divendres, 17 de setembre del 2021

HOLZBAUER, Ignaz (1711-1783) - Simphonie a grande orchestre 'La Tempete'

Jean-Baptiste Pillement (1728-1808) - A Shipwreck in a Storm (1782)


Ignaz Holzbauer (1711-1783) - Simphonie a grande orchestre 'La Tempete' (1769)
Performers: Kurpfälzische Kammerorchester; Johannes Schlaefli

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Austrian composer. He contributed significantly to 18th-century musical life in Mannheim, where he was Kapellmeister at the famous electoral court for 25 years (1753-78), and in Vienna. An autobiographical sketch, written apparently in 1782 and first published in 1790, provides basic information about Holzbauer’s life but few reliable dates. He was attracted to music at an early age, but this inclination received no support from his father, a Viennese leather merchant, who wanted him to study law. Pursuing musical training nevertheless, he applied to the young members of the choir at the Stephansdom for instruction in singing, piano, violin and cello. In return, he provided them with his new compositions. He studied Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum on his own initiative and eventually arranged a meeting with Fux, who, after examining a sample exercise, declared him an innate genius and recommended a journey to Italy as a means of refining his musical knowledge. Following a short term of employment with Count Thurn-Valsassina of Laibach (Ljubljana), and a brief excursion to Venice, he was appointed Kapellmeister to Count Rottal of Holešov in Moravia. There his opera Lucio Papirio dittatore was staged in 1737; that same year he married the singer Rosalie Andreides. According to the autobiography, the couple left Holešov for Vienna a year later. Subsequently, they journeyed to Italy, where they remained for three years, travelling to Milan, Venice and other cities. In 1744 Holzbauer collaborated with Franz Hilverding in creating ballets for a Viennese performance of Hasse’s Ipermestra, and from 1746 to 1750 he was engaged in Vienna to compose ballet music for the Burgtheater; in 1746 his name was also associated with the Viennese popular theatre. In 1751 Holzbauer succeeded Brescianello as Oberkapellmeister at Stuttgart, where he and his wife became ensnared in court intrigue. Fortunately, following the successful 1753 performance of his opera Il figlio delle selve at Schwetzingen (Elector Carl Theodor’s summer residence), he was appointed ‘Kapellmeister für das Theater’ at Mannheim, where his own works dominated the stage until 1760. Several excursions – to Rome (1756), Turin for the performance of his Nitteti (1758), Paris (1758) and Milan for the production of his Alessandro nell’Indie (1759) – helped to expand his artistic horizons but failed to secure him a lasting international reputation. Early in the next decade Holzbauer evidently cultivated musical ties with Vienna: his name appeared in connection with Burgtheater orchestral concerts (1761–3), and his oratorio La Betulia liberata received several performances. In Mannheim, where he assumed duties as director of the Hofkapelle following Carlo Grua’s death in 1773, his activities had shifted from theatre to sacred music, but he did not turn his back on opera permanently: his greatest success came early in 1777 with the favourable reception of his German opera Günther von Schwarzburg. Declining to follow the electoral court to Munich, he remained at Mannheim, where his one-act opera La morte di Didone was produced in 1779. Though suffering acute hearing loss and other ailments, he managed to complete another opera, Tancredi, for the court theatre in Munich shortly before his death.

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