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.
German theologian, philosopher and composer. He was educated at the
Benedictine seminary in Ulm where he was ordained a priest in 1781.
Shortly afterwards he moved to the Benedictine abbey of Ochsenhausen
where he devoted himself to teaching theology and philosophy. In 1795
the abbot Romuald Weltin promoted him as a musical director in a
position he held until 1803. A versatile scholar and practitioner, in
1802 he contributed as a violinist to the performance of Joseph Haydn's
The Creation in Biberach under the conduction of Justin Heinrich Knecht.
During the period of secularization, he briefly served as deputy abbot
starting in 1803, later concluding his career as a parish priest in
Tannheim until his death. As a composer he wrote nearly one hundred
works, mainly religious music and most of them for choir with
instrumental accompaniment.
German composer. The eldest son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII
(1697-1745) and his wife, Maria Amalia of Austria (1701-1756), he was a
pupil of Francesco Peli. He played many instruments, and was a
composition pupil of Andrea Bernasconi from 1753. He was a patron of
chamber music and opera at the Munich court, and during his reign (begun
in 1747) Mozart's 'La finta giardiniera' received its première on 13
January 1775. Besides Andrea Bernasconi, Joseph Willibald Michl, Antonio
Sacchini, Pietro Pompeo Sales and Tommaso Traetta wrote carnival operas
for his court. His 'Concerti a più istromenti', performed at the
Accademia Filarmonica in Verona, and his finest composition, a Stabat
mater, were published at Verona at the instigation of
Joseph-Marie-Clément dall'Abaco in 1765-66. His works, mostly in
manuscript, include several symphonies and 12 trios for two violins and
bass. A Litany and three 'Sonate per il gallichona' were destroyed in
World War II; single parts only exist of a second Litany. A Missa
pastoralis and a Regina coeli are lost. His sister, the Princess Maria
Antonia Walpurgis (1724-1780), was also a composer.
German composer. He was the second of five children of the organist
Peter Hasse (c.1668-1737) and Christina Klessing, daughter of a mayor of
Bergedorf. He studied in Hamburg before joining the opera company
there. He quickly established himself as a tenor of reputation, but his
career changed when his opera 'Antioco' opened at Brunswick on 1 August
1721. Soon, he left Germany for a long tour of Venice, Bologna,
Florence, and Rome, finally settling in the major opera center of Naples
for six years, until 1730. There he studied with Alessandro Scarlatti
and possibly Nicolo Porpora, worked with the superstar castrato Carlo
Broschi (Farinelli), and his rise in Neapolitan opera was spectacular.
Hasse appeared in Venice for the 1730 Carnival season, a milestone of
his career. In his opera 'Artaserse', he set a libretto of Metastasio,
later to become his most important collaborator, for the first time. He
also met in Venice another famous singer, the mezzo-soprano Faustina
Bordoni (1697-1781), whom he married in June 1730 and who created many
of the female protagonists in his later operas. Sometime after Carnival
but before Ascension in 1730, he was granted the title of Kapellmeister
to the court of the Elector August I of Saxony at Dresden, but he and
Faustina Bordoni did not arrive there until 6 or 7 July 1731. Although
this appointment lasted until 1763, the couple took frequent and
substantial leaves of absence to various cities of Italy and Vienna to
produce operas that had been commissioned by the nobility of Europe. In
1745, King Frederick the Great of Prussia visited and heard Hasse’s Te
Deum and opera seria 'Arminio'.
The king, a fine musician, thereafter often invited the composer and his
wife to Potsdam. The Prussian bombardment of Hasse’s Dresden house in
1760, causing the loss of many manuscripts, may have soured this
relationship. Porpora, possibly Hasse’s teacher in Naples, was brought
to Dresden in 1748 to teach the Princess Maria Antonia of Saxony and was
given the title Kapellmeister, but Hasse was promoted to
Oberkapellmeister in 1750. In 1763, Hasse joined the imperial court in
Vienna where he worked closely with Metastasio. In 1775, he and Faustina
Bordoni retired to Venice. Although most of his work was quickly
forgotten after he died, while active, he was the most renowned composer
of Italian opera seria in Italy and German-speaking lands. He composed
at least 58 operas, mostly seria, but also a few comedies, which were
produced in many European opera centers. He was the favorite composer of
the age’s most eminent opera librettist, Metastasio. Hasse composed
fluently, with a particular gift for vocal melody, which he generally
displayed to full advantage without distraction from contrapuntal
textures. Besides the operas, he composed about 11 intermezzi, 11
Italian oratorios, 60 Italian chamber cantatas, and 33 more cantatas for
voice and orchestra. His instrumental music includes 54 concertos,
mostly for transverse flute and strings, and 24 trio sonatas. He also
composed sacred music, most of it for four-voiced choir and orchestra:
15 masses, 2 requiems, 36 single mass ordinary settings, 10 mass
offertories, 21 psalms, 18 antiphons, six hymns, and 38 motets for solo
voice and orchestra.
Jean-Baptiste Quentin (c.1700-c.1750)
- Sonata à quatre parties des 'Sonates en trio et à quatre parties
pour violons, flûtes traversières, viol et basse continue ... œuvre
VIII' (c.1737)
French violinist and composer. Almosth nothing is known about him. He
pursued his career in Paris, where he was a violinist at the Paris Opéra
in 1718, and in 1738 he played the viola in the ‘grand choeur’.
References to him indicate that he was a violinist of high reputation.
As a composer, he was prolific with numerous collections of solo and
trio sonatas, and few concertos (1724-1740). His brother, Bertin Quentin
(?-1767), was a violinist, cellist and composer.
Benedek Istvánffy (1733-1778)
- Messa (C-Dur) dedicata al patriarcha Santo Benedetto a 4tro vocal
2 vl., 2 ob., trombe, tympani, vlne. con organo conc[er]to.
Performers: Szilvia Hamvasi & Noémi Kiss (sopranos); Judit Németh
(mezzo-soprano); Péter Drucker (tenor); István Kovács & Pál Benkõ
(basses); Purcell Choir; Orfeo Orchestra; György Vashegyi (conductor)
Hungarian composer. Son of József Istvánffy (1703-1771), organist and
teacher of figural music at the Benedictine monastery of Szentmárton, he
received the first instruction in music from his father. He soon
obtaining the post of organist in the castle of Count Antal Széchényi,
in a post he held at least until 1761. It was during that period when he
got married to Katalin Kőmíves and later born his only daugther
Franziska Istvánffy (1756-1816). In 1766 he became succentor at the
cathedral in Győr and from 1773 to 1775 he was also responsible for
leading the choir of the Jesuit church there, in a posts he held until
his death. As a composer, he mainly wrote sacred works, among them, the
'Missa sanctificabis annum quinquagesimum vel Sanctae Dorotheae' (1774)
and the 'Messa dedicata al patriarcha Santo Benedetto'. His music style
was close to the composers which he was in touch during his lifespan,
among them, Gregor Joseph Werner, Franz Josef Aumann, Joseph
Krottendorfer and Christoph Sonnleithner.
