Vojtech Matyáš Jírovec (1763-1850)
Work: Concerto (F-Dur) pour le forte-piano
avec accompagnement ... œuvre 26 (1796)
Performers: Mary Louise Boehm (1924-2002, pianoforte, 1835); Amsterdamer Kammerensemble;
Kees Kooper (1923-2014, conductor)
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Bohemian composer and conductor. His father, a choirmaster, taught him
singing and the violin and he later studied the organ and thoroughbass
with Haparnorsky, a church organist and composer. Then he studied
philosophy and law in Prague. He subsequently became secretary to Count
Franz von Funfkirchen, to whom he dedicated his first six symphonies, a
set in Haydnesque style (1783). He was also a member of his private
orchestra. During his first visit to Vienna, in either late 1785 or
1786, he made the acquaintance of Joseph Haydn, Carl Ditters von
Dittersdorf, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart;
he developed a warm relationship with Mozart, who performed one of his
symphonies at a subscription concert. He then became secretary and music
master to Prince Ruspoli, who took him to Italy. While in Rome
(1786-87), he composed a set of six string quartets, the first of his
works to be published. After leaving Ruspoli's service, he studied with
Giovanni Paisiello and counterpoint with Nicola Sala in Naples. He made a
brief visit to Paris in 1789, and then proceeded to London, where he
met and befriended Joseph Haydn, who was also visiting the British
capital. During his London sojourn, he was commissioned by the Pantheon
to write an opera, 'Semiramis'. Unfortunately, the theatre burnt down in
January 1792, and his music was either destroyed or never completed. He
returned to the Continent in 1793; in 1804 he became composer and
conductor of the Vienna Hoftheater, where he produced such popular
operas as 'Agnes Sorel' (1806) and 'Der Augenarzt' (1811). He also wrote
'Il finto Stanislao' (1818), to a libretto by Felice Romani, which
Giuseppe Verdi subsequently used for his 'Un giorno di regno'. He
likewise anticipated Richard Wagner by writing the first opera on the
subject of Hans Sachs's life in his 'Hans Sachs im vorgerückten Alter'
(1834). He retired from the Hoftheater in 1831, and his fame soon
dissipated; he spent his last years in straitened circumstances and
relative neglect, having outlived the great masters of the age. As a
composer, he was very prolific and his music includes 28 operas, 17
ballets, 11 Masses, two vespers, numerous other shorter sacred works,
around 60 symphonies (of which 40 were published), two keyboard
concertos and three sinfonia concertantes, three flute quartets, around
60 string quartets, 30 trios, 40 violin sonatas, 47 Lieder, and other
smaller chamber works. Although he was best known during his early
career as a composer of symphonies whose progressive structure, good
sense of melody, and interesting orchestration were lauded, his later
career after 1800 involved the stage, for which he composed nationalist
works such as the mentioned 'Hans Sachs im vorgerückten Alter'.
