Antonio Caldara (c.1670-1736)
- Missa Sanctificationis Sancti Joannis Nepomuceni
Performers: Anna Penaskova (soprano); Vera Soukupova (contralto); Zdenek
Svhela (tenor); Dalibor Jedlicka (bass); Chorus of the Czech
Philharmonia Prague Symphony Orchestra; Vaclav Smetacek (conductor)
Further info: Antonio Caldara (1670-1736) - Missa Laetare
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Italian composer. The absence of birth and baptismal records leaves the
year of Caldara's birth open to debate but his death certificate, which
suggests he died ‘in his 66th year’, points to 1671. He was the son of
Giuseppe Caldara (?-c.1711) a rank-and-file violinist from whom he may
have received his earliest instruction in music. It is assumed that he
studied with Giovanni Legrenzi, maestro di cappella at S Marco from
1681, and possibly with the cello virtuoso Domenico Gabrielli. In 1693
Caldara styled himself ‘musico di violoncello’. He received a permanent
appointment to San Marco as cellist and alto singer in 1695. By that
time, he had already seen his opera L’Argene produced in 1689 and his
trio sonatas da chiesa published as Opus 1 in 1693. Two mass movements
date from 1696, and at least two oratorios were performed between 1697
and 1699, the year of publication for 12 cantatas for solo voice. In
that year also, Duke Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga of Mantua made Caldara his
maestro di cappella da chiesa e del teatro. The composer traveled with
his patron to Casale, Genoa, and Venice while composing operas for him
during the disruptions caused by the War of the Spanish Succession.
Caldara left Mantua in 1707, sojourned in Rome, where he met Arcangelo
Corelli, the Scarlattis, and George Frideric Handel, among other
luminaries, and then spent time performing operas in Barcelona before
returning to Rome in March 1709. On 1 July, he was appointed maestro di
cappella to Prince Ruspoli, whose spectacular tastes allowed Caldara’s
fluency in composition to flourish: by 1715, he had composed about 180
cantatas, the 12 motets Opus 4, and many oratorios for the Lenten
season. Caldara married Caterina Petrolli, a contralto attached to the
Ruspoli household, on 7 May 1711.
After much waiting and politicking, Caldara won the position of
vice-Kapellmeister at the imperial court in Vienna, over the opposition
of Kapellmeister Johann Joseph Fux, and began work probably in May or
June 1716. His duties included the composition of at least one opera per
year for occasional celebrations, at least one oratorio for Lent,
working with librettist Apostolo Zeno for 11 of them, and a great
variety of sacred music. In addition, he supplied music for patrons
outside Vienna. Caldara, who as a composer of sacred music was as
comfortable with the stile antico as with operatic styles, became a
founding member of the Cecilian Society, an organization founded in
Vienna in 1725 for the revival of the Roman Catholic traditions of
sacred music, which spawned influential chapters all over Europe during
the 18th and 19th centuries. In the last six months of his life, Caldara
completed two operas and a complete polyphonic vespers service. The
recorded cause of death, Gelbsucht und inner Brand (“jaundice and
fever”), may not be unrelated to sheer exhaustion. An immensely prolific
composer of remarkable range, Caldara figured prominently in the
musical life of both Rome and Vienna during the high Baroque. He
composed at least 78 operas, 44 Italian oratorios, 12 other dramatic
works, 13 madrigals, 250 Italian cantatas, 110 masses and mass
fragments, 12 motets, many other assorted sacred works, 12 trio sonatas
da camera, 12 trio sonatas da chiesa, 55 other sonatas for various
instruments and combinations, 12 sinfonie, 500 canons, and 44 lezioni
(“lessons”) for cello, his own principal instrument. Most of his vocal
music is lost, and so despite prominence in his own time, he remains an
obscure figure today. Sometimes criticized for formulaic writing,
Caldara was nevertheless exceptional among his colleagues because he
neither borrowed material from other composers nor parodied his own
works.
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