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 composer, professor, and historian. His earliest education was in
Coburg, with local Kantor Johann Heinrich Schulthesius, following which
in 1766 he attended the Johannischule in Lüneberg. Shortly thereafter
he moved to Schwerin to become assistant conductor of the cathedral
choir. Noticed by Duke Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, he was given a
stipend to study at Göttingen University beginning in 1769. A year
later he was awarded the post of university organist, receiving his
doctorate in 1787. The following year he published his 'Allgemeine
Geschichte der Musik' followed in 1792 by the 'Allgemeine Litteratur der
Musik', both of which established him as a major
historian-bibliographer of the period. His correspondence with the sons
of Johann Sebastian Bach led him to create over a period of several
decades one of the first biographical studies, published in 1802 as
'Über Johann Sebastian Bach: Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke' as part of an
attempt to bring out Bach’s complete works. His scholarly studies often
overshadowed his work as a composer. Surviving works include 22 Lieder,
five keyboard concertos, seven trio sonatas, four large cantatas or
odes, and several sets of variations and smaller keyboard works. His
musical style tends to follow the norms of the period, with particular
influence of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. He is generally regarded as one
of the founders of modern musicology.
Portuguese composer and teacher. On 28 October 1753 he began music
studies at the Colégio dos Santos Reis in Vila Viçosa. A royal grant
enabled him to enrol on 15 January 1761 at the Conservatorio di S
Onofrio in Naples, where he studied with Cotumacci. In 1766 his setting
of Metastasio’s La Nitteti was performed in Rome. On returning to
Portugal he joined the Irmandade de S Cecília at Lisbon on 22 November
1767. In the same year he was appointed professor of counterpoint in the
Seminário da Patriarcal, where he later served as mestre (1769-73) and
as mestre de capela (1773-98) and taught such noted musicians as António
Leal Moreira, Marcos António Portugal and João José Baldi. In 1778 he
succeeded David Perez as music teacher to the royal family. Upon
retirement from the Seminário da Patriarcal he owned extensive
properties in both the Algarve and Alentejo. Carvalho was the foremost
Portuguese composer of his generation, and one of the finest in the
country’s history. His numerous elaborate church works in the style of
Jommelli display a thorough control of counterpoint and structure, with
keen, assertive melodic writing in the fast movements. He is equally
distinguished as a composer of opere serie and serenatas, of which 14 by
him were performed at the royal palaces of Ajuda and Queluz.
Italian composer and cellist. He was the third child of the musician
Leopoldo Boccherini (1712-1766) and his wife Maria Santa, née Prosperi
(?-1776). When he reached the age of 13, he was sent to Rome to study
with the renowned cellist Giovanni Battista Costanzi, musical director
at Saint Peter’s Basilica. In Rome Boccherini was influenced by the
polyphonic tradition (i.e., music with two or more interweaving melodic
parts) stemming from the works of Giovanni da Palestrina and from the
instrumental music of Arcangelo Corelli. In 1757 Boccherini and his
father were invited to play in the Imperial Theatre orchestra in Vienna.
On his second journey to Vienna (1760), Boccherini, at 17, made his
debut as a composer with his Six Trios for Two Violins and Cello, G
77–82. During his third stay in that city (1764), a public concert by
Boccherini was enthusiastically received. In August 1764 he obtained a
permanent position in Lucca with the local church and theatre
orchestras. He was in Lombardy in 1765, in the orchestra of Giovanni
Battista Sammartini. Through his association with this Milanese
composer, the 22-year-old Boccherini strengthened the new
“conversational” style of the quartet: the cello’s line was now as
important as the counterpoint (i.e., the intertwining of independent
melodic lines) of the violin and viola. Boccherini put together the
first public string quartet performance, with an extraordinary string
quartet made up of outstanding Tuscan virtuosos, including himself,
Pietro Nardini, Nardini’s pupil Filippo Manfredi, and Giuseppe Cambini.
After the death of his father (1766), Boccherini left Lucca for Paris,
which was at that time particularly hospitable to Italian musicians.
According to tradition, it was the Spanish ambassador to Paris who
persuaded Boccherini to move (probably in 1768 or early 1769) to Madrid,
where he began his long sojourn at the intrigue-ridden court of Charles
III. The king’s brother, the infante Don Luis, conferred on him a
yearly endowment of 30,000 reals as a cellist and composer. Boccherini
first began writing string quintets during this period, and he also
wrote his well-known Six String Quartets (1772). At about the same time,
he married Clementina Pelicho, with whom he had five children. In 1785,
when both Clementina and the infante died, the king granted him a
pension of 12,000 reals, after which he was free to accept the patronage
of (among others) Frederick William II of Prussia, who was an amateur
cellist and well acquainted with Boccherini’s music. Boccherini married
Joaquina Porreti in 1787. From 1787 to 1797 he may have been in Berlin,
at a post provided by Frederick William II, although this position has
not been adequately documented; it seems equally likely that he remained
in Spain. In 1798 the new king of Prussia refused to extend
Boccherini’s pension, the duchess of Osuna (another important source of
income) moved to Paris, and Boccherini’s financial distress was
aggravated by poor health. His life was further saddened by the death of
two of his daughters in 1802 and the death of his second wife and a
third daughter in 1804. Reportedly, he was by then living in near
poverty, although his financial plight may have been exaggerated.
Certainly, however, his own health suffered from his personal losses,
and he died in 1805 of a long-standing respiratory ailment.
German theoretician, keyboardist and composer. According to early
biographical information, he received his earliest training on the
harpsichord at the age of 9, probably in Dresden, which was close to his
birthplace. By 1730 he was a keyboardist in the Polish Kapelle of
August II, and when this was dissolved he moved briefly to Slawuta in
Poland (now in Ukraine) to become a musician at the court of Prince
Sangusko-Lubatowicz of Lithuania. By 1733 he unsuccessfully sought the
position of organist at the Frauenkirche in Dresden but accepted a
position with Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia at Rheinsberg. He was
made principal accompanist in 1740 upon his patron ascending the
Prussian throne, and in 1744 he accepted a lifelong position as musician
to Frederick II’s sister, Princess Anna Amalia, to whom he dedicated
his first published set of keyboard sonatas (Op.1) in 1746. Schaffrath
was a competent and prolific composer who focused almost entirely upon
instrumental works. His music includes 20 overtures or symphonies (all
for strings, but with a few woodwinds on occasion); 72 concertos for the
harpsichord; eight concertos for two harpsichords, violin, flute, and
oboe (and others for flute, oboe, bassoon, and viola da gamba that have
been lost); 30 trio sonatas, 40 sonatas for a single instrument and
keyboard; and around 40 sonatas for keyboard alone. As a member of the
Berlin School, he wrote in a mixture of galant and the older
contrapuntal styles, though his formats often use contrasting themes and
triplet figurations.
German bassoonist, violinist and composer. The son of a musician, Johann
Andreas Eichner (1694-1768), he studied under his father before
becoming, on 1 September 1762, Kapellmeister at the court of Duke
Christian IV in Zweibrücken. After his symphonies were published in
Paris, he obtained a position as violinist with the Mannheim orchestra
in 1768, winning a prestigious award in Paris in 1772 for his
compositions after tours there and in London. In 1773 he accepted a
position in Potsdam with the musical ensemble of Crown Prince Friedrich
(later Friedrich Wilhelm). He interrupted his service there only once,
to visit Arolsen and Leipzig (1775). His early death passed unnoticed by
the musical public. Despite so, he was one of the most significant and
progressive composers of the mid-century German symphony, though he
often chose to retain the three-movement format. Eichner, no doubt
consciously, sought a synthesis of the forms and idioms of his time; he
fits into none of the important 18th-century ‘schools’, but was a
solitary figure who, like so many of his contemporaries, aimed to give
structure and substance to the new genre of the ‘concert symphony’. His
music is known for its colorful and sensitive orchestration. His output
includes 30 symphonies, 18 concertos (mostly for winds), 14 quartets, a
quintet, two wind divertimentos, 12 trios for strings, seven sonatas,
six duos, and six keyboard sonatas. He married Maria Magdelena Ritter
and his daughter, Adelheid Eichner (c.1761-?), was a singer and composer
with a precocious talent.
