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.
French violinist and composer. He was probably a son of Jean Aubert, a member of the 24 Violons du Roi until his death in 1710. He was a student of Jean Baptiste Senaillé. In 1717 he is known to have been working in the Théâtres de la Foire, as a violinist and dancing-master, and had composed at least five ballets and comedies. In 1719, the year in which he married Marie Louise Lecat and published his first book of violin sonatas, he was appointed to the service of Louis-Henri, Duke of Bourbon and Prince of Condé. In 1727 he succeeded Noël Converset in the 24 Violons du Roi, remaining a member until 1746, and in the next year he accepted a position with the Académie Royale de Musique and was named first violinist of the Opéra orchestra, with which he performed for the next 24 years. As a composer, his output includes ballet and dance music, opéras comiques, concertos, sonatas for violin and continuo and what he called ‘concerts de simphonie’. His son, the painter Louis Aubert Aubert (1720-c.1800), was also a violinist and composer. Another son, Jean-Louis Aubert (1731-1814) was a dramatist, poet and journalist, also known as the Abbé Aubert.
Bohemian horn player and composer. Born into a poor family on the estate of Count Joseph Johann von Thun, Stich was sent to Prague by his patron to study horn with Joseph Matiegka and composition with Johann Schindlarz. In 1764 he became a student of Anton Joseph Hampel in Dresden, where he perfected his technique of hand-stopping. His return to and service in the court ensemble of Count Thun, however, was marked by charges of insubordination, and he escaped to Italy pursued by the count’s thugs who were charged with either bringing him back to Bohemia or knocking out his front teeth. He made his way to Italy, where he “Italianized” his name to Giovanni Punto, winning approbation for his performance and obtaining a post as a violinist at the court of Joseph Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenzollern- Heuchingen. In 1769 he moved to Mainz to perform for Elector-Archbishop Emmerich Joseph von Breidbach zu Bürresheim. In 1772 he began a career as a touring soloist, centering his activities in Paris and London, although he maintained a post with Archbishop Adam von Seinsheim in Würzburg and with the private orchestra of George III of England. Settling in Paris in 1788 he was appointed conductor of the Théâtre des Variétés Amusantes a year later, riding out the Revolution as a popular conductor. Refusal to appoint him to the faculty of the new Conservatoire in 1798, however, led him to return to touring in Bohemia and Austria, where his performance ability was noted by composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven. As a performer, he concentrated on second or low horn, perfecting the art of hand-stopping to produce notes outside the natural harmonic series. Charles Burney noted the “astounding execution” of his performances. As a composer, he concentrated on his own instrument, writing 16 horn concertos (plus another for two horns), 103 horn duets, 47 horn trios, 21 horn quartets, and a horn sextet; in addition he composed a clarinet concerto, three flute quartets, three flute quintets (with horn), and a large number of trios for flute and strings.
Johann Mattheson (1681-1764) - Magnificat (D-Dur) a due cori 'Meine Seele erhebt den Herrn' (1716)
Performers: Nicki Kennedy (soprano); Ursula Eittinger (contralto); Andreas Post (tenor); Stephan MacLeod (bass); Kölner Akademie; Michael Alexander Willens (conductor)
German composer, critic, music journalist, lexicographer and theorist. He was the third and only surviving son of a Hamburg tax collector, Johannes Mattheson, and Margaretha Hölling. Johann the son received a liberal education at the Johanneum in Hamburg and began musical studies at the age of six. By age nine, he was performing on the organ in Hamburg churches and singing with the Hamburg opera, beginning a long association. He befriended George Frideric Handel there in 1703 and apparently helped Handel secure a position with the opera orchestra. Although, he nearly killed Handel in a sudden quarrel during a performance of Mattheson's opera 'Die unglückselige Kleopatra, Königin von Ägypten' in 1704. Handel was saved only by a large button which turned aside Mattheson's sword. The two were afterwards reconciled and remained in correspondence for life: shortly after his friend's death, Mattheson translated John Mainwaring's biography of Handel into German and had it published in Hamburg at his own expense ('auf Kosten des Übersetzers') in 1761. The key moment of Mattheson’s career arrived with the appointment as tutor to the son of Sir John Wich, the English ambassador to Hamburg, in 1704, a job which he performed so impressively that he was made Wich’s private secretary in 1706 with a high salary and important diplomatic responsibilities. Mattheson retained this post when the son succeeded his father as ambassador in 1715, even while taking on other posts as director of music at the Hamburg cathedral (1715) and Kapellmeister to the Duke of Holstein (1719). He married an Englishwoman, Catharina Jennings (?-1753), in 1709. During the extraordinarily productive years between 1715 and 1740 he wrote not only numerous important scores and treatises but also many translations from English of books et al. He also translated several English histories, novels and philosophical works, and produced a steady flow of articles for journals published in Hamburg. In 1741 he received the title of Legation Secretary to the Duke of Holstein, and in 1744 was promoted to ‘Legations-Rat’. On 25 April 1764, after a funeral with music of his own composition conducted by Georg Philipp Telemann, Mattheson’s body was buried in the crypt of St. Michael’s Church in Hamburg, the organ of which he had paid to restore. Possessed of great intelligence and a remarkably broad education in addition to prodigious musical talent, Johann Mattheson is remembered today as one of the most prolific writers on music of the Baroque period. His legacy of treatises, journals, letters, and articles yields a remarkably comprehensive picture of music as it was practiced in the first half of 18th-century Europe. The picture is particularly valuable because Mattheson himself held important positions in the musical world and composed 7 operas, 25 oratorios, 3 passions, 18 Italian cantatas, 24 sonatas, 13 suites for harpsichord, and 12 fugues. Details of his life come chiefly from his own 'Grundlage einer Ehren- Pforte', a biographical dictionary.
French composer and theorist. Details about his life before 1722, when he moved permanently from Dijon to Paris, are sketchy, partly owing to his own reticence. He was the seventh child and eldest surviving son of Jean Rameau, organist in Dijon, and Claudine Demartinécourt. He may have studied music with the organist at the Sainte Chapelle in Dijon, Claude Derey, and he eventually enrolled in the Jesuit Collège des Godrans, where he first encountered musical theater. In 1701 or 1702, he spent a brief time in Italy and then took up the post of organist of the Clermont Cathedral in May 1702. Next, he moved to Paris in 1706, became organist at the Jesuit Collège Louis-le- Grand and to the Pères de la Merci, and published Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavecin. In 1709, he returned to Dijon to succeed his father as organist of Notre Dame and then to Lyons in 1713 to be chief organist of the city. In 1715, he was reappointed at Clermont Cathedral, where he began work on the Traité de l’Harmonie. His first decade in Paris was consumed with publishing his new book, which would become famous all over Europe, two more collections of keyboard music in 1724 and 1729, and teaching. Oddly, he was not able to secure a major position as organist anywhere in Paris until 1732, when he became organist at Sainte Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie. He married a talented singer, 19-year-old Marie-Louis Mangot, on 25 February 1726. She would bear him four children and sing in some of his operas. Rameau’s first attempt at a full-scale opera, 'Hippolyte et Aricie', opened in 1733 and immediately ignited that kind of intellectual controversy that could only happen in France. His proponents, the ramistes, admired the opera’s adventurous harmonies and more realistic dramaturgy, while the opposing lullistes, motivated perhaps by jealousy and fear that their namesake might be eclipsed, railed against its Italianisms and harmonic complexity. The controversy persisted through the 1730s and encompassed Rameau’s second opera, 'Les Indes Galantes', which saw 64 performances in two years, and especially his fifth, 'Dardanus'.
From sometime in the mid-1730s until 1753, he was attached to the household of one of the richest men in France, Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière. La Poupelinière, a financier, was a great patron of the arts and all manner of writers, actors, and cultural figures would meet at his house. The attachment advanced Rameau’s operatic career considerably, since he met some of his many librettists there. After a fallow period in the early 1740s, he seems to have caught the attention of the French court. In 1745, he received three commissions for theater works, including the opera for the Dauphin’s wedding, 'La Princesse de Navarre', with a libretto of Voltaire. On May 4, he was rewarded with an annual pension of 2.000 livres and the title 'compositeur de la musique de la chambre du roy', a singular honor for a musician not officially appointed at the court. These commissions began a train of nine works for the stage composed between 1745 and 1749. Rameau’s operas so dominated Paris at this time that the management of the Paris opera felt compelled to restrict the offerings of Rameau to only two operas per year, in order to give younger composers a chance. Despite his fame as a thinker about music, Rameau was never elected to the Académie Royale des Sciences, a disappointment. Five months before his death, however, he did receive a patent of nobility from the king, and he died a comparatively wealthy man three weeks after falling ill with a fever. Many memorial services in Paris, Dijon, and other provincial cities followed. The first, at the Pères de l’Oratoire on 27 September 1764, included as many as 180 musicians and was attended by over 1.000 mourners. Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the greatest figures in French musical history, a theorist of European stature and France's leading 18th-century composer. He made important contributions to the cantata, the motet and, more especially, keyboard music, and many of his dramatic compositions stand alongside those of Lully and Gluck as the pinnacles of pre-Revolutionary French opera.
William Babell (c.1690-1723)
- Concerto (e-moll) for Flute from 'Concertos in 7 parts: the first four for violins and one small flute and the two last for violins and two flutes ... opera terza'
Performers: Anna Stegmann (flute); Ensemble Odyssee
English harpsichordist, organist, violinist, composer and arranger. He received his early musical instruction from his father, Charles Babel, a bassoonist in the Drury Lane Theatre orchestra until he was 80, and later from Johann Christoph Pepusch. He led an active professional life in London. As a violinist he was said to have played in the private band of George I, while as a harpsichordist, from about 1711, his name frequently appears in London concert notices, usually in conjunction with those of William Corbett, James Paisible and (later) Matthew Dubourg. He was also associated with Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. From November 1718 until his death he was organist of All Hallows Bread Street and was succeeded there by John Stanley. He acquired an international reputation as a harpsichordist largely through his virtuoso arrangements of fashionable operatic arias and overtures, especially those of Georg Friedrich Handel. His keyboard style was undoubtedly influenced by his close acquaintance with Handel's playing; it has been proposed that one of the manuscript settings of ‘Vo' far guerra’ is Babell's response to a reworking and development of the material by Handel himself, but this hypothesis has found no support. These arrangements by Babell, although appearing exceptional, nevertheless give an intriguing insight into early 18th-century practices of keyboard extemporization and ornamentation.
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.
Francisco José de Castro (c.1670-c.1730)
- Concerti accademici a quattro, cioe un'oboe, due violini e violone
con la parte per il cembalo consecrati all'Illustrissimo Signore Carlo
da Persico dall'Accademico Formato, Opera Quarta (1708)
Spanish composer. He was a Jesuit novice, educated at the Collegio dei
Nobili di San Antonio Viennese in Brescia, where he studied music with
the composer and organist Paris Francesco Alghisi. He was sponsored as a
member of the Accademia dei Formati by Count Cayetano Giovanelli, to
whom he dedicated his first publication, 'Trattenimenti armonici da
camera a tre, due violini, violoncello, o cembalo ... opera prima'
(Bologna, 1695). Like Castro's other three publications, the
Trattenimenti armonici were issued under the pseudonym ‘Accademico
Formato’. No exemplars of opp.2 and 3 are known; op.4 is a set of
'Concerti accademici a quattro, cioe un'oboe, due violini e violone con
la parte per il cembalo ... Opera Quarta' (Bologna, 1708). He was one of
the few Spanish composers of this period who cultivated the
non-religious instrumental music genre. He was not related to Spanish
playwright Francisco de Castro (1672-1713).
Austrian composer. Only fragmentary information about his life is
available. He entered the Pauline order in his hometown and choose the
name of Amandus likely by the end of 1742. After his novitiate in the
Ranna monastery at the age of 16 (1743) he took his monastic vows. He
then studied in Maria Trost and Wiener Neustadt, where he was ordained a
priest on November 15, 1750. Between 1751 and 1754 he stayed in Rome as
an assistant to the Procurator General of the order, from where he
returned to Wiener Neustadt. In 1755 he was sent again to the Maria
Trost monastery, where he died in 1758, at the young age of 31. He was a
prolific and popular composer: there survive about 100 works by him in
manuscripts copies, dating mostly from 1762 to 1772 and scattered
throughout the Habsburg Empire and in south Germany. His music is
characteristic of the transition from late Baroque to early Classical
style, and his best works are his masses and symphonies. The masses are
mostly scored for four soloists, four-part choir, two violins and bass
and a pair of trumpets; some are of considerable dimensions, and they
show distinct Neapolitan traits. The symphonies, many of which have four
movements, are scored for strings, sometimes with a pair of trumpets or
horns. The trios, entitled variously ‘Divertimento’, ‘Nocturno’,
‘Sinfonia’, ‘Sonata’ and ‘Parthia’, are mostly in three movements in the
same key; Ivanschiz’s frequent use of the viola as the second solo
instrument is a forward-looking trait.
Finnish-Swedish music teacher, composer and military officer. The son of
a successful statesman in the province of Finland (then part of
Sweden), he was encouraged to study violin and piano at an early age by
his father. In 1787 he enrolled at a military academy in St. Petersburg,
later joining the Swedish army in 1792 as an adjutant and subsequently
aide-de-camp to Gustav IV Adolph. He was mostly stationed in Stockholm
beginning with his Swedish army career and was thus able to participate
in musical social circles. He was elected in 1794 to the Royal Swedish
Academy of Music, and in 1801 he published a set of violin sonatas, as
well as a series of strophic Lieder. As a government military official,
however, his compositional career was limited. He taught music for a
period (1813-1825) at the Royal Academy. He was elected an honorary
member of the Harmoniska Sällskapet in 1832. As a composer, his works,
dated from the period 1794 to 1805, include the three violin sonatas,
nine songs, and a set of variations on a Russian theme, as well as
several smaller keyboard works. His style has been likened to early
Ludwig van Beethoven in its use of motives and sequencing, as well as
bold harmonic modulations.
Dutch composer and violinist. He was the son of Louis de Fesch and
Johanna Maasbragt. Despite his parents’ marriage in Amsterdam (1685) and
his brother’s birth in Alkmaar, the family orginated from the Pays de
Liège and returned to Liège before 1690. De Fesch may have been a
choirboy or even a singer in Liège during the 1690s. By about 1710 both
he and his elder brother Pieter (1685-?) had settled in Amsterdam:
Pieter had stayed some years in Leiden, where he was registered as a
musician at the University on 6 June 1706. In Amsterdam De Fesch married
Anna Maria Rosier, daughter of the composer Carl Rosier, who was active
in Bonn, Amsterdam and Cologne. The names Willem, Pieter and Anna Maria
de Fesch occur in the accounts of the City Theatre for dancing, singing
and playing during the years 1708-21. De Fesch remained in Amsterdam
until 1725. During this period he made several appearances as a concert
violinist, including three at Antwerp in 1718, 1719 and 1722. In 1725 he
was appointed kapelmeester at Antwerp Cathedral in succession to
Alphonse d’Eve, a post he held until 1731, when he resigned because of
repeated quarrels with the chapter and the chapel – quarrels for which
his temperamental, mean and slovenly character was apparently to blame. A
few years later De Fesch was with his family in London, where he
remained for the rest of his life. In London, De Fesch was able to
develop his activity as a concert violinist and virtuoso to the full. He
seems to have been organist of the Venetian Chapel in London during the
first years of his stay in England. He also appeared frequently as a
concert violinist, often performing his own compositions. In 1748 and
1749 De Fesch directed the orchestra at Marylebone Gardens. After 1750
he seems to have withdrawn from public life.
Johann Rosenmüller (1619-1684)
- Sinfonie con cinque stromenti aus 'Sonate da camera cioè sinfonie,
alemande, correnti, balletti, sarabande, da suonare con cinque
stromenti da arco, et altri' (1660)
Performers: Gradus ad Parnassum Wien; Ton Kοοpman (conductor)
German composer, trombonist, organist and teacher. He studied music at
the Olsnitz Lateinschule and theology at the University of Leipzig
(1640). There he most likely continued his musical studies with Tobias
Michael, cantor of the Thomasschule, and he is listed as an assistant
there in 1642, being made first assistant in 1650. He was also named
organist of the Nicolaikirche in 1651 and music director in absentia of
the Altenburg court in 1654. However, he lost these posts when he and
several of the schoolboys were arrested and incarcerated as homosexuals
in 1655. He escaped and eventually made his way to Venice, where he
became a trombonist at San Marco in 1658. He secured a position as a
composer there by 1660, and later was composer at the Ospedale della
Pieta (1678-1682). He then returned to Germany to serve as Kapellmeister
at the Wolfenbuttel court. He was a distinguished composer of both
sacred vocal works and instrumental music. His compositions were well
known in Germany and helped to advance the acceptance of the northern
Italian styles.
Polish composer. He studied philosophy at Prague University from about
1678 to 1683, and then theology at Vienna University until 1689. At the
beginning of 1690 at the latest, he moved to Kraków, where he was
ordained in spring 1692. Soon afterwards he was appointed professor at
the Congregatio Missionis at Chełmno, Pomerania; one of his duties there
was to direct the music in the chapel. In 1694 he returned to Kraków
and became a curate and from 1696 the penitentiary of Wawel Cathedral.
He was composing by this time, since one of his works, 'Tota pulchra es,
Maria', is dated 1694. In 1698 he was made director of music at Wawel
Cathedral, a position that he retained until his death. From 1702 he was
also a senior member of the chapel of the Angelists at the cathedral.
In 1705 he became canon of the collegiate church of Skalbmierz and from
about 1720 parish priest of one of the Kraków churches. He conducted the
Wawel chapel at the coronation of the Elector August III of Saxony at
Kraków on 17 January 1734, and died shortly afterwards. He was mainly a
composer of liturgical music to Latin texts. He was long remembered,
particularly in Kraków.
Italian composer. He received his initial musical training in Siena
under 'Il Cavaliere de la Cioja' before undertaking advanced studies
with Padre Giovanni Battista Martini at the Accademia Filarmonica in
Bologna. Following his education, he returned to Siena, serving for
several years as principal violinist of the opera orchestra. On 5 May
1765, he was appointed maestro di cappella at Siena Cathedral, a
position he held until his death. During his fifteen-year tenure at the
cathedral, he produced an extensive body of sacred music, including a
complete annual cycle of modern-style orchestral services for Sundays
and feast days. Among his liturgical works, his Requiem Mass for Emperor
Francis I (1765) is particularly noted for its structural and
counterpuntal merit. Although his sacred output remains largely
unstudied, he is occasionally remembered for his secular instrumental
output, notably a 'Concerto con Saltero' (1751).
Italian composer, mainly active in Vienna. After studying with his
brother Francesco Salieri, he received further education from Giuseppe
Simone, a student of Padre Giovanni Battista Martini. After the deaths
of his parents between 1763 and 1765, he was taken as a protégé by
Giovanni Mocenjo in Venice. There he continued his studies with Giovanni
Pescetti and Ferdinando Pacini until 1765. The following year he was
taken by Florian Gassmann to Vienna, where in 1770 his first operas were
performed. In 1778 he returned to Italy and succeeded in establishing a
reputation for his works for the stage, and upon his return to Vienna
in 1780 he wrote a German Singspiel, Der Rauchfangskehrer, for his newly
emerging national theatre. Thereafter Christoph Willibald von Gluck
took him on as a disciple, allowing him secretly to compose Les Danaïdes
for Paris. This and work as a tutor to the royal family allowed him to
be appointed as hofKapellmeister in 1788. By 1790 he began to withdraw
from active duty, leaving much of the work to his student, Joseph Weigl,
and although he had a revived career as an opera composer a few years
later, his last work, Die Neger, was written in 1804. As a teacher,
Salieri had numerous pupils who made major contributions to the world of
music, including Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert. For many
years he was the head of the Tonkünstlersozietät and in 1815 was
responsible for programming the music that accompanied the Treaty of
Vienna conference. Although his reputation has suffered through mostly
unfounded rumors of his relationship with Mozart, he must be considered
one of the main composers of the entire era. His music demonstrates good
orchestrational skill, dramatic use of harmony, excellent attention to
form, and a good grasp of theoretical principles. A prolific composer,
his works include 41 operas, five oratorios, five Masses, two Requiems,
13 graduals, 31 offertories, 18 introits, seven Psalms, 10 hymns, 12
motets, 17 choruses, 96 insertion or concert arias, 13 secular cantatas,
180 canons, 20 vocal quartets, 70 vocal trios, 50 vocal duets, 45
songs, five ballets, four symphonies, seven concertos and sinfonia
concertantes, five serenades, and a large amount of smaller chamber
works. He cataloged his own sacred music around 1817, but his works have
been cataloged according to A numbers.
Dutch composer, organist and carillonneur. His parents were Mennonites
from Haarlem who lived in Danzig from 1739 to 1752, when they moved to
Amsterdam. He was blind, and it may be assumed that he received his
musical instruction from the blind organist Jacob Potholt. From 1769
until his death he was carillonneur at the Oude Kerk and the
Regulierstoren (now Munttoren), Amsterdam. In 1780 he became organist of
one of the Mennonite communities in Amsterdam, the one usually called
‘bij het Lam en bij de Toren’, after the locations of its churches.
Focking taught the well-known blind Amsterdam organist and carillonneur
Daniël Brachthuyzer (1779-1832). His only known compositions are the 'VI
sonates pour le flute traverse solo, avec une basse continuo, oeuvre
première'. They follow the pattern of the mid-18th-century
three-movement solo sonata and their style resembles that of North
German composers. They were published privately by the composer, lack a
dedication and are undated. His son Cornelis Focking (1770-?) was also
an organist.
German composer and organist. Nothing is know of his early years. From
1650 he was organist of St Saviour, on the outskirts of Danzig. He soon
became Kantor and director of music at St Catherine; according to
Hermann Rauschning he was appointed in 1652, though he still described
himself as organist of St Saviour in publications up to 1654. In both
parishes he was required to teach in schools, and as director of music
at St Catherine he could rely on the services on average of eight
instrumentalists and six singers. It was to his directorship that the
church owed its prominent position in the musical life of Danzig.
Evidence of Bütner's activities and of the extensive and varied
cultivation of music in the Danzig of his day was afforded by a
collection of printed music, consisting of some 150 pieces, both
instrumental and vocal, by Italian, Polish and German composers and
including over 50 sacred vocal works by Bütner himself. His numerous
surviving works are very varied both in their forms and in the forces
for which they are scored, some of the latter being substantial. Most of
them are Lutheran settings of German words which introduced the sacred
concerto to Danzig. Typical features of his music include short-winded
motivic writing, simple harmony, a quick succession of short, compressed
sections and the setting off against each other of homophonic groups of
voices. The style of his music, even if it is somewhat inexpressive,
was something quite new in Danzig.
