Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini (1720-1795) - Concerto per il cembalo col violino primo, violino secondo et Basso
Sebastián de Aguirre (?-1720) - Folias
Bernard de Bury (1720-1785) - Suite No.04
Pietro degli Antoni (1648-1720) - Sonata No.2, Op.4
Martin Gerbert (1720-1793) - Dominus in coelo
Bernhard Joachim Hagen (1720-1787) - Concerto in A for Lute, 2 Violins and Violoncello
Johann Theodor Herold (c.1660-1720) - Sonate Nr.6 C-Dur
Bruno Holzapfel (1720-1774) - Schlagstuck in B-flat major
Friedrich Gottlieb Klingenberg (1660-1720) - Die verdeckten Freyers-Gedancken (1705)
Adolph Carl Kunzen (1720-1781) - Das schlechte jahr & Der Verstand
Francesc Mariner (1720-1789) - Tocata en Do menor
Franz Joseph Leonti Meyer von Schauensee (1720-1789) - Te Deum laudamus
Jan Offner (1720-1759) - Alma Redemptoris Mater
José Peyró (1670-1720) - De Vuelta Abajo
Jacob Potholt (1720-1782) - Psalm 8
Thomas Vincent (1720-1783) - Oboe sonata in a, No.2
Johann Samuel Welter (1650-1720) - Herr Jesu Christ du höchstes Gut
Anders Wesström (1720-1781) - Sinfonia in D, No.2
- 300è aniversari de compositors a qui difícilment escoltarem -
(1720-2020)
(1720-2020)
Portraits source: ©Tassos Dimitriadis
Parlem de Pintura...
Cristoforo Munari (Reggio Emilia, 21 de juliol de 1667 - Pisa, 3 de juny de 1720) va ser un pintor italià. Es va formar inicialment a la seva ciutat natal on va rebre el suport i finançament de Reinaldo III d'Este. El 1703 es va traslladar a Roma i des d'allà a Florència, ciutat on va treballar al servei de Cosme III i del cardenal Francisco María de Mèdici. El 1715 es va establir a Pisa, ciutat on es va dedicar principalment a feines de restauració. Com a pintor, va destacar principalment per les seves natures mortes, la majoria de les quals van mostrar escenes d'interiors amb estris de cuina, aliments diversos, vidre, porcellana, llibres i instruments musicals i totes elles en un estil proper al de l'escola holandesa del segle XVII. Cristoforo Munari va morir a Pisa el juny de 1720.
Parlem de Música...
Italian composer. As a girl she performed in her home while her elder sister Maria Gaetana (1718–99; she became a distinguished mathematician) lectured and debated in Latin. Charles de Brosses, who heard them on 16 July 1739 and was highly impressed, reported that Maria Teresa performed harpsichord pieces by Rameau and sang and played compositions of her own invention. Her first cantata, Il restauro d’Arcadia, was written in honour of the Austrian govenor Gian-Luca Pallavicini in Milan in 1747. In the following years, she sent La Sofonisba to Vienna for possible performance on Empress Maria Theresa’s nameday. At about this time she dedicated collections of her arias and instrumental pieces to the rulers of Saxony and Austria; according to Simonetti the Empress Maria Theresa sang arias that Agnesi had given her. She married Pier Antonio Pinottini on 13 June 1752. Her next opera, Ciro in Armenia, was produced at the Regio Ducale in 1753. In 1766 her Insubria consolata was performed in Milan on the engagement of Beatrice d’Este and the Archduke Ferdinand. Her final years were spent in poverty. Her portrait hangs in the museum of La Scala; other depictions are reproduced in the encyclopedia Storia di Milano (vols. xii, xiv). Agnesi’s career as a theatrical composer was made possible by the changes in women’s status taking place in Austrian Lombardy. Her talents seem to have found a warmer reception in Vienna and Dresden than in her native city, to judge by the elegant copies of La Sofonisba, Il re pastore and the arias produced for these courts. Stylistically, her operas show a progression from relative simplicity (Ciro in Armenia) to more ambitious and virtuoso writing in the later works. Il re pastore and Ulisse feature lengthy ritornellos and use da capo form almost exclusively; several of the arias in Il re pastore and in La Sofonisba are miniature two-part scenas. The latter opera includes some of Agnesi’s most powerful writing; Sophonisba’s last aria before dying, ‘Già s’appressa il fatal momento’, is a particularly moving and dramatic close to an opera seria. Agnesi’s keyboard music, less sharply characterized, is sometimes technically challenging, in a generic north Italian style.
Louis Aubert (1720-c.1800)
Eldest son of Jacques Aubert (1689-1753). Taught by his father and hailed as a child prodigy, he was a back-desk violinist at the Opéra by the time he was 11 and perhaps even when he was only eight. In 1732 Joseph Francoeur nominated him to the 24 Violons du Roi, although he was not officially appointed until 1746. In 1753 he offered his father’s violin for sale: it was a 17th-century instrument designed by Nicoló Amati. By 1756 he was first violinist and one of the principal conductors of the Opéra orchestra. He retired from these duties in 1774 with a pension and special gratuities ‘in consideration of 43 years of service’; his name can be found on lists of patrons as late as 1783. Considering that he was active at a later time, Louis was a more conservative composer than his father; his sonatas, each of which is really a series of dances, reflect the French early 18th-century style. He is remembered more for his simphonies, which have been mentioned among the precursors of the French symphony; but his works seem to look backward rather than forward. In four of the six simphonies, for example, all the movements are in the same key, and in orchestrating them he used three violins and bass without a viola as intermediate voice, the combination that his father had used in the concertos of the 1730s.
Gregorio Ballabene (1720-c.1803)
Italian composer. In 1746 he was a member of the Congregazione di S Cecilia, and assistant to the maestro di cappella Luigi Besci at the church of the Madonna dei Monti. In 1754 he became a member of the Bologna Accademia Filarmonica, having written a five-part fugue on Generatio haec as his test piece (in I-Baf). In September 1755 he was at Macerata, where he applied for a post. In the libretto to the oratorio S Francesco di Sales (1760) he is described as maestro di cappella at Gubbio. As a composer Ballabene followed the tradition of Roman church music in the Palestrina style, differentiating between concertato and pieno styles. His fame rests on his mass for 12 four-part choruses, composed in 1774. This work brought him into correspondence with Martini (in I-Bc), who praised its contrapuntal mastery, supported its formal approval by the Accademia Filarmonica, and published a Descrizione e approvazione dei Chirie e Gloria a 48 voci (Bologna, 1774). It was also praised in a Lettera di Giuseppe Heiberger … ad una composizione musicale a 48 voci del Signor Gregorio Ballabene (Rome, 1774). However, according to Martini, when the mass was performed in Rome in 1777, it was ridiculed by some progressive Roman musicians, who seem to have regarded its colossal construction as outmoded. In 1778 Ballabene, who in these years had Cardinal Albani as his patron, was an unsuccessful candidate for the post of maestro di cappella at S Pietro, and in 1779 at Milan Cathedral and S Antonio in Padua. In 1780 he was an examiner of maestri di cappella for the Congregazione dei Musici.
Giovanni Bianchi (c.1660-1720)
Italian composer and violinist. He had settled in Milan early enough to be described in his op.1 of 1697 as ‘violinista milanese’. He was active there for many years as a violinist and his name, along with that of his son, Giuseppe, appears in lists of instrumentalists at the court in 1711 and 1720: ‘Bianchi, padre e figlio’. The sonatas of opp.1 and 2 are typical in style for the late 17th century; slow and fast movements alternate, the fast movements being somewhat more substantial. Bianchi’s concertos (op.2) are in three or four movements, some first movements having several sections. Similar in some respects to Corelli’s concerti grossi, these large-scale works are of a particularly high calibre and exhibit great melodic richness. Bianchi’s style is characterized by extensive use of sequences, violinistic writing (including broken chord figures and fast repetitive notes), contrapuntal entrances in all parts and (in the concertos) fanfare endings. His music shows marked stylistic affinities with that of Carlo Antonio Marino.
Georg Bronner (1667-1720)
German composer and organist. In 1688 and 1689 respectively he succeeded his father, Christoph Bronner, as sacristan and organist of the Heilig Geist hospital, Hamburg, and held these positions until 1719. Although his name was put forward for the post of organist of the cathedral and although he also acted as deputy at the Nikolaikirche between 1696 and 1701, he was never appointed to a more important position. This is the more noteworthy in that he was obviously not inferior to other musicians in Hamburg. He was also the only organist there to have connections with the Hamburg opera, of which he was co-director in 1699 and for which he composed a series of works (some in collaboration with Mattheson and Schiefferdecker) between 1693 and 1702. These operas, which received Mattheson's critical approval, are lost, as are two oratorios by him that provoked a protest from the Hamburg city council. In his book of chorales (1715) each melody is set in three different ways – with figured and unfigured basses and as vocal trios, which are notable for their effective part-writing and interesting harmonies. Of Bronner's other music, all of it sacred, the manuscript chorale cantatas show that the strict cantus firmus tradition was beginning to relax its grip: the outer movements, based on the chorale melody, employ simple, traditional techniques, while the inner movements, freed from the chorale, are in up-to-date aria forms. The six sacred concertos (1696) are more important and occupy a special place in north German music of about 1700 in that they survive in print. The collection contains three works for soprano and three for soprano and bass and relies mainly on the psalms for its texts. In illustrating the transformation of the sacred concerto for few voices into cantata-like forms these works also typify the final stage of the genre before madrigal texts began to be used. In them a sound compositional technique, richly ornamented lines and colourful harmony are allied to expressive word-setting.
Charles-Antoine (Carlo Antonio) Campion [Campioni] (1720-1788)
Italian composer and violinist of French birth. The formative years of Campioni are still uncharted, but it is worth noting that during his youth the lively musical life at the Lorraine court was under the direction of the accomplished French composer Henry Desmarets. Because the father was in the service of the court, it has been supposed that the family followed the court to Tuscany in about 1737 when the Duke of Lorraine succeeded to the grand duchy of Tuscany. According to Anton Raaff, Campioni was also the product of the Paduan school of Tartini. By 1752 he was maestro di cappella at Livorno Cathedral; from 1763 until his death he was maestro di cappella to the grand duke in Florence, where he also served at the cathedral of S Maria del Fiore and at the oratory of S Giovanni Battista. For several months in 1761–2 Campioni was evidently in Paris, where he supervised the publication of several works including a revised reissue of Paris op.2, the harpsichord sonatas (Paris, op.4) and a Salve regina (the only published sacred work). Perhaps the London (Walsh) series of string works had followed the order and grouping originally prescribed by the composer, but Campioni, in preparing further sets of trio sonatas (opp.6–7) for Paris publication, was obliged to regroup them to complement Amsterdam or Paris sets already in circulation there. Campioni's string trios and duos were popular for more than two decades, with publishing centres in London, Paris and Amsterdam. The London issues were widely disseminated, reaching the Virginia colony where the young amateur violinist Thomas Jefferson was an enthusiast and wished to own all of Campioni's string music. Jefferson made a thematic catalogue of the seven collections he then owned, and this catalogue still serves as an aid to sorting out the bewildering confusion of Campioni's printed works. By 1789, when he left Paris, Jefferson owned nearly all of the authentic string music. Most modern revivals of Campioni's chamber music have been connected with Jefferson's collection or with colonial American music-making. The single set of harpsichord sonatas may have first been written for Campioni's wife Margherita who, according to Burney, was a ‘neat’ harpsichordist as well as accomplished painter. Among surviving sacred works (masses, responsories and offertories) several were occasioned by imperial events, including requiem settings for Emperor Franz I (1766) and his widow Maria Theresa (1781). A solemn Te Deum of March 1768, hailing the February birth of the royal heir (Francis Joseph; from 1792 Emperor Francis II) required more than 150 performers. Burney visited Campioni in Florence in 1770, perhaps in part because of his large collection of early music. His position at court evidently provided leisure and means to become an ardent antiquarian and Burney estimated Campioni's collection to be second only to that of Padre Martini.
Antonio Corbisiero (1720-1790)
Italian composer. From 1733 to 1739 he studied in Naples at the Conservatorio di S Maria della Pietà dei Turchini, when Nicola Fago was its primo maestro and Andrea Basso, Leonardo Leo and Lorenzo Fago served in succession as secondo maestro. Corbisiero settled in Naples, and between 1749 and 1754 gained a measure of success with his comic operas. He also wrote oratorios and Passion music. During his later years he is said to have earned his living as a singing teacher. Some of his sacred music may have been wrongly attributed to Francesco Corbisieri, and vice versa.
Sebastián de Aguirre (?-1720)
Guitarrista y compositor español. Saldívar menciona un Método de cítara y vihuela escrito por él, hacia 1670. Aparecen al final de dicho volumen una serie de piezas para la práctica, escritas en tablatura para teclado o para cuerda punteada (arpa, laúd, cítara o vihuela de mano); dichas piezas son: diferencias [variaciones] sobre canciones y piezas bailables de la época; dos tocotines pentáfonos basados en un ritmo mexicano; un corrido, un portorrico de negros (quizás derivado de la huaracha*), y piezas danzables como gallardas, zarabandas, pasacalles, pavanas y chaconas.
Bernard de Bury (1720-1785)
French composer. The son of Jean-Louis Bury, ordinaire de la musique du roi, he came of a musical family, many of whom held court appointments. He was a pupil of his father and Collin de Blamont. At about 15 he published his Premier livre de pièces de clavecin, five suites in the style of François Couperin, and at 19 he composed the music for a three-act ballet produced by the Duke of Tremouille. On 25 November 1741 he bought for 6000 livres the reversion of Marguérite-Antoinette Couperin’s post of keyboard player to the chambre du roi. In 1743 he was commissioned to write a three-act opéra-ballet, Les caractères de la folie, for the Paris Opéra; the following year he married a niece of Collin de Blamont, who assured him in a note of 27 February 1744 of the reversion of his post as maître de chapelle and also of his patronage. In 1745 Blamont suggested to Bury that he compose a divertissement in honour of the victory at Fontenoy; as a result the five-act tragedy Jupiter vainqueur des Titans was performed in the Grande Ecurie at Versailles for the dauphin’s wedding on 11 December 1745, being acclaimed as the highlight of the festivities. In 1751 Bury was given the reversion of Rebel’s post as surintendant de la musique du roi; he later relinquished the position to Pierre Berton and then to François Giraut for a sum of 10,000 livres and an annuity of 1000 livres, payable also to his widow and children. He was commissioned to edit the operas of Lully, and in May 1770 he collaborated with Dauvergne, Rebel and Francoeur on a revival of Persée for the marriage of the dauphin to Marie Antoinette. He had earlier composed a new prologue for the same opera, of which the Mercure de France (March 1747) remarked: ‘L’ouverture, qui est dans le goût moderne, passe, avec raison, pour une des plus belles de ce genre. Toutes les paroles sont fort bien exprimées, il y a un Choeur très-beau, et les symphonies sont agréables, mélodieuses, pleines de tours de chant heureux, et faciles à danser’. From 1779 he received a royal pension, and in June 1785 he was ennobled by Louis XVI: he died little more than five months later.
Pietro degli Antoni (1648-1720)
Italian composer and instrumentalist, brother of Giovanni Battista Degli Antoni. He spent his life in Bologna, first distinguishing himself as a cornett player with Cazzati’s cappella musicale at S Petronio. Soon after joining the Accademia dei Filaschisi, he became in 1666 a charter member of the Accademia Filarmonica. He was principe of the latter in 1676, a distinction that he enjoyed in five subsequent years: 1684, 1696, 1700, 1705 and 1708. He was maestro di cappella of three churches: S Giovanni in Monte as early as 1666 and again from 1697 until at least 1712, S Maria Maggiore from 1680 and S Stefano from 1686 to 1696. In 1703 he married the famous singer Maria Maddalena Musi, known as La Mignatta. Degli Antoni wrote a number of oratorios as well as music for two stage works, but, except for the oratorio L’innocenza depressa, which survives in a manuscript score, the printed librettos are all that remain of them. He also explored other vocal forms (concerted masses, motets and chamber cantatas), but he is most important for his contribution to the development of the sonata da camera and sonata da chiesa. The coupled dances of opp.1 and 3, with their frequent chromaticisms and cross-relations, are more stylized than earlier sonate da camera. His most innovatory compositions, the solo sonatas of opp.4 and 5, best reflect his experience as a composer of vocal music. Throughout both collections there are movements bearing quasi-dramatic markings such as ‘Aria grave’ and ‘Aria posata’. Many of the adagio movements are instrumental recitatives or ariosos. For example, in the Adagio of op.4 no.11 the violin evokes a declamatory setting through short irregular motifs which end in appoggiaturas over a sustained pedal. Another characteristic of these sonatas is the importance of the basso continuo line, which assumes a separate structural identity and often develops thematic material equally with the violin part.
Pierre Denis (1720-1790)
French mandolin player and composer. He was active in Paris in the 1760s and 70s; around 1774-5 he visited England. In 1776 and 1777 he was listed in Parisian directories as maître de mandoline, but after 1778 his name no longer appeared, suggesting that he had either moved elsewhere or died.
Nikolaus Eisenmanger (c.1678-1720)
Chorregent und Komponist. Sohn eines Buchbinders und -händlers, der sich 1686 in Hall in Tirol niederließ. Besuchte das Innsbrucker Jesuitengymnasium und wurde nach dem Tod von Thomas Mayr († 1706) im März 1707 als Chorregent in Hall angestellt. Ab 1709 hatte er in dieser Eigenschaft selbst für Kost und Logis der Sängerknaben aufzukommen. E. konnte das Chorarchiv durch Zukäufe und Eigenkompositionen erweitern und sorgte auch für die Anschaffung und Reparatur von Musikinstrumenten.
Jean Baptiste Farinelli (1665-1720)
Violinist and composer, second son of Robert Farinel. He was Konzertmeister at the court at Hanover in 1680 and at the court at Osnabrück from 1691 to 1695. He later returned to Hanover and was ennobled by the elector, who, on becoming King George I of England in 1714, appointed him resident in Venice. Between 1722 and 1724 he made several visits to Grenoble to collect debts from his brother Michel. At this time he described himself as commissaire du roi d'Angleterre.
Martin Gerbert (1720-1793)
German music historian, theologian, abbot and composer. He received training with the Jesuits and entered the Benedictine monastery at St Blasien. After ordination in 1744 he served as instructor in theology and philosophy and as librarian of the chapter. From 1754 to 1764 he published a series of didactic theological works and travelled extensively in France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. On these journeys he met leading scholars and surveyed the contents of libraries for medieval sources of theology, liturgy and music history. In 1762 he issued a prospectus for a history of sacred music, soliciting information from archivists about the contents and location of medieval music manuscripts. On 15 October 1764 he was named Prince-Abbot of St Blasien, becoming both a spiritual leader and a princely subject of the imperial court at Vienna. In July 1768 a fire destroyed his monastery, church and library including most of his manuscript collection. Fortunately the first volume of his De cantu et musica sacra had already been printed and copies of the materials for the second volume had been sent to Padre Martini in Bologna, with whom Gerbert had intended to collaborate. The complete work was finally published in 1774, and was followed in 1784 by his three-volume Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra potissimum, an edition of the texts of more than 40 medieval music treatises. In the years after the fire, with the help of Maria Theresa, he rebuilt the monastery, founded schools and hospitals and defended his ecclesiastical estates from political confiscation. Gerbert’s work places him among the founders of modern historical musicology with Burney, Hawkins and Forkel. Though the texts as rendered in his Scriptores are faulty by modern standards, they are one of the most important collections of original documents in medieval music and music theory. Only with extensive scholarly study after 1945 have substantial improvements been made on Gerbert’s editions. De cantu et musica sacra also anticipates modern music scholarship, dealing chronologically with music for the Mass, Office, psalms, hymns and national traditions in chant. Coussemaker’s Scriptorum (1864–76) supplements this collection. Gerbert’s compositions include an offertory published in Remigius Klesatl’s XXIV offertoria solennia (Augsburg, 1747), and an eight-part Missa in coena Domini published at the end of the second volume of De cantu et musica sacra.
Bernhard Joachim Hagen (1720-1787)
Was a German composer, lutenist and violinist. He was the last important composer of lute music in 18th-century Germany. Little is known about his youth, but he grew up in a musical family; his brother Peter Albrecht Hagen (also called Peter Albert van Hagen, 1714 - 12 September 1777) studied the violin with Francesco Geminiani, learned to play the lute and organ, and was an organist in Rotterdam. There are several transcriptions of Geminiani's violin works for lute by J.B. Hagen extant. The younger Bernhard Joachim Hagen must have learned to play lute and violin early too, for in 1737 he was already employed as an assistant to Bayreuth violin virtuoso and Kapellmeister Johann Pfeiffer; later he was listed officially as a court violinist. He kept this position at the Bayreuth and since 1769 the Ansbach court until his death. Adam Falckenhagen and Charles Durant (Karol Duranowski), also called to the Bayreuth court by Wilhelmine of Bayreuth, may have further trained him in playing the lute. In 1745, Hagen married Anna Fikentscher (born in Bayreuth; died 22 May 1789 in Ansbach). During 1760/1761 he visited his brother in Rotterdam and there gave five concerts from November till March. Hagen was employed at the Bayreuth court as a violinist and as a lutenist, and his virtuoso lute performances and his compositions for lute were known and appreciated. He is one of the most important composers for lute in the era following Sylvius Leopold Weiss, and far more important than his teachers Falckenhagen and Durant. His style is shaped by the Empfindsamkeit and the beginning of the Sturm und Drang period.
Johann Theodor Herold (c.1660-1720)
War ein deutscher Lautenist und Komponist der Barockzeit. Herold, ein Lautenvirtuose, war ab 1680 als Kanzlist am Bamberger Hof angestellt und folgte Lothar Franz von Schönborn 1694 nach Mainz. In der Verwaltungslaufbahn stieg er bis zum Hofgerichtssekretär auf. Am 29. Oktober 1696 wurde Herold von Lothar Franz von Schönborn zum Kammerdiener und Hofkapellmeister in Mainz ernannt. 1702 widmete er die aus drei Suiten bestehende Lautentabulatur Harmonia quadripartita dem römisch-deutschen König Joseph I. Die anlässlich der Eroberung Landaus im September 1702 verfasste Cantata qua victoria et reditus del gran filio d’augusto wird ihm zugeschrieben. Herold starb 1720 in Mainz. Eine vom Vater ausgebildete Tochter Herolds war ebenfalls Lautenistin am Mainzer Hof.
Bruno Holzapfel (1720-1774)
Eintritt in das Augustinerkloster in München und Theologiestudium; 1776 als Beichtvater und Organist bezeichnet; 1758 Subprior im Augustinerkloster Regensburg und 1764 in Ramsau, später Subprior in Ingolstadt. Gab mehrere Sammlungen mit eigenen Werken für Tasten - instrument in Druck. Nr. 6; enthalten in: Bruno Holzapfel, Opera manuum seu fructus laboris in sinu matris repositus Das ist: XXIV. Clavier- oder Schlag-Stueck. Zweyter Theil, Augsburg 1755.
Friedrich Gottlieb Klingenberg (1660-1720)
German composer and organist. Native of Berlin, studied with Buxtehude around 1689, before taking up the post of organist at St. Nichola's in Berlin. In 1699, while Schnitger was building the new organ for St. Jacobi Church, Stettin, the old organist, died, the position of organist was upgraded, and Klingenberg received it. As a composer he is known only for his vocal works. As a teacher, Klingenberg passed his legacy from Buxtehude on to his pupils. Probably his most illustrious pupil was the writer Martin Heinrich Fuhrmann.
Adolph Carl Kunzen (1720-1781)
Organist and composer, son of (1) Johann Paul Kunzen. He learnt the organ from his father and received training in Hamburg from J.W. Lustig. In 1728–9 he accompanied his father on a tour of England, and in 1744 he contributed two arias – his earliest known works – to his father’s serenata for the Schonenfahrer Collegium. A year later he wrote a thoroughbass tutor (Unterricht im Generalbass mit Exempeln, 1745, in D-Bsb). The first volume of his collection Lieder zum unschuldigen Zeitvertreib appeared in Hamburg in 1748, and in 1749 he was appointed Konzertmeister at the court of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He was made Kapellmeister there in 1752, but disputes with the court and the orchestra compelled him to resign a year later. From 1754 to 1757 Kunzen lived mainly in London, where he probably wrote his 12 harpsichord sonatas, dedicated to the Prince of Wales and later published there as his op.1; the third part of his lieder collection also appeared in London at this time. He returned to Lübeck in 1757 as his father’s successor at the Marienkirche, and continued his father’s concert series and regular production of Abendmusiken. A stroke ended his career as a conductor, but with the aid of his pupil J.W.C. von Königslöw he continued to organize and plan the programmes for these series until his death. Kunzen’s work as a composer centred on the oratorio, beginning with an early six-part Passion oratorio for Schwerin with a colourful succession of scriptural texts, chorale stanzas, allegorical figures, recitatives and arias. Of his many annual Abendmusiken for Lübeck only two have survived; they distinguish Kunzen as a noteworthy proponent of accompanied recitative and of arias and duets with solo parts for virtuoso instrumentalists. His depiction of character and mood places him in the front rank of oratorio composers in his time; his choruses show Handel’s influence, and in their design go beyond those of Telemann and Mattheson. Kunzen also wrote a number of occasional works; more important than these however are his lieder which, while modelled on those of Telemann, Mattheson, Görner and many others, are lyric or comic pieces of independent style notable for ease of melody and pleasing keyboard accompaniment.
C. François Lescot (1720-1801)
French composer and violinist. He worked as a maître de musique at Auch Cathedral from 1747 to 1764, and at Nantes Cathedral probably from 1764 to 1768. His first three stage works, for which he wrote both librettos and music, were performed at the Théâtre d'Auch during the 1760s, and his motet, Exaltabo te, was twice performed at the Concert Spirituel in Paris in 1764. He moved to Paris and joined the orchestra of the Comédie-Italienne in autumn 1768; there he played in the first violin section until 1774 and second violin until 1785. His name is omitted from orchestral lists for the years 1786–7, but from 1788 he held the position of principal second violin until his retirement with a pension in 1790. The first stage work Lescot presented in Paris was La négresse (1787), originally in two acts but reduced to one after the first performance. It achieved a limited success, there being little depth to the plot, but the Mercure de France observed that ‘The airs, which are very well arranged by M. Lescot, were chosen with great intelligence and taste’. Vaudevilles also formed the basis of Lescot's next stage work, Les solitaires de Normandie (1788), a vastly more popular piece which enjoyed an initial run of nearly 40 performances and remained in the active repertory of the Comédie-Italienne for three years. Though the melodies, based on pithy repetitive motives, were short, the harmonic language unadventurous and the forms mainly strophic, the music was deemed to enhance the natural simplicity of the tableaux depicted within the work in a manner suited to French taste. The airs and chansons included in Lescot's various recueils embody similar musical characteristics.
Francesc Mariner (1720-1789)
Catalan composer and organist. According to Rafel d'Amat i de Cortada (in a contemporary manuscript), he was organist at Barcelona Cathedral until 1786. His compositions (mostly in E-MO and other Catalan archives) include such traditional Spanish keyboard forms as the tiento, obra lleno, partido and entrada, as well as more recently imported Italian forms such as the toccata, sonata, rondo, pastoral and overture. (A number of his keyboard works have been edited by M. Voortman in Francesc Mariner (1720–1789): obres per a clave, Barcelona, 1997.) He also composed many sets of liturgical versets for psalms, canticles and masses, often based on plainsong cantus firmi. Like the forms, the style is transitional; some of his works show the close imitation and florid glosa figuration of earlier Spanish instrumental music, while others employ the lighter, more homophonic textures of the early Classical period.
Franz Joseph Leonti Meyer von Schauensee (1720-1789)
Swiss organist and composer. He was a member of an aristocratic Lucerne family, the son of Joseph Leonti and his wife Cäcilia (née Rusconi). He was taught the organ, cello and violin (the last by Galimberti in Milan 1740-42). In 1738 he entered the Cistercian monastery of St Urban but left after a year. In 1742–4 he served in a mercenary regiment in Sardinia and on his return, in keeping with his aristocratic background, worked in public life in Lucerne (1744–1752), while also following his musical interests. Having already taken minor orders, he became organist at the collegiate church of St Leodegar und Mauritius in Lucerne (1752), and rose to become successively titular chaplain (1760), minor canon (1764) and prebendary (1765). In 1760 he established a public college of music, and in 1768 founded the Helvetische Konkordiagesellschaft, remaining its president until 1783. In his last years he was active as an organist. Meyer von Schauensee was one of the first Swiss musicians to become known beyond the boundaries of his own country. According to Koller his works show him to be a representative of a late Neapolitan style, revealing many points of contact with Hasse, Sammartini and Pergolesi, as well as Handel’s influence.
Guillaume Minoret (c.1650-1720)
Il reçoit peut-être son éducation à la maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris, sous la direction de Pierre Robert. Âgé d'une vingtaine d'années, il est maître de chapelle à la cathédrale de Rodez, puis à Saint-Sernin de Toulouse en remplacement d'Étienne Moulinié. Peu avant 1679, il est maître de chapelle à la cathédrale d'Orléans, et le 5 septembre de la même année, il est engagé dans la même fonction à l'église Saint-Germain de l'Auxerrois à Paris. Il est protégé par Charles-Maurice Le Tellier (1642-1710), frère de Louvois, et archevêque de Reims en 1671. En 1682, un de ses Te Deum est exécuté à l'occasion de la naissance de Louis de France (duc de Bourgogne), petit-fils de Louis XIV. En 1683, il est reçu au concours, ouvert pour un quartier de sous-maître à la chapelle royale, aux côtés de Lalande et de Goupillet. Il quitte sa charge en 1714. Il laisse plus de 50 motets, pratiquement tous perdus. Six d'entre eux, copiés par Philidor en 1697, sont conservés.
Jan Offner (1720-1759)
Unknown composer probably native from Bohemia. Nothing is known about his life. His only extant work is the sacred piece "Alma Redemptoris Mater".
José Peyró (1670-1720)
Spanish composer. He began his career as second musician (most likely harpist or guitarist) in the troupe of Joseph Andrés in 1701, and in 1703 he was performing in Mallorca. Peyró was the ‘músico de Valencia’ who arrived in Madrid between August 1710 and September 1711 to join the highly successful company of Joseph Garcés. He probably performed again in Madrid between March 1714 and April 1715, for at some time during this period he donated 60 reales de vellón in honour of the Virgin Mary to the actors’ guild, the Congregación de Nuestra Señora de la Novena. In 1719 the officials organizing the performance of autos sacramentales for the Corpus Christi celebrations in Madrid made an urgent request that Peyró travel to Madrid as quickly as possible in order to participate in the autos that year. Peyró explained that he was unable to work because he was suffering the aches and pains of an illness ‘of Gallic origin’. The harpist and composer Juan de Lima Sequeiros took Peyró’s place for the autos of 1719, while Peyró performed with the company of Joseph Garcés in Valencia and Granada for the 1719–20 season. Peyró composed solos, recitados and ensemble songs for plays and auto sacramentales. His music attests to the co-existence of different styles in theatrical music of the early 18th century. In particular, his music for 18th-century revivals of Calderón’s autos El lírio y la azucena and Primer refugio del hombre demonstrate Peyró’s expertise with the italianate, pan-European style (with its da capo arias, greater vocal coloratura and busy obligato violin and oboe parts) fashionable in the first and second decades of the 18th century. The largest collection of Peyró’s works is in the ‘Manuscrito Novena’, a large anthology compiled in the early years of the 18th century with music for some of the most often performed plays in the Spanish repertory of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Housed for many years in the archive of the actors’ guild in Madrid (in the parish church of S Sebastián), this extremely important manuscript is now on display in the Museo de Teatro in Almagro. In it Peyró is credited with the music for eight plays and two autos sacramentales, a total of 53 separate pieces. Another important manuscript compiled in the early years of the 18th century (E-Mn 13622) contains music by Peyró for a comedia by Lanhini y Sagredo and for El jardín de Falerina by Calderón. Peyró’s music cannot be associated with 17th-century productions of El jardín de Falerina, but it may well have been used for revivals in 1715–20 in Madrid and elsewhere. Other theatrical songs by Peyró survive in manuscripts in Barcelona Cathedral and the Biblioteka Jagiellónska, Kraków (the latter originally compiled in Valencia).
Jacob Potholt (1720-1782)
Dutch composer, organist and carillonneur. Burney devoted several pages in the account of his second European trip to Potholt (consistently referred to by Burney as Pothoff). Apparently smallpox left him blind at the age of seven. Subsequently he became a pupil of the Amsterdam organists G.F. Witvogel and Johannes Ulhoorn (1697–1742) (Oude Kerk, the main Calvinist church), and of P.A. Locatelli, whose concerts he attended. In 1741 he became organist of the St Jacobskerk in The Hague, returning to Amsterdam in 1743 to become organist of the Westerkerk and carillonneur of the City Hall (now the Royal Palace on the Dam). In 1766 he left the Westerkerk post in order to succeed Hurlebusch as organist of the Oude Kerk, effecting a rise in income and prestige. Burney applauded Potholt's playing of both the organ and the carillon. He noted two themes that he had dictated to Potholt and on which Potholt had played improvised fugues. Potholt's only known compositions are his settings of organ accompaniments for all the Genevan psalms as sung by the congregation in the Dutch Reformed Church, De muzyk van de CL psalmen benevens de lofzangen (Amsterdam, 1777). These settings were prompted by the ‘new way of singing the psalms’, introduced to the Netherlands after the appearance of a new version of the rhymed metrical psalms in 1773. Each verse is preceded by a short prelude, and there is a short interlude after each line; the initial and final notes of each line are semibreves and the remainder are minims. Potholt transposed the melodies, ornamented them and provided a figured bass. Except for the preludes, this way of executing organ accompaniments to psalms became the norm during the 19th century. In 1748 Potholt presented some manuscript symphonies, some of which he may have written, to the collegium musicum of Utrecht, where they survive in the Letteren-Bibliotheek.
William Savage (1720-1789)
English singer, composer and organist. His teachers included Pepusch and Geminiani. Although not educated at the Chapel Royal (as claimed by Burney), Savage came to prominence as a boy treble soloist, singing for Handel’s 1735 Covent Garden season in Athalia and Alcina, the role of Oberto in the latter being specially written for him. He retained a place in Handel’s theatre company for the following season, and then took minor roles in Giustino (1737) and Faramondo (1738). By the time of Faramondo his voice was breaking: his character in the opera has no aria and, although his recitatives are written in the treble clef, Savage’s name appears against the tenor stave in a coro movement. He sang as a bass in Handel’s last London opera season of 1740–41, with roles in Imeneo and Deidamia, and performed in L’Allegro and Saul. In the Covent Garden oratorio season of 1743 he took the part of Manoa in Samson and participated in the first London performances of Messiah. Burney described his voice as ‘a powerful and not unpleasant bass’, and the music that Handel wrote for him as a treble was well judged to display his youthful musical talents. Savage is described as ‘Organist of Finchley’ in the subscription list to Greene’s Forty Select Anthems (1743). On April 1744 he was admitted as a Gentleman-in-ordinary of the Chapel Royal, and on 5 April 1748 he succeeded Charles King as vicar-choral and Master of the Choristers at St Paul’s Cathedral. As a teacher Savage influenced London professional musicians of the next generation, many of whom had probably been choristers at St Paul’s. In 1777 he retired to Tenterden, Kent; he returned to London in about 1780 and attempted to re-establish himself as a music teacher, but did not regain his former eminence. He wrote some short full anthems, one of them only 17 bars long, and verse anthems, in which he often favours minuet-style triple-time solo movements. 11 of his anthems, several of them dating from 1768, are settings of metrical psalms by Isaac Watts; four more, composed in 1772, have texts from Tate and Brady’s psalter, and he supplemented these with a further 25 anthems, mostly in simple chordal style. His service settings are also mainly homophonic. However, he could on occasion produce more extended anthems with movements varying in style and texture, and his most ambitious work, O Lord my God (1784–6), is accompanied by string orchestra. His violin music, probably written while he was living away from London, includes one piece ‘composed for Miss Augusta Smith’. His catches, rounds and canons were no doubt fruits of his membership of the Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Catch Club and the Beef Steak Club. If much of his music gives the impression of being practical and tasteful rather than inspired, Savage’s works nevertheless include some unusual items: he composed the song On the very first of May (1756) to nonsense verses by his wife, and he wrote an interesting Hallelujah (1770), ‘An imitation of the singing at the Jews Synagogue on Duke’s Place’.
Johann Peter Gabriel Sperling (1671-1720)
German theorist and composer. In 1705 he was appointed choirmaster at the cathedral of St Peter in Bautzen, and in 1708 he became secretary to the cathedral as well. He was also secretary to the local magistrates. Sperling’s two theoretical works, Principia musicae and Porta musica, both set out to teach singers the basic principles of solmization and notation. Principia is one of the most comprehensive books of its kind, containing an unusually large number of musical examples in which difficult points are carefully explained. The material is presented with great clarity, using the question and answer method, and advancing in very easy stages. Frequent tests ensure that the pupil has a sure grasp of what he has learned. Sperling deals not only with solmization (which he bases on an old-fashioned six-line staff) but also with modern notation and with ornaments. These, he said, could greatly improve a melody, if used with knowledge and taste. He explained many foreign musical terms and gave singers instructions on breathing and on the correct declamation of words. Among the composers he quoted are J.J. Walther, J.H. Schmelzer and J.C.F. Fischer. The treatise also includes four psalm settings, for one voice and continuo, and six exercises for two violins, by Sperling himself. Sperling’s other book, Porta musica, presents much the same material as Principia, but in a considerably compressed form. Sperling’s only extant composition, the Concentus vespertinus seu psalmi minores per annum (Bautzen, 1700), is typical of the small amount of church music published in south Germany in the first two decades of the 18th century, especially in its scoring, with two violins and continuo and with three violas or trombones doubling the three lower voices.
Thomas Vincent (1720-1783)
English oboist and composer. A pupil of Giuseppe Sammartini, his playing was praised by Hawkins. He is known to have played at the Foundling Hospital (1754, 1758) and was a member of the King’s Band in the 1760s. He was a founder-member of the Royal Society of Musicians (1739) and performed at many of its annual benefit concerts, 1743–68. In 1764–5 he became joint manager (with Gordon and Crawford) of the King’s Theatre while still playing in the orchestra, but the venture bankrupted him. A ‘Mr Vincent’, possibly Thomas, performed at the Rotunda in Dublin in 1770. In 1775 Vincent performed concertos at Drury Lane during the spring oratorio season; he had ‘not appeared in public for several years’ and was perhaps driven by financial necessity. He published Six Solos for a Hautboy, German Flute, Violin, or Harpsichord, with a Thorough Bass op.1 (London, 1748), A Sett of Familiar Lessons for the Harpsicord op.2 (London, 1755) and several songs (some published separately and others in anthologies). Vincent was a member of a family of musicians active in London in the mid- to late-18th century; they are often difficult to identify because all are referred to simply as ‘Mr Vincent’. Thomas was a son of a Thomas Vincent (d 1751), a bassoonist in the Guards, and had a brother James (d London, 6 Oct 1749), who composed songs and was ‘joint organist of the Temple with Stanley, and a brilliant performer’ (Burney). Richard Vincent (1701–83), a brother of the elder Thomas, was an oboist at Vauxhall and Covent Garden and a composer of songs. His wife was an actress at Covent Garden. His son Richard Vincent (d London, 28 Aug 1766), a violinist and drummer, was married in 1755 to the soprano Isabella Vincent, née Burchall (b c1735; d London, 9 June 1802), who made her début at Vauxhall Gardens in 1751 and sang at Drury Lane (1760–67), Marylebone Gardens (1764–7) and the Haymarket Little Theatre (1764); she married Captain John Mills in 1767. A ‘Mr Vincent’ is listed among the oboes for the Handel Commemoration (1784) and someone with that name was a member of the King’s Music in 1793 and 1795.
Johann Samuel Welter (1650-1720)
German composer. He was a son of an organist and a forest master. He started his musical education at age of nine with instruction in singing and violin playing. He studied at the Gymnasium in Schwäbisch Hall; afterwards learned with his brother, Johann Welter, who was "City Musician" and Posaunist working in Nürnberg. In 1668 he was probably appointed as organist and Kanzlist in the service of the Count Joachim Albrecht von Hohenlohe-Kirchberg, who was known as "great lover of the music". The first well-known compositions of Welter were created in Kirchberg: in 1674 Musicalische Gemüthsbelustigung was published in Schwäbisch Hall . He seems to have already made himself a name there, because in 1675, although still a young musician, he was appointed as the organist of the Hauptkirche St. Michael and thus as the successor to the deceased George Wolfgang Truckenmueller, who had acquired himself likewise high reputation as musician and a composer. He served in this post for 45 years, until his death on July 28, 1720 at the age of 70 years from "stomach weakness". From three marriages he had had 16 children, from whom however only five outlived him. The Reichsstadt Swabian Hall during Johann Samuel Welter's time had recovered slowly from the afflicting of the Thirty Years war, and active music life had developed. The city council had a lively interest in the promotion of sacred music. Welter's major task was the musical arrangement of the services. Besides he had to supervise the pupil choir of the Gymnasium and to give music instruction to particularly talented boys. Part of his tasks was also the preparation of compositions. Altogether Welter left about 400 works, most of them were lost. The 1993 published work edition contains still 11 cantatas, two Magnificats and 11 church songs. They draw only fragmentary picture of the work of a musician, who acquired himself in his time a reputation extending far beyond the region, rejecting honorable appointments to Berlin, Frankfurt/Main, Augsburg and Coburg. Music historians consider him today as one the most important chorale composers between Hieronymus Praetorius and J.S. Bach.
Anders Wesström (1720-1781)
Swedish violinist and composer. His earliest music education was from his father, organist at the church at Hudiksvall in northern Sweden. In 1738 he was admitted to Uppsala University, which he attended while employed part-time as his father's successor in Hudiksvall. In 1744 he defended his dissertation De abdicatione regia and was granted a degree in law; the following year he became a consulting lawyer at the Royal Courts in Stockholm, and in 1748 joined the Hovkapell as an ordinary violinist. From 1756 until 1760 he was abroad on a stipend, studying violin in Padua with Tartini, who considered him one of his most apt students, and in Dresden with Cattaneo. His companion on this tour was the Dresden composer Johann Gottlieb Naumann. In 1760 he was appointed as court musician and became a regular soloist in the Stockholm public concerts (Cavalierskonserter). Further journeys abroad (to Germany in 1761 and England in 1766) enhanced his reputation, but growing debts brought about his dismissal from the Hovkapell in 1773. For three years he supported himself by freelance work, and in 1776 was appointed as musical director and town organist in Gävle, a position he chose over debtor's prison. Wesström's music, much of which is lost and which appears to have been written during the period 1760–73, shows the influence of Mannheim and the empfindsamer Stil of C.P.E. Bach. Much of the melodic material is developed through sequence, but his use of solo instruments and colouristic effects is notable. In particular, the six ‘string quartets’ are idiosyncratic, with wind instruments added to provide unusual timbres.
Michael Johann Friedrich Wiedeburg (1720-1800)
German teacher. Born into a family of musicians, he was taught music by his father, Matthias Christoph Wiedeburg (b Berlin, 1 March 1690; d Altona, 17 Jan 1745), who from 1728 was Kapellmeister and Kantor at the court of Prince Georg Albrecht of Cirksena in Aurich (a post for which Telemann had recommended him). His grandfather was organist at the Marienkirche in Berlin. As a teenager he was a frequent participant in the twice-weekly court recitals organized by his father; he also assisted him as a substitute organist in the court chapel. In 1741 Wiedeburg competed unsuccessfully for the prestigious post of organist at the Ludgeri-Kirche in Norden, but was appointed vice-principal at the local Latin school. He competed again for the organist’s post in Norden less than seven years later, this time successfully, and remained there until his death. Wiedeburg’s most important legacy was a substantial body of pedagogical work. In 1765 he issued the first volume of his treatise on keyboard playing for beginners, Der sich selbst informirende Clavier-spieler, and two more volumes followed in 1767 and 1775 respectively. This huge work of more than 1600 pages, the largest 18th-century published treatise on keyboard playing, was designed as a compendium of the musical knowledge that one might need to learn to play the keyboard. Volume one deals with basic keyboard skills such as note-reading, rhythm and fingering, volume two teaches the principles of thoroughbass, and volume three deals with improvisation. Two years after the appearance of volume three, Wiedeburg published a collection of 24 graded preludes and variations entitled Practischer Beÿtrag and intended to accompany the instruction in note-reading in volume one; the same pieces appeared with 24 additional preludes of slightly greater difficulty in a second collection, entitled Vermehrter practischer Beÿtrag, in the following year. Wiedeburg also developed a musical card game, Musicalisches Charten-Spiel, by means of which beginners could learn to compose, and compiled an unpublished Choral-Buch containing settings of 154 well-known chorales, probably in order to help his nephew, Hinrich Ufen Straten, learn to accompany hymns. An unpublished theological manuscript in Wiedeburg’s handwriting, entitled Die Lust und Freude der Kinder Gottes, also survives.
