Francesco Azopardi (1748-1809)
- Sinfonia in Re maggiore, No.22
Performers: Orchestral Ensemble; Josеph Vеllа (conductor)
Further info: Francesco Azopardi (1748-1809) - Messa de Morti (1792)
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Maltese composer, organist and theorist. After early studies with
Michel'Angelo Vella, he entered the Conservatorio di S Onofrio a Capuana
on 15 Oct 1763 as a convittore to study under Carlo Contumacci and the
German Joseph Doll. He left in 1767 but stayed on as maestro di cappella
in Naples and continued to study with Niccolò Piccinni, who is said to
have esteemed him greatly. In summer 1774, following an advantageous
offer from Mdina Cathedral, he returned permanently to Malta as
Cathedral organist with the right to succeed the then maestro di
cappella, Benigno Zerafa. His growing interest in pedagogy resulted in
Il musico prattico on the art of the counterpoint, published in the form
of French translations and introduced as a textbook in Paris by
A.-E.-M. Grétry: Cherubini based the 19th chapter of his treatise Cours
de contrepoint (1835) on its analysis of imitation. His students
included the composers P.P. Bugeja, Nicolò Isouard and Giuseppe Burlon
(1772-1856). Zerafa's failing health led to Azopardi's appointment in
1785 as substitute maestro, with an increased salary; he inherited the
full title in March 1804. Most of Azopardi's works, written mainly for
the cathedral, are extant. Recent revivals have disclosed a gifted
composer who fused contemporary Classical techniques with the austere
contrapuntal practices of earlier periods. This approach, which shows
Piccinni's influence, is most evident in his large-scale ‘Kyrie–Gloria’
masses. That composed in 1776, for example, for soloists, double chorus
and double orchestra, contains an eight-movement Gloria in which the
inner sections of virtuoso arias in flexible ternary form and an
eight-voice, madrigal-like ‘Qui tollis’ are framed by double-chorus
numbers, with the closing ‘Cum sancto spirito’ starting homophonically
but swelling into a majestic double fugue. The essentially symphonic
conception of a whole movement is often dramatic, without however
destroying a scrupulous concern for the music's appropriateness to
textual spirit and meaning. Azopardi's few instrumental works, though
inventive and melodious, are of less significance.
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