Bonifazio Asioli (1769-1832)
- Sinfonia in fa minore (live performance, 1982)
Performers: Orchestra giovanile degli istituti pareggiati di Modena, Reggio Emilia e Ravenna;
Dariο Indrigο (conductor)
Painting: Michal Stachowicz (1768-1825) - Dozynki
Further info: Bonifazio Asioli (1769-1832) - Keyboard Sonatas
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Italian composer and theorist. Born into a family of musicians, he was
essentially self-taught although he studied briefly with Giovanni
Battista Lanfranchi, the assistant maestro di cappella in the basilica.
At the age of eight he had already written complex sacred pieces and
chamber music. He studied in Parma with Angelo Morigi (called ‘Il
Merighi’) during 1780–81 and in 1782 stayed for a time in Bologna (where
he visited Paudre Martini) and Venice, where he had great success as a
harpsichordist and improviser. Having returned to Correggio, at the age
of 14 he taught the harpsichord, flute and cello at the Collegio Civico
and in 1786 was appointed maestro di cappella. La volubile, performed in
Correggio in 1785 with the intermezzo Il ratto di Proserpina, marked
the beginning of his career as an opera composer. In the retinue of the
Marchese Gherardini, he moved to Turin (1787), then to Venice (1796-99)
and finally to Milan, where his opera Cinna had already been staged at
La Scala (1792). In 1805 he was appointed maestro di camera and music
director at the royal chapel of the viceroy Eugène Beauharnais; the
appointment involved the composition of both sacred and secular music
for the accademie held at the royal palace. In 1808, at the suggestion
of Mayr, who had refused the post, he became the first director of the
newly founded Milan Conservatory, and held the chair of composition. The
second part of his life was devoted to teaching by the production of a
series of theoretical works. He was responsible for the first
performance in Italy of Haydn’s Creation and Seasons. During his
Milanese period he was in touch with Weigl, Clementi and Haydn, who, in a
letter in 1806, recommended Karl Mozart to him as a pupil.
Apart from a journey to Paris in Beauharnais’ retinue in 1810, he
remained in Milan until 1814, when he was compelled to leave the
conservatory as a ‘foreigner’ after the fall of the Kingdom of Italy.
Because of his exceptional merits he was allowed to retain his post at
court but in October he was again in Correggio, where he remained until
his death. In Correggio in 1815 he established a music school, in which
he was joined by his brother Giovanni Asioli (1767-1831), who, during a
life spent entirely in Correggio, was municipal maestro di cappella
(from 1755), organist at the basilica, a pianist and composer. In this
final period of his life, Bonifazio composed mostly sacred music and
continued his theoretical writings. In 1826 he supplied the statutes for
the Reggio music school of which, having refused the directorship, he
was made honorary president. Asioli’s music is now forgotten, although
the brilliance of his talent was widely acknowledged by his
contemporaries. His idiom, pleasant and at times sentimental, is at its
best in his vocal chamber music, which in style recalls Haydn and
Mozart, without showing many traces of the stylistic crisis undergone by
music at the beginning of the 19th century. His sinfonie have been
compared to those by the young Beethoven, and his theatrical music was
written in the style of Paisiello and Cimarosa. His didactic work
survived longer, and it is to him that the Milan Conservatory owes the
foundation of its library. His brother Luigi Asioli (1778-1815) was a
tenor, pianist and composer. A pupil of his brother Giovanni Asioli, he
worked first in Naples and Palermo, and from 1804 in London, where he
became a fashionable singing teacher. He composed a large amount of
music in all forms, much of which, particularly vocal and instrumental
chamber pieces, was published in London.
