Franz Ignaz Beck (1734-1809) - Sinfonia a piu stromenti No.3 Op.3 (c.1762)
Performers: Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
Painting: Follower of Jan Josef Horemans (1682-1759) - A scene with a company making music in a loggia
Further info: Franz Ignaz Beck (1734-1809) - Symphonies
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German composer, conductor, violinist and organist, active in France. He
received violin lessons from his father Johann Aloys Beck (d 27 May
1742), an oboist and choir school Rektor at the Palatine court whose
name is listed in the calendars of 1723 and 1734. He also learnt the
double bass, among other instruments, and eventually came under the
tutelage of Johann Stamitz, who arrived in Mannheim in 1741. The
Palatine court, under Carl Theodor, recognized Beck’s talent and
undertook responsibility for his education. Several sources maintain
that Beck left the Palatinate at an early age to study composition with
Galuppi in Venice. According to his pupil Blanchard (1845), however,
Beck was the object of a jealous intrigue that involved him in a duel
during which his opponent was supposedly killed (many years later Beck
met his former opponent, who had only feigned death); Beck then
presumably fled and travelled in Italy, giving concerts in principal
cities. In any event, he spent several years in Venice before eloping to
Naples with Anna Oniga, the daughter of his employer. After Beck’s stay
in Italy (probably in the 1750s), he moved to Marseilles and became the
leader of a theatre orchestra. It is not certain whether he arrived in
France before about 1760, but in the late 1750s Parisian firms published
more than 20 of Beck’s symphonies in fairly rapid succession. In 1757 a
symphony by ‘Signor Beck’ was listed in two Concert Spirituel
programmes. The title-pages of his op.1 (1758) and op.3 (1762) describe
him as ‘chamber virtuoso to the Elector Palatine’ but add ‘and presently
first violin of the Concert in Marseilles’. At least seven performances
of his symphonies were given at Marseilles in 1760-61. Beck soon moved
from Marseilles to Bordeaux, where he continued his interest in the
theatre, subsequently becoming the conductor of the elegant Grand
Théâtre. By 1764, when his first child was born, he was active as a
teacher; his students included Pierre Gaveaux, Henri-Louis Blanchard,
Jean-Baptiste Feyzeau and Bochsa. Beck was appointed organist at St
Seurin, Bordeaux, on 24 October 1774 and his exceptional improvisatory
skill drew considerable admiration from the congregation. Several sets
of his keyboard pieces were printed in Paris and Dresden as well as
Bordeaux. In 1783 he travelled to Paris for the first performance of his
Stabat mater at Versailles and in 1789 the overture and incidental
music to Pandore were performed in Paris at the Théâtre de Monsieur. He
also directed concerts of the Société du Musée in Bordeaux. During the
Revolution he composed patriotic music, including a Hymne à l’être
suprême. In 1803 the new government honoured Beck by naming him
correspondent of music composition for the Institut de France.
