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.
Polish violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. He received training
in violin and music from his father Feliks Lipiński (1765-1847). In 1809
he became concertmaster of the Lemberg Theater orchestra, where he
conducted from 1811 to 1815. In 1817 he traveled to Italy to hear
Paganini. In 1818 the two met in Padua, and Paganini was so impressed
with his talent as a violinist that the two performed together in
Piacenza. Between 1819 and 1828 he made tours of Poland, Germany, and
Russia, and then toured throughout the whole of Europe. On 25 April
1836, he appeared as soloist in his own Military Concerto for Violin and
Orchestra in London. In 1839 he settled in Dresden as concertmaster of
the Court Orchestra, a position he retained until his retirement in
1861. He also was active as a conductor, performed with his own string
quartet, and taught. Among his most famous pupils were Joseph Joachim
and Henryk Wieniawski. While Lipinski was praised as the equal in
technical virtuosity to Paganini, he became best known for upholding the
classical ideals of violin playing espoused by Viotti and Spohr. He
composed a comic opera, Klótnia przez zaklad (Lemberg, 1814), and other
stage works, 3 symphonies, 4 violin concertos, pieces for Violin and
Piano, Caprices for Violin, and numerous technical studies for violin.
He was regarded as one of the best violinists in the first half of the
19th century.
German composer, son of the organist Isaak Hassler (c.1530-1591) and
brother of Kaspar Hassler (1562-1618) and Jakob Hassler (1569-1622). He
began his musical training with his father, then in 1584 continued his
education in Venice, where he was a pupil of Andrea Gabrieli. He was
named chamber organist to Octavian II Fugger in Augsburg in January
1586, and quickly established himself as one of the leading musicians in
Germany. In 1591 the emperor granted him the privilege of copyrighting
his compositions. He was ennobled by the emperor in 1595, and was given a
coat of arms and the title of Hassler von Roseneck in 1604. While in
Augsburg, he also became active as a manufacturer of mechanical musical
instruments, an enterprise that led to numerous litigations with
business rivals. After Octavian's death in 1600, he was made director of
the town music in Augsburg. He also served as Kaiserlicher Hofdiener to
the court of Emperor Rudolf II, a position which may have been purely
honorary. He obtained a year's leave of absence from Augsburg for a stay
in Ulm in 1604, and then decided to remain there the following year;
became a citizen of Ulm in 1607 and a member of its merchants' guild in
1608. He was appointed the Saxon electoral chamber organist in Dresden
in 1608, and later assumed the duties of Kapellmeister. Following his
move to Dresden, he was stricken with tuberculosis. He died during the
visit of the court chapel to Frankfurt am Main for the election and
coronation of Emperor Matthias. Hassler excelled as a composer of both
sacred and secular vocal works. His sacred compositions reflect the
influence of Lassus and others of the Venetian school, while his secular
compositions display a pronounced individuality. His organ music
follows the precepts of Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli.
German composer. He received his early musical education from his older
brother Johann Adam Kreusser (1732-1792) in Heidingsfeld. Around 1759 he
settled in Amsterdam where his brother was the concertmaster of the
theater orchestra. He then completed his training in Italy, where he met
the Mozart family in Bologna (as mentioned by Léopold Mozart's father
in a letter to his wife) and undertook studies tours in Italy and France
(1770-1771). Returning to Amsterdam he lived as an independent
composer. On 13 December 1773 he became deputy Konzertmeister and on 21
February 1774 Konzertmeister of the electoral Kapelle in Mainz. He
distinguished himself as a composer of instrumental and vocal works,
being highly regarded by Joseph Haydn. For a long time he was the
foremost court musician in Mainz, and his works enjoyed great
popularity. When Vincenzo Righini became Mainz Kapellmeister in 1787 he
lost his pre-eminence and something of his creative fervour. After the
second occupation of Mainz by the French, he left the town in the winter
of 1798-99 and settled in Aschaffenburg, where he remained the rest of
his life. With Johann Franz Xaver Sterkel, he was the most significant
Mainz composer of the second half of the 18th century. His achievement
is most outstanding in his instrumental music. His style was formed by
quite varied influences, so that he cannot be ascribed to any national
school, and he stands somewhat apart from his contemporaries who formed
the early Classical style between 1760 and 1780. His best-known work was
the oratorio Der Tod Jesu (1783), but his extensive output also
includes 54 symphonies, an harpsichord concerto, a serenade,
instrumental quintets and quartets, 6 violin duets, 8 masses and 7
melodies, among others.
German princess and composer. She became the duchess of
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach by marriage, and was also regent of the states of
Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach from 1758 to 1775. She transformed her
court and its surrounding into the most influential cultural center of
Germany. As a patron of the arts, Anna Amalia drew many of the most
eminent people in Germany to Weimar, including Johann Gottfried Herder,
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and Abel Seyler‘s
theatrical company. When she succeeded in engaging the Seyler Company,
this was “an extremely fortunate coup. The Seyler Company was the best
theatre company in Germany at that time.” Amalia von Helvig was also
later to be a part of her court. She hired Christoph Martin Wieland, a
poet and translator of William Shakespeare, to educate her son. She also
established the Duchess Anna Amalia Library, which is now home to some
1,000,000 volumes. The duchess was honoured in Goethe’s work under the
title Zum Andenken der Fürstin Anna-Amalia. Anna Amalia was a notable
composer who studied harpsichord and piano with Gottlieb Hayne, and
counterpoint with Johann Philipp Kirnberger. She also studied music with
Friedrich Gottlob Fleischer and Ernst Wilhelm Wolf. Among her
compositions is a divertimento for clarinet, viola, cello, and piano,
composed in 1780.
German singer and composer. His parents were actors, and the wandering
life led by the family did not allow him to pursue a methodical course
of study. He learned acting from his father Johann Gottlieb Lortzing
(1776-1841), and music from his mother Charlotte Sophie Seidel
(1780-1846) at an early age. After some lessons in piano with Griebel
and in theory with Rungenhagen in Berlin, he continued his own studies,
and soon began to compose. On 30 January 1823, he married the actress
Rosina Regina Ahles (1799-1854) in Cologne; they had 11 children. In
1824 he wrote his stage work, the Singspiel Ali Pascha von Janina, oder
Die Franzosen in Albanien, which was not premiered until 4 years later
(Münster, 1828). He then brought out the Liederspiel Der Pole und sein
Kind, oder Der Feldzuebel vom IV. Regiment (1832) and the Singspiel
Szenen aus Mozarts Leben (1832), which were well received on several
German stages. From 1833 to 1844 he was engaged at the Municipal Theater
of Leipzig as a tenor. His light opera Die beiden Schützen was first
performed there on 1837, with much success. It was followed there by the
work that is now considered his masterpiece, Zar und Zimmermann, oder
Die zwei Peter (1837). It was performed with enormous success in Berlin
(1839), and then in other European music centers. His next opera,
Caramo, oder Das Fischerstechen (1839), was a failure; there followed
Hans Sachs (1840) and Casanova (1841), which passed without much notice;
subsequent comparisons showed some similarities between Hans Sachs and
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, not only in subject matter, which was
derived from the same source, but also in some melodic patterns;
however, no one seriously suggested that Wagner was influenced by
Lortzing's inferior work. There followed a comic opera, Der Wildschutz,
oder Die Stimme der Natur (1842), which was in many respects one of the
best that Lortzing wrote, but its success, although impressive, never
equaled that of Zar und Zimmermann.
At about the same time, Lortzing attempted still another career, that of
opera impresario, but it was short-lived; his brief conductorship at
the Leipzig Opera (1844-45) was similarly ephemeral. Composing remained
his chief occupation, and he wrote Undine in Magdeburg (1845) and Der
Waffen schmied in Vienna (1846). He then went to Vienna as conductor at
the Theater an der Wien, but soon returned to Leipzig, where his light
opera Zum Grossadmiral was first performed (1847). The revolutionary
events of 1848 seriously affected his position in both Leipzig and
Vienna; after the political situation became settled, he wrote the opera
Rolands Knappen, oder Das ersehnte Gluck (1849). Although at least 4 of
his operas were played at various German theaters, Lortzing received no
honorarium, owing to a flaw in the regulations protecting the rights of
composers. He was compelled to travel again as an actor, but could not
earn enough money to support his large family, left behind in Vienna. In
the spring of 1850 he obtained the post of conductor at Berlin's
nondescript Friedrich-Wilhelmstadt Theater. His last score, the comic
opera Die Opernprobe, oder Die vornehmen Dilettanten, was premiered in
Frankfurt am Main on 20 January 1851, while he was on his deathbed in
Berlin; he died the next day. Lortzing also wrote an oratorio, Die
Himmelfahrt Jesu Christi (1828), and some incidental music to various
plays, but it is as a composer of characteristically German Romantic
operas that he holds a distinguished, if minor, place in the history of
dramatic music. He was a follower of Weber, without Weber's imaginative
projection; in his lighter works, he approached the type of French
operetta; in his best creations he exhibited a fine sense of facile
melody, and infectious rhythm; his harmonies, though unassuming, were
always proper and pleasing; his orchestration, competent and effective.
