1.
1780s in archaeology
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The decade of the 1780s in archaeology involved some significant events. 1786, Antonio Bernasconi and Colonel Antonio del Rio examine the ruins of Palenque, making the first map of the site,1780, Tomb of the Scipios rediscovered in Rome. 1786, Gold thumb ring of Senicianus discovered near Calleva Atrebatum in England,1789, The Stony Stratford Hoard uncovered in England. Xagħra Stone Circle first discovered in Malta,1785, Engineer Diego Ruiz visits and publishes the first account of El Tajín. 1789, Saggio di lingua Etrusca by Luigi Lanzi,1780, The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland is formed. 1783, The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland is incorporated,1783, June 13 - Thomas Young, English Egyptologist. 1784, July 25 - Richard William Howard Vyse, English soldier,1785, November 24 - Philipp August Böckh, German classical scholar and antiquarian. 1786, December 11 - William John Bankes, English Member of Parliament, explorer,1787, March 28 - Claudius James Rich, English traveller and scholar. 1788, September 10 - Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes,1788, December 29 - Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, Danish archaeologist
2.
1784 in architecture
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The year 1784 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings. September 1 - John Sanders becomes the first architectural student of John Soane, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, at the Gardens of Orienbaum, a ride is built that features carriages that undulate over hills within grooved tracks, a predecessor of the roller coaster. Étienne-Louis Boullée proposes a cenotaph to Isaac Newton, st Andrews Church in New Town, Edinburgh, Scotland, designed by Andrew Frazer and Robert Kay, opened. In New London, Connecticut, the hall is built. Ishak Pasha Palace is built in Turkey, work starts on La Moneda Palace in Santiago, originally intended to house the Spanish mint in Colonial Chile, designed by Joaquín Toesca. Grand Prix de Rome, architecture, Auguste Cheval de Saint-Hubert
3.
Antonio Salieri
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Antonio Salieri was an Italian classical composer, conductor, and teacher. He was born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, Salieri was a pivotal figure in the development of late 18th-century opera. As a student of Florian Leopold Gassmann, and a protégé of Gluck, Salieri helped to develop and shape many of the features of operatic compositional vocabulary, and his music was a powerful influence on contemporary composers. Appointed the director of the Italian opera by the Habsburg court, during his career he also spent time writing works for opera houses in Paris, Rome, and Venice, and his dramatic works were widely performed throughout Europe during his lifetime. As the Austrian imperial Kapellmeister from 1788 to 1824, he was responsible for music at the court chapel, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, and Ludwig van Beethoven were among the most famous of his pupils. Salieris music slowly disappeared from the repertoire between 1800 and 1868 and was heard after that period until the revival of his fame in the late 20th century. This revival was due to the dramatic and highly fictionalized depiction of Salieri in Peter Shaffers play Amadeus and his music today has regained some modest popularity via recordings. He is popularly remembered as a bitter rival of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This includes rumours that Salieri murdered Mozart out of jealousy, when in reality, Salieri would recall little from his childhood in later years except passions for sugar, reading, and music. Salieri responded to the reprimand by saying the priests organ playing displeased him because it was in a theatrical style. It is possible that Antonios father and Giovanni were friends or business associates, Salieri and Gassmann arrived in Vienna on 15 June 1766. Gassmanns first act was to take Salieri to the Italian Church to consecrate his teaching and service to God, Salieris education included instruction in Latin and Italian poetry by Fr. Don Pietro Tommasi, instruction in the German language, and European literature and his music studies revolved around vocal composition, and thoroughbass. His musical theory training in harmony and counterpoint was rooted in Johann Fuxs Gradus ad Parnassum, as a result, Salieri continued to live with Gassmann even after Gassmanns marriage, an arrangement that lasted until the year of Gassmanns death and Salieris own marriage in 1774. Few of Salieris compositions have survived from this early period, in his old age Salieri hinted that these works were either purposely destroyed, or had been lost with the exception of a few works for the church. Among these sacred works there survives a Mass in C major written without a Gloria and in the antique a cappella style, a complete opera composed in 1769 La vestale has also been lost. Beginning in 1766 Gassmann introduced Salieri to the chamber music performances held during Emperor Joseph IIs evening meal. Salieri quickly impressed the Emperor, and Gassmann was instructed to bring his pupil as often as he wished and this was the beginning of a relationship between monarch and musician that would last until Josephs death in 1790
4.
Paris Opera
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The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of France. Classical ballet as we know it today arose within the Paris Opera as the Paris Opera Ballet and has remained an integral, small scale and contemporary works are also staged in the 500-seat Amphitheatre under the Opéra Bastille. The companys annual budget is in the order of 200 million euros, with this money, the company runs the two houses and supports a large permanent staff, which includes the orchestra of 170, a chorus of 110 and the corps de ballet of 150. Each year, the Opéra presents about 380 performances of opera, ballet and other concerts, to an audience of about 800,000 people. In the 2012/13 season, the Opéra presented 18 opera titles,13 ballets,5 symphonic concerts, the companys training bodies are also active, with 7 concerts from the Atelier Lyrique and 4 programmes from the École de Danse. The poet Pierre Perrin began thinking and writing about the possibility of French opera in 1655 and he believed that the prevailing opinion of the time that the French language was fundamentally unmusical was completely incorrect. Seventeenth-century France offered Perrin essentially two types of organization for realizing his vision, an academy or a public theater. On 28 June 1669, Louis XIV signed the Privilège accordé au Sieur Perrin pour létablissement dune Académie dOpéra en musique and he was free to select business partners of his choice and to set the price of tickets. No one was to have the right of free entry including members of the royal court, although it was to be a public theatre, it retained its status as royal academy in which the authority of the king as the primary stakeholder was decisive. The monopoly, originally intended to protect the enterprise from competition during its phase, was renewed for subsequent recipients of the privilege up to the early French Revolution. As Victoria Johnson points out, the Opera was an organization by nature so luxurious and expensive in its productions that its survival depended on financial protection. His first opera Pomone with music by Robert Cambert opened on 3 March 1671, a second work, Les peines et les plaisirs de lamour, with a libretto by Gabriel Gilbert and music by Cambert, was performed in 1672. The institution was renamed the Académie Royale de Musique and came to be known in France simply as the Opéra. Because of legal difficulties Lully could not use the Salle de la Bouteille, during Lullys tenure, the only works performed were his own. The first productions were the pastorale Les fêtes de lAmour et de Bacchus, Lully greatly desired a better theatre and persuaded the king to let him use the one at the Palais-Royal free of charge. The Théâtre du Palais-Royal had been altered in 1660 and 1671, the first production in the new theatre was Alceste on 19 January 1674. The opera was bitterly attacked by those enraged at the restrictions that Lully had caused to be placed on the French, to mitigate the damage, Louis XIV arranged for new works to be premiered at the court, usually at the Chateau Vieux of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. This had the advantage of subsidizing the cost of rehearsals, as well as most of the machinery, sets, and costumes
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Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny
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Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny was a French composer and a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts. Paul Dukas is quoted as saying, Of all the composers of our country, he may be the first who had the gift of true, human emotion, of communicative expression and he was educated at the Walloon Collége des Jésuites in Saint-Omer. It was here that he first discovered his aptitude for music and he entered into the service of the connoisseur of art and the theater, Louis Guillaume Baillet de Saint-Julien, in the bureau of the Comptabilité du Clergé de France. In 1752, after watching a performance of La serva padrona by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi at the Paris Opera and he then became Pietro Gianottis student, and a contra-bassist at the Paris Opéra. Secretly, with a text by La Ribardière, he wrote Les aveux indiscrets, his first comic opera and this work was well received, and that encouraged him to compose a second opera, in two acts, on a libretto by Pierre-René Lemonnier. Le maître en droit, the year, received the same positive public response. Michel-Jean Sedaine, a well-liked librettist, proposed to Monsigny a collaboration and their common production was excellent, On ne savise jamais de tout, Le roi et le fermier and Rose et Colas. On 15 April 1766, at the Académie royale de Musique, the critics were harsher two years later, with Lîle sonnante. The music, it is true, preserves its usual grace of Monsignys touch, however, Charles Collés libretto happened to be ill-adapted to the stage and justified the works lack of success. It is during this year of 1768 that the composer purchased the post of maître dhôtel in the service of the great courtier Louis Philippe I. A place in the entourage of this patron proved favorable to Monsignys inspiration, michel-Jean Sedaine submitted his libretto, Le déserteur, for which he composed his most successful score. Yet Le faucon, created in 1771 was a failure, on 17 August 1775, La belle Arsène caused controversy among critics. In 1777, following the success of Félix, ou Lenfant trouvé, at the beginning of 1784, he married Amélie de Villemagne, with whom he lived peacefully until 1789. The French Revolution and The Terror deprived them of all their material existence, the musician and his family sank into deep misery and oblivion for a few years. Hearing of the state of poverty, the members of the Opéra-Comique gave him a pension of 2400 pounds. The years of adversity came to an end and Monsigny reached once again his deserved success and he became inspector of teaching at the Conservatoire de Musique de Paris. In 1804, he received the title of Chevalier de la Légion dhonneur, in 1813, he succeeded Grétry at the Institute. Total blindness afflicted his last years, see List of operas by Monsigny
6.
Piano Concerto No. 14 (Mozart)
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The Piano Concerto No.14 in E-flat major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, written in 1784, is a piano concerto, catalogued as K.449. It is the first composition he entered into a notebook of his music he then kept for the seven years, marking down main themes, dates of completion. From this notebook we have the information that he finished the concerto on February 9 and it is one of a quite peculiar kind. This concerto has three movements, Allegro vivace, among them only this, the eleventh and twenty-fourth open with a movement in 3/4. It is also traditional, in the tutti of a classical concerto, there are several reasons for this, but the upshot is that, the less this is true, the harder it becomes to distinguish the tutti from the opening of a classical-era symphony. The first phrase of this concerto begins ambiguously, a unison E flat followed by a C, then a G, is followed by the dominant chords leading tone trilled up to the dominant - Bb. Its interesting that this seems to suggest a dominant cadence in the dominant key of Bb. In other words, Cmin to F to Bb, there is an immediate modulation, through a fiery C minor passage, into B flat major. Here a possible theme is heard, played by strings. Also interesting about this concerto is that the first movement ventures off from the conception of the concerto. However, the trill is interrupted by the bass and cello. Shortly thereafter, the I 6/4 arrives and the cadenza begins, rests in its rhythm rather than in its melody. It is possible to pick out the four expositions of the refrain, but on hearing it ones impression is that the refrain never leaves the stage. Translated from the German by Arthur Mendel and Nathan Broder, unabridged and uncorrected republication of the second edition of the work first published in 1948 by Cassell & Company, Ltd. London, under the title Mozarts Piano Concertos, an Entirely Special Manner, Mozarts Piano Concerto No.14 in E Flat, K.449, and the Stylistic Implications of Confrontation. Piano Concertos Nos. 11-16 New York, Dover Publications, contains the score of the concerto. Konzert in Es KV449, Score and critical report in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe Piano Concerto No. 14, Scores at the International Music Score Library Project Performance of Piano Concerto No.14 by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format
7.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood, already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, while visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame, during his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons and he composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote, posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 to Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria, née Pertl and this was the capital of the Archbishopric of Salzburg, an ecclesiastic principality in what is now Austria, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the youngest of seven children, five of whom died in infancy and his elder sister was Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed Nannerl. Mozart was baptized the day after his birth, at St. Ruperts Cathedral in Salzburg, the baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form, as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He generally called himself Wolfgang Amadè Mozart as an adult, Leopold Mozart, a native of Augsburg, Germany, was a minor composer and an experienced teacher. In 1743, he was appointed as fourth violinist in the establishment of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian. Four years later, he married Anna Maria in Salzburg, Leopold became the orchestras deputy Kapellmeister in 1763. During the year of his sons birth, Leopold published a textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule. When Nannerl was 7, she began lessons with her father. Years later, after her brothers death, she reminisced, He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good. In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and he could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. At the age of five, he was composing little pieces
8.
Piano Concerto No. 15 (Mozart)
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The Piano Concerto No.15 in B-flat major, KV.450 is a concertante work for piano and orchestra by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In a letter to his father, Mozart compared this concerto with the 16th concerto in D, I consider them both to be concertos which make one sweat, but the B flat one beats the one in D for difficulty. Many pianists consider this to be one of the difficult of Mozarts piano concertos. The concerto is primarily difficult from its many quick scale patterns which must be played perfectly and also from its many fast chord patterns moving up and down. Beginning with this concerto, Mozart began to use the grand to describe his concerti such as K.450 which feature a prominent. The work is orchestrated for solo piano, flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings, the concerto is in three movements, Allegro Andante in E-flat major Allegro The first movement is in typical sonata-allegro form. The middle movement consists of a theme and two variations, the Finale is a sonata-rondo, although using a less-common ABACABA form. It is testimony to Mozarts greatness that although this movement is difficult from a technical point of view. This movement is among the most challenging works which Mozart has ever written for the keyboard, elaine Sisman has postulated that Mozart modeled the slow movement on a theme-and-variations movement from the Symphony No.75 of Joseph Haydn. Hutchings, Arthur, A Companion to Mozarts Piano Concertos, Oxford University Press, 169–204, Summer 1999 Konzert in B KV450, Score and critical report in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe Piano Concerto No. 15, Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
9.
Leopold Mozart
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Johann Georg Leopold Mozart was a German composer, conductor, teacher, and violinist. Mozart is best known today as the father and teacher of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and he was born in Augsburg, son of Johann Georg Mozart, a bookbinder, and his second wife Anna Maria Sulzer. From an early age he sang as a choirboy and he attended a local Jesuit school, the St. Salvator Gymnasium, where he studied logic, science, theology, graduating magna cum laude in 1735. He then moved on to an advanced school, the St. Salvator Lyceum. While a student in Augsburg, he appeared in student theatrical productions as an actor and singer and he also developed an interest, which he retained, in microscopes and telescopes. Although his parents had planned a career for Leopold as a Catholic priest, an old school friend told Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1777, Ah he was a great fellow. My father thought the world of him, and how he hoodwinked the clerics about becoming a priest. He withdrew from the St. Salvator Lyceum after less than a year, following a years delay, he moved to Salzburg to resume his education, enrolling in November 1737 at the Benedictine University to study philosophy and jurisprudence. At the time Salzburg was the capital of an independent state within the Holy Roman Empire, except for periods of travel, Leopold spent the rest of his life there. Leopold received the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy in 1738, however, in September 1739 he was expelled from the university for poor attendance, having hardly attended Natural Science more than once or twice. In 1740, he began his career as a musician, becoming violinist and valet to one of the universitys canons, Johann Baptist, Count of Thurn-Valsassina. This was also the year of his first musical publication, the six Trio Sonatas and these were titled Sonate sei da chiesa e da camera, Leopold did the work of copper engraving himself. He continued to compose, producing a series of German Passion cantatas, in 1747 he married Anna Maria Pertl, who bore him seven children, although only two of them survived past infancy, Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In 1743 Leopold Mozart was appointed to a position in the establishment of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian. His duties included composition and the teaching of violin to the choirboys of the Salzburg cathedral and he was promoted to second violinist in 1758 and in 1763 to deputy Kapellmeister. He rose no further, others were promoted over him to the head position of Kapellmeister. The question of whether Leopold was successful as a composer is debated, the Grove Dictionary says that as of 1756, Mozart was already well-known. His works circulated widely in German-speaking Europe, however, biographer Maynard Solomon asserts that he failed to make his mark as a composer, and Alfred Einstein judged him to be an undistinguished composer
10.
Ignaz Pleyel
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Ignace Joseph Pleyel was an Austrian-born French composer and piano builder of the Classical period. He was born in Ruppersthal in Lower Austria, the son of a schoolmaster named Martin Pleyel and he was the 24th of 38 children in the family. While still young, he studied with Johann Baptist Vanhal. As with Beethoven, born 13 years later, Pleyel benefited in his study from the sponsorship of aristocracy, Pleyel evidently had a close relationship with Haydn, who considered him to be a superb student. Among Pleyels apprentice work from this time was a puppet opera Die Fee Urgele, performed in the theater at the palace of Eszterháza. Pleyel apparently also wrote at least part of the overture of Haydns opera Das abgebrannte Haus, Pleyels first professional position may have been as Kapellmeister for Count Erdődy, although this is not known for certain. Among his early publications was a set of six string quartets, in the early 1780s, Pleyel visited Italy, where he composed an opera and works commissioned by the king of Naples, Ferdinand I. Attracted to the associated with an organist position, Pleyel moved to Strasbourg. The Cathedral was extremely appealing to Pleyel as it possessed a full orchestra, a choir, after establishing himself in France, Pleyel voluntarily called himself by the French version of his name, Ignace. While he was the assistant maître de chapelle at Strasbourg Cathedral, at the cathedral, he would organize concerts that featured his symphonies concertantes and liturgical music. After Richters death in 1789, Pleyel assumed the function of full maître de chapelle, in 1788 Pleyel married Françoise-Gabrielle Lefebvre, the daughter of a Strasbourg carpet weaver. The couple had four children, the eldest being their son Camille, maria Pleyel, née Moke, the wife of Camille, was one of the most accomplished pianists of her time. In 1791, the French Revolution abolished musical performances in church as well as public concerts, seeking alternative employment, Pleyel traveled to London, where he led the Professional Concerts organized by Wilhelm Cramer. In this capacity Pleyel inadvertently played the role of his teachers rival, although the two composers were rivals professionally, they remained on good terms personally. Just like Haydn, Pleyel made a fortune from his London visit, on his return to Strasbourg, he bought a large house, the Château dIttenwiller in nearby St. Pierre. With the onset of the Reign of Terror in 1793 and 1794, life in France became dangerous for many, not excluding Pleyel. Pleyel was brought before the Committee of Public Safety a total of seven due to the following, his foreign status, his recent purchase of a château. He was subsequently labeled a Royalist collaborator, the outcome of the Committees attentions could easily have been imprisonment or even execution
11.
Regina Strinasacchi
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Regina Schlick née Strinasacchi was a violin virtuoso and guitarist in a time when women rarely performed on the violin in public. She knewWolfgang Amadeus Mozart well enough that he composed the Sonata in B flat for Violin and Keyboard, Strinasacchi, Strinasacchi was born in either 1761,1762 or 1764, at Ostiglia, near Mantua. In addition to her skill with the violin, she played guitar and composed, having studied at Vivaldis school and she toured Italy, France and Germany between 1780-1783, arriving in Vienna in 1784, where she met Mozart. In a letter to his father, Mozart wrote, We now have here the famous Strinasacchi from Mantua and she has a great deal of taste and feeling in her playing. I am this moment composing a sonata which we are going to play together on Thursday at her concert in the theater, on April 29,1784, she performed a concert with Mozart for Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, where they debuted the sonata. Famously, Mozart performed his piano portion without sheet music, in 1785, Strinasacchi married Johann Conrad Schlick, composer, cellist, mandolinist and konzertmeister of the Gotha ducal band. He was already a musician when they married, playing at the Bishops Chapel of Munster. They performed some concert tours together after their marriage, playing duos for violin and cello and mandolin and their son, Johann Friedrich William Schlick, was born in 1801 and became a cellist and instrument maker. Upon her husbands death, she moved with her son to Dresden and she was also reported to have died in Gotha
12.
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
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Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I and he was thus the first ruler in the Austrian dominions of the House of Lorraine, styled Habsburg-Lorraine. He has been ranked, with Catherine the Great of Russia and Frederick the Great of Prussia and his policies are now known as Josephinism. He died with no sons and was succeeded by his younger brother, Joseph was born in the midst of the early upheavals of the War of the Austrian Succession. His real education was given to him through the writings of Voltaire and the Encyclopédistes and he married Princess Isabella of Parma in October 1760, a union fashioned to bolster the 1756 defensive pact between France and Austria. Joseph loved his bride, Isabella, finding her both stimulating and charming, and she sought, with care to cultivate his favor. The marriage of Joseph and Isabella resulted in the birth of a daughter, Isabella was fearful of pregnancy and early death. Her own pregnancy proved difficult as she suffered symptoms of pain, illness. She remained bedridden for six weeks after their daughters birth, almost immediately on the back of their newfound parenthood, the couple then endured two consecutive miscarriages—an ordeal particularly hard on Isabella—followed quickly by another pregnancy. Pregnancy was again provoking melancholy, fears and dread in Isabella, progressively ill with smallpox and strained by sudden childbirth and tragedy, Isabella died the following week. This marriage proved unhappy, albeit brief, as it lasted only two years. Though Maria Josepha loved her husband, she felt timid and inferior in his company, lacking common interests or pleasures, the relationship offered little for Joseph, who confessed he felt no love for her in return. He adapted by distancing himself from his wife to the point of near total avoidance, seeing her only at meals, Maria Josepha, in turn, suffered considerable misery in finding herself locked in a cold, loveless union. Four months after the anniversary of their wedding, Maria Josepha grew ill. Joseph neither visited her during her illness nor attended her funeral, though he expressed regret for not having shown her better kindness. One thing the union did provide him was the possibility of laying claim to a portion of Bavaria. In 1770, at the age of seven, Josephs only surviving child, Maria Theresa, became ill with pleurisy, the loss of his daughter was deeply traumatic for him and left him profoundly grief-stricken and scarred. He was made a member of the council of state
13.
Pasquale Anfossi
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Pasquale Anfossi was an Italian opera composer. Born in Taggia, Liguria, he studied with Niccolò Piccinni and Antonio Sacchini and he wrote more than 80 operas, both opera seria and opera buffa, although he concentrated on church music, especially oratorios, during his last years. Anfossi died in Rome in 1797, aiming at first to become a performer, he studied violin at the Neapolitan Loreto Conservatorium from 1744 to 1752, and played in an opera orchestra for ten years. He then turned to composing, studying with Sacchini and Piccinni, the first performance of his own work, the opera buffa La Serva Spiritosa was at the Rome Carnival in 1763, though his authorship of the work was not clearly established at the time. It appears he preferred to work under his teacher Sacchini, supplementing his tutors works, nevertheless, he made a breakthrough with his dramma giocoso Lincognita perseguitata in 1773 in Rome. By 1782 he had written about 30 operas, performed mainly in Venice and Rome, although on occasion also in parts of Italy. His first London performance was Il trionfo della costanza in 1782 and his works were not always well received, one critic wrote the music suffers obviously from a tiring monotony about his last opera in London, Linglese in Italia. Anfossi returned to Italy, and won back Roman public opinion in 1787 with the farsa Le pazzie de gelosi at the Carnival, in 1789, the uninterrupted 20-year stretch of operatic composition stopped, and Anfossi restricted himself to church music. He was appointed Maestro di Capella of San Giovanni in Laterano, the sum of Anfossis work is not completely known, but he composed at least 60, possibly 70 or more, operas, and at least 20 oratorios in Latin and Italian. His early work is, understandably, closely related in style to that of his teachers, Piccinni and Sacchini, with diatonic harmony and his orchestration style changed significantly during the course of his career, he realised more colourful effects through the use of wind instruments. Until the middle of the 1770s his opera buffa showed him to prefer the old-fashioned, pure da capo type of aria, in order to, as in his comic works, proceed to more freely shaped passages. He appeared to prefer longer passages such as finali, and he clearly had a preference for sentimental moments, Anfossis music was fundamentally criticised as inadequately dramatic, and weak in characterisation. His buffo characters are not as original as those of some of his contemporaries, such as Cimarosa and Paisiello. As an operatic composer, Anfossi remained forgotten for a time, despite his great popularity with his contemporaries, because his works were overshadowed by those of Salieri, Rossini. Nevertheless, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe staged Anfossis farsetta La maga Circe in his role as the director of Weimar. He adapted the libretto with Christian August Vulpius and also plans for a continuation. Only in the last 20 years has Anfossis work been appreciated anew and his work was featured at the 2005 Salzburg Summer Festival. See List of operas by Anfossi, the Oxford Dictionary of Opera, by John Warrack and Ewan West,782 pages, ISBN 0-19-869164-5 Some of the content of this article comes from the equivalent German-language Wikipedia article
14.
Pietro Metastasio
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Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Pietro Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti. Metastasio was born in Rome, where his father, Felice Trapassi, Felice married a Bolognese woman, Francesca Galasti, and became a grocer in the Via dei Cappellari. The couple had two sons and two daughters, Pietro was the younger son, Pietro, while still a child, is said to have attracted crowds by reciting impromptu verses on a given subject. Gravina was attracted by the poetic talent and personal charm. Felice Trapassi was glad to give his son the chance of an education and introduction into society. Gravina hellenized the boys name Trapassi into Metastasio, and intended his son to be a jurist like himself. He therefore made the boy learn Latin and law, at the same time he cultivated his literary gifts, and displayed the youthful prodigy both at his own house and in the Roman coteries. Metastasio soon found himself competing with the most celebrated improvvisatori of his time in Italy, however, his days full of study and evenings devoted to improvising poetry took a toll on Pietros health. Gravina, making a trip to Calabria, exhibited Metastasio in the literary circles of Naples. In country air and the quiet of the southern seashore Metastasios health revived, Gravina decided that he should never improvise again, but should be reserved for nobler efforts, when, having completed his education, he might enter into competition with the greatest poets. Metastasio responded to his patrons wishes, at the age of twelve he translated the Iliad into octave stanzas, and two years later he composed a Senecan tragedy on a subject from Gian Giorgio Trissinos Italia liberata – Gravinas favourite epic. It was called Giustino, and was printed in 1713, forty-two years later, Caroprese died in 1714, leaving Gravina his heir, and in 1718 Gravina also died. Metastasio inherited a fortune of 15,000 scudi, at a meeting of the Arcadian Academy, he recited an elegy to his patron, and then settled down to enjoy his wealth. During the last four years he had worn the costume of abbé and his romantic history, personal beauty, charming manners and distinguished talents made him fashionable. Within two years he had spent his money and increased his reputation and he decided to apply himself seriously to the work of his profession. In Naples, he entered the office of an eminent lawyer named Castagnola, in 1722, the birthday of the empress had to be celebrated with more than ordinary honours, and the viceroy asked Metastasio to compose a serenata for the occasion. Metastasio accepted, but kept his authorship secret and he wrote Gli orti esperidi, which was set to music by Nicola Porpora, and sung by Porporas pupil, the castrato Farinelli, making a spectacular début, it won the most enthusiastic applause. The Roman prima donna, Marianna Bulgarelli, who played Venus in this opera, Bulgarelli persuaded the poet to give up the law, and promised to secure for him fame and independence if he would devote his talents to the musical drama
15.
Handel Commemoration
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The Handel festival or Commemoration took place in Westminster Abbey in 1784, to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of George Frideric Handel in 1759. Above Handels own monument in the Abbey, there is a small tablet to record the commemoration. An account of the commemoration was published by Charles Burney in the following year, the commemoration established a fashion for large-scale performances of Handel’s choral works throughout the nineteenth century and much of the twentieth. Mackerness described it as the most important single event in the history of English music, mackerness, A Social History of English Music, London,1964. H. Diack Johnstone, A Ringside Seat at the Handel Commemoration,1701, pp. 632–633+635-636 William Weber, The 1784 Handel Commemoration as Political Ritual. Journal of British Studies, Vol.28, No,1, pp. 43–69 Pierre Dubois, Reviews of the Handel Commemoration of 1784, Discourse and Reception. ESSE-8, LONDON2006 Handels monument at Westminster Abbey Messiah in other hands by Donald Burrows The Original Academy of Ancient Music by William Weber
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Westminster Abbey
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It is one of the United Kingdoms most notable religious buildings and the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English and, later, British monarchs. Between 1540 and 1556, the abbey had the status of a cathedral, since 1560, however, the building is no longer an abbey nor a cathedral, having instead the status of a Church of England Royal Peculiar—a church responsible directly to the sovereign. The building itself is the abbey church. According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, a church was founded at the site in the 7th century, at the time of Mellitus, construction of the present church began in 1245, on the orders of King Henry III. Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all coronations of English and British monarchs have held in Westminster Abbey. There have been at least 16 royal weddings at the abbey since 1100, two were of reigning monarchs, although, before 1919, there had been none for some 500 years. The first reports of the abbey are based on a tradition claiming that a young fisherman called Aldrich on the River Thames saw a vision of Saint Peter near the site. This seems to be quoted to justify the gifts of salmon from Thames fishermen that the abbey received in later years, in the present was, the Fishmongers Company still gives a salmon every year. The proven origins are that in the 960s or early 970s, Saint Dunstan, assisted by King Edgar, between 1042 and 1052, King Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peters Abbey to provide himself with a royal burial church. It was the first church in England built in the Romanesque style, the building was completed around 1090 and was consecrated on 28 December 1065, only a week before Edwards death on 5 January 1066. A week later, he was buried in the church, and, nine years later and his successor, Harold II, was probably crowned in the abbey, although the first documented coronation is that of William the Conqueror later the same year. The only extant depiction of Edwards abbey, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is in the Bayeux Tapestry, construction of the present church was begun in 1245 by Henry III who selected the site for his burial. The abbot and monks, in proximity to the royal Palace of Westminster, the abbot often was employed on royal service and in due course took his place in the House of Lords as of right. The abbey built shops and dwellings on the west side, encroaching upon the sanctuary, the abbey became the coronation site of Norman kings. The Confessors shrine subsequently played a part in his canonisation. The work continued between 1245 and 1517 and was finished by the architect Henry Yevele in the reign of Richard II. Henry III also commissioned the unique Cosmati pavement in front of the High Altar, Henry VII added a Perpendicular style chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1503. Much of the came from Caen, in France, the Isle of Portland
