Etienne Ozi (1754-1813)
- Cinquième Concerto pour le basson, oeuvre XI (1800)
Performers: Alеxandre Ouzοunοff (bassoon); Orchestre de Chambre De Nimеs; Gillеs Dеrviеux (conductor)
---
French bassoonist and composer. He was not (as has been suggested) a son
of the composer Pierre Iso (or Yzo), nor did he ever use the pseudonym
‘Yzo’. His parents were Marie Piala and Louis Ozy, a carder of floss
silk. Like many wind instrumentalists in France at that time, he may
have received his early musical training from a musical corps attached
to a military regiment. According to Gerber he had settled in Paris by
1777. Ledebur indicated that he studied with G.W. Ritter, the Mannheim
bassoonist, who was in Paris 1777-78. In 1779 he made a brilliant debut
at the Concert Spirituel, where he played a bassoon concerto by P.D.
Deshayes. His performance was described as: ‘free and confident; the
beautiful quality of his sounds on such an unresponsive instrument and
the perfect accuracy of his intonation have earned for him a place in
the ranks of the best artists’. During the next 12 years he appeared as a
soloist at the Concert Spirituel 36 times; on 19 occasions he performed
his own concertos and symphonies concertantes. Throughout his career he
was praised in the Parisian press for his performances and
compositions. In 1783, while in the service of the Duke of Orléans, the
first of his 32 suites d’harmonies (for two clarinets, two horns and two
bassoons) began to appear in Boyer’s catalogues. Ensembles using the
same instrumentation were also used extensively in French Masonic
lodges, where they were called colonnes d’harmonies.
Ozi held membership in three different lodges, one of which was the
‘Loge Olympique de la Parfaite Estime’, whose members participated in
the famous Concerts de la Loge Olympique. Ozi was a soloist as well as a
member of the orchestra for these concerts. From 1786 to 1788 he was
Musicien ordinaire de la Chapelle et de la Chambre du Roy. During this
time he married Marie Adelaide Du Pont, with whom he had six children.
Shortly after the Revolution, he joined the Garde Nationale Parisienne
and became a teacher in its affiliated music school, which became the
Conservatoire National de Musique in 1795. He continued his activities
in the 1790s as a soloist and orchestral musician in the concerts of the
Cirque du Palais-Royal (1790), the Théâtre Italien (1792-94), the
Théâtre Feydeau (1796) and the Théâtre de la République et des Arts
(1799-1800). He apparently had a talent for administrative activities.
Representing the musicians in the Parisian National Guard who had
established the Magasin de musique à l’usage des fêtes nationales, he
dealt with officials of the new revolutionary governments. In 1797 he
was appointed manager of this publishing house, which had become the
Imprimerie du Conservatoire. He retained that position, as well as
giving bassoon lessons at the Conservatoire, until his death. From 1798
to 1806 he was a member of the virtuoses d’élite of the Opéra orchestra
and in 1806 he became first bassoonist of Napoleon’s chapelle-musique.
Cap comentari:
Publica un comentari a l'entrada