Un portal on escoltar i gaudir de l'art musical dels segles XVI, XVII, XVIII i XIX. Compartir la bellesa de la música és l'objectiu d'aquest espai i fer-ho donant a conèixer obres de compositors molt o poc coneguts és el mètode.
German composer and violin virtuoso of Austrian birth. He came from a
long line of musicians who emigrated to Melk late in the 17th century
from Traunstein, Bavaria. While still a young man he was appointed
Thurnermeister (director of instrumental music) in Melk, a post which he
held from July 1751 to May 1753. He left his native town for travels as
a virtuoso and may have been employed briefly at Würzburg before
settling in Eichstätt. There he established himself as a versatile
musician in the court orchestra of Prince-Bishop Johann Anton II, using
steadily in rank from violinist (September 1753) to Konzertmeister
(March 1768) and finally to court Kapellmeister (July 1773). Although he
developed a reputation primarily as a church composer, he wrote a
number of dramatic works for Eichstätt’s theatres. His turn from Latin
school drama to Italian opera reflects the closing of the Jesuit theatre
in Eichstätt in 1773.
Italian guitarist and composer. Son of Michele Carulli, a distinguished
literator, secretary to the delegate of the Neapolitan Jurisdiction, he
was taught the rudiments of music by his cello teacher, a priest, though
around the age of 16 his interest shifted decisively to the guitar.
Around 1801 he married a French woman, Marie-Josephine Boyer, and had a
son with her. A few years later he started to compose in Milan, where he
contributed to local publications. In 1808 he settled in Paris where he
was at the centre of the phenomenon known as guitaromanie, establishing
himself as a virtuoso, composer and teacher. For years he had
practically no serious rival, except for his two fellow Italians Matteo
Carcassi and Francesco Molino. His privileged position lasted at least
until 1823, when Fernando Sor arrived in Paris. As a composer, his works
number nearly 400 items, including concertos, quartets, trios, duos,
fantasias, variations, and solos of all descriptions. In 1830 he
composed a piece of program music for guitar entitled 'Les Trois Jours',
descriptive of the days of the July 1830 revolution. He also published
the method 'L'Harmonie appliquee a la guitarre' (Paris, 1825). His son
Gustavo Carulli (1801-1876) was also a guitarist, teacher and composer
active in Paris, London and Boulogne.
German Benedictine monk, church musician, and composer primarily
associated with the St. Trudpert Abbey in the Black Forest. Born in
Endingen am Kaiserstuhl, Violand is believed to have studied under the
Italian composer Pasquale Anfossi, a collaboration that influenced his
own musical output. Throughout his ecclesiastical career, he served as a
vicar in Grunern and a pastor in Tunsel, while simultaneously holding
the influential roles of choirmaster (Chorregent) and organist at St.
Trudpert. His compositional legacy reflects the liturgical music of the
era, consisting of a significant body of religious vocal works,
including masses, offertories, and vespers.
Italian composer. Brother of Jacopo Melani (1623-1676) and Atto Melani
(1626-1714), he sang at Pistoia Cathedral (1650-60) and then served as
maestro di cappella in Orvieto and Ferrara. In 1667 he succeeded his
brother Jacopo as maestro di cappella of Pistoia Cathedral, but later
that year went to Rome to take up that position at Santa Maria Maggiore;
in 1672 he obtained the same position at San Luigi dei Francesi, which
he held until his death. In Rome he enjoyed the favourable conditions of
the Rospigliosi papacy, who paid for an opera at the 1668 carnival, and
the patronage of Ferdinando de’ Medici, his name appearing among
'celebrated professors of music protected by the Prince of Tuscany' in
1695, and of Francesco II d'Este, who in 1690 commissioned an oratorio
from him. As a composer, he wrote several operas, oratorios, motets, and
cantatas. He also collaborated with Bernardo Pasquini and Alessandro
Scarlatti.
Austrian jurist and composer. Born into the administrative aristocracy
as the son of Andreas Adolph Freiherr von Krufft (1721-1793), a Minister
of State, he completed advanced studies in philosophy and jurisprudence
at the University of Vienna before joining the Imperial State
Chancellery (Hof- und Staatskanzlei) in 1801. Rising to the rank of
State Secretary, he became a trusted associate of Prince Metternich,
accompanying him on pivotal diplomatic missions across Europe; services
for which he was knighted by both Russian and Sicilian orders. Despite
his decorated political tenure, his intellectual legacy remains rooted
in his musical output; initially trained by his mother, Maria Anna von
Haan, and later by the theorist and composer Johann Georg
Albrechtsberger, he developed a compositional style that bridged the
formal rigor of Classicism with burgeoning Romantic sensibilities. His
oeuvre, notably his technically demanding works for bassoon and horn and
his proto-Schubertian Lieder, reflects the stylistic transition of the
Beethovenian generation. Ultimately, the taxing coexistence of his
rigorous governmental duties and his nocturnal creative pursuits led to a
severe nervous collapse and auditory hypersensitivity, culminating in
his untimely death in Vienna at the age of thirty-nine.
French composer. Little is known of his early musical life other than
that he was one of the boy pages of Louis XIV’s musical establishment.
There, directly under the influence of Pierre Robert and Henry Du Mont
at an important period in the development of the grand motet, he
probably also encountered Lully, who used the chapel pages to augment
his performances. In 1680 he was referred to as an ‘ordinaire de la
musique du Roy’. Titon du Tillet mentioned an idylle written by him for
the birth of the Duke of Burgundy in 1682; this was a form to which he
would regularly return. He was unsuccessful in a contest in 1683 for a
post as sous-maître at the royal chapel, but later got himself involved
in writing motets for one of the successful competitors, Goupillet, to
pass off as his own. The deception was not revealed until 1693 when
Desmarest, complaining that he had not been paid sufficiently, exposed
Goupillet. He gravitated increasingly towards secular forms of
composition. It seems that he wanted to study in Italy but this plan was
thwarted by Lully. Some measure of court favour can be inferred from
the private performance of his first opera, Endymion, which took place
over several days in the king’s apartments, one or two acts at a time,
in February 1686, and pleased the dauphine so much that she commanded
another performance a few days later. Writing for the stage of the
Académie was barred to Desmarest at the time since Lully enjoyed a
complete monopoly; the gap left by his untimely death in March 1687
began to be filled only tentatively by the next generation. Du Tralage
cynically declared that 'Didon' (1693), one of Desmarest’ earliest
surviving tragédies en musique, succeeded with the public because it was
copied from Lully, that 'Circé' (1694), less closely modelled on Lully,
was less successful, and that 'Théagène' (1695), in which the composer
went his own way, was not successful at all.
When he began work on another opera, 'Vénus et Adonis', in 1695, he was
apparently in dispute with Collasse over who should set Duché de Vancy's
'Iphigénie en Tauride'; this was to be left unfinished by Desmarest and
completed by André Campra in 1704. Within months of the death of his
first wife in August 1696, he had fallen in love with his pupil, the
18-year-old daughter of Jacques de Saint-Gobert, director of taxation
for Senlis. The upshot was a long legal battle, at the end of which in
August 1699 the couple fled the country, Desmarest being condemned to
death in his absence. The composer began his exile in Brussels. His
friend and fellow chapel page, the composer Jean-Baptiste Matho,
obtained a letter of recommendation for him from the Duke of Burgundy to
the new King of Spain, Philip V, and he moved to the Spanish court in
1701 and married Mlle de Saint-Gobert. Six years later, again with
support from connections in France, he secured an appointment as
surintendant de la musique at the court of Lorraine, which was closely
modelled on the court of Louis XIV, his duties encompassing both
religious and secular music. Although he mounted a production of his
own, Vénus et Adonis for the court at Lunéville in 1707, Desmarest’
operatic activities focussed chiefly on revivals of operas by Lully at
both Lunéville and Nancy. During this time he continued to write
occasional pieces and motets. However favourable the musical climate in
Lorraine, he hoped to be allowed to return to France. A petition to
Louis XIV on his behalf by Matho in 1712 was rejected, but he was
finally pardoned by the regent in 1720. When Michel-Richard de Lalande
died in 1726, he sought his post of sous-maître, but was unsuccessful.
His wife died in the following year and he ended his days in Lorraine.
Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1715-1777)
- Sinfonia (D-Dur) | a | Corno Primo | Corno Secondo | Oboe Primo |
Oboe Secondo | Violino Primo | Violino Secondo | Viola | et | Basso,
MicWka 374
Performers: Camerata Bern; Thomas Fսri (conductor)
Austrian composer, keyboard player and teacher. Born into a prominent
Viennese family, he studied under Johann Joseph Fux and Mattheo Palotta
beginning around 1735. Fux was so impressed by his student that he
recommended him in 1739 for the post of court composer, which was
followed the next year by an appointment as organist for Dowager Empress
Elisabeth. By 1749 he had become hofklaviermeister with the
responsibility of instructing the royal family on the keyboard. Four
years earlier, in 1745, his opera 'Ariodante' launched a career in the
royal theatres, and by 1751 he had published a treatise 'Rudimenta
panduristae oder Geig- Fundamenta', which was a forerunner of Leopold
Mozart’s work. By 1765, however, he began to be afflicted with gout,
resulting in a diminishing of his capacity and confinement to his home
the final years of his life. Wagenseil was a much-appreciated teacher,
whose students included Frantisek Xaver Dusek, Leopold Hofmann, and
Johann Baptist Schenk. As a composer, he wrote 16 operas; three
oratorios; 17 Masses and a Requiem; over 90 other sacred works
(including canticles, Psalms, hymns, etc.); nine secular cantatas; 30
concert arias; 77 symphonies; 81 concertos for keyboard (most with
string accompaniment); other concertos for flute, violin, cello,
bassoon, and trombone; seven violin sonatas; seven divertimentos; four
flute quartets; 60 trio sonatas; and a large number of smaller works for
keyboard. Although his early Masses display a Baroque style, his
symphonies and concertos, of which he was one of the most prolific
composers of the period, were much more advanced, while his penchant for
solid, colorful orchestration, interesting harmony, and attention to
dramatic detail presage the opera reforms of Christoph Willibald von
Gluck in his opera serias. Georg Christoph Wagenseil can be considered
one of the pivotal figures in the development of the Classical style in
Vienna with a compositional career that spanned a period from Fux, his
teacher, to Haydn brothers and W.A. Mozart, for whom he served as a
precursor.
Performers: Angelika Czabán (soprano); Anita Huszár (mezzosoprano);
Károly Komódi (tenor); Gábor Kari (baritone); Sol Oriens Kórus És
Kamarazenekar; Deményi Sarolta (conductor)
Austrian (?) composer. The name Deppisch is of Bavarian origin, derived
from the Middle High German terms 'täppisch' or 'tölpatschig', meaning
unskilled or clumsy. While his arrival in Pécs may have been part of the
broader 18th-century German emigration, it is more likely he originated
from Austria, as the name remains extant in Vienna and the Styrian town
of Fürstenfeld near the Hungarian border. Valentin Deppisch arrived in
Pécs in 1769 at the age of 23 and began working as a second organist at
the cathedral. In 1772, he purchased a house in Obere Franciscaner Gasse
for 230 Rhine forints, though he moved to Caposvarer Gasse in 1774 due
to the construction of a girls' institute. On 1 January 1778, he was
promoted to first organist following the death of Joseph Fuckinger,
which increased his salary by 25 forints. His professional duties
included maintaining the parish church organ and providing accommodation
and tuition for choirboys. He was married to Magdalena Dorn, a choir
singer, with whom he had five children. Valentin Deppisch died on 14
March 1782, at the age of 36, after which his widow petitioned the
Chapter for financial aid in exchange for her continued service in the
church choir. As a composer, he received an annual payment of 75 forints
from 1779 until his death, though archival dates on his Lauda Sion and
Mass in C major indicate he was active as early as 1775. His extant
output includes 4 Masses, a Requiem, two set of Vesperae, one
Magnificat, and other sacred works as well as a symphony and one organ
work.
English composer, organist and singer. He showed an early talent for
music. He trained at Gloucester Cathedral where the cathedral account
books record his name amongst the choristers from 1717. He spent the
early part of his working life as organist of St Mary's, Shrewsbury
(1729) and Worcester Cathedral (1731). The majority of his career was
spent at the University of Oxford where he was appointed organist of
Magdalen College in 1734, and established his credentials with the
degrees of B.Mus in 1735 and D.Mus in 1749. (He was painted by John
Cornish in his doctoral robes around 1749.) In 1741 he was unanimously
elected Heather Professor of Music and organist of the University Church
of St Mary the Virgin. He presided over Oxford's concert life for the
next 30 years, and was instrumental in the building of the Holywell
Music Room in 1748, the oldest purpose-built music room in Europe. He
was one of the earliest members of the Royal Society of Musicians, and
in 1765 was elected a "privileged member" of the Noblemen and
Gentlemen's Catch Club. He died in Oxford, aged 69. His sons Philip
Hayes (1738-1797) and William Hayes (1741-1790) were also singers and
composers.
German writer, composer, and jurist. After studying law and serving as a
legal assessor in Poznan, he pursued formal musical training under the
organist Christian Podbielski. His professional career in music included
tenures as music director at the Bamberg theater and opera conductor in
Leipzig and Dresden (1813-14) before he permanently relocated to Berlin
in 1814. Utilizing the pseudonym Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, he
contributed a series of influential essays to the Allgemeine
Musikalische Zeitung, which were subsequently compiled in the collection
Phantasiestücke in Callot’s Manier (1814). Hoffmann's literary output,
characterized by the use of the fantastic, exerted a profound influence
on the Romantic school of literature and indirectly shaped the evolution
of German musical composition. As a composer, his catalog includes
several operas, the ballet Harlekin, a symphony, and various chamber
works, including a piano trio and four piano sonatas; while historically
neglected, these works are noted for their technical originality.
Furthermore, he was an accomplished artist known for his sketches and
caricatures, as well as a music critic whose analytical reviews provided
a rigorous theoretical framework for Romantic aesthetics. His
multidisciplinary contributions significantly impacted subsequent
generations of European artists, writers, and musicians.
German monarch, patron of the arts, flautist and composer. His father,
Friedrich Wilhelm I, was alarmed at his son’s early preference for
intellectual and artistic pursuits over the military and religious. In
spite of being supervised day and night and in the face of his father’s
rages and corporal punishments, Frederick managed, partly through the
complicity of his mother and his older sister Wilhelmina, to read
forbidden books, to affect French dress and manners and to play flute
duets with his servant. As a seven-year-old he was permitted to study
thoroughbass and four-part composition with the cathedral organist
Gottlieb Hayne. Wilhelmina, also musically talented, joined him in
impromptu concerts. On a visit to Dresden in 1728 the prince was
overwhelmed at hearing his first opera, Hasse’s Cleofide; there he also
first heard the playing of the flautist J.J. Quantz, who soon thereafter
began making occasional visits to Berlin to give Frederick flute
lessons. The king tolerated such amusements for a while, but by 1730 his
disapproval had hardened to prohibition. On 4 August 1730, in his 18th
year, Frederick attempted to escape to England. The result was his
imprisonment and the beheading of one of his ‘accomplices’ in his
presence. Instead of breaking, the prince became more sober and
orthodox. In 1733 he reluctantly married the bride chosen for him,
Elisabeth Christina of Brunswick. He took command of a regiment and
immersed himself so thoroughly in statecraft that he eventually won the
confidence of even his father. But he had no intention of giving up his
interests: at his residence in Ruppin he maintained a small group of
instrumentalists; the occasional lessons with Quantz continued; he
appointed C.H. Graun as general court musician in 1735; and in 1736,
when he moved to Rheinsberg, 17 musicians moved with him, including C.H.
and J.G. Graun, Franz and Johann Benda, Christoph Schaffrath and J.G.
Janitsch.
When Frederick finally acceded to the throne on 31 May 1740 he plunged
into social and political reforms, military conquest and the
rehabilitation of Prussian arts and letters, all at once. Other agents,
such as Voltaire and Algarotti, were commissioned to engage actors and
dancers in Paris and more singers from Italy, along with machinists,
costumiers and librettists. Amid this ferment, when the Emperor Charles
of Austria died on 20 October, Frederick immediately began plans which
culminated in his invasion of Silesia, the first of the many military
campaigns through which he transformed Prussia into a great modern
state. When Graun returned to Berlin with his Italian troupe of singers
in March 1741, Frederick was on the battlefield. Indeed, in the first
years of his reign Frederick enlarged both Prussia’s geographical and
cultural boundaries, with equal verve. C.P.E. Bach, having already
performed regularly at Rheinsberg, joined the court orchestra officially
in 1740 as first cembalist; Quantz, released from his position in
Dresden, was appointed in 1741. Christoph Nichelmann was retained in
1744 as second cembalist. In 1754 some 50 musicians, excluding singers
for court intermezzos and members of the opera chorus, were in
Frederick’s employ. In addition to C.H. Graun as Kapellmeister and chief
composer for the opera, and J.F. Agricola as court composer. The new
opera house on the avenue Unter den Linden, whose replica still stands
in Berlin, was opened on 7 December 1742. From that date to the outbreak
of the Seven Years War in 1756, the standard season featured two new
operas by Graun and an occasional work by Hasse, composers who were the
foremost representatives of Italian opera in Germany. In the successful
but bitter Seven Years War (1756-63) Frederick gradually became ‘der
alte Fritz’, inflexible and reactionary. Instrumental music at the court
stagnated: Nichelmann left in 1756, C.P.E. Bach in 1767. From March
1756 to December 1764 no operas were produced at the Berlin Opera House;
and from the end of the war to Frederick’s death in 1786 almost all the
opera productions there were revivals of pre-war works.
Italian composer and harpsichordist primarily active in Venice during
the transition from the late Baroque to the Galant style. Nothing is
known about his life. As a composer, he left several harpsichord
sonatas. His musical language is characterized by the melodic elegance
and rhythmic clarity typical of the Venetian school, drawing stylistic
parallels to contemporaries such as Baldassare Galuppi and Domenico
Alberti.
Franciszek Perneckher (1712-1769)
- Vesperae Dominicales (C-Dur) â 9 Stromenti | Canto Alto Tenore
Basso | 2 Violini | 2 Clarini | Con | Organo | Pro Choro Clari Montis C.
Nro. 34
Performers: Anna Krawczyk (soprano); Piotr Olech (alto); Maciej Gocman
(tenor); Mirosław Borczyński (bass);
Polish violinist and composer. While much of his personal life remains
unknown, he was documented as a violinist and Kapellmeister at the
Pauline Monastery at Jasna Góra in between 1759 and 1768. He must have
been a unique musician when compared with other band members, as at 250
złoties his remuneration ranked among the highest in the ensemble’s
history. Although early thematic catalogues, such as the one by Paweł
Podejko, originally attributed six Masses to him, modern musicological
research, including handwriting analysis and RISM database comparisons,
has confirmed that only two can be definitively attributed to
Perneckher: the Missa Nativitatis Domini in A and the Missa Nativitatis
in F. He also left, among others, two collection of Vesperae, two
sonatas, two symphonies, and Offertories. Other works formerly
associated with his name have since been reattributed to contemporary
composers like František Xaver Brixi or remain unidentified due to the
fragmentary state of the surviving sources.
Italian organist and composer. He entered the Conservatorio di S Maria
della Pietà dei Turchini in 1688 as a student of organ, where he studied
with Provenzale and Ursino; after six years he was employed as an
organist. At the beginning of the 18th century he entered the service of
the viceroy and in 1704 became the principal organist of the royal
chapel. He was appointed maestro di cappella there in 1708 but by
December of that year the post was returned to Alessandro Scarlatti and
Mancini became his deputy (in 1718 he obtained a guarantee that he would
succeed Scarlatti). In 1720 he became Director of the Conservatorio di S
Maria di Loreto, and so played an important part in the training of a
new generation of composers. Mancini succeeded Scarlatti in 1725,
remaining in the post until his death. In 1735, however, he suffered a
stroke and remained semi-paralysed until his death two years later.
German composer. The son of Christoph Graupner (1650-1721) and Maria
Hochmuth (1653-1721), he was born into a family of tailors and
clothmakers. He received his earliest musical training from the local
Kantor Michael Mylius (who early detected Graupner’s exceptional
abilities to sing at sight) and the organist Nikolaus Kuster. In 1694 he
followed Kuster to Reichenbach, remaining there under his guidance
until admitted as an alumnus of the Thomasschule in Leipzig, where he
remained from 1696 to 1704. His teachers there included Johann Schelle
and Johann Kuhnau, for whom he also worked as copyist and amanuensis.
His subsequent studies in jurisprudence at the University of Leipzig
were broken off in 1706 through a Swedish military invasion, and he
emigrated to Hamburg. In Leipzig he had already made firm and
artistically stimulating friendships with G.P. Telemann (then director
of the collegium musicum) and Gottfried Grünewald. At Hamburg in 1707 he
succeeded J.C. Schiefferdecker as harpsichordist of the Gänsemarktoper.
Between 1707 and 1709 Graupner composed five operas for this theatre
and possibly collaborated with Reinhard Keiser in the joint composition
of another three. His librettists included Hinrich Hinsch and Barthold
Feind, a jurist-satirist-aesthetician. In 1709, in response to an
invitation from Ernst Ludwig, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, he accepted
the position of vice-Kapellmeister to W.C. Briegel, whom he succeeded on
the latter’s death in 1712. In 1711 he was married to Sophie Elisabeth
Eckard, who bore him six sons and a daughter; her younger sister was
married to a Lutheran pastor, Johann Conrad Lichtenberg of Neunkirchen
in Odenwald, the author of the texts of most of Graupner’s subsequent
cantatas.
Under Graupner’s direction the Darmstadt Hofkapelle experienced a period
of vigorous expansion. At its peak (1714-18) the Kapelle employed 40
musicians, many of whom, in keeping with practices of the day, were
adept in several different instruments. In these early years of his long
incumbency, Italian operas were performed frequently and he centred his
activities on operatic compositions. Between 1712 and 1721 he also
renewed his early friendship with Telemann, then active in Frankfurt.
After 1719, however, financial pressures enforced a reduction in the
size of the Kapelle and Graupner composed no more operas, concentrating
instead on the cantata, orchestral and instrumental forms. During this
period most of the orchestral personnel were obliged to find subsidiary
employment, often in other court duties, and the relationship between
the Landgrave and his musicians deteriorated. In 1722-23 he successfully
applied (in competition with J.S. Bach) for the Thomaskirche cantorate
in Leipzig, on Telemann’s withdrawal, but when the Landgrave refused
acceptance of his resignation, granting him a significant increase in
salary and other emoluments, he decided to remain in Darmstadt. There
his reputation attracted a number of important composers, including J.F.
Fasch, as his students. Until his activities were restricted by failing
eyesight and eventually blindness in 1754, he remained extraordinarily
prolific, producing 1418 church cantatas, 24 secular cantatas, 113
symphonies, about 50 concertos, 86 overture-suites, 36 sonatas for
instrumental combinations and a substantial body of keyboard music.
German Kapellmeister, violinist and composer. His grandfather Philipp
Haindl (?-c.1681) was a choral director at Ebersberg (near Munich), and
his father Johann Sebastian Haindl (1645-1732) was a choirboy at Munich
Cathedral, a singer in the Damenstift at Hall, and the choral director
at Altötting (1683-1706, and from 1715). Haindl first studied music with
his stepfather, the tenor Wolfgang Stängelmayr, and as a choirboy at
the Altötting collegiate church. He studied the violin at Munich and
went to Innsbruck in 1748. In 1752 Duke Clemens of Bavaria appointed him
first violinist at the Munich court, a post he held until about 1778,
though he stayed much of the time at Innsbruck, where he met Leopold
Mozart. After Duke Clemens's death in 1770 he frequently performed
festival music at monasteries in the Tyrol, where most of his extant
works are held. From 1785 to 1803 he served the Bishop of Passau as a
violinist, personal servant and (according to Gerber) from 1793 as
musical director of the theatre.
Johann Daniel Pucklitz (1705-1774) - Concerto. ex D.# | auf Ostern. (Erstanden ist der heil'ge Christ) | a 2
Chör | C. A. T. B. | Due Oboen | Due Violini | Viola | C. A. T. B. | Due
Clarini e Tympani |
2 Oboes Si: pl: | Taille e Basson | a 4 | Tromboni
Rip: | e | Fondamento
German composer. Almost nothing is known about him. A lifelong resident
of the city of Danzig (now Gdańsk), he was a member of the City Council
Ensemble, which served both the municipal government and St. Mary’s
Church, and he organized public concerts on Młyńska Street. His 62
surviving works, written in the Late Baroque style, include cantatas,
oratorios, and masses. His cantata 'Freue dich, Danzig' was dedicated to
the young harpsichordist Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, a future student of
Johann Sebastian Bach and the work's likely first performer. Pucklitz's
compositions, such as the Christmas cantata 'Denen zu Zion wird ein
Erlöser', are notable for their use of the bombard, an instrument that
remained active in Danzig after it had fallen out of use in the rest of
Europe. His manuscripts are held at the Gdańsk Library of the Polish
Academy of Sciences.
German violinist, composer and conductor of French descent. He was a son
of a French chef cuisinier at the Kassel court; there he studied the
violin with the Kapellmeister Jacques Heuzé and composition with the
violinist Joseph-Karl Rodewald. In 1783 he became a violinist and viola
d'amore player in the Hofkapelle of Landgrave Frederick II. In 1785,
after the death of the landgrave, he moved to Göttingen to become first
violinist at the Academic Concerts, under the direction of Johann
Nikolaus Forkel. In 1795 he was appointed conductor at Frankfurt, two
years later he occupied the same post at the new theatre in Altona and
in 1799 he was conductor of the prince's chapel at Dessau. In April
1803, he settled in Ludwigslust, as assistant to the Kapellmeister
Eligio Celestino. When Celestino died on 24 January 1812, he assumed the
roles of orchestral conductor and Kapellmeister until his retirement in
1837. As a composer, he wrote three symphonies, several concertos, and
many chamber music as well as sacred and secular music. His music shows
familiarity with the violinistic idiom, fine feeling for orchestral
sonority and gift for lyricism.
Boehmian composer. Nothing is known about his youth. As a member of the
Minorite order he was appointed first organist to the convent church of
St James at Prague in 1734. On the title-page of his 'Offertories Cultus
Latriae seu duodecim offertoria solemnia ... Op.2' he is referred to as
regens chori there. In 1735 he was awarded the degree of magister
musicae. Although he might have been active at the Prague Minorite
convent in the same years as his elder contemporary Bohuslav Matěj
Černohorský, he was apparently not Černohorský's pupil. As a composer,
his works stand near to Černohorský and Šimon Brixi, especially the
offertories, written in a late Baroque idiom with a characteristic
mixture of concerto style and contrapuntal texture. His 'Litanies' are
primarily homophonic. He sometimes aimed at pictorial interpretation of
the text, and his orchestration is varied, with emphasis on the brass
instruments.
Austrian composer and violinist. No details of his musical training are
known, but it has been surmised that he studied with court composer
Giuseppe Bonno, the teacher of his sister Catharina Starzer. By about
1752 he was a violinist in Vienna's Burgtheater orchestra, where he
began his career as a composer of ballets. During the winter of 1758-59,
he went to Russia, where he was active at the Imperial court in St.
Petersburg; gave concerts and later was made Konzertmeister and then
deputy Kapellmeister and composer of ballet music; served as maitre de
chapelle et directeur des concerts in 1763. Returning to Vienna about
1768, he composed several notable ballets. With Florian Leopold
Gassmann, he helped in 1771 to organize the Tonkiinstler-Sozietat, for
which he wrote a number of works. In 1779 he retired as a violinist and
in 1785 gave up his duties with the society. Joseph Starzer was one of
the leading Austrian composers of his day, winning distinction not only
for his ballets but for his orchestral and chamber music; his string
quartets have been compared favorably with those of Joseph Haydn.
Italian composer and violinist. Following early training in Jesi under
Francesco Santini, he enrolled in the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù
Cristo in Naples, where his teachers were Gaetano Greco and Francesco
Feo. He began his compositional career composing oratorios, such as the
1731 'La conversion e morte di San Guglielmo'. His first opera,
'Salustia', written for Naples in 1732, was a limited success, but he
was appointed as maestro di capella to Prince Ferdinando Colonna
Stigliano. Other operatic successes followed, but the most important was
his 1733 'Il prigionero superbo' with its two-act intermezzo 'La serva
padrona'. This is considered a seminal work in the creation of the
buffa. A second appointment at the court of the Duke of Maddaloni in
1734 led to further commissions, such as the opera 'L’Olimpiade', which
premiered at the Teatro Tordinona in Rome in 1735. Although this work
was initially not a success, Pergolesi’s career was meteoric. His
health, however, deteriorated and in 1736 he was confined to the
Capuchin monastery in Pozzuoli, where he died from tuberculosis.
Although he was only 26, he completed 11 operas and oratorios, two
Masses, five cantatas (including Orfeo in 1736), two Salve Reginas, one
Magnificat, a set of Marian vespers, and his most famous work, the
Stabat mater, which was commissioned by the Confraternità dei Cavalieri
di San Luigi di Palazzo shortly before his death (although a later
composer, Giovanni Paisiello, claimed it had actually been written
around 1730). His instrumental works were few, including four violin
sonatas and possibly a violin concerto. Following his untimely death,
his reputation spread throughout Europe, and a number of works were
falsely attributed to him, such as a set of six concerti grossi (now
known to be by Uno van Wassenaer). His Stabat mater was performed widely
(in various arrangements), and his Serva padrona was considered the
epitome of the new Italian comic style, particularly in Paris, where it
served as the center of the Querelle des bouffons. His style emphasizes
diatonic melody and triadic harmony, often with good contrasting themes.
He was a leading figure in the rise of Italian comic opera in the 18th
century.
Bohemian organist and composer. Son of Šimon Brixi (1693-1735), he
received his musical education at the Piarist Gymnasium in Kosmonosy.
His teachers included Václav Kalous, a significant composer. In 1749 he
left Kosmonosy and returned to Prague, where he worked as an organist at
several churches. In 1759 he was appointed Regens chori (choir
director) and Kapellmeister of St Vitus Cathedral, thus attaining, at
age 27, the highest musical position in the city; this office he held
till his early death. He wrote some 290 church works (of the most varied
type), cantatas and oratorios, chamber compositions, and orchestral
compositions. He was a prolific composer of music for the liturgy, and
wrote more than 100 masses, vespers and motets, among others. He also
composed secular music such as oratorios and incidental music, concertos
and symphonies. Brixi died of tuberculosis in Prague in 1771, at the
age of 39.
