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.
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.
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.
