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. 

DANZI, Franz Ignaz (1763-1826) - Lateinische Vesper-Psalmen

Franz Ignaz Danzi (1763-1826) - Lateinische | Vesper=Psalmen | für | Sopran, Alt, Tenor und Bass

| II Violinen, Viola und Orgel | II Trompetten u. Paucken ad Lib.

Performers: Erika Rüggeberg (1940-2018, soprano); Julia Falk (alto); Albert Gassner (tenor); Carlo Schmid (bass); Chor der Herz-Jesukirche München; Convivium Musicum München; Josef Schmidhuber (1924-1990, conductor)

Painting: Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich (1712-1774) - Verkündigung an die Hirten

Further info: Johann Kaspar Aiblinger: Missa Advocata nostra

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Franz (Ignaz) Danzi

(Schwetzingen, bap. 15 June 1763 - Karlsruhe, 13 April 1826)

German composer and cellist. Son of Mannheim orchestra cellist Innocenz Danzi (c.1730-1798), he received his earliest musical education in Mannheim from members of the Kapelle, as well as Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler. At the age of 15 he was appointed to the orchestra, but a few years later he remained behind in Mannheim when the majority moved to Munich. His earliest successes as a composer of works for the stage occurred there, but in 1784 he was named his father’s successor as principal cellist in Munich. In 1791 he undertook tours throughout Germany as a conductor, including with the Guardasoni troupe. The death of Carl Theodor in 1799 had a greater impact on Danzi’s career: the new elector, Maximilian IV Joseph, was less sympathetic to German opera and imposed financial restrictions on the theatres. Further, Danzi faced opposition from rivals, including the new intendant Joseph Marius Babo and the Kapellmeister Peter Winter. When his serious German opera 'Iphigenie in Aulis' was finally given in 1807, it was poorly prepared and had only two performances; bitter and disappointed, Danzi left Munich for Stuttgart. In October 1807, the King of Württemberg offered Danzi the position of Kapellmeister at Stuttgart, where Zumsteeg had been active. There Danzi met Carl Maria von Weber and encouraged the younger composer as he completed his Singspiel 'Silvana'. Here he formed a fast friendship with Carl Maria von Weber. In 1812 he moved to Karlsruhe, where he spent the remainder of his life. An active composer, he wrote 16 operas; incidental music to 25 plays; eight Masses; 87 chamber works, among which several dozen woodwind quintets were popular throughout Europe; five symphonies; six sinfonia concertantes; concertos for the bassoon, horn, flute, and violoncello; as well as a large number of other sacred works, songs, and smaller instrumental pieces. He was also active as a librettist. His style, though conservative, is characterized by inventive use of orchestral color, particularly with respect to the wind and brass instruments.

CORRETTE, Michel (1707-1795) - Concerto per organo obligati

Michel Corrette (1707-1795) - Concerto des 'VI Concerti a sei strumenti, cimbalo o organo obligati,

tre violini, flauto, alto viola e violoncello ... opera XXVI'

Performers: Francois-Henri Houbart (organ); Orchestre Bernard Thomas; Bernard Thomas (conductor)

Drawing: Edward Francis Burney (1760-1848) - Heavenly Orchestra

Further info: Les Six Concertos Pour Orgue

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Michel Corrette [Corette]

(Rouen, 10 April 1707 - Paris, 21 January 1795)

French organist, teacher, and composer. Son of Gaspard Corrette (1671-1732), he probably received music lessons from his father. Though little is known of his early life. He was married on 8 January 1733 to Marie-Catherine Morize. They had a daughter Marie-Anne Corrette (1734-c.1822) and a son Pierre-Michel Corrette (1744-1801), who became an organist. Michel Corrette first established his reputation by becoming musical director of the Foire St Germain and the Foire St Laurent, where he arranged and composed vaudevilles and divertissements for the opéras comiques (1732-39). From 1737 until its closure in 1790 he was organist at Ste Marie within the temple of the grand prieur of France, thus serving the Chevalier d’Orléans, then the Prince de Conti (1749), and finally the Duke d’Angoulême (1776). About a year after beginning at the temple, he became organist at the Jesuit College in the rue St-Antoine, a position he retained until the Jesuits were expelled in 1762. In 1734 he was styled Grand maître des Chevaliers du Pivois, from 1750 Chevalier de l’Ordre de Christ. He was a prolific composer, producing concertos for harpsichord, organ, flute, and hurdy-gurdy, sonatas, organ works, and a large output of sacred music. He also prepared 17 methods on performing practice, 6 of which are lost.

TARTINI, Giuseppe (1692-1770) - Concertino con Flauto solo

Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) - Concertino (Fa maggiore) con Flauto solo | Violini Obligati

Performers: Ensemble Baroque Le Rondeau; Jean-Pierre Boullet (flute & conductor)

Painting: Jan Josef Horemans (1682-1752) - Company in the garden

Further info: Un Accademia a Napoli Nell' Anno 1725

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Giuseppe (Giuzeppe) Tartini

(Pirano, [now Piran, Slovenia], 8 April 1692 - Padua, 26 February 1770)

Italian composer, violinist, teacher and theorist. Son of Giovanni Antonio Tartini and Caterina Zangrando, his parents desired that he enter the church, but while a law student at the University of Padua, he married Elisabetta Premazore on 29 July 1710. Compelled to leave Padua, he took refuge for three years in the convent of San Francesco d’Assisi, where he studied the violin without a teacher. By 1714, he was a violinist in the Ancona opera and spent the next years playing at various theaters in northeastern Italy. On 16 April 1721, he was appointed 'primo violino e capo di concerto' at San Antonio of Padua. From 1723 to 1726, he was in Prague, in service to the Kinsky family, where he met Johann Joseph Fux, Antonio Caldara, and Sylvius Weiss, among other luminaries. Then he returned to Padua, started his school, and about 1730, brought out his first published volume of violin works. About 1740, he suffered a stroke that adversely affected his playing, and he devoted more and more time to music theory in his last years. In an age when composing for the church or the theater was the sure path to success, he refused to do either and embarked upon an idiosyncratic career establishing an international reputation as violinist and philosopher of music, writing five treatises contesting the ideas of Giovanni Battista Martini, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, among others, and leaving an oeuvre concentrated on the violin: about 135 solo violin concertos, about 135 violin sonatas with continuo, 30 unaccompanied sonatas, and about 40 trio sonatas. He also composed 2 flute concertos, 2 concertos for viola da gamba, 4 motets, and 20 Italian sacred songs. Most of his living was made as a freelance violinist. In the late 1720s, he founded his own school of violin playing, the first of its type, known as 'school of the nations' because it attracted students from all over Europe.

DESTOUCHES, André Cardinal (1672-1749) - Suite 'Issé' (1697)

André Cardinal Destouches (1672-1749) - Suite des 'Issé , pastorale heroique,

représentée devant Sa Majesté, à Trianon, le 17. de decembre 1697'

Performers: English Chamber Orchestra; Raymond Leppard (1927-2019, conductor)

Painting: François Boucher (1703-1770) - Arion on the Dolphin (1748)

Further info: Scylla Et Glaucus - Suite / Issé - Suite

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André Cardinal Destouches [Des Touches, Déstouches]

(Paris, bap. 6 April 1672 - Paris, 7 February 1749)

French composer. Son of Etienne Cardinal, Seigneur des Touches et de Guilleville and a wealthy Parisian merchant, did not take the patronym Destouches until his father's death in 1694. From 1681 to 1686 he was schooled by the Jesuits of the rue St-Jacques. He later went as a boy to Siam (now Thailand) with his teacher, the missionary Gui Tachard (1686). He returned to France in 1688. He served in the Royal Musketeers (1692-94), and later took lessons from Andre Campra, contributing 3 airs to André Campra's opera-ballet 'L'Europe galante' (1697). After this initiation, he produced his first independent work, 'Isse, a heroic pastorale' in 3 acts (1697); its popularity was parodied in several productions of a similar pastoral nature ('Les Amours de Vincennes' by P.F. Dominique, 1719; 'Les Oracles' by Jean-Antoine Romagnesi, 1741). Among his other operas, the following were produced in Paris: 'Amadis de Grece' (1699), 'Omphale' (1701), and 'Callirhoé' (1712). With Michel-Richard de Lalande, he wrote the ballet 'Les Elements', which was produced at the Tuileries Palace in Paris on 22 December 1721. In 1713 Louis XIV appointed him 'Inspector general' of the Academic Royale de Musique. In 1728 he became its director, retiring in 1730. For 'maintaining order and discipline' he received a 4000 livre pension. A revival of 'Omphale' in 1752 evoked Baron Grimm's famous 'Lettre sur Omphale', inaugurating the so-called 'Guerre des Bouffons' between the proponents of the French school, as exemplified by Destouches, and Italian opera buffa. André Cardinal Destouches remained active musically even in his last years. At 70, he conducted the orchestra for a masked ball given by the daughters of Louis XV, and he kept control of the queen's concerts until 1745. He died in his elegant home (today, 4 rue Saint-Roch next to the church of Saint Roch), and was buried in the crypt of the Chapel of the Virgin in that church.