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.
Dutch organist and composer. Born Benedictus Buns, he entered the
Carmelite Monastery in Geldern in 1659. He took his vows in 1660 and was
ordained a priest in 1666. Sometime before 1671, he was transferred to
the Carmelite Monastery in Boxmeer, where he spent most of his life and
career. He served as sub-prior during the periods 1671-1674, 1677-1683,
and 1692-1701. From 1679 until his death, he held the position of
organist in Boxmeer, succeeding Hubertus à Sancto Joanne Vlaminck.
Beginning in 1699, he was also employed there as a private composer,
conductor, and organist for Count Oswaldo van den Bergh. He was also a
recognized organ expert and consultant, serving as a key advisor in the
construction of an organ in Boxmeer, where he was highly regarded. He is
considered one of the most important Dutch composers of the latter half
of the 17th century, known primarily for his extensive output of
religious vocal and instrumental compositions.
German town bandsman and composer. He probably attended the Gymnasium in
Bautzen, and possibly travelled widely before taking up a musical
appointment. He was made 4th Kunstgeiger in the Leipzig town band in
1664, and in 1670 he was promoted to Stadtpfeifer, the equivalent to
being named ‘Master’ of his particular craft. He was apparently
dissatisfied with his musical position and made attempts to improve it,
applying at one stage for the post of Kantor at the Thomaskirche,
Leipzig, a position his experience as a Stadtpfeifer in no way qualified
him to fill. He applied also to be a member of the Dresden Ratsmusiken
corps. Because of the plague, he left Leipzig in 1681 for Bautzen, where
he remained until his death. As a composer, he published several
collections but the works for which he is remembered are contained in
his two important collections for the five-part cornett and trombone
ensembles that were characteristic of the Ratsmusiken. The two
collections are 'Hora decima musicorum' (Leipzig, 1670) and
'Fünff-stimmigte blasende Music' (Frankfurt, 1685).
German composer and instrumentalist. Possibly of French origin, he
secured a position as a cornettist at the Bavarian electoral court in
Munich on October 9, 1669, initially earning 250 florins annually, which
rose to 400 florins by 1670. His status increased significantly when he
was granted the title of Kammerdiener in 1683, leading to an annual
salary of 600 florins. He was subsequently appointed director of the
court orchestra (1687) and electoral councillor (1690), holding both
positions until his death. His peak annual earnings of 1073 florins
(1699) were dramatically cut to 400 florins in 1700 due to the Austrian
occupation of Bavaria. His compositional output, much of it lost,
primarily consisted of ballet music, notably for operas by Agostino
Steffani and Giuseppe Antonio Bernabei.
Italian composer. Following violin study with Francesco Antonio
Vallotti, he became a pupil of Giovanni Battista Martini in 1739, being
elected to the Accademia filarmonica in 1743. In 1748 he was appointed
as musical director of the Faenza cathedral, only to resign a few years
later to concentrate on opera following the success of his 'Il re
pastore'. In 1753 he joined the Mingotti troupe as Christoph Willibald
von Gluck’s successor, traveling to northern Europe. He was subsequently
appointed as hovkapelmester at the court of Frederick V in Copenhagen
and spent the next 15 years there writing Danish Syngespile and seria.
In 1769 he left for London but was unable to make a success there,
eventually winning in 1770 a post as maestro di capella first at the
Conservatorio dell’Ospedale in Venice and in 1776 at the Milan
cathedral. In 1784 he was called to St. Petersburg by Catherine II,
traveling via Vienna, where his opera 'Fra i due litiganti' was an
enormous success. Although he was equally as successful in Russia, he
sometimes ran into political difficulties, spending large amounts of
time over the next two decades in Moscow or at the Golovin estate in
Ukraine. In 1802 he received a pension and attempted to return home to
Italy, only to pass away as he traveled through Berlin. As a composer,
his works include 75 operas; 12 large secular cantatas; four Masses and
numerous Mass movements; five Requiems; three Magnificats; three
Misereres; seven Te Deums; two complete Russian Orthodox liturgies;
seven oratorios; many motets, Psalms, and miscellaneous sacred works; 25
symphonies; three concertones; four sonatas for violin/flute; 13
keyboard sonatas; and numerous other smaller chamber works. He can be
considered one of the best known international figures of the 18th
century. His Italian operas (both seria and buffa) were performed
throughout Europe with great success, and he made significant
contributions to the development of music in both Denmark and Russia.
His Syngespil 'Soliman II' was considered the model upon which all
subsequent Danish works were to imitate. In Russia he not only composed
Russian opera, such as 'The Early Reign of Oleg' (to a text by Catherine
II), but also explored church music, writing oratorios using Old Church
Slavonic Orthodox melodies, as well as a spectacular Te Deum to
celebrate the victory at Ochakov, which uses a church carillon, a
Russian horn choir, and even cannon. He also wrote treatises on general
bass and harmony. His most important student was Luigi Cherubini, whom
he taught in Milan.
French organist, composer and theorist. He came from a prosperous
family; his father, a ‘bourgeois de Paris’, was farmer to the bishop. He
most likely received his education at the University of Paris (1661).
He was appointed organist of St. Sulpice from the early 1650s, and was
also made one of the 4 organists of the royal chapel (1678), master of
music to the queen (1681), and head of music at the Maison Royale de St.
Louis, the convent school in St. Cyr for young women of the nobility.
He married in 1668 and had one son. His will, dated 1711, gives a
detailed picture of the comfortable circumstances of his last years and
of his piety and devotion to the church. As a composer, his three
'Livres d'orgue' were the first published works to establish the
distinctive styles and forms of the French organ school of the late 17th
and early 18th centuries. As a theorist, he was mainly praised for his
'Traité de la composition de musique' (1667), widely known outside
France.
