Ignaz Josef Pleyel (1757-1831) - Requiem in Es (1789)
Performers: Claire Louchet (soprano); Catherine Cardin (mezzosoprano);
Hervé Lamy (tenor);
Jean-Louis Jardon (bariton); Ensemble Vocal Loré;
Ensemble Vocal Pythagore;
Orchestre Français d'Oratorio; Jean-Pierre
Loré (direction)
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Composer, music publisher and piano maker. He founded a major publishing
house and a piano factory and his compositions achieved widespread
popularity in Europe and North America. Pleyel’s baptismal certificate
in the parish office names his father Martin, a schoolteacher, and his
mother Anna Theresia. He is said to have studied with Vanhal while very
young, and in about 1772 he became Haydn’s pupil and lodger in
Eisenstadt, his annual pension being paid by Count Ladislaus Erdődy,
whose family at Pressburg was related to Haydn’s patrons, the
Esterházys. The count showed his pleasure at the progress of his protégé
by offering Haydn a carriage and two horses, for which Prince Esterházy
agreed to provide a coachman and fodder. Little is known of the daily
activities of Haydn’s several pupils. A few incidents concerning
Pleyel’s apprenticeship are recounted in Framery’s Notice sur Joseph
Haydn, in which the author claimed that ‘these various anecdotes were
furnished me by a person who spent his entire youth with him and who
guarantees their authenticity’. That person is generally identified as
Pleyel, living in Paris when the Notice appeared there in 1810. The
assumption is strengthened by the manner in which the narrative favours
Pleyel, always emphasizing the closeness of his relationship with Haydn
and the master’s affection and esteem for him. During this period
Pleyel’s puppet opera Die Fee Urgele was first performed at Eszterháza
(November 1776), and at the Vienna Nationaltheater. Haydn’s puppet opera
Das abgebrannte Haus, or Die Feuersbrunst, was also first performed in
1776 or 1777, with an overture (or at least its first two movements) now
generally accepted as being by Pleyel.
By around 1780 he traveled to Italy where an amateur composer and
diplomat, Norbert Hardrava, became his patron in Naples. By 1784 he
arrived in Strasbourg, where he was appointed as assistant to Franz
Xaver Richter, eventually becoming Richter’s successor in 1789. When the
religious centers were abolished during the Revolution, he was able to
travel to London to participate in the Professional Concerts in 1791,
but he soon returned to France, settling in Paris in 1795. At that time
he opened a publishing house, which soon came to dominate music
publishing in France. Among the innovations Pleyel introduced were
miniature scores (1802). Further travels back to Austria resulted in a
pan-European reach, and he expanded his activities to the development
and construction of keyboard instruments. He retired in 1820 to a farm
outside of Paris. As a composer, Pleyel was conscious of the need to
balance pleasing music with progressive development. He had an innate
sense of melody, often coupled with progressive harmonies and expanded
formal structures. He did not, however, fulfill the oft-quoted
reflection of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that he might become Haydn’s
successor in the world of music. His works include two operas, two
Masses, a Requiem, four Revolutionary hymns, 32 Scottish songs, 40
symphonies, nine concertos (several with interchangeable alternative
solo instruments), six sinfonia concertantes, nine
serenades/divertimentos/notturnos, 95 quartets, 17 quintets, 70 trios,
85 duos, and around 65 works for fortepiano, as well as numerous smaller
compositions. His music is known by Ben [Benton] numbers.
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