PETERSEN, David (1651-c.1737) - Sonata a 4 (1683)

David Petersen (1651-c.1737) - Sonata a 4 aus

'Speelstukken samengestelt door David Petersen, dese stukken werden gespeelt met en viool en bas continuo, waar by gevoegt kan werden een theorbe, of viool dagamba' (1683)

Performers: Manfredo Kraemer (violin); The Rare Fruits Council

Painting: Gerrit Adriaenszoon Berckheyde (1638-1698) - The town hall on the Dam, Amsterdam

Further info: David Petersen - Speelstukken

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David Petersen [Pietersen, Peterson]

(Lübeck, 1651 - Amsterdam, c.1737)

Dutch composer and violinist. He went to Lund (Sweden) with Gregor Zuber, possibly his tutor and almost certainly his mentor; both were employed as university musicians there during the early 1670s. From shortly before 1680 onwards he was active in Amsterdam; it is not clear whether he worked as a professional musician. Considering his 'Speelstukken' of 1683 and a possible connection between Johann Jacob Walther and Amsterdam (as expressed in Walther’s 'Hortulus chelicus'), it is possible that Walther taught Petersen. Petersen dedicated the 'Speelstukken' to an Amsterdam burgomaster and subsequently received a few small city appointments, which he held until his death. The 'Speelstukken' mentioned was his most important composition. The sonatas included are in a virtuoso style with many polyphonic passages, rapid scales and other figures, and the use of high positions. He also wrote numerous continuo songs to Dutch poems mostly by Abraham Alewijn, a close friend. David Petersen belongs to the generation of Dutch composers that includes Johannes Schenk, Carolus Hacquart, Servaas de Konink and Hendrik Anders, all of whom were influenced by German, French and Italian music.

GHERARDESCHI, Filippo Maria (1738-1808) - Messa in re minore

 

Filippo Maria Gherardeschi (1738-1808) Work: Messa in re minore

Performers: Coro Polifonico S.Nicola; Camerata Musicale; Stefano Barandoni (conductor)

Painting: Aloysia Fauquet (18th Century) - Filippo Maria Gherardeschi (1773)

Further info: Il Settecento Musicale Pisano

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Filippo Maria Gherardeschi [Gherardesca]

(Pistoia, 11 October 1738 - Pisa, 30 September 1808)

Italian organist and composer. He began his musical education in his home town, where his father, Giuseppe Gherardeschi, was organist at the churches of SS Trinità and Santa Maria dell’Umiltà, and his uncle, Atto Gherardeschi, was cantor in the chapel of Pistoia Cathedral. He continued his studies in Bologna with Giovanni Battista Martini from 1756 to about 1761, when he was admitted to the Accademia Filarmonica. In 1763 he was appointed as maestro di cappella in Volterra, at the same time as he functioned as organist in Pisa. There he soon attained notable fame, being invited to play the harpsichord at court, for the patrician families of Pisa, and at the town theatre of the Accademia dei Costanti. In 1770 he obtained the post of director at the Pistoia cathedral. In 1771 he resigned from the cathedral, and the post was taken up by his brother Domenico Gherardeschi (1733-1800), who was already organist there. In 1783 Pietro Leopoldo, Grand Duke of Tuscany, appointed him 'maestro di musica' to his children and director of concerts (when the court was resident in Pisa), and in 1785 appointed him organist and maestro di cappella at the Chiesa Conventuale dei Cavalieri di San Stefano at Pisa, a post he retained until his death. Despite he spent his whole life in Tuscany, he corresponded with Padre Martini until the latter’s death in 1784 (39 letters). As a composer, his music is little known, but includes seven operas, 10 sonatas, a concerto, and numerous sacred works, as well as a treatise, 'Elementi per suonare il cembalo'.

KONIGSPERGER, Marianus (1708-1769) - Concerto à Cembalo Principali

Marianus Königsperger (1708-1769) - Concerto (G-Dur) à Cembalo Principali aus

'CERTAMEN MUSICUM | COMPLECTENS | VI. | CONCERTA | COMMUNIA | & | II. PASTORITIA | AD FACILEM CUJUSVIS USUM | ACCOMMODATA. | Organo Principali | 2. Violinis & Alto Viola necessariis, | 2. Clarinis vel Cornibus & Violoncello ad libitum | Modulatore | R. F. Mariano Königsperger, | Ord. S. P. Benedicti, in Exempto | Monasterio Priflingensi Professo. | OPUS XVIII. | AUGUSTÆ-VINDELICORUM, | Sumptibus JOANNIS JACOBI LOTTERI Hæredum. MDCCLIV' (1754)

Performers: Consortium Musicum Passau; Markus Eberhardt (harpsichord)

Painting: Anoniem - Herrenporträt und Justitia vor der Ansicht von Regensburg (c.1750)

Further info: Donaubarock II

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Marianus (Johann Erhard) Königsperger

(Roding, nr Regensburg, 4 December 1708 - Prüfening, nr Regensburg, 9 October 1769)

German monastic composer and organist. The son of an instrument maker, he went to the Benedictine abbey of Prüfening as a choirboy. Although he was the son of a music instrument maker, he intended to enter the priesthood as a teacher of theology. In 1734 he entered the Benedictine monastery at Prüfening, becoming regens chori and eventually Kapellmeister. His main musical focus was on the development of suitable church music for smaller churches in Bavaria, and he partnered with the firm of Lotter in Augsburg to publish sets of works that could be performed with limited musical forces. His music thus gained tremendous popularity throughout the region. His works include a number of sacred Singspiels (now lost), 59 Masses, five Requiems, 33 sacred odes, six Stabat maters, over 30 offertories, 12 litanies, numerous Marian antiphons, several Te Deums, and other sacred music, almost all of which was published.

FIORE, Andrea Stefano (1686-1732) - Venite exultemus

Andrea Stefano Fiorè (1686-1732) - Venite exultemus

Performers: Cyrille Gerstenhaber (soprano); Roberto Balconi (1967-2025, alto); Chœur départemental de Haute-Savoie; Orféo orchestra Budapest; Bernard Spizzi (conductor)

Painting: Unknown artist (18th Century) - Andrea Stefano Fiorè

Further info: Musiques pour le Saint Suaire

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Andrea Stefano Fiorè [Fiore, Fiori, Gierosa]

(Milan, 1686 - Turin, 6 October 1732)

Italian composer. Son of Angelo Maria Fiorè (1660-1723), he was a child prodigy: in the dedication of his 'Sinfonie da chiesa' (1699) he explained that the pieces 'are the last squalls of my infancy, and the first expressions of my boyhood, I having just turned 13'. The title-page of this collection of 12 trio sonatas indicates that he was 'musico di camera' of the dedicatee, Vittorio Amedeo II, Duke of Savoy, a member of the Bolognese Accademia Filarmonica (which he joined with his father in 1697), and Milanese by birth. The royal account books in the Turin State Archive show that the duke sent Andrea Stefano with Giovanni Battista Somis, to study in Rome. An opera composed for Carnival 1707, 'La casta Penelope', was well received, and the Duke of Savoy soon thereafter appointed Fiorè his maestro di cappella on 13 June 1707. Until his death in 1732 he was in charge of the 30 to 36 musicians at the Turin court and the singers at the cathedral. 16 scores of sacred music in the cathedral chapter archive testify to his direction of the choir there. Johann Joachim Quantz, who visited Turin in June 1726 and praised Fiorè’s orchestra and its leader Somis, wrote that he regarded Fiorè one of the best Italian composers of church sonatas. Until more scores of his operas come to light, modern judgment of Fiorè’s music must be based chiefly on his published trios, a handful of solo cantatas and his surviving choral music.

ORSCHLER, Johann Georg (c.1698-1777) - Trio con Violini e Basso

Johann Georg Orschler (c.1698-1777) - Trio (f-moll). | co Violini e Basso. | 3. St.[immen]

Performers: Collegium 1700

Engraving: Ichnographica Urbis Wratislaviensis Delineatio, Praeter Alia Exactissime

Etiam Repraesentans Singula Templa et Monasteria (1752)

Further info: Sonata in f-moll

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Johann Georg (Giovanni) Orschler [Orsler, Urschler, Orschel]

(Breslau [now Wroclaw], c.1698 - Vienna, 4 October 1777)

German composer and violinist. He received his initial musical training from Michael Kirsten, the organist at the St. Mary Magdalene Church in Breslau. His early patron, the music-loving Count Zierotin of Falkenberg, appointed him as a page and funded his advanced education, enabling him to study the violin under Johann Otto Rosetter and composition in Vienna under the renowned composer and theorist Johann Joseph Fux. Orschler spent the late 1720s in Prague before serving as a violinist to the Archdeacon of Olomouc, Count von Thurn und Valsassina, around 1730. Between 1731 and 1736, he served as Hofmeister at Holešov Castle for Count Franz Anton von Rottal, a position later held by Ignaz Holzbauer, after which he worked as Kapellmeister to Prince Liechtenstein until roughly 1750. In his later years, he was a respected member of the Imperial Court Chapel (Wiener Hofmusikkapelle) in Vienna, where he spent his last years. As a composer, he left few works, among them, symphonies, divertimentos, chamber pieces as well as a Salve Regina in D and the motet 'Psallite pueri jubilate'.