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 singer, harpsichordist and composer. A castrato soprano, he regularly appeared on Roman stages from 1729 to 1740; some librettos describe him as ‘virtuoso della duchessa di Gravina’. In 1730 he was listed as a member of the association of Roman musicians, the Congregazione di Santa Cecilia. Between 1740 and 1745 he sang in Venice, Milan and Bologna. In 1745 he came to London, where, as second soprano at the opera in the Haymarket, he was heard by Charles Burney, who later described him as ‘a good musician with little voice’. Jozzi brought over some harpsichord sonatas by Domenico Alberti, whose pupil he claimed to be, and, passing them off as his own compositions, performed them with great success. Burney wrote of a ‘neatness and precision that were quite new in England at that time’ and ‘an accent, a spring and smartness in Jozzi's touch’. Jozzi had eight of Alberti's sonatas published under his own name, but the plagiarism was soon discovered and the sonatas were brought out by John Walsh Jr. in 1748 under their real composer's name. Jozzi moved to Stuttgart, where he sang in the court opera between 1750 and 1756; an appearance in Venice in 1753 is also recorded. The Alberti sonatas were republished under Jozzi's name in Amsterdam in 1761 and 1765, but no convincing evidence has been cited in support of a commonly held belief that, having given up the stage, he finally settled in Amsterdam and practised as a teacher. Jozzi's own harpsichord sonatas are very close in general style to Alberti's, belonging to the most advanced current of mid-century Italian galant writing.
Belgian composer and organist. He received his earliest training at the St. Jakobskerke in Antwerp before becoming employed as a violinist with the Thurn und Taxis court, spending much of his time beginning in 1723 in Frankfurt. In 1725 he entered the service of Charles of Loraine where he became concertmaster in 1744 and maître de chapelle in 1746. A good friend of Pierre van Maldere, he was responsible for the excellent reputation of the Brussels court ensemble. As a composer, his works include five operas, 53 Masses, 63 motets, 32 symphonies, six concertos for two violins, five concertos for flute, 12 quartets, six violin duos, and 12 violin sonatas (six published in Paris as Op. 1 in 1743), as well as numerous smaller chamber works. Much of his sacred music has been lost.
Italian composer and priest. His life remains largely undocumented, with his historical existence primarily deduced from surviving musical manuscripts. He is best known for an anonymous manuscript published in Venice titled 'Sonate a flauto e basso del Sigr Alessandro Santini' (cataloged under I-Vqs, MS. 1 129, Cl. VIII, Cod. 29). Additionally, his priesthood is inferred from his attribution in several religious compositions, including a 'Salve Regina Antifona a 5 voci miste', 'Melodie gregoriane per la benedizione e per varie circostanze / accompagnamento per organo od armonio a cura del m.° p. Alessandro Santini' i 'Concentus eucharistici 2-3-4 paribus vocibus organo comitante'.
Performers: Ludmila Nová (soprano); Lucie Bínová (alto); Jan Němeček (tenor); Martin Borovský (bass); Kolegium pro duchovní hudbu Klatovy; Consortium musicum Plzeň; Vít Aschenbrenner (conductor)
Bohemian composer. Almost nothing is known about his life. Primary records note his marriage to Marie Anna Schuchová in Klattau on 5 October 1761. From 1740 to 1783, he was regenschori (choirmaster) at the Deanery Church in Klattau in a post he held until his death. His only extant work is a Requiem ex Dis, a work reflecting the stylistic influence of early 18th Century Prague composers such as František Václav Wentzely, Gunther Jacob, and Jan Josef Gayer.
Austrian composer. Brother of Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), he went to Vienna at the age of eight and entered the choir school at the Stephansdom. About 1753 his voice broke and he was dismissed from the choir school. By 1757 he left Vienna for Grosswardein. His solemn Missa SS Cyrilli et Methodii (1758) was one his earliest and finest works composed there. He was apparently back in the vicinity of Vienna in 1762. It was during this time that he came to the attention of Count Vinzenz Joseph Schrattenbach, the nephew of Sigismund Christoph, Archbishop of Salzburg, who recommended that Haydn be offered a position in Salzburg. From the quantity of Haydn's music that was copied for performances in eastern Austria during the 1750s and 60s, it would seem that he was quite well known throughout the region. The death of J.E. Eberlin in 1762 led to a reshuffling of the prominent musicians in Salzburg and eventually to Haydn's appointment as court Konzertmeister. Among his colleagues were Leopold Mozart, A.C. Adlgasser, G.F. Lolli and later W.A. Mozart. On 24 July 1763 some ‘Tafelmusique’ by him was performed, and on 14 August he officially assumed his new position, which involved playing the organ as well as the violin. From then until the death of Archbishop Schrattenbach late in 1771, he mainly wrote dramatic works for the theatre of the Benedictine University; Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots (1767) was the result of a collaboration between Haydn, Adlgasser and the 11-year-old Mozart. On 17 August 1768 he married Maria Magdalena Lipp (1745-1827), a singer in the Hofkapelle and daughter of the court organist, Franz Ignaz Lipp. The couple lived in an apartment owned by the Abbey of St Peter, for which Haydn composed a number of occasional works. The Haydns’ only child, Aloysia Josepha, was born in 1770, but died within a year. Hieronymus, Count Colloredo, was enthroned as Prince-Archbishop in March 1772, and he immediately instituted tighter fiscal controls which greatly restricted the activities of the university theatre.
A planned trip to Italy probably never materialized because he was promptly given the position of organist at the Dreifaltigkeitskirche when Adlgasser died suddenly on 22 December 1777. Bitter that the position was not given to his son, Leopold Mozart, who had previously praised his colleague, described Haydn as prone to heavy drinking and laziness. Haydn composed his best-known works between 1771 and 1777: the Requiem (1771) and the Missa S. Hieronymi (1777). In 1782 he assumed the position of court organist. On the 1200th anniversary of the archiepiscopate, in the same year, Colloredo published a pastoral letter, the first of a series of proclamations intended to simplify church services. In response, Haydn composed about 100 settings of Mass Propers in a simple homophonic style. During the 1780s, Haydn completed 20 symphonies. Writing from Vienna in 1784, Mozart expressed his astonishment at how quickly he was able to obtain copies of Michael Haydn’s most recent symphonies. During the 1790s Haydn enjoyed an expanding sphere of influence as a teacher of composition; Anton Diabelli was involved in the publication of many of Haydn's sacred works by the Viennese publishing firm that later bore his name. Sigismund Neukomm was a pupil of Haydn in the 1790s. The young C.M. von Weber came to Haydn in 1797; and Franz Schubert, though never one of his pupils, visited Haydn's grave in Salzburg and included words of admiration for him in a letter to his brother Ferdinand. In January 1801 his apartment was plundered by French soldiers, and this was possibly a catalyst for a trip to Vienna. By September 1801 he was again in Vienna rehearsing a mass commissioned by Empress Maria Theresia, who sang a solo part in a performance. He began work on a Requiem (1806), commissioned by the empress, but owing to his declining health he never finished it. Although he expected the coming spring to bring an improvement in his health, it did not; and he died, with friends and students at his bedside, on 10 August 1806.
Flemish composer and organist. Very few details of his life are known. He received his musical education as a choirboy at a church in Brussels, likely the chapter of St-Michiels and St-Goedele. He was 13 years of age when he became organist of St Nicolas (1687), where he remained until at least March 1702. On 16 November 1705 he became 'zangmeester' of the collegiate church of St Michel and Ste Gudule, serving there exclusively until his death. As a composer he mainly wrote religious music and paid tribute to the French musical tradition. Mostly his vocal pieces for church have been preserved, at least 7 masses and many motets. Most of his surviving motets for solo voice are scored for two violins and continuo; several, however, are scored for an obbligato wind or string instrument, violin and continuo. Almost whole his production was written within 1699 to 1729 and most of them only survive in manuscript form.
Danish composer of German birth. He was the son of a poor military bandsman and moved with his family to Lüneburg about 1793. In 1796 he lost an eye in a childhood accident, and studied piano during his recovery. Later studied theory and composition with Christian Friedrich Gottlieb Schwencke, Kantor of Hamburg's Catherinenkirche. He gave several piano recitals from 1804 and the same year his earliest known compositions were published. When Hamburg was invaded by Napoleon's troops in 1810 he went to Copenhagen to avoid conscription into Napoleon's army. There he began to earn his living as a piano teacher and composer, and in 1813 was appointed court chamber musician. That year he eventually became a Danish citizen. Following the success of his singspiel, 'The Robber's Castle', he gained a high-paying position as a singing teacher at the Royal Theater in 1816. Kuhlau's works between 1817 and 1820 failed to gain much prominence. His opera, 'The Magic Harp', was said to have failed due to a controversial libretto. In 1821 and 1825, he travelled to Vienna where he befriended Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven's influence is evidential in Kuhlau's later works such as his singspiel, 'Elverhøj or Elves' Hill', a work widely regarded as a tribute to the Danish Monarchy and an inspiring piece from the Danish Golden Age. In 1828, he was awarded an honorary professorship. As a result of a fire that swept his house in 1831 he suffered a chest ailment from which he never recovered, and died the following year. Together with Christoph Ernst Friedrich Weyse he was the foremost representative of the late Classical and early Romantic periods in Denmark.
Italian composer. Following early musical training as a chorister at the Aversa church, he entered the Conservatorio di Sant’Onofrio a Porta Capuana in 1725 to study under Ignazio Prota and Francesco Feo. Three years later he transferred to the Conservatorio di Santa Maria della Pietà dei Turchini, where he studied voice and keyboard. During this time he became friends with Johann Adolph Hasse, and in 1737 he had his first opera, 'L’errore amorosa', premiered at the Teatro novo with considerable success. In 1740 a commissioned work for Rome, 'Ricinero di Goti', was performed at the Teatro Argentina, leading to further commissions throughout Italy. In 1741 he arrived in Bologna to produce one of these, and in the process he began sporadic study with Padre Giovanni Battista Martini, eventually being admitted to the prestigious Accademia Filarmonica. In 1745 Hasse recommended him for the post of maestro di capella at the Ospedale degli Incurabili in Venice, but despite the advantages of the position, a year later he was in Rome preparing for the production of one of his most important works, the opera seria 'Didone abbandonata'. A short joint-appointment to the Vatican along with Davide Perez followed, but by 1753 he journeyed north to Vienna and then Stuttgart, where he became Kapellmeister to Duke Karl-Eugen of Württemberg. In 1768 he returned to Naples in retirement, working almost until his death and despite a stroke that debilitated him in 1771. As a composer, his music consists of 80 operas, 12 serenatas, 15 oratorios, 20 Masses, and almost 200 sacred works ranging from Lamentations to Psalm settings. His instrumental music is less prolific but includes four concertos (one flute, three keyboard), six sonatas for flute/violin, five trio sonatas, nine string quartets (and one flute quartet), two divertimentos, and numerous smaller keyboard works. Niccolò Jommelli was regarded as one of the most significant composers of the entire period by his contemporaries; Christian Daniel Friedrich Schubart indeed called him one of the leading musical geniuses of the time. His approach to both comic and serious was highly progressive, reducing the dominance of the voice by increasing the function and texture of the orchestral accompaniment. He was one of the first to introduce expanded finales, and his colorful orchestration, innovative use of dynamics and harmony, as well as his use of obbligato recitative, were all hallmarks that inspired and influenced others throughout Europe. He was an internationally recognized figure.
Flemish violinist and composer. According to Charles Burney, he was Flemish and received lessons on the violin from Felice Giardini in London. On 29 December 1766 he performed in the Burgtheater, Vienna. Was then when the Viennese court gave him financial support to undertake a long concert tour. He appeared in Prague and Leipzig, and in 1768 in Padua and Venice. Leopold Mozart referred to a lengthy stay in Naples, but by 1769 he was performing in competition with the violinist Giovanni Giornovichi in Paris. In 1770 or 1772 he returned to Vienna and joined the Hofkapelle of Empress Maria Theresa as a first violinist, though he continued to make concert tours. In 1775 he appeared at the Paris Concert Spirituel, and from 1776 gave concerts in London, including several subscription concerts with Venanzio Rauzzini in 1778-79. He seems to have left London hurriedly in about 1780, probably because of criminal offences, but it remains unclear to what extent the resulting suspicions and reports of scandal are justified. During his short life, he was regarded as a virtuoso of the first rank whose double stopping was particularly remarkable. In 1767 he caused a stir in Prague by performing at sight a violin concerto in F or C major by the Prince of Fürstenberg’s secretary, Bablizeck (Choron and Fayolle claimed that he tuned his violin a semitone higher and ignored the sharps in accomplishing this feat). His bowing technique was also admired and, according to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, his staccato playing was long remembered in Vienna. He composed concertos, sonatas and airs for the violin.
German composer. He studied with his father, a Kantor and organist in Asch. After private musical studies, he took courses in organ as well as academic subjects at the Regensburg Gymnasium Poeticum (1646-54). He then settled in Leipzig, where he taught and was a bass singer in church choirs. He applied for the post of Thomaskantor when Tobias Michael died on 26 June 1657, and he was appointed on 17 July; the four other candidates to whom he was preferred included Adam Krieger. In Knüpfer the Thomaskirche found a Kantor and the city of Leipzig a director of music who approached the musical and intellectual calibre of Sethus Calvisius and Johann Hermann Schein, Tobias Michael’s two predecessors. During his 19-year tenure Leipzig once again became the leading musical city in central Germany following the sharp decline resulting from the Thirty Years War, the long Swedish occupation of the city and Tobias Michael’s protracted illness. Knüpfer thus initiated a final period of musical excellence in Leipzig that culminated in the careers of his three successors, Johann Schelle, Johann Kuhnau and Johann Sebastian Bach. As a composer, he wrote sacred vocal works to both Latin and German texts, and also wrote some secular madrigals and canzonettas. Many are lost, and of those that survive few have been published in modern editions. Most are in the traditional style and form of the 17th-century vocal concerto, incorporating many of the characteristics of similar works by Heinrich Schütz.
Bohemian lutenist and composer. His father had settled in Prague in the 1620s and was raised to the Bohemian nobility for his bravery during the defence of the city against the Swedes in 1648. He studied at Prague University from 1661, taking the doctorate in philosophy in 1668. After this he probably undertook the customary European tour; he is known to have visited Italy, and he probably went to France and the Low Countries as well. He had a great enthusiasm for French music, especially that of Lully, and also for the music of Fux. He played the lute and violin in concerts at his palace in Prague. At the height of his fame (1696-97) he travelled in the German lands and engaged in a friendly musical competition in Leipzig with Pantaleon Hebenstreit and the Thomaskantor Johann Kuhnau, who subsequently dedicated to Losy his 'Frische Clavier Früchte' (1696). His son Adam Philipp Losy (1705-1781), who lived in Vienna and became music director to the imperial court, was a competent double bass player in aristocratic orchestras. Jan Antonín Losy was the best-known and most respected lutenist in late 17th-century Prague. The real measure of his popularity is seen in the number and wide distribution of manuscripts containing his compositions, which also exist in arrangements for mandore, angélique and keyboard.
Swedish composer. Son of Pehr Frigelius and his wife Ingrid Helena
Wahlberg, in 1755 his father was made vicar of Madesjö, where the family
settled until Frigel was enrolled at Kalmar grammar school. During his
school years he studied violin, organ and music theory for cathedral
organist Hans Björkman Hansson; then from 1770 to 1776 he pursued
further studies in Uppsala, where he also served as deputy both for the
university’s director musices and for the cathedral organist. In
Stockholm he became acquainted with Johann Gottlieb Naumann and Joseph
Martin Kraus, both of whom gave him further instruction in composition.
In 1778 he was elected to the Swedish Royal Academy of Music, and in
1780 two of his symphonies were performed; he became secretary of the
academy in 1794, a post he held for 47 years. His most productive period
as a composer was between 1795 and 1815, during which time he wrote
overtures, symphonies, numerous cantatas for the Jakobskyrka and the
academy. He also collaborated with Carl Stenborg on the incidental music
to 'Äfventyraren, eller Resan till Månens ö' (‘The Adventurers, or The
Journey to the Isle of the Moon’, 1791), and 'Kotzebue’s Eremiten'
(1798). The oratorio 'Försonaren på Oljeberget' (‘The Redeemer on the
Mount of Olives’) to a text by Samuel Ödmann, performed at the Royal
Opera in 1815, is considered his finest work. His only opera,
'Zoroaster', was never performed, but some arias for French operas were
produced at the Royal Opera. He taught music theory at the Swedish Royal
Academy of Music from 1814 to 1830. He died in 1842 at the age of 92,
having just recently been awarded a medal in his image for his long
service to the academy. He composed in a classical style, and he
expressed a preference for what he termed 'orthodox' music.
