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.
Jean-Baptiste Quentin (c.1700-c.1750)
- Sonata à quatre parties des 'Sonates en trio et à quatre parties
pour violons, flûtes traversières, viol et basse continue ... œuvre
VIII' (c.1737)
French violinist and composer. Almosth nothing is known about him. He
pursued his career in Paris, where he was a violinist at the Paris Opéra
in 1718, and in 1738 he played the viola in the ‘grand choeur’.
References to him indicate that he was a violinist of high reputation.
As a composer, he was prolific with numerous collections of solo and
trio sonatas, and few concertos (1724-1740). His brother, Bertin Quentin
(?-1767), was a violinist, cellist and composer.
Benedek Istvánffy (1733-1778)
- Messa (C-Dur) dedicata al patriarcha Santo Benedetto a 4tro vocal
2 vl., 2 ob., trombe, tympani, vlne. con organo conc[er]to.
Performers: Szilvia Hamvasi & Noémi Kiss (sopranos); Judit Németh
(mezzo-soprano); Péter Drucker (tenor); István Kovács & Pál Benkõ
(basses); Purcell Choir; Orfeo Orchestra; György Vashegyi (conductor)
Hungarian composer. Son of József Istvánffy (1703-1771), organist and
teacher of figural music at the Benedictine monastery of Szentmárton, he
received the first instruction in music from his father. He soon
obtaining the post of organist in the castle of Count Antal Széchényi,
in a post he held at least until 1761. It was during that period when he
got married to Katalin Kőmíves and later born his only daugther
Franziska Istvánffy (1756-1816). In 1766 he became succentor at the
cathedral in Győr and from 1773 to 1775 he was also responsible for
leading the choir of the Jesuit church there, in a posts he held until
his death. As a composer, he mainly wrote sacred works, among them, the
'Missa sanctificabis annum quinquagesimum vel Sanctae Dorotheae' (1774)
and the 'Messa dedicata al patriarcha Santo Benedetto'. His music style
was close to the composers which he was in touch during his lifespan,
among them, Gregor Joseph Werner, Franz Josef Aumann, Joseph
Krottendorfer and Christoph Sonnleithner.
Bohemian keyboardist and composer. He studied piano at age five and
organ at age nine, and then became a chorister at the Iglau Minorite
church and a pupil at the Jesuit Gymnasium. After further studies at the
Kuttenberg Jesuit Gymnasium, he continued his studies at Prague's New
City Gymnasium (1776-77) and at the University of Prague (1778). He
found a patron in Count Manner, with whose assistance he was able to go
to Malines in 1779, where he became active as a piano teacher. He made
his public debut there as a pianist on 16 December 1779, and then set
out on a highly successful tour, visiting Bergen op Zoom, Amsterdam, and
The Hague. He then went to Hamburg, where he gave a concert on 12 July
1782, and also met C.P.E. Bach, with whom he may have studied. In 1783
he played at the St. Petersburg court. After spending about a year in
the service of Prince Karl Radziwill as Kapellmeister in Lithuania, he
made a major tour of Germany in 1784, winning notable acclaim in Berlin,
Mainz, Kassel, and Frankfurt am Main as a piano and glass harmonica
virtuoso. In 1786 he went to Paris, where he performed at the court for
Marie Antoinette; except for a brief trip to Milan and Bohemia, he
remained in Paris until the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789
compelled him to flee to London. On 1 June 1789, he made his London
debut at the Hanover Square Rooms. He soon became successful as a
pianist and teacher in the British capital, appearing regularly at
Salomon's concerts and being an active participant in these concerts
during Joseph Haydn's two visits. In 1792 he married the singer,
pianist, and harpist Sophia Corri (1775-1847).
With his father-in-law, Domenico Corri, he became active as a music
publisher. Both men were ill suited for such a venture, however, and
Dussek's love for the good life further contributed to the failure of
the business. Dussek fled to Hamburg in 1799, leaving his father-in-law
to serve a jail sentence for debt. He apparently never saw his wife or
daughter again. He seems to have spent about two years in Hamburg, where
he was active as a performer and teacher. In 1802 he played in his
birthplace, and then in Prague. From 1804 to 1806 he served as
Kapellmeister to Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia. After the latter's
death at the battle of Saalfeld (10 October 1806), he composed a piano
sonata in his memory, the 'Elegie harmonique sur la mort du Prince Louis
Ferdinand de Prusse', Op.61. He then was briefly in the service of
Prince Isenburg. In 1807 he settled in Paris, where he served Prince
Talleyrand, gave concerts, and taught. His health began to fail due to
excessive drinking, and he was compelled to abandon his career. Jan
Ladislav Dussek was a remarkable composer for the piano, proving himself
a master craftsman capable of producing the most brilliant works for
the instrument. In his later works he presaged the development of the
Romantic school, anticipating such composers as Chopin, Mendelssohn,
Schumann, and even Brahms. As a celebrated virtuoso of the keyboard, he
shares with Muzio Clementi the honor of having introduced the 'singing
touch'. As a composer, his works include, among others, 15 concertos, 34
sonatas for the fortepiano, 68 violin sonatas, six harp sonatas
(possibly a legacy of an alleged affair with Anne-Marie Krumpholtz), six
canzonetts, three string quartets, a Mass (1807), and three harp
concertos.
English composer and organist. Nothing is known of his origins. The
earliest evidence was as a chorister at the Chapel Royal when James II
was crowned in 1685. By 1692, he had been appointed organist at
Winchester College, and on 6 June 1699, he was appointed vicar-choral at
St. Paul’s Cathedral. He moved up to organist in January 1704. On 15
May 1704, Francis Pigott, organist at the Chapel Royal, died, and
together with William Croft were sworn in as joint organists to replace
him. It appears that he ended his own life, perhaps owing to an unhappy
love affair, by shooting himself on 1 December 1707. As a composer, he
wrote 22 anthems, 10 odes, 2 settings of the Te Deum, 2 suites for wind
band, 2 suites for harpsichord, over 40 other short works for
harpsichord, and the incidental music for 8 plays. He was a leading
composer of the generation immediately junior to Purcell. He wrote the
so-called Trumpet Voluntary, his best-known piece.
French bassoonist and composer. He was a pupil of his brother Michel
Joseph Gebauer (1763-1812) and of François Devienne. In 1788 he became a
member of the band of the Swiss Guard in his native city. In 1790 he
settled in Paris as a musician in the National Guard. After playing in
theater orchestras, he joined the orchestra of the Opera about 1799,
remaining in it until 1826. He also played in the Imperial chapel
orchestra until 1830, and was a professor at the Conservatoire
(1795-1802; 1824-1838). According to some sources, he was made an
honorary professor in 1816. As a composer, his output include 13 bassoon
concertos, eight symphonies concertantes and several chamber music. He
also published a bassoon method (c.1820). His younger brothers, Pierre
Paul Gebauer (1775-?) and Etienne Jean François Gebauer (1776-1823) were
also musicians.
Spanish composer. Although his early biography remains obscure, archival
evidence from 1690 suggests he held a musical post in Lugo before being
appointed maestro de capilla at Mondoñedo Cathedral later that year. In
February 1694, following a competitive examination process
(oposiciones), he relocated to Tuy Cathedral to succeed Tomás Portillo, a
position he held until his death. His tenure in Tuy was marked by his
dual role as a priest and educator of the 'infantes del coro', though
his health began to decline significantly after 1730. Academically, he
is noted for his conservative liturgical style; his surviving output,
primarily preserved in Tuy and Mondoñedo, consists of approximately 50
works characterized by traditional 'facistol' (choirbook) polyphony and
the occasional use of cantus firmus. While his stylistic identity is
occasionally obscured by issues of attribution within the cathedral
archives, he remains a representative figure of the ecclesiastical
musical tradition in Spain during the early 18th century.
Bohemian composer and keyboardist. Following early instruction from his
father, a local cantor, he fled to Vienna to escape Prussian troops
during the War of the Austrian Succession, eventually acquiring Count
Schlick as his patron. He became a favorite pupil of Georg Christoph
Wagenseil, under whose tutelage he achieved a reputation as one of the
best keyboardists in Vienna. He was appointed as instructor to
princesses Maria Carolina and Maria Antonia (later Marie Antoinette). In
1775 he was forced to retire due to failing eyesight, though he
retained his salary. The remainder of his life was spent as a guest in
the various salons of the city, where his Lieder (most of which were
published) were popular. As a composer, his music conforms to the
conventions of the style prevalent in Vienna of the period. These
include two Masses (and a Requiem), seven hymns, numerous other smaller
sacred works, one oratorio, 79 Lieder, 47 keyboard
sonatas/divertimentos, 224 other individual works for the keyboard
(including cadenzas), 12 symphonies, 45 concertos for the keyboard,
seven piano trios, a violin sonata, and two piano quartets. His music
remains largely unexplored.
Austrian composer, organist, and pedagogue. After attending the Lutheran
Gymnasium in Oedenburg (Sopron), he continued his studies in Breslau
(Wrocław) in 1663 and subsequently spent three years at the University
of Wittenberg. He served as rector and cantor in Rust by 1667 but fled
to Regensburg in 1674 due to religious persecution, where he remained as
a music teacher until 1685. Upon returning to Oedenburg, he was
appointed music director at the Gymnasium and served as organist and
Kapellmeister until 1720. His pedagogical career included teaching at
primary schools from 1704 and providing private instruction to over 50
pupils, including the sons of Prince Paul Esterházy, until 1721. In
1689, he compiled a virginal book containing 56 pieces for his student
Johann Jacob Starck. While Wohlmuth was a central figure in the musical
life of Oedenburg, only a small portion of his compositions, primarily
sacred works, is extant.
German composer. The second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685-1750) and his first wife, Maria Barbara Bach (1684-1720), he was
baptized on 10 March 1714, with Georg Philipp Telemann as one of his
godfathers. In 1717 he moved with the family to Cöthen, where his father
had been appointed Kapellmeister. His mother died in 1720, and in
spring 1723 the family moved to Leipzig, where he began attending the
Thomasschule as a day-boy on 14 June 1723. J.S. Bach said later that one
of his reasons for accepting the post of Kantor at the Thomasschule was
that his sons’ intellectual development suggested that they would
benefit from a university education. He received his musical training
from his father, who gave him keyboard and organ lessons. From the age
of about 15 he took part in his father’s musical performances in church
and in the collegium musicum. He appears relatively seldom as a copyist,
no doubt because, as an able musician himself, he was usually excused
such duties. The one large-scale work of sacred music in Leipzig mainly
copied by him is the anonymous St Luke Passion (BWV 246), obviously
arranged by J.S. Bach to an urgent deadline for Good Friday 1730. On 1
October 1731 he matriculated at Leipzig University. Following his
godfather’s example, he studied law, although he was obviously destined
for a musical career. His first compositions were probably written about
1730. They consisted mainly of keyboard pieces and chamber music.
Deciding to become a musician, he was recommended to Crown Prince
Frederick in Rheinsburg, and upon the crown prince’s crowning as
Frederick II of Prussia, he moved to Berlin as a chamber musician, a
formal title granted in 1746. As an active member of the Berlin School,
he participated in the intimate inner circle of musicians and writers of
the period, producing a seminal treatise on keyboard playing, 'Versuch
über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen' (1752). The death of his
godfather Telemann in 1767 offered him the opportunity to seek the
appointment as city Kapellmeister in Hamburg (a post that was
temporarily occupied by Georg Michael Telemann).
From 1768 to his death, he was the leading musician in the city, whose
friendship with major literary figures such as Friedrich Gottlob
Klopstock and Johann Heinrich Voss, his pedagogical efforts at the
Johanneum, and the maintaining of his close ties to colleagues in Berlin
made him one of the most prominent figures in music of the period. Over
the course of his long career, he composed almost 900 works in all
genres save opera (and there is an indication that he may have made an
abortive attempt at one). One of the main figures in the emerging
empfindsamer Stil (Empfindsamkeit) with its emphasis upon emotion and
drama in music, he created compositions that were far ahead of his time
in terms of harmony and form. For example, the introduction to the
oratorio 'Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu' is both monophonic and
atonal, while his free fantasies move rapidly from tonal center to tonal
center using sometimes harsh dissonance, extreme changes in tempo and
dynamics, and effective musical moods, all without metrical regularity.
Ludwig van Beethoven lauded him as his spiritual father, and almost all
other composers of the period imitated his style. He published works,
such as the Klopstock’s Morgengesang, by subscription, having control
over much of his own creative output. His compositions include 370
miscellaneous works for keyboard, 69 keyboard concertos), 11 flute
concertos, 19 symphonies, two keyboard quartets, six pieces for
Harmoniemusik, 37 sonatas for various instruments, 48 trio sonatas, 30
pieces for musical clockwork, 277 songs and secular cantatas, a
Magnificat, two Psalms, 22 Passions/Passion cantatas, an oratorio, 13
large-scale choruses, an ode, 14 chorales, four Easter cantatas, 26
pieces for Hamburg celebrations, and nine cantatas. He was the most
important composer in Protestant Germany during the second half of the
18th century, and enjoyed unqualified admiration and recognition
particularly as a teacher and keyboard composer.
Italian violinist and composer. Son of the horn player Giovanni Carlo
Manfredi, he received his early education at the seminary school of San
Michele in Foro in Lucca before studying with Domenico Ferrari in Genoa
and Pietro Nardini in Livorno. He was a supernumerary violinist in the
Cappella Palatina and was appointed first violinist in 1758. He also
played in theatres, served as chief instrumentalist for religious
functions and taught. After playing in a quartet with Nardini and
Giuseppe Cambini in 1765, he formed a duo with Luigi Boccherini and
began a concert tour which took him first to Paris in 1768 then Madrid,
to the court of the Prince of the Asturias, where he was appointed first
violin of the chamber music. He returned to Italy in 1772 and was
re-admitted to the Cappella Palatina only in 1773. However, he fell ill
in 1775, and his concert appearances became much less frequent. He died
two years later. As a composer, he only left a few works, including a
set of six sonatas for violin and bass (1769), a chamber trio, and some
religious works. He was regarded as a violinist of technical and
expressive brilliance, and he retained his reputation until the middle
of the 19th century. His brothers, Pietro Luigi Manfredi (1744-?) and
Vincenzo Ferrerio Manfredi (1732-?), were a horn player and a flautist,
respectively.
German violinist and composer. Almost nothing is known about him. Born
into a musical family, he studied in Venice before joining the Würzburg
court chapel under Prince-Bishop Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim, a
position he held for the rest of his life. As a composer, his extant
output includes two symphonies, two concertos, various quartets and
trios, as well as songs and keyboard sonatas. The family’s musical
legacy was furthered by his sons, Joseph Küffner (1776-1856) and Johann
Joseph Baptist Küffner (1770-1833), and his cousin Georg Joseph Küffner
(1747-1779), who was also a violinist.
Austrian composer and oboist. Son of Josef Malzat (1723-1760), he
studied with his father. In 1774 he obtained a position as oboist in the
court orchestra in Salzburg, becoming a student of Johann Michael
Haydn. In 1778 he toured central Europe before settling in Bolzano, but
in 1788 he obtained the post of principal oboe at the court of the
Prince-Archbishop of Passau. As a composer, his extant works include
concertos for cello, oboe, two oboes, and oboe and bassoon. He also left
a sextet, a quintet, a cassation and three wind partitas. His music
reflects the style of his teacher, but it has been little studied. His
brother Johann Michael Malzat (1749-1787) was a cellist and composer.
German organist and composer, active in Sweden. The son of a
schoolmaster and church organist in Klein-Schmalkalden, he received his
first musical education with the Schmalkalden organist Johann Gottfried
Vierling. He studied in Leipzig from 1776, and then worked as a music
conductor in theatres in Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg (1778-80). In
1781, he moved to Stockholm at the invitation of the German congregation
there (Tyska kyrkan) to assume the position of organist, which he held
until 1793. The same year, he was employed at the Royal Theatre in
Stockholm as well as conductor of the orchestra for the Stenborg
theatres. In 1786 he was appointed assistant conductor of the Royal
Orchestra (hovkapellet) and from 1795 to 1807 he held the post of
hovkapellmästare. He was also an instructor at Dramatens elevskola. He
was married twice, first to the Swedish actress and singer Elisabeth
Forsselius. Since king Gustaf IV Adolf closed the Royal Opera and its
orchestra in 1807, he moved to Uppsala, where he 1808 was appointed
Director musices of the university and simultaneously was employed as
organist of the cathedral. In Uppsala he organized the studentsång
(four-voice male choir singing). This practice rapidly spread to the
other Nordic universities and is still today a coveted tradition, not
only among university students, but for the last century also in many
male choirs all over Sweden. Hæffner's passion and work for this has
rendered him the name Studentsångens fader. As a composer, he wrote
three operas, among them the well-known 'Electra', theatre music, a
mass, one symphony (1795), three Overtures (c.1798-1823), keyboard and
chamber works, songs with piano accompaniment, and was responsible for
the new Swedish chorale book in 1819. Noteworthy is his oratorio
'Försonaren på Golgatha'. His music is heavily influenced by the German
Sturm und Drang.
Italian composer and organist. Nothing is known about his early years.
He may have been appointed to his first musical position at the age of
17, at San Pietro, Guastalla, serving Ferrante III, Duke of Guastalla.
After his ordination to the priesthood he became maestro di cappella and
organist of San Andrea, Mantua, in 1641. In 1648 he was appointed the
same post at the Accademia della Morte in Ferrara and at the church of
Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo in 1653. He returned to his old job in
Ferrara in April 1657 and then was elected to the post where he would
make his reputation, maestro di cappella at San Petronio, Bologna, in
late 1657. He instituted a regular choir of 35 singers and a group of
well-paid instrumentalists for the liturgy at San Petronio, but despite
the audible improvements he made and the reputation he built, his tenure
there was marked by politically motivated controversies over the syntax
in his sacred compositions. The vestry supported him, but he was
finally forced out in June 1671. He went to Mantua to serve the Gonzaga
family as maestro di cappella di camera and the cathedral as maestro di
cappella in a post he held the rest of his life. As a composer, he
reformed the 'cappella musicale' at the church of San Petronio in
Bologna and established its reputation as a center of excellent music in
general and as the origin of the sonata for trumpet and strings in
particular with his Opus 35 (1665). He published 10 volumes of
instrumental music, including the first violin sonatas published by a
San Petronio composer, his Opus 55 (1670). There are also 10 volumes of
secular vocal music, 4 lost operas, 11 lost oratorios, and 46 volumes of
sacred music.
Italian composer, singer, violinist and music publisher. Of noble birth,
he had his debut as a composer in Venice in 1789 with 'Aci e Cibele'.
While still in Venice he wrote a double bass concerto for the young
virtuoso Domenico Dragonetti; the manuscript survives, together with
Dragonetti's additional variations on the final Rondo, which he
evidently considered too short. In 1791 he moved to London, where he
became well known as a singer. In 1794 he had a position in Bath as a
violinist and editor of the journal The Open Music Warehouse. In about
1800 he entered into partnership with the Italian music publisher
Tebaldo Monzani. Together they issued periodical collections of Italian
and English vocal music, and, as The Opera Music Warehouse, they
published Mozart's great operas, advertising that ‘any of the songs,
Duetts, Trios, Overtures … may be had Single & the whole of Mozart's
Pianoforte Compositions, published in Numbers’. Many of these were
arranged or provided with piano accompaniments by Cimador. As a
composer, his music reflects late 18th-century styles. This includes
three operas, two canzonetts, a contrabass concerto, a hornpipe for
keyboard, and numerous arrangements of the works of others.
German composer and organist. Elder brother of Johann Krieger
(1652-1735), Johann Mattheson told the following about his early musical
training in Nuremberg: ‘In his eighth year [he] began clavier lessons
with Johann Drechsel [Johannes Dretzel], a pupil of Froberger; he also
received instruction on various other instruments from the famous
Gabriel Schütz’. According to Doppelmayr ‘he progressed so rapidly in
this [clavier lessons] that already at the age of nine he amazed large
audiences with his playing; moreover, he was able to play any melody
that was sung to him and to perform well-made arias that he himself had
written’. At the age of 14 or 16 he went to Copenhagen to study organ
playing with the royal Danish organist Johannes Schröder and composition
with Kaspar Förster. Declining a position as organist at Christiania
(Oslo) he returned to Nuremberg after a stay of four or five years in
Copenhagen. He cannot have remained long in Nuremberg, for Mattheson
reported, confusingly, that he was both at Zeitz in 1670-71 and organist
and later Kapellmeister at the court at Bayreuth between 1670 and 1672.
When Margrave Christian Ernst left the Bayreuth court in 1673 to join
the war against France, he was given permission to travel to Italy
without loss of salary. He probably stayed there for about two years.
Mattheson stated that in Venice he studied composition with Johann
Rosenmüller and the clavier with G.B. Volpe, and that in Rome he studied
composition with A.M. Abbatini and the clavier and composition with
Bernardo Pasquini. Immediately after his visit to Italy he played for
the Emperor Leopold I in Vienna, in return for which, in a letter dated
10 October 1675, the emperor ennobled him and all his brothers and
sisters. He soon left Bayreuth for Frankfurt and Kassel and was offered
positions in both cities. He apparently refused them or held them for
only a short time, for on 2 November 1677 he accepted a position as
organist at the court at Halle. When Duke August died in 1680 his
successor, Johann Adolph I, moved the court to Weissenfels. He went with
him as Kapellmeister, a position he held until his death. After his
death his son Johann Gotthilf Krieger (who succeeded his father as
Kapellmeister until 1736) continued the catalogue until 1732. Johann
Philipp Krieger was one of the outstanding German composers of his time,
especially of church cantatas, of which he wrote over 2000 (nearly all
lost); under his direction the cultivation of music at the small court
at Weissenfels rose to the highest level of German court music.
German composer, professor, and historian. His earliest education was in
Coburg, with local Kantor Johann Heinrich Schulthesius, following which
in 1766 he attended the Johannischule in Lüneberg. Shortly thereafter
he moved to Schwerin to become assistant conductor of the cathedral
choir. Noticed by Duke Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, he was given a
stipend to study at Göttingen University beginning in 1769. A year
later he was awarded the post of university organist, receiving his
doctorate in 1787. The following year he published his 'Allgemeine
Geschichte der Musik' followed in 1792 by the 'Allgemeine Litteratur der
Musik', both of which established him as a major
historian-bibliographer of the period. His correspondence with the sons
of Johann Sebastian Bach led him to create over a period of several
decades one of the first biographical studies, published in 1802 as
'Über Johann Sebastian Bach: Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke' as part of an
attempt to bring out Bach’s complete works. His scholarly studies often
overshadowed his work as a composer. Surviving works include 22 Lieder,
five keyboard concertos, seven trio sonatas, four large cantatas or
odes, and several sets of variations and smaller keyboard works. His
musical style tends to follow the norms of the period, with particular
influence of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. He is generally regarded as one
of the founders of modern musicology.
Portuguese composer and teacher. On 28 October 1753 he began music
studies at the Colégio dos Santos Reis in Vila Viçosa. A royal grant
enabled him to enrol on 15 January 1761 at the Conservatorio di S
Onofrio in Naples, where he studied with Cotumacci. In 1766 his setting
of Metastasio’s La Nitteti was performed in Rome. On returning to
Portugal he joined the Irmandade de S Cecília at Lisbon on 22 November
1767. In the same year he was appointed professor of counterpoint in the
Seminário da Patriarcal, where he later served as mestre (1769-73) and
as mestre de capela (1773-98) and taught such noted musicians as António
Leal Moreira, Marcos António Portugal and João José Baldi. In 1778 he
succeeded David Perez as music teacher to the royal family. Upon
retirement from the Seminário da Patriarcal he owned extensive
properties in both the Algarve and Alentejo. Carvalho was the foremost
Portuguese composer of his generation, and one of the finest in the
country’s history. His numerous elaborate church works in the style of
Jommelli display a thorough control of counterpoint and structure, with
keen, assertive melodic writing in the fast movements. He is equally
distinguished as a composer of opere serie and serenatas, of which 14 by
him were performed at the royal palaces of Ajuda and Queluz.
Italian composer and cellist. He was the third child of the musician
Leopoldo Boccherini (1712-1766) and his wife Maria Santa, née Prosperi
(?-1776). When he reached the age of 13, he was sent to Rome to study
with the renowned cellist Giovanni Battista Costanzi, musical director
at Saint Peter’s Basilica. In Rome Boccherini was influenced by the
polyphonic tradition (i.e., music with two or more interweaving melodic
parts) stemming from the works of Giovanni da Palestrina and from the
instrumental music of Arcangelo Corelli. In 1757 Boccherini and his
father were invited to play in the Imperial Theatre orchestra in Vienna.
On his second journey to Vienna (1760), Boccherini, at 17, made his
debut as a composer with his Six Trios for Two Violins and Cello, G
77–82. During his third stay in that city (1764), a public concert by
Boccherini was enthusiastically received. In August 1764 he obtained a
permanent position in Lucca with the local church and theatre
orchestras. He was in Lombardy in 1765, in the orchestra of Giovanni
Battista Sammartini. Through his association with this Milanese
composer, the 22-year-old Boccherini strengthened the new
“conversational” style of the quartet: the cello’s line was now as
important as the counterpoint (i.e., the intertwining of independent
melodic lines) of the violin and viola. Boccherini put together the
first public string quartet performance, with an extraordinary string
quartet made up of outstanding Tuscan virtuosos, including himself,
Pietro Nardini, Nardini’s pupil Filippo Manfredi, and Giuseppe Cambini.
After the death of his father (1766), Boccherini left Lucca for Paris,
which was at that time particularly hospitable to Italian musicians.
According to tradition, it was the Spanish ambassador to Paris who
persuaded Boccherini to move (probably in 1768 or early 1769) to Madrid,
where he began his long sojourn at the intrigue-ridden court of Charles
III. The king’s brother, the infante Don Luis, conferred on him a
yearly endowment of 30,000 reals as a cellist and composer. Boccherini
first began writing string quintets during this period, and he also
wrote his well-known Six String Quartets (1772). At about the same time,
he married Clementina Pelicho, with whom he had five children. In 1785,
when both Clementina and the infante died, the king granted him a
pension of 12,000 reals, after which he was free to accept the patronage
of (among others) Frederick William II of Prussia, who was an amateur
cellist and well acquainted with Boccherini’s music. Boccherini married
Joaquina Porreti in 1787. From 1787 to 1797 he may have been in Berlin,
at a post provided by Frederick William II, although this position has
not been adequately documented; it seems equally likely that he remained
in Spain. In 1798 the new king of Prussia refused to extend
Boccherini’s pension, the duchess of Osuna (another important source of
income) moved to Paris, and Boccherini’s financial distress was
aggravated by poor health. His life was further saddened by the death of
two of his daughters in 1802 and the death of his second wife and a
third daughter in 1804. Reportedly, he was by then living in near
poverty, although his financial plight may have been exaggerated.
Certainly, however, his own health suffered from his personal losses,
and he died in 1805 of a long-standing respiratory ailment.
German theoretician, keyboardist and composer. According to early
biographical information, he received his earliest training on the
harpsichord at the age of 9, probably in Dresden, which was close to his
birthplace. By 1730 he was a keyboardist in the Polish Kapelle of
August II, and when this was dissolved he moved briefly to Slawuta in
Poland (now in Ukraine) to become a musician at the court of Prince
Sangusko-Lubatowicz of Lithuania. By 1733 he unsuccessfully sought the
position of organist at the Frauenkirche in Dresden but accepted a
position with Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia at Rheinsberg. He was
made principal accompanist in 1740 upon his patron ascending the
Prussian throne, and in 1744 he accepted a lifelong position as musician
to Frederick II’s sister, Princess Anna Amalia, to whom he dedicated
his first published set of keyboard sonatas (Op.1) in 1746. Schaffrath
was a competent and prolific composer who focused almost entirely upon
instrumental works. His music includes 20 overtures or symphonies (all
for strings, but with a few woodwinds on occasion); 72 concertos for the
harpsichord; eight concertos for two harpsichords, violin, flute, and
oboe (and others for flute, oboe, bassoon, and viola da gamba that have
been lost); 30 trio sonatas, 40 sonatas for a single instrument and
keyboard; and around 40 sonatas for keyboard alone. As a member of the
Berlin School, he wrote in a mixture of galant and the older
contrapuntal styles, though his formats often use contrasting themes and
triplet figurations.
German bassoonist, violinist and composer. The son of a musician, Johann
Andreas Eichner (1694-1768), he studied under his father before
becoming, on 1 September 1762, Kapellmeister at the court of Duke
Christian IV in Zweibrücken. After his symphonies were published in
Paris, he obtained a position as violinist with the Mannheim orchestra
in 1768, winning a prestigious award in Paris in 1772 for his
compositions after tours there and in London. In 1773 he accepted a
position in Potsdam with the musical ensemble of Crown Prince Friedrich
(later Friedrich Wilhelm). He interrupted his service there only once,
to visit Arolsen and Leipzig (1775). His early death passed unnoticed by
the musical public. Despite so, he was one of the most significant and
progressive composers of the mid-century German symphony, though he
often chose to retain the three-movement format. Eichner, no doubt
consciously, sought a synthesis of the forms and idioms of his time; he
fits into none of the important 18th-century ‘schools’, but was a
solitary figure who, like so many of his contemporaries, aimed to give
structure and substance to the new genre of the ‘concert symphony’. His
music is known for its colorful and sensitive orchestration. His output
includes 30 symphonies, 18 concertos (mostly for winds), 14 quartets, a
quintet, two wind divertimentos, 12 trios for strings, seven sonatas,
six duos, and six keyboard sonatas. He married Maria Magdelena Ritter
and his daughter, Adelheid Eichner (c.1761-?), was a singer and composer
with a precocious talent.
Italian composer, organist and singer. Born to Italian composer and
organist Giovanni Battista Caletti (1577-c.1642), he attracted the
attention of the Venetian governor of Crema, Federico Cavalli, who
brought this remarkable boy soprano to Venice and placed him in the
chapel choir at San Marco on 18 December 1616. Francesco adopted his
patron’s surname. On 18 May 1620, he was appointed organist at the
Church of San Giovanni e Paolo. He resigned on 4 November 1630.
Apparently, he no longer needed the position because he had married
Maria Sozomeno on 7 January 1630, the widow of a wealthy Venetian,
Alvise Schiavina. In 1647, they rented a palazzo on the Grand Canal. She
died in 1652, leaving no children but most of her property to him, and
Cavalli remained in the house until his death. Her landholdings and
dowry of 1,200 ducats allowed the composer to invest early in the
nascent public operas of Venice, beginning on 14 April 1638, when he
signed an agreement to produce operas at the first public opera house,
Teatro San Cassiano. The first Cavalli opera, Le Nozze di Teti e di
Peleo, opened on 24 January 1639. At San Marco, Claudio Monteverdi had
been Cavalli’s maestro di cappella since the boy’s arrival in 1616.
Whether Cavalli studied formally with the master is unknown, but it
seems clear that Cavalli assisted with the composition of some details
of Monteverdi’s final opera L’Incoronazione di Poppea (1642). Earlier,
Cavalli had competed for the post of second organist at the basilica and
was appointed on 23 January 1639. Although his salary rose from 140
ducats to the maximum of 200 by 1653, higher than the first organist,
Massimiliano Neri, and in practice, he played the role of first
organist, he was not officially appointed first organist until 11
January 1665, after Neri’s departure.
By that point, Cavalli’s fame as an opera composer had been spread
across Europe by traveling opera companies performing his works. Egisto
provided Paris with one of its first experiences of music drama in 1646,
and it may have also reached Vienna. From 1652, he attracted
commissions from opera houses in other cities: Naples, Milan, and
Florence. His 1648 opera Giasone became so popular that it remained in
the traveling repertory until the end of the 17th century. Xerse and
Erismena were also staples of Venetian opera, all characterized by
faster, more complex, and more comic plots than were typical of the
court and academic operas earlier in the century. In April or May 1660,
Cavalli, who generally traveled little, went to Paris at the invitation
of Cardinal Mazarin to compose Ercole Amante. Preparations for the
spectacle delayed production, and in the interim, Cavalli’s 1654 opera
Xerse was given in the Louvre with the title role changed from soprano
to baritone, the original three acts redistributed to five, and with new
entrées de ballet composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully. Cavalli returned to
Venice in summer 1662. On 28 November 1668, he succeeded Giovanni
Rovetta as maestro di cappella at San Marco and spent his last years
concentrating on sacred music, publishing his Vesperi in 1675. He was
buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Venice. As a composer, his more
than 30 operas dominated the Venetian musical theater from 1639 to 1669
and defined more than anyone what is meant by “Venetian opera.” He also
published collections of sacred music. Francesco Cavalli was the most
performed, and perhaps the most representative, composer of opera in the
quarter-century after Monteverdi and was a leading figure, as both
composer and performer, in Venetian musical life.
Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741)
- Serenata in C-Dur aus 'Concentus | musico-instrumen- | talis | in
septem partittas, | ut vulgo dicimus, divisus | dedicatus | Iosepho
Primo | Romanorum Regi.' (1701)
Performers: Les Passions de l'Âmе; Mеrеt Lüthі (conductor)
Austrian composer and music theorist. His exact date of birth is
unknown. According to his death certificate he was 81 when he died. His
father, Andreas Fux (c.1618-1708), married twice, and Johann Fux may
have been his eldest child. Although a peasant, Andreas Fux was a parish
official attached to the church at St Marein and came into contact with
a number of musicians, among them the Graz organist Johann Hartmann
Peintinger and the Kantor Joseph Keller, who probably influenced his
son's early musical development. In 1680 he enrolled as a ‘grammatista’
at Graz University, and in 1681 he entered the Jesuit Ferdinandeum as a
student of grammar and music. By August 1685 he had taken a position as
organist at St Moritz in Ingolstadt. Fux's movements between the
beginning of 1689, when a new organist was appointed at St Moritz, and
his marriage in 1696 remain uncertain. Although Fux's employment as
court composer in Vienna dates officially from April 1698, he himself
was ambiguous about his length of service in this capacity. In various
documents, he implied that he began to work for the imperial household
in 1695, or even 1693. Together with the recently appointed composers
Carlo Badia, Giovanni Bononcini and Marc’Antonio Ziani, Fux effectively
began to introduce elements of late Baroque style into the sacred and
secular genres cultivated at court. After the death of Leopold I in 1705
and the accession of his son Joseph I, he retained the office of court
composer. In the same year he was appointed deputy Kapellmeister at the
Stephansdom, where in 1712 he succeeded Johann Michael Zacher as first
Kapellmeister. He retained this office until the end of 1714, and during
the same period he also directed services at the Salvatorkirche. His
duties as deputy Kapellmeister at the Stephansdom centred on the music
performed before the statue of Our Lady of Pötsch, which the emperor had
had placed on the high altar of the cathedral in 1697. After the
unexpected death of Joseph I on 17 April 1711, the empress-regent
Eleonora dissolved the Hofmusikkapelle, and many of its personnel.
By October 1711 he had been appointed deputy Kapellmeister to the court.
In January 1715 Charles VI appointed him as Hofkapellmeister, a
position he held for the rest of his life. As a composer who served
three emperors, he undertook an especially taxing combination of duties.
His coronation opera, 'Costanza e Fortezza', nominally in celebration
of the Empress Elisabeth Christine's birthday but effectively written to
mark the coronation of Charles VI as King of Bohemia, represents the
peak of his public office. The publication of the 'Gradus ad Parnassum'
in 1725 has been compared in importance with the publication of Fischer
von Erlach's 'Entwurf einer Historischen Architektur' (1721). Both works
embody the concept of Habsburg style selfconsciously, and persuasively
relate their author's achievements to a coherent past. On 8 June 1731
Fux's wife died, and some seven months later the composer drew up his
will (5 January 1732). His activities at court notably decreased, with
many of his responsibilities being assigned to Antonio Caldara and
others. He had complained of serious illness at the close of the Gradus,
and by the late 1720s his rate of composition had sharply declined. His
last testimonial is dated 10 March 1740. On 13 February 1741 he
developed a ‘raging fever’ and died. He was much mourned at court. The
most outstanding of his many students were Gottlieb Muffat, Georg
Christoph Wagenseil and Jan Dismas Zelenka. According to Carl Philipp
Emanuel Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach placed him first among those
contemporary composers whom he most admired. Fux represents the
culmination of the Austro-Italian Baroque in music. His compositions
reflect the imperial and Catholic preoccupations of the Habsburg
monarchy no less than does the architecture of Fischer von Erlach or the
scenic designs of the Galli-Bibiena family. His 'Gradus ad Parnassum'
(1725) has been the most influential composition treatise in European
music from the 18th century onwards.
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.
