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.
Bohemian composer and keyboardist. Following early instruction from his
father, a local cantor, he fled to Vienna to escape Prussian troops
during the War of the Austrian Succession, eventually acquiring Count
Schlick as his patron. He became a favorite pupil of Georg Christoph
Wagenseil, under whose tutelage he achieved a reputation as one of the
best keyboardists in Vienna. He was appointed as instructor to
princesses Maria Carolina and Maria Antonia (later Marie Antoinette). In
1775 he was forced to retire due to failing eyesight, though he
retained his salary. The remainder of his life was spent as a guest in
the various salons of the city, where his Lieder (most of which were
published) were popular. As a composer, his music conforms to the
conventions of the style prevalent in Vienna of the period. These
include two Masses (and a Requiem), seven hymns, numerous other smaller
sacred works, one oratorio, 79 Lieder, 47 keyboard
sonatas/divertimentos, 224 other individual works for the keyboard
(including cadenzas), 12 symphonies, 45 concertos for the keyboard,
seven piano trios, a violin sonata, and two piano quartets. His music
remains largely unexplored.
Austrian composer, organist, and pedagogue. After attending the Lutheran
Gymnasium in Oedenburg (Sopron), he continued his studies in Breslau
(Wrocław) in 1663 and subsequently spent three years at the University
of Wittenberg. He served as rector and cantor in Rust by 1667 but fled
to Regensburg in 1674 due to religious persecution, where he remained as
a music teacher until 1685. Upon returning to Oedenburg, he was
appointed music director at the Gymnasium and served as organist and
Kapellmeister until 1720. His pedagogical career included teaching at
primary schools from 1704 and providing private instruction to over 50
pupils, including the sons of Prince Paul Esterházy, until 1721. In
1689, he compiled a virginal book containing 56 pieces for his student
Johann Jacob Starck. While Wohlmuth was a central figure in the musical
life of Oedenburg, only a small portion of his compositions, primarily
sacred works, is extant.
German composer. The second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685-1750) and his first wife, Maria Barbara Bach (1684-1720), he was
baptized on 10 March 1714, with Georg Philipp Telemann as one of his
godfathers. In 1717 he moved with the family to Cöthen, where his father
had been appointed Kapellmeister. His mother died in 1720, and in
spring 1723 the family moved to Leipzig, where he began attending the
Thomasschule as a day-boy on 14 June 1723. J.S. Bach said later that one
of his reasons for accepting the post of Kantor at the Thomasschule was
that his sons’ intellectual development suggested that they would
benefit from a university education. He received his musical training
from his father, who gave him keyboard and organ lessons. From the age
of about 15 he took part in his father’s musical performances in church
and in the collegium musicum. He appears relatively seldom as a copyist,
no doubt because, as an able musician himself, he was usually excused
such duties. The one large-scale work of sacred music in Leipzig mainly
copied by him is the anonymous St Luke Passion (BWV 246), obviously
arranged by J.S. Bach to an urgent deadline for Good Friday 1730. On 1
October 1731 he matriculated at Leipzig University. Following his
godfather’s example, he studied law, although he was obviously destined
for a musical career. His first compositions were probably written about
1730. They consisted mainly of keyboard pieces and chamber music.
Deciding to become a musician, he was recommended to Crown Prince
Frederick in Rheinsburg, and upon the crown prince’s crowning as
Frederick II of Prussia, he moved to Berlin as a chamber musician, a
formal title granted in 1746. As an active member of the Berlin School,
he participated in the intimate inner circle of musicians and writers of
the period, producing a seminal treatise on keyboard playing, 'Versuch
über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen' (1752). The death of his
godfather Telemann in 1767 offered him the opportunity to seek the
appointment as city Kapellmeister in Hamburg (a post that was
temporarily occupied by Georg Michael Telemann).
From 1768 to his death, he was the leading musician in the city, whose
friendship with major literary figures such as Friedrich Gottlob
Klopstock and Johann Heinrich Voss, his pedagogical efforts at the
Johanneum, and the maintaining of his close ties to colleagues in Berlin
made him one of the most prominent figures in music of the period. Over
the course of his long career, he composed almost 900 works in all
genres save opera (and there is an indication that he may have made an
abortive attempt at one). One of the main figures in the emerging
empfindsamer Stil (Empfindsamkeit) with its emphasis upon emotion and
drama in music, he created compositions that were far ahead of his time
in terms of harmony and form. For example, the introduction to the
oratorio 'Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu' is both monophonic and
atonal, while his free fantasies move rapidly from tonal center to tonal
center using sometimes harsh dissonance, extreme changes in tempo and
dynamics, and effective musical moods, all without metrical regularity.
Ludwig van Beethoven lauded him as his spiritual father, and almost all
other composers of the period imitated his style. He published works,
such as the Klopstock’s Morgengesang, by subscription, having control
over much of his own creative output. His compositions include 370
miscellaneous works for keyboard, 69 keyboard concertos), 11 flute
concertos, 19 symphonies, two keyboard quartets, six pieces for
Harmoniemusik, 37 sonatas for various instruments, 48 trio sonatas, 30
pieces for musical clockwork, 277 songs and secular cantatas, a
Magnificat, two Psalms, 22 Passions/Passion cantatas, an oratorio, 13
large-scale choruses, an ode, 14 chorales, four Easter cantatas, 26
pieces for Hamburg celebrations, and nine cantatas. He was the most
important composer in Protestant Germany during the second half of the
18th century, and enjoyed unqualified admiration and recognition
particularly as a teacher and keyboard composer.
Italian violinist and composer. Son of the horn player Giovanni Carlo
Manfredi, he received his early education at the seminary school of San
Michele in Foro in Lucca before studying with Domenico Ferrari in Genoa
and Pietro Nardini in Livorno. He was a supernumerary violinist in the
Cappella Palatina and was appointed first violinist in 1758. He also
played in theatres, served as chief instrumentalist for religious
functions and taught. After playing in a quartet with Nardini and
Giuseppe Cambini in 1765, he formed a duo with Luigi Boccherini and
began a concert tour which took him first to Paris in 1768 then Madrid,
to the court of the Prince of the Asturias, where he was appointed first
violin of the chamber music. He returned to Italy in 1772 and was
re-admitted to the Cappella Palatina only in 1773. However, he fell ill
in 1775, and his concert appearances became much less frequent. He died
two years later. As a composer, he only left a few works, including a
set of six sonatas for violin and bass (1769), a chamber trio, and some
religious works. He was regarded as a violinist of technical and
expressive brilliance, and he retained his reputation until the middle
of the 19th century. His brothers, Pietro Luigi Manfredi (1744-?) and
Vincenzo Ferrerio Manfredi (1732-?), were a horn player and a flautist,
respectively.
German violinist and composer. Almost nothing is known about him. Born
into a musical family, he studied in Venice before joining the Würzburg
court chapel under Prince-Bishop Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim, a
position he held for the rest of his life. As a composer, his extant
output includes two symphonies, two concertos, various quartets and
trios, as well as songs and keyboard sonatas. The family’s musical
legacy was furthered by his sons, Joseph Küffner (1776-1856) and Johann
Joseph Baptist Küffner (1770-1833), and his cousin Georg Joseph Küffner
(1747-1779), who was also a violinist.
