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.
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.
