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 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.
Italian composer, organist and singer. Born to Italian composer and
organist Giovanni Battista Caletti (1577-c.1642), he attracted the
attention of the Venetian governor of Crema, Federico Cavalli, who
brought this remarkable boy soprano to Venice and placed him in the
chapel choir at San Marco on 18 December 1616. Francesco adopted his
patron’s surname. On 18 May 1620, he was appointed organist at the
Church of San Giovanni e Paolo. He resigned on 4 November 1630.
Apparently, he no longer needed the position because he had married
Maria Sozomeno on 7 January 1630, the widow of a wealthy Venetian,
Alvise Schiavina. In 1647, they rented a palazzo on the Grand Canal. She
died in 1652, leaving no children but most of her property to him, and
Cavalli remained in the house until his death. Her landholdings and
dowry of 1,200 ducats allowed the composer to invest early in the
nascent public operas of Venice, beginning on 14 April 1638, when he
signed an agreement to produce operas at the first public opera house,
Teatro San Cassiano. The first Cavalli opera, Le Nozze di Teti e di
Peleo, opened on 24 January 1639. At San Marco, Claudio Monteverdi had
been Cavalli’s maestro di cappella since the boy’s arrival in 1616.
Whether Cavalli studied formally with the master is unknown, but it
seems clear that Cavalli assisted with the composition of some details
of Monteverdi’s final opera L’Incoronazione di Poppea (1642). Earlier,
Cavalli had competed for the post of second organist at the basilica and
was appointed on 23 January 1639. Although his salary rose from 140
ducats to the maximum of 200 by 1653, higher than the first organist,
Massimiliano Neri, and in practice, he played the role of first
organist, he was not officially appointed first organist until 11
January 1665, after Neri’s departure.
By that point, Cavalli’s fame as an opera composer had been spread
across Europe by traveling opera companies performing his works. Egisto
provided Paris with one of its first experiences of music drama in 1646,
and it may have also reached Vienna. From 1652, he attracted
commissions from opera houses in other cities: Naples, Milan, and
Florence. His 1648 opera Giasone became so popular that it remained in
the traveling repertory until the end of the 17th century. Xerse and
Erismena were also staples of Venetian opera, all characterized by
faster, more complex, and more comic plots than were typical of the
court and academic operas earlier in the century. In April or May 1660,
Cavalli, who generally traveled little, went to Paris at the invitation
of Cardinal Mazarin to compose Ercole Amante. Preparations for the
spectacle delayed production, and in the interim, Cavalli’s 1654 opera
Xerse was given in the Louvre with the title role changed from soprano
to baritone, the original three acts redistributed to five, and with new
entrées de ballet composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully. Cavalli returned to
Venice in summer 1662. On 28 November 1668, he succeeded Giovanni
Rovetta as maestro di cappella at San Marco and spent his last years
concentrating on sacred music, publishing his Vesperi in 1675. He was
buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Venice. As a composer, his more
than 30 operas dominated the Venetian musical theater from 1639 to 1669
and defined more than anyone what is meant by “Venetian opera.” He also
published collections of sacred music. Francesco Cavalli was the most
performed, and perhaps the most representative, composer of opera in the
quarter-century after Monteverdi and was a leading figure, as both
composer and performer, in Venetian musical life.
Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741)
- Serenata in C-Dur aus 'Concentus | musico-instrumen- | talis | in
septem partittas, | ut vulgo dicimus, divisus | dedicatus | Iosepho
Primo | Romanorum Regi.' (1701)
Performers: Les Passions de l'Âmе; Mеrеt Lüthі (conductor)
Austrian composer and music theorist. His exact date of birth is
unknown. According to his death certificate he was 81 when he died. His
father, Andreas Fux (c.1618-1708), married twice, and Johann Fux may
have been his eldest child. Although a peasant, Andreas Fux was a parish
official attached to the church at St Marein and came into contact with
a number of musicians, among them the Graz organist Johann Hartmann
Peintinger and the Kantor Joseph Keller, who probably influenced his
son's early musical development. In 1680 he enrolled as a ‘grammatista’
at Graz University, and in 1681 he entered the Jesuit Ferdinandeum as a
student of grammar and music. By August 1685 he had taken a position as
organist at St Moritz in Ingolstadt. Fux's movements between the
beginning of 1689, when a new organist was appointed at St Moritz, and
his marriage in 1696 remain uncertain. Although Fux's employment as
court composer in Vienna dates officially from April 1698, he himself
was ambiguous about his length of service in this capacity. In various
documents, he implied that he began to work for the imperial household
in 1695, or even 1693. Together with the recently appointed composers
Carlo Badia, Giovanni Bononcini and Marc’Antonio Ziani, Fux effectively
began to introduce elements of late Baroque style into the sacred and
secular genres cultivated at court. After the death of Leopold I in 1705
and the accession of his son Joseph I, he retained the office of court
composer. In the same year he was appointed deputy Kapellmeister at the
Stephansdom, where in 1712 he succeeded Johann Michael Zacher as first
Kapellmeister. He retained this office until the end of 1714, and during
the same period he also directed services at the Salvatorkirche. His
duties as deputy Kapellmeister at the Stephansdom centred on the music
performed before the statue of Our Lady of Pötsch, which the emperor had
had placed on the high altar of the cathedral in 1697. After the
unexpected death of Joseph I on 17 April 1711, the empress-regent
Eleonora dissolved the Hofmusikkapelle, and many of its personnel.
By October 1711 he had been appointed deputy Kapellmeister to the court.
In January 1715 Charles VI appointed him as Hofkapellmeister, a
position he held for the rest of his life. As a composer who served
three emperors, he undertook an especially taxing combination of duties.
His coronation opera, 'Costanza e Fortezza', nominally in celebration
of the Empress Elisabeth Christine's birthday but effectively written to
mark the coronation of Charles VI as King of Bohemia, represents the
peak of his public office. The publication of the 'Gradus ad Parnassum'
in 1725 has been compared in importance with the publication of Fischer
von Erlach's 'Entwurf einer Historischen Architektur' (1721). Both works
embody the concept of Habsburg style selfconsciously, and persuasively
relate their author's achievements to a coherent past. On 8 June 1731
Fux's wife died, and some seven months later the composer drew up his
will (5 January 1732). His activities at court notably decreased, with
many of his responsibilities being assigned to Antonio Caldara and
others. He had complained of serious illness at the close of the Gradus,
and by the late 1720s his rate of composition had sharply declined. His
last testimonial is dated 10 March 1740. On 13 February 1741 he
developed a ‘raging fever’ and died. He was much mourned at court. The
most outstanding of his many students were Gottlieb Muffat, Georg
Christoph Wagenseil and Jan Dismas Zelenka. According to Carl Philipp
Emanuel Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach placed him first among those
contemporary composers whom he most admired. Fux represents the
culmination of the Austro-Italian Baroque in music. His compositions
reflect the imperial and Catholic preoccupations of the Habsburg
monarchy no less than does the architecture of Fischer von Erlach or the
scenic designs of the Galli-Bibiena family. His 'Gradus ad Parnassum'
(1725) has been the most influential composition treatise in European
music from the 18th century onwards.
German composer and violin virtuoso of Austrian birth. He came from a
long line of musicians who emigrated to Melk late in the 17th century
from Traunstein, Bavaria. While still a young man he was appointed
Thurnermeister (director of instrumental music) in Melk, a post which he
held from July 1751 to May 1753. He left his native town for travels as
a virtuoso and may have been employed briefly at Würzburg before
settling in Eichstätt. There he established himself as a versatile
musician in the court orchestra of Prince-Bishop Johann Anton II, using
steadily in rank from violinist (September 1753) to Konzertmeister
(March 1768) and finally to court Kapellmeister (July 1773). Although he
developed a reputation primarily as a church composer, he wrote a
number of dramatic works for Eichstätt’s theatres. His turn from Latin
school drama to Italian opera reflects the closing of the Jesuit theatre
in Eichstätt in 1773.
Italian guitarist and composer. Son of Michele Carulli, a distinguished
literator, secretary to the delegate of the Neapolitan Jurisdiction, he
was taught the rudiments of music by his cello teacher, a priest, though
around the age of 16 his interest shifted decisively to the guitar.
Around 1801 he married a French woman, Marie-Josephine Boyer, and had a
son with her. A few years later he started to compose in Milan, where he
contributed to local publications. In 1808 he settled in Paris where he
was at the centre of the phenomenon known as guitaromanie, establishing
himself as a virtuoso, composer and teacher. For years he had
practically no serious rival, except for his two fellow Italians Matteo
Carcassi and Francesco Molino. His privileged position lasted at least
until 1823, when Fernando Sor arrived in Paris. As a composer, his works
number nearly 400 items, including concertos, quartets, trios, duos,
fantasias, variations, and solos of all descriptions. In 1830 he
composed a piece of program music for guitar entitled 'Les Trois Jours',
descriptive of the days of the July 1830 revolution. He also published
the method 'L'Harmonie appliquee a la guitarre' (Paris, 1825). His son
Gustavo Carulli (1801-1876) was also a guitarist, teacher and composer
active in Paris, London and Boulogne.
