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 and conductor, son of Andrea Basili (1705-1777). He
initially studied music with his father, then with Giovanni Battista
Borghi and finally with Giuseppe Jannaconi at the Accademia di Santa
Cecilia in Rome. After successfully passing his examinations in 1783 he
was accepted as a member of the academy, and for the next 30 years
worked as maestro di cappella at Foligno (1786-1789), Macerata
(1789-1803) and Loreto (1809-1827); during this time his 13 operas, of
which Gl'Illinesi (Milan, 1819) was the most successful, were composed
and produced. He turned down the nomination for maestro di cappella at
Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome to become censor of the Milan Conservatory
in 1827, where he was responsible for Verdi's failure to be admitted to
the conservatory (1832). After the death of Valentino Fioravanti in
1737, he succeded him as maestro di cappella of St Pietro in Rome, a
post he held until his death. As a composer, he mainly wrote operas and
sacred music but he also composed symphonies, concertos and many chamber
music. Although now forgotten, he was well known in his day,
particularly for his church music. His son Basilio Basili (1803-c.1895)
was also a composer, active in Spain and mainly known by his Zarzuelas.
German flautist, composer, writer on music and flute maker. The son of a
blacksmith, he began his musical training in 1708 with his uncle,
Justus Quantz, a town musician in Merseburg. After Justus’s death three
months later, Quantz continued his apprenticeship with his uncle’s
successor and son-in-law, J.A. Fleischhack, whom he served as a
journeyman after the completion of the apprenticeship in 1713. During
his apprenticeship, Quantz achieved proficiency on most of the principal
string instruments, the oboe and the trumpet. Taking advantage of a
period of mourning for the reigning duke’s brother in 1714, he visited
Pirna where he came across some of Vivaldi’s violin concertos, which
were to have a decisive influence on his artistic development. In March
1716 he accepted an invitation by Gottfried Heyne to join the Dresden
town band. Quantz spent part of 1717 in Vienna studying counterpoint
with J.D. Zelenka. In 1718 he became oboist in the Polish chapel of
Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, accompanying him on
official visits to Warsaw but remaining in Dresden for substantial
periods. Because Quantz found little opportunity for advancement as an
oboist, he turned to the transverse flute in 1719, studying briefly with
P.G. Buffardin. However, he credited J.G. Pisendel, the leading
violinist and representative of the ‘mixed taste’ (French and Italian),
with the greatest influence on his development as a performer and
composer. His interest in composition, particularly in works for the
flute, continued to grow, stimulated by a wide range of Italian and
French works then performed in Dresden. In the Saxon court’s repertory,
however, influenced by opera seria and the instrumental compositions of
Corelli, Torelli and Vivaldi, the Italian musical style gradually
superseded the French.
Between 1724 and 1727 Quantz completed his training with a period of
study in Italy and shorter stays in France and England. He studied
counterpoint with Francesco Gasparini in Rome, impressed Alessandro
Scarlatti favourably and met, among many others, the future Dresden
Kapellmeister J.A. Hasse, who was then studying with Scarlatti. From
August 1726 to March 1727 he visited Paris. While in Paris he for the
first time had a second key added to his flutes to improve their
intonation. After a ten-week stay in England, where he met Handel,
Quantz returned to Dresden in July 1727. The three-year tour established
his reputation outside Germany, paving the way for the future
international dissemination of his music. In March 1728 he was promoted
to a member of the regular Dresden court chapel, where he was no longer
required to double on the oboe. With this promotion he had finally won
recognition as one of the outstanding performers in Dresden. In May 1728
Quantz, Pisendel, Buffardin and others accompanied Augustus II on a
state visit to Berlin. Quantz made a particularly deep impression on
Prince Frederick, and returned to the Prussian court twice a year to
teach him the flute. When Augustus II died in 1733, Quantz was not
allowed to transfer to Berlin. When Frederick became King of Prussia in
1740 he could offer Quantz 2000 thalers a year, exemption from duties in
the opera orchestra and an agreement to take orders only from him. In
December 1741 Quantz moved to Berlin, and for the remainder of his
career his duties centred on the supervision of the king’s private
evening concerts, for which he wrote new works and at which he alone had
the privilege of criticizing Frederick’s playing. Quantz remained at
Frederick's court at Potsdam until his death in 1773.
German pianist, conductor and composer. Son of Franz Wüllner (1798-1842)
and Josephina Winkelmann, he studied with Anton Felix Schindler and
Carl Arnold in Munster and Frankfurt am Main (1846-50). From 1850 to
1854 he was active as a concert artist. He was a teacher at the Munich
music school (1856-58), then music director in Aachen (1858-64). In 1864
he returned to Munich, where he became court music director of the
church choir. He then taught at the music school (from 1867), and also
conducted at the Court Opera. Under unfavorable conditions (against
Wagner's wishes), he prepared and conducted the first performance of Das
Rheingold (1869) and Die Walküre (1870), the success of which led to
his appointment as principal conductor there in 1871. In 1877 he became
court conductor at Dresden, and also director of the Conservatory. In
1882 Ernst von Schuch was promoted to take his place; thereafter Wullner
was one of the conductors of the Berlin Philharmonic for the 1882-1885
seasons. In 1884 he became conductor of the Gurzenich Concerts in
Cologne and director of the Cologne Conservatory, later becoming also
municipal music director, posts he held until his death. He was awarded
an honorary doctorate from the University of Munich in 1877 and he was
highly regarded as a choral composer. Although he was chiefly remembered
as a conductor, his musical achievements are many-faceted. His
compositions, most of them unpublished, show that he was a prominent
representative of the Mendelssohn tradition and Berlin academicism. His
son Ludwig Wüllner (1858-1938) was a baritone and actor.
Portuguese singer and composer. He became a member of the St. Cecilia
Brotherhood on 19 February 1761 and a signatory to a reform of its
statutes in 1765 (Vieira 1900, pp. 324-325; Ribeiro 1995, p. 17). In
1763, Policarpo da Silva was admitted as a singer of the Patriarcal,
while in 1771 he auditioned to become a member of the Capela Real da
Ajuda at a salary of 30000 réis per month (Fernandes 2009, p. 242). In
addition, he was a royal chamber musician and music teacher. A printed
collection of his Italian canzonette on texts by Metastasio, entitled La
Primavera (1787), describes him as ‘Professore di Musica All'Attuale
Servizio delia Cappella e Camera Reale di Sua Maestá Fedelissima’.
Similarly, on the title-page of a cantata dedicated to D. Carlota
Joaquina, composed on the occasion of her birthday in 1799 (P-La,
48-III-35), he calls himself ‘Musico di Cappella e coi Camara di S. M.
F. [Sua Majestade Fidelíssima]’. While not formerly employed as a
teacher at the Seminário da Patriarcal, he had many private students
(Fernandes 2009, p. 397) and performed in private chamber concerts,
including several times for William Beckford, who regarded him as a
‘famous tenor’ in 1787. A set of Solfejos for soprano (P-Ln, C.I.C. 7)
is a testament to his work as a teacher. The title-page of a Marcha e
Contredança (P-Ln, M.M. 6003) for piano with accompaniment for two
violins and flute implies he was the music master of D. José João Miguel
de Bragança e Ligne, 1st Duke of Miranda do Corvo, in 1800.
German writer and composer. His fantastic tales epitomize the Romantic
fascination with the supernatural and the expressively distorted or
exaggerated. As a critic, he placed his sharp mind at the service of a
consistent (if partial) view of Romanticism and wrote vivid and forceful
reviews of the music of his time. His work as a composer, which he
himself regarded highly, has been neglected but shows a certain verve
and originality. He was also a gifted artist, the author of some
excellent sketches and caricatures. His personality and talents lent a
distinctive, if somewhat lurid, hue to Romanticism and influenced
several generations of artists, writers and composers. He was a student
of law, and served as assessor at Poznan; also studied music with the
organist Christian Podbielski (1741-1792). He acquired considerable
proficiency in music; served as music director at the theater in
Bamberg; then conducted opera performances in Leipzig and Dresden
(1813-14). In 1814 he settled in Berlin, where he remained. He used the
pen-name of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler (subsequently made famous in
Schumann's Kreisleriana) ; his series of articles in the 'Allgemeine
Musikalische Zeitung' under that name were reprinted as Phantasiestiicke
in Callot's Manier (1814). As a writer of fantastic tales, he made a
profound impression on his period, and influenced the entire Romantic
school of literature; indirectly, he was also a formative factor in the
evolution of the German school of composition. As a composer he wrote a
number of operas, a ballet, 'Harlekin', some sacred works, a symphony, a
piano trio, 4 piano sonatas and other chamber works.
