1739 in Ferrara,
but the Archbishop Tommaso Cardinal Ruffo forbad Vivaldi to enter the
city, possibly on account of Anna Girò. A chance to perform at Vienna’s
Kärntnertortheater seems to have inspired Vivaldi’s last journey in
1740, but the death of Emperor Charles VI in October shut down all the
theaters throughout the Carnival period of 1741. Vivaldi stayed on,
perhaps too sick or poor to return to Venice. His last documented
professional act was the sale of some concertos to one Count Antonio
Vinciguerra of Collalto. On 27 or 28 July, he died and was buried as a
pauper in the Spittaler Gottsacker, a hospital burial ground in Vienna.
Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (1657-1714)
- Ouverture (IV, d-moll) aus 'VI. Ouvertures, begleitet mit ihren
darzu schicklichen Airs, nach französischer Art und Manier eingerichtet
und gesetzet' (1693)
Performers: Musica antiqua Köln; Reinhard Goеbеl (conductor)
German composer. He was one of the leading composers of his time in
central Germany, especially of church music and more particularly of
cantatas, of which he wrote several hundred. Erlebach probably received
his earliest musical training at the East Friesian court. Through the
family connections of the ruling house he was sent with a recommendation
to Thuringia, where he was employed from 1678 to 1679, first as
musician and valet and then, from 1681, as Kapellmeister, at the court
of Count Albert Anton von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. At Rudolstadt he
entered a lively musical environment. During his 33 years as
Kapellmeister he not only succeeded in making this small establishment
into a main centre of musical activity in Thuringia but also made a
considerable name for himself in central Germany as a composer. He
enjoyed both musical and personal relations with J.P. Krieger,
Kapellmeister of the court at Weissenfels, and he paid visits to the
ducal court of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and to Nuremberg, where several of
his works were printed. In 1705 he took part, as a member of Albert
Anton's retinue, in a ceremony of homage to the Emperor Joseph I at
Mühlhausen, where, with the Rudolstadt court orchestra, he directed a
large-scale ceremonial work, which he had composed for the occasion and
which is his only music to survive in an autograph copy. He wrote
several pieces for the funerals of Albert Anton (1710) and of his
consort (1707). When Albert Anton's son Ludwig Friedrich came to the
throne in 1711, the event was celebrated with a number of festival
cantatas, all of which Erlebach also composed. In his last years he was
revered and sought out above all as a teacher; Johann Caspar Vogler, who
also studied with Bach, was one of the many musicians who learnt the
rudiments of their craft from him. After his death the Rudolstadt court
bought his collection of music from his widow; it included many sacred
and secular works that were destroyed by fire in 1735 and are known now
only from two extensive catalogues.
Erlebach composed in nearly all the forms common at the time and was
equally successful in instrumental and vocal works. Of his 120 or so
instrumental works there survive only six suites, six trio sonatas and a
march. The suites show the influence of French orchestral suites, and
the trio sonatas that of the Italian sonata da camera; in all these
works Erlebach succeeded in uniting foreign formal elements with German
features, which can be seen above all in the distinctly folklike nature
of some of the melodic material and which also produces sonorities
reminiscent of those of vocal music. Erlebach was most prolific as a
composer of church music, which was the field in which he began his
career as a composer about 1680. His sacred music embraces a cappella
motets for four or more voices, concertato psalms and hymns, masses,
oratorios (the Christmas, Easter, Resurrection and Whitsuntide stories
and pieces for the New Year) and various kinds of cantata. All the
oratorios are lost, and only some of their texts are extant. But his
best works in the other genres bear witness to his mastery as a composer
of church music. His psalm settings, which adhere to the style of the
sacred concerto for large forces, are interesting particularly for their
colourful harmonies, precisely indicated contrasts of tempo and
dynamics and free use of madrigalian motifs: such features, following in
the wake of Schütz's achievements, helped to enhance the importance of
works of this type, at least in central Germany. Erlebach soon began to
specialize as a composer of cantatas. Most of them are lost, but their
texts show a logical development from those closely adhering to Gospel
passages, through those containing arias and concerto-like textures
conceived on soloistic lines, to cantatas based on free texts with
recitative and da capo arias, and to solo cantatas with an obbligato
instrument.
Hungarian composer. Refered as the "inventor" of the csakan, very few
details are known about his life. Between 1807 and 1811 he probably
lived in Vienna, where his works appeared in print through the
publishing house Chemische Druckerey. Among them we find the following
works for the csakan or flûte douce: 8 volumes of easy pieces, a
fantasy, a sonata, a Sonata brillante, all solo works, 2 volumes of
small duets, a concertino with string trio and 2 horns ad libitum, and a
set of variations with string quartet and two horn. We may assume that
he left Vienna in 1812 to settle in Hungary.
Austrian composer. His main appointment was in Passau, where he
succeeded Georg Muffat as court Kapellmeister in 1705. He spent his
early years in Vienna, where he may have been a pupil of Johannes Ebner
(a member of the well-known family of organ players and son of Wolfgang
Ebner) whom he declared his model. Apparently he came into contact with
members of the Viennese nobility, and he may have been employed at a
court. In a letter of 1724 to Prince-Bishop Lamberg, while complaining
about the quality of the violinists in Passau, Aufschnaiter claimed to
have had in Vienna, where he spent many years, ‘16–18 excellent
musicians’ at his disposal. His op.1 (of which no copy is extant) was
dedicated to Count Ferdinand Ernst von Trautmannsdorf, who may have been
his employer. In 1695 his op.2 appeared in Nuremberg with a dedication
to Archduke Joseph (later Emperor Joseph I). Under the title Concors
discordia it contains six orchestral suites which show Italian concerto
grosso structure but also an apparent French influence; they probably
followed the example of Georg Muffat. All that is known of op.3 is that
it was dedicated to Emperor Leopold I; no copy is extant. Op.4 consists
of eight church sonatas published under the title Dulcis fidium harmonia
symphoniis ecclesiasticis concinnata, which appeared in 1703 and were
dedicated to the four early fathers of the church and the four
evangelists. These are orchestral sonatas for two solo violins (which
have complicated double stops), two violins ad libitum, viola, violone
and organ; they may have been inspired by Heinrich Biber’s works. From
1705, when he became Kapellmeister at Passau, Aufschnaiter was active as
a composer of church music (although he was not officially appointed
cathedral Kapellmeister as Muffat had been). His opp.5 and 8 comprise
vespers for four voices, strings and continuo instruments (1709, 1728),
his op.6 five masses (1712) and his op.7 offertories with two solo
violas (1719). In all his church works Aufschnaiter favours a more
traditional style similar to the Roman cantata style; there are fewer
demanding violin passages and double stops than in his earlier works,
and he prefers to please with melodic charm. In his theoretical writings
he emphasizes the difference between church, chamber and theatre music.
Italian violinist and composer. He first appears in documents when in
1715 the Elector of Bavaria brought him from Venice to Munich as a
violinist. In October 1716, after the death of his predecessor Pez, he
became musique directeur, maître des concerts de la chambre at the
Württemberg court in Stuttgart, and in 1717 chief Kapellmeister. Between
1717 and 1718 he wrote the pastoral opera La Tisbe, which he dedicated
to his employer Archduke Eberhard Ludwig. Hoping this opera would be
produced at the Stuttgart Opera, Brescianello wrote in his Präparationen
that he had suited its melodies to the theatre taste: but that did not
gain him a performance. From 1719 to 1721 he had to face heated battles
with his rival Reinhard Keiser, who sought unsuccessfully for
Brescianello’s position. In 1731 Brescianello became Rath und
Oberkapellmeister. When the court’s finances collapsed in 1737, the
Stuttgart opera troupe was dissolved and Brescianello lost his post,
which spurred him on to increased activity as a composer. In 1738
(according to EitnerQ) he wrote 12 concerti e sinphonie op.1 and other
works, and somewhat later ‘18 Piecen fürs Gallichone’. When the regency
of the generous artistic patron Duke Carl Eugen began in 1744,
Brescianello was reinstated as Oberkapellmeister ‘on account of his
particular knowledge of music and excellent competence’, and until his
retirement he brought the opera and court music to renewed fame. He was
pensioned off on 29 November 1751 according to Sittard, on St James’s
Day 1755 according to other sources. His successor was Ignaz Holzbauer,
then Jommelli. In his two decades as Kapellmeister, Brescianello helped
to put his stamp on the musical life of Stuttgart and Ludwigsburg. His
importance lies in his compositions, which mainly follow the conventions
of his time (sequences and imitations, influences of the galant style,
generally in loosened suite form). Apart from Tisbe, two cantatas and a
mass (occasional and commissioned works), Brescianello wrote mainly
chamber music using the violin, with which he was most acquainted
through his training as a violinist: these works are thus among his most
successful.
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. Johann David also attended
the Thomasschule Leipzig. There he studied music with Johann Schelle and
later received organ and harpsichord lessons with Johann Kuhnau. The
future composer Christoph Graupner was also a student of Kuhnau at the
time. Heinichen enrolled in 1702 to study law at the University of
Leipzig and in 1705-06 qualified as a lawyer (in the early 18th century
the law was a favored route for composers; Kuhnau, Graupner and Georg
Philipp Telemann were also lawyers). Heinichen practiced law in
Weissenfels until 1709. However, Heinichen maintained his interest in
music and was concurrently composing operas. In 1710, he published the
first edition of his major treatise on the thoroughbass. He went to
Italy and spent seven formative years there, mostly in Venice, with
great success with two operas, Mario and Le passioni per troppo amore
(1713). Mario was staged again in Hamburg in 1716 with the German title,
Calpurnia, oder die romische Grossmut. In 1712, he taught music to
Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, who took him as composer. The same
prince would appoint Johann Sebastian Bach Kapellmeister at the end of
1717. In 1716, Heinichen met in Venice Prince Augustus III of Poland,
son of King Augustus II the Strong, and thanks to him was appointed the
Royal-Polish and Electoral-Saxon Kapellmeister in Dresden. His pupils
included Johann Georg Pisendel. In 1721, Heinichen married in
Weissenfels; the birth of his only child is recorded as January 1723. In
his final years, Heinichen's health suffered greatly; on the afternoon
of 16 July 1729, he was buried in the Johannes cemetery after finally
succumbing to tuberculosis.
German composer and violinist. In 1686, he moved to Leiden, in the
Netherlands, where he registered at the University of Leiden as a
Musicus Academiae, but his name does not appear in the university's
archives. In 1696, a collection of twelve of his trio sonatas appeared,
entitled 'Il giardino armonico sacro-profano'. Edited by François
Barbry, it was published in Bruges by François van Heurck; no copies of
the last six, or of Albicastro's opus 1 or opus 2 from Bruges seem to
have survived. In Amsterdam a separate set of opus numbers were
published by Estienne Roger: collections of violin sonatas (Opp. 2, 3,
5, 6 and 9), trio sonatas (Opp. 1, 4 and 8), and string concertos (Op.
7) in a Corellian idiom. During the last phases of the War of the
Spanish Succession (1701-1713), he served as a captain of cavalry. He
remained active in this position until 1730, when he died in Maastricht.
One source erroneously suggests he may have died in 1738.
Spanish composer and organist. Born to a family of musicians, he began
his musical training under his father José Antonio Nebra (1672-1748),
who had settled in Cuenca as cathedral organist and teacher of the
choirboys (1711-1729) and later became maestro de capilla (1729-1748).
In 1719 José de Nebra became organist at the convent of Descalzas. In
1722 he served in the Osuna household as a musician, and in 1724 he was
appointed as one of the organists of the royal chapel in Madrid. By 1751
he had become vice-maestro and a teacher at the Colegio de niños
cantores, later serving at the Jeronimos convent as organist. His
students include Antonio Soler. Nebra’s focus as a composer was on
native Spanish stage works, including the autos sacramentales,
zarzuelas, and comedias. His music includes 21 autos sacramentales, 51
theatre works, 40 villancicos, 10 versos, 16 keyboard sonatas, two
Masses, 18 Lamentations, four vespers, 16 Salve Reginas, a Requiem, 23
Psalms, 22 hymns, 21 responsories, toccatas, and a number of smaller
sacred works. His two brothers were also musicians: Francisco Javier
Nebra (1705-1741) was organist at La Seo, Zaragoza (1727-1729) and then
in Cuenca (1729-1741), and Joaquín Nebra (1709-1782) was organist at La
Seo, Zaragoza, from 1730 until his death. His nephew Manuel de Nebra
Blasco (1750-1784) was an organist and composer.
Spanish composer. He was a choirboy at Tarazona Cathedral, where he was
taught music by Francisco Javier Gibert and José Angel Martinchique. He
later moved to Zaragoza, where he studied the organ with Ramón Ferreñac.
From an early age he was organist and choirmaster in various collegiate
churches: Borja (1807), Tafalla (1809), Calatayud (where he is known to
have been about 1824) and finally Bilbao (1830), where he remained
until his death. He was a prolific composer of masses, Lamentations,
motets and villancicos. Although his music reflects the bombastic and
theatrical tendencies of his age, he had a sound technique and a certain
nobility of invention. He was also active with Hilarión Eslava in
efforts to renew and purify religious music.
German composer. As a small child he learnt to play the violin,
encouraged by his elder brother Johann Ludwig Anton, who was himself
considered an excellent violinist. He also learnt the piano, and
according to his own account in his autobiography (1775) could play the
first part of J.S. Bach’s Das wohltemperirte Clavier from memory when he
was 16. After his father’s death in 1751 he lived with his mother and
eldest brother in Gröbzig until 1755. A copy that he made of the trio
sonata from Bach’s Musical Offering dates from this period; it is now
considered lost. He then attended the Lutheran Gymnasium in Cöthen,
1755-58. From 1758 he studied law at Halle-Wittenberg University; he
also had lessons with W.F. Bach and in return deputized for him as a
church organist. Soon after Rust had completed his studies there, Prince
Leopold Friedrich Franz of Anhalt-Dessau sent him to Zerbst to study
with Carl Höckh, and then to Berlin and Potsdam (July 1763-April 1764)
to study the violin with Franz Benda and keyboard instruments with
C.P.E. Bach. In 1765-66 he visited Italy in the prince’s retinue, and
there completed his musical training. He then settled in Dessau, where a
lively court and civic musical life soon developed under his influence,
and he wrote most of his compositions for it. From 1769 he organized
regular subscription concerts, with music performed by both court
musicians and amateurs, and in 1775 a theatre was founded, a project for
which Rust was largely responsible. His achievements were recognized in
April 1775, when the prince made him court music director. He married
his former singing pupil Henriette Niedhardt in May; the couple had
eight children, two of whom became professional musicians. In his
lifetime Rust was honoured and esteemed as an instrumentalist and
composer; contemporary lexicons and his correspondence with colleagues
bear eloquent witness to this. He was also active as a teacher, and
trained a series of well-regarded instrumentalists and singers. The
surviving instrumental music includes works for clavichord, viola
d’amore, harp, lute, and nail violin, the sound of which appealed to his
introverted nature. In addition to large-scale vocal works and six
stage works he also wrote some 100 lieder, of which 70 have been made
usable for modern performance.
Charles d'Ambleville (1587-1637) - Missa Psallite Domino des 'Harmonia sacra, seu vesperae in dies
tum dominicos, tum festos totius anni, una cum missa ac litaniis beatae
virginis cum sex vocibus' (1636)
Performers: Ensemble Meihua Fleur de Prunus; Chœur du Centre Catholique
Chinois de Paris;
French composer. All that is known of his life is that in 1626 he was
procureur of the Compagnie de Jésus at Rouen. He left only musical
works, from which we may infer that he was director of music of one of
the colleges of his order. His Octonarium sacrum (1634) is a set of
five-part verses for the Magnificat, using all eight tones; they are
fugal and closely resemble similar pieces by Nicolas Formé. Two years
later he published his Harmonia sacra in two complementary volumes for
four and six voices respectively. It includes works for double choir in a
distinctly modern style originating in Italy that had already been
adopted in France by several composers. Each volume also contains
several masses and motets for a single choir. The double-choir works are
for liturgical use and comprise psalms, motets and hymns.
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. He is believed to have received early musical training from the
Jesuits in Prague. In 1773 he left his native country and found
employment in the Hofkapelle of Prince Kraft Ernst of
Oettingen-Wallerstein whom he served for sixteen years, becoming
Kapellmeister in 1785. While there, he orchestrated two piano concerti
by Anna von Schaden. In July 1789 Rosetti left Wallerstein to accept the
post of Kapellmeister to the Duke Friedrich Franz I of
Mecklenburg-Schwerin in Ludwigslust where he died in service of the duke
on 30 June 1792 at the age of 42 years. In 1777, he married Rosina
Neher, with whom he had three daughters. In late 1781 he was granted
leave to spend 5 months in Paris. Many of the finest ensembles in the
city performed his works. Rosetti arranged for his music to be
published, including a set of six symphonies published in 1782. He
returned to his post, assured of recognition as an accomplished
composer. As a composer, he wrote over 400 compositions, primarily
instrumental music including many symphonies and concertos which were
widely published. Rosetti also composed a significant number of vocal
and choral works, particularly in the last few years of his life. Among
these are German oratorios including Der sterbende Jesu and Jesus in
Gethsemane (1790) and a German Hallelujah. The English music historian
Charles Burney included Rosetti among the most popular composers of the
period in his work A General History of Music. Rosetti is perhaps best
known today for his horn concertos, which Mozart scholar H. C. Robbins
Landon suggests (in The Mozart Companion) may have been a model for
Mozart's four horn concertos. Rosetti is also known for writing a
Requiem (1776) which was performed at a memorial for Mozart in December
1791. Attributing some music to Rosetti is difficult because several
other composers with similar names worked at the same time, including
Franciscus Xaverius Antonius Rössler.
Italian composer. He studied with Francesco Fortunati and Gaspare
Ghiretti in Parma, producing his first stage work, the prose opera
'Orphee et Euridice', there in 1791. On July 14, 1792, he was appointed
honorary maestro di cappella to the court of Parma, bringing out his
opera 'Le astuzie amorose' that same year at the Teatro Ducale there.
His finest work of the period was 'Griselda, ossia La virtu at cimento'
(Parma, 1798). In 1797 he was appointed music director ofthe
Karnthnertortheater in Vienna. While there, he made the acquaintance of
Beethoven, who expressed admiration for his work. It was in Vienna that
he composed one of his finest operas, 'Camilla, ossia II sotteraneo'
(1799). After a visit to Prague in 1801, he accepted the appointment of
court Kapellmeister in Dresden. Three of his most important operas were
premiered there: 'I Fuorusciti di Firenze' 1802), 'Sargino, ossia
L'Allievo del Vamore' (1803), and 'Leonora, ossia L'amore conjugate'
(1804), a work identical in subject with that of Beethoven's Fidelio
(1805). In 1806 he resigned his Dresden post and accepted an invitation
to visit Napoleon in Posen and Warsaw. In 1807 Napoleon appointed him
his maitre de chapelle in Paris, where he also became director of the
Opera-Comique. Following the dismissal of Spontini in 1812, he was
appointed director of the Theatre-Italien. One of his most successful
operas of the period, 'Le Maitre de chapelle' (Paris, 1821), remained in
the repertoire in its Italian version until the early years of the 20th
century. Paer's tenure at the Theatre-Italien continued through the
vicissitudes of Catalani's management (1814-17) and the troubled joint
directorship with Rossini (1824-27). After his dismissal in 1827, he was
awarded the cross of the Legion d'honneur in 1828 and he was elected a
member of the Institute of the Academie des Beaux Arts in 1831. He was
appointed director of music of Louis Philippe's private chapel in 1832.
As a composer, he was a prolific composer, producing at least 55 operas,
most of them during the 25-year span from 1791 to 1816. His vocal
writing was highly effective, as was his instrumentation. He was one of
the central figures in the development of opera semiseria during the
first decade of the 19th century. Nevertheless, his operas have
disappeared from the active repertoire.
