SCHNEIDER, Georg Abraham (1770-1839) - Concerto pour le Violon et Alto

Georg Abraham Schneider (1770-1839) - Concerto (D-Dur) | pour le | Violon et Alto | avec | accompagnement | de | deux Violons, Alto et Basso, deux Fluts, deux Obois | deux Cors et Fagotts, Op.19 (c.1820)

Performers: Hans Maile (violin); Stefano Passaggio (viola); RSO Berlin; Lucas Vis (conductor)

Painting: Eduard Gaertner (1801-1877) - Berlin Klosterstrasse (1830)

Further info: Concerto pour le Violon et Alto (c.1820)

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Georg Abraham Schneider

(Darmstadt, 19 April 1770 - Berlin, 19 January 1839)

German horn player, oboist and composer. He studied with Johann Wilhelm Magnold in Darmstadt, where he became a member of the court chapel in 1787. He later took courses in theory and composition with Johann Gottlieb Portmann. In 1795 he joined the Rheinsberg Court Orchestra, then settled in Berlin and became a member of the royal chapel in 1803. He founded a series of subscription concerts in 1807 and the 'Musikalische Ubungsakademie zur Bildung der Liebhaber' in 1818. He also was conductor of the Reval theater (1813-16). He was made music director of Berlin's royal theater in 1820 and then its Kapellmeister in 1825. He taught at the music school of the royal theater and at the Prussian Academy of Arts, retiring in 1838. As a composer, his style was entrusted to all the conventions of the late 18th Century. His daughter Maschinka Schneider (1815-1882) was a soprano married with the composer Franz Schubert (1808-1878). His son Louis Schneider (1805-1878) was a writer and actor, and privy councillor and tutor to Friedrich Wilhelm IV.

DURON, Sebastián (1660-1716) - Misa a cuatro coros

Sebastián Durón (1660-1716) - Misa 'a la moda francesa' a cuatro coros con violines y clarin

Performers: Laura Martínez Bοj (tiple); Brenda Sаra (tiple); Samuel Tаpia (alto); Sergio Aսnión (tenor);

Ilibеr ensemble; Cοro Tomás Luis de Victoria; Darío Tаmаyo (conductor)

Painting: Elisabetta Sirani (1638-1665) - Sainte Cécile

Further info: Sebastián Durón (1660-1716) - Cuando Muere el Sol

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Sebastián Durón Picazo

(Brihuega, bap. 19 April 1660 - Cambó, 3 August 1716)

Spanish organist and composer. He was the son of the church sacristan of Brihuega, Sebastián Durón (1626-1668), and his second wife Margarita Picazo (1634-c.1685). After studying under Andrés de Sola in Zaragoza, he served as second organist at Seville Cathedral from 1680 to 1685, where he began composing liturgical music and took minor orders. Seeking better financial compensation, he subsequently held positions as first organist at the cathedrals of Burgo de Osma (1685) and Palencia (1686-1691). On 23 September 1691 he was appointed organist at the royal chapel in Madrid, under the principal organist José de Torres. In 1702 he became royal maestro de capilla and director of the royal choir school. His professional tenure in Madrid concluded in 1706 following his exile to France for political alignment with the Archduke of Austria during the War of the Spanish Succession. As a composer, his extensive output encompasses conservative Latin liturgical works, modern motets with orchestral accompaniment, and vernacular villancicos that integrated traditional Spanish Baroque elements with contemporary theatrical techniques. His legacy is defined by this stylistic synthesis and his role in advancing the expressive capabilities of Spanish vocal and instrumental music during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The composer Diego Durón de Ortega (1653-1731) was his half-brother. 

TOMASEK, Václav Jan (1774-1850) - Symfonie D-Dur (1807)

Václav Jan Tomášek (1774-1850) - Symfonie D-Dur (1807)

Performers: Dvοřák Chamber Orchestra; Vladimir Válеk (1935-2025, conductor)

Painting: Borrosch & André, 1841 - Hradschin, Kleinseite. Altstädter Brückenthurm. Ansicht von Südost (Praga)

Further info: Vranicky - Tomasek: Symphonies

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Václav (Wenzel, Venceslav) Jan (Johann, Jean) (Křtitel) Tomášek [Tomascheck, Tomaschek]

(Skuteč, 17 April 1774 - Prague, 3 April 1850)

Bohemian composer and teacher. The thirteenth child in the family of a weaver and burgher, Jakub Tomášek, he acquired the rudiments of music (in violin and singing) under the local choirmaster in Chrudim. At the age of twelve he became a vocalist at the Minorite monastery in Jihlava, where he also studied music theory and organ. In 1790 he left for Prague, where he completed gymnasium and went on to earn a degree in law. At university he also studied mathematics, history, and aesthetics. While still at gymnasium he conscientiously studied music on his own. Obtaining both new and old books on piano and composition, he continued to work diligently at his music, so that by 1796 he was already famous in Prague as a virtuoso of the piano. In 1806, with a number of successful compositions behind him, he was taken on as a music teacher and composer by Count Georg Franz Buquoy. Tomášek was thus financially secure for the next sixteen years, and was able to concentrate on his music. The position, on the other hand, also had its disadvantages, for had he been forced to make a living as a touring virtuoso, say, he would undoubtedly have met with a number of inspirations. In 1824, he founded his own conservatory in Prague, and successfully competed in piano and composition instruction with the established Prague conservatories and organ schools. Among his important pupils were Jan Václav Hugo Voříšek, Josef Dessauer, and Alexander Dreyschock. As a composer, he wrote in all forms, from song to chamber and orchestral works, choral music, cantata, opera, and church music. He started from the Viennese Classicism, but was influenced by early Romanticism as well. This is most evident in his songs and in particular his piano compositions. He was the dominant musical figure in Prague during the first half of the 19th century. His influence was spread throughout Europe by his many students and through his many widely distributed songs and his piano music.

VOCET, Jan Nepomuk Václav (1777-1843) - Koncert pro klarinet

Jan Nepomuk Václav Vocet (1777-1843) - Koncert pro klarinet in Es-Dur

Performers: Emil Drápela (clarinet); Státní filharmonie Brno; Tomáš Hanus (conductor)

Painting: Johann Adam Klein (1792-1875) - Jahrmarkt in Berchtesgaden

Further info: Sólo pro klarinet: Emil Drápela - česká hudba 18. století

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Jan (Johann, Giovanni) Nepomuk Václav Vocet [Vozet, Wozet, Wocet, Wozetisso]

(Tetín, 14 April 1777 - České Budějovice, 28 January 1843)

Bohemian organist and composer. He emerged from a family steeped in musical tradition. In 1799 he married Veronika Hájková, with whom he had six children, in Mirotice, a city where he worked briefly as regens chori. In 1801 he was appointed as choir director at St. Nicholas Cathedral in České Budějovice in a post he held the rest of his life. He nurtured local musical talent by forming an amateur ensemble that would eventually become the city's premier musical group. This ensemble played a vital role in civic life, performing at important ceremonies, including those in the historic Good City. On 17 April 1819 he married for a second time Jana Nepomucena Laubová, with whom he had three children, and on 29 August 1837 he married for a third time Rosalia Zátková. As a composer, his huge output of over 1900 works, primarily sacred, includes twenty-four masses, numerous arias, litanies, and graduals, showcasing his mastery of liturgical music in the tradition of classical style. He also composed dance music.

BENNET, William Sterndale (1816-1875) - Symphony in g (1835)

William Sterndale Bennett (1816-1875) - Symphony (No.5) in g (1835)

Performers: Milton Keynes Chamber Orchestra; Hilary Davan Wetton (conductor)

Painting: James Webb (1825-1895) - St Paul's from the River Thames (1875)

Further info: Piano Concerto In F Minor - Symphony In G Minor

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William Sterndale Bennett [Bennet]

(Sheffield, 13 April 1816 - London, 1 February 1875)

English composer. His father, Robert Bennett (1788-1819), an organist, and his mother, Elizabeth Donn (1791-1818), died when he was a child, and he was then placed in the care of his grandfather, John Bennett (1754-1837), who was also a musician. At the age of eight he was admitted to the choir of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and at ten he became a pupil at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he studied theory with Charles Lucas and piano with William Henry Holmes, and played violin in the academy orchestra under Cipriani Potter. He later studied music theory there with William Crotch. Soon he began to compose; he was 16 years old when he was the soloist in the first performance of his Piano Concerto No.1 in Cambridge on 28 November 1832. In 1836 he made an extensive visit to Leipzig, where he became a close friend of Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann; also appeared as a pianist and conductor of his own works with the Gewandhaus Orchestra there. He continued to compose industriously, and played his Piano Concerto No.4 with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig on 17 January 1839. He visited Germany again in 1841-42. From 1843 to 1856 he gave a series of chamber music concerts in London; in 1849 he founded the Bach Society. From 1856 to 1866 he conducted the Philharmonic Society of London; concurrently he held the post of professor of music at the University of Cambridge; in 1866 he assumed the position of principal of the Royal Academy of Music. His reputation as a composer grew. He amassed honors: in 1856 he received the honorary degree of D.Mus. from the University of Cambridge, which also conferred on him the degree of M.A. in 1867; he received the degree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford in 1870; in a culmination of these honors, he was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1871. The final honor was his burial in Westminster Abbey. He ranks as the most distinguished English composer of the Romantic school.