Baroque Era
1651
Prince Charles, son of Charles I (Eng) is crowned King of the Scots at Scone; his Scottish army invades England but parliamentary army under Oliver Cromwell routs it at Worcester; Charles escapes to France • Leviathan by philosopher Thomas Hobbes (Eng) acknowledges the sovereign's absolute power, provided he makes proper use of it • Velázquez - The Rokeby Venus
1652
First Anglo-Dutch War begins with an English naval victory off Dover • End of Fronde rule in Paris; Royal authority restored in Paris, but Fronde revolt continues • King Felipe IV (Sp) crushes a Catalan revolt after besieging Barcelona for more than a year
1653
Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland • Fronde rebellions end in France; Fronde leader Prince de Conde (formerly Due d ’Enghien) invades France with Spanish troops, but is repulsed • The Taj Mahal is completed in India
1654
Treaty of Westminster ends first Anglo-Dutch War • Louis XIV is crowned at Rheims • Portuguese drive Dutch from Brazil • Poland and Russia fight for the Ukraine • Sweden’s Queen Christina abdicates and secretly converts to Catholicism
1655
Dissension in England persuades Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell to dissolve parliament: Cromwell organises England into 12 military districts • Sweden, under King Charles X (Gustav), begins the first Northern War against Poland to win Baltic lands • England’s Anglican clergy are forbidden to preach; Roman Catholic priests are expelled • Waldensians, a Protestant minority, are brutally massacred by Catholic soldiers in Piedmont (north-west Italy) • Work begins on Church of St Sulpice, Paris (Fr) • Moliere (Fr): L’Etourdi
Thomas Hobbes
1651
The 13-year-old Louis XIV dances the role of the Sun in Benserade’s Ballet de Cassandre at the Palais Royal. With further ballet de cour appearances as Apollo, he gains the epithet The Sun King.
Isaac de Benserade (French: [bɛ̃.sʁad]; baptized 5 November 1613 – 10 October 1691) was a French poet.
Louis XIV, King of France - The Sun King
Giovanni Legrenzi is ordained a priest. The 25-year-old composer is subsequently elected as resident chaplain at the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Bergamo, where he also serves as organist.
John Playford publishes 100 traditional folk tunes in The English Dancing Master, a collection that will enjoy repeated editions well into the next century. He also publishes A Musicall Banquet, comprising rounds, catches, pieces for viols and two-part consort music. Playford soon becomes England’s leading music publisher.
English Country Dances - 17th Century Music From The Publications of John Playford
1 Tom Scarlett 2:59
2 Old Simon The King 3:44
3 Another Divison On A Ground By Mr. John Bannister 9:53
4 Moll Peatly, Or The Old Marinett 2:15
5 The Bear's Dance 4:25
6 Hudson House 1:52
7 Sir Martin Marah's Jigg 2:07
8 Fy Nay, Prithee John! 2:21
9 Paul's Steeple, Or The Duke Of Norfolk 3:34
10 The Glory Of The West 1:37
11 The Mock Glory Of The West 1:53
12 The Glory Of The Sun 4:00
13 Faronell's Division On A Ground 7:26
14 Prelude 1:16
15 Long Cold Nights 7:44
16 Johney Cock Thy Beaver: Scotch Tune To A Ground 2:30
17 Greene-Sleeves 3:47
18 Stingo, Or The Oyle Of Barly 1:09
19 Cockleshells 5:28
20 Another Division On A Ground By Mr. P.B. 3:25
21 The Queen's Jigg 3:58
June
Monteverdi’s Ninth Book of Madrigals is published posthumously in Venice.
Claudio Monteverdi, madrigali e canzoni per due e tre voci, Libro IX (1651)
1. Se vittorie sì belle (1638)
2. Armato il cor (1632)
3. Ardo e scoprir, ahi lasso, io non ardisco (1638)
4. O sia tranquillo il mare (1638)
5. Alcun non mi consigli
6. Di far sempre gioire
7. Quando dentro al tuo seno
8. Non voglio amare
9.Alle danze, alle gioie, ai diletti
10. Perché, se m'odiavi
11. Sì, sì ch'o v'amo
12. Su, su, pastorrelli vezzosi (1638)
13. O mio bene, o mia vita
Ferdinand Tobias Richter, Austrian composer, born.
Barbara Strozzi publishes her first cantatas in Cantate, ariette e duetti, for one to two voices and continuo, in Venice.
Barbara Strozzi - Op. 2 Cantate, Ariette E Duetti (1651) No. 16
Barbara Strozzi - Op. 2 Cantate, Ariette E Duetti (1651) No. 26
6 October
German composer and poet Heinrich Albert dies aged 47 in Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad), where he had served as cathedral organist for the last 20 years.
Königsberg Cathedral
28 November
Antonio Cavalli’s racy mythological opera La Calisto, after Ovid’s Metamorphoses, struggles to please at the Teatro San Apollinare, Venice.
The libretto is by the composers close collaborator Giovanni Faustini, who dies the following month, aged 36.
Giovanni Faustini (1615 – 19 December 1651) was an Italian librettist and opera impresario of the 17th century. He is best remembered for his collaborations with the composer Francesco Cavalli.
Francesco Cavalli - La Calisto, dramma per musica in 1 prologo e 3 atti, per soli, coro e orchestra (1651)
Libretto: Giovanni Faustini e sulla "Metamorfosi" di Ovidio
Prologo
0:00 - I. Sinfonia
1:27 - II. Alme pure e volanti
5:04 - III. Gran madre, ottima duce
Atto I
8:41 - I. Sinfonia. Del foco fulminato
14:02 - II. Piante ombrose
16:29 - III. De l'offese del foco
21:27 - IV. Dunque, Giove immortale - Verginella io morir vo
23:54 - V. Come scherne acerbetta
26:42 - VI. Sinfonia
27:29 - VII. Sien mortali o divini
29:05 - VIII. Non è maggior piacere
31:55 - IX. Chi non ti crederebbe - In ricovro più ombroso - A baciarsi andiam, sì sì
35:00 - X. Va' pur, va'pur, va' seco - Se non giovano
37:06 - XI. Improvisi stupori
39:36 - XII. Serenati, o core - Pavide, sbigottite
45:14 - XIII. Parto, e porto partendo - Non è crudel, ben mio
48:00 - XIV. Come chiude nel petto
52:02 - XV. Piangete
53:44 - XVI. Interprete mal buona
56:41 - XVII. Ninfa bella
1:00:36 - XVIII. Numi selvatici
1:05:30 - XIX. Ballo degli Orsi. Ciaccona
Atto II
1:08:41 - I. Sinfonia. Erme e solinghi cime
1:15:01 - II. Candidi corridori
1:18:04 - III. Bella quanto crudele - Sinfonia
1:23:48 - IV. Alfin la tanto rigida
1:25:32 - V. Da le gelose mie cure incessanti
1:28:03 - VI. Sporgate anco
1:32:32 - VII. Esprimerti non posso
1:34:29 - VIII. Calisto, anima mia?
1:42:50 - IX. Chi condusse costei
1:44:58 - X. Cor mio
1:47:47 - XI. Mercurio, chi disfoga
1:49:42 - XII. Se tu nol credi - Fermati o mobile
1:53:03 - XIII. Oh Dio, così abbandoni
1:57:09 - XIV. D'aver un consorte
2:00:56 - XV. Combattimento di ninfe e satiri
Atto III
2:01:51 - I. Restino imbalsamate
2:06:39 - II. Da le sponde
2:08:56 - III. Ma si fa gelo il sangue
2:11:21 - IV. Racconsolata e paga
2:14:36 - V. Perfide, ancora osate
2:16:12 - VI. O re de l'universo
2:21:26 - VII. Mio foco fatale - Beata mi sento
2:23:40 - VIII. Che non l'ami volete - Ti segua questo dardo
2:29:24 - IX. Vivo per te pietosa
2:30:52 - X. Tanto, dunque, tu m'ami?
2:33:22 - XI. Dolcissimi baci
2:36:04 - XII. Sinfonia
2:37:02 - XIII. Le stelle più belle
2:41:13 - XIV. Mio tonante - Vaga amante
2:42:20 - XV. Ciaccona
Ferdinand Tobias Richter
Ferdinand Tobias Richter (22 July 1651 – 3 November 1711) was an Austrian Baroque composer and organist.
Richter was born in Würzburg. From 1675 to 1679 he served as organist at Heiligenkreuz Abbey in southern Austria. In 1683 he moved to Vienna to become court and chamber organist at the imperial court. In 1690 he was named first organist in the court chapel. He worked there until his death.
Richter's compositions include several toccatas, five suites and other pieces for keyboard. He also wrote music for a number of Jesuit school plays, operas and oratorios. His music shows a decided flair for the dramatic.
In 1699 Johann Pachelbel dedicated Hexachordum Apollinis, a collection including his famous Aria Sebaldina in F minor, to Dietrich Buxtehude and to his friend in Vienna, Ferdinand Tobias Richter.
Richter died, aged 60, in Vienna. His son Anton Karl Richter (1690-1763) was also court organist, serving from 1718 to 1751.
Ferdinand Tobias Richter - Capriccio
Ferdinand Tobias Richter - Partita I in d minor for harpsichord
1652
Robert Cambert is appointed organist at the church of St Honore, Paris.
17 February
Composer, singer and priest Gregorio Allegri dies in Rome, aged about 70.
The Parisian printer Ballard issues Henry Du Mont’s Cantica sacra, a stunning collection of petits motets for voices, viols or violins, and basso continuo. Scored in two to four parts, it is the first printed work by a French composer to incorporate continuo accompaniment.
Henry Du Mont - Panis angelicus (Cantica sacra)
English composer John Hilton issues the popular song book Catch That Catch Can, in London.
"You Lovers that have love astray" - John Hilton
17 January
Francesco Cavalli’s opera Eritrea opens at the Teatro San Apollinare, in Venice.
Eritrea - Francesco Cavalli - Prologo
Eritrea : décors de la création
Johann Froberger: Tombeau de Mr. de Blancroche
November
Queen Christina of Sweden engages an Italian opera troupe for her court in Stockholm. Within two years she will abdicate her throne and settle in Rome as a Catholic convert and a major arts patron.
Christina (18 December 1626 – 19 April 1689) reigned as Queen of Sweden from 1632 to 1654. She was the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustav II Adolph and his wife Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg. At the age of six, Christina succeeded her father on the throne upon his death at the Battle of Lützen, but began ruling when she reached the age of 18.
At the age of 28, the "Minerva of the North" moved to Rome. The Pope described Christina as "a queen without a realm, a Christian without faith, and a woman without shame". Notwithstanding all that, she became a leader of the theatrical and musical life and protected many Baroque artists, composers, and musicians.
She is one of the few women buried in the Vatican grotto.
December
Antonio Cesti is appointed director of the Kammermusiker at the Innsbruck court of Archduke Ferdinand Karl. With an ensemble of Italian musicians, he has to provide and direct vocal chamber music and opera.
1653
Around this time Johann Jakob Froberger makes a trip to London. Midway between France and England, pirates attack and ransack his ship; he arrives in Dover penniless and wearing sailors clothes. The composer later alludes to the incident in the first movement of his keyboard Suite No. 30: ‘Plainte faite a Londres pour passer la melancholie’.
JJ Froberger - Suite XXX
23 February
Louis XIV and Jean-Baptiste Lully both dance in Michel Lambert's Ballet Royal de la Nuit. The following month Lully is appointed Compositeur de la musique instrumentale to the French royal court.
Jean-Baptiste LULLY 1632-1687
Jean de CAMBEFORT 1605–1676
Francesco CAVALLI 1602-1676
Luigi ROSSI 1597-1653
Michel LAMBERT 1610-1696
Ballet Royal de la Nuit
In service to Archduke Ferdinand Karl at Innsbruck, William Young becomes the first English composer
to publish a set of works entitled sonatas. His collection, also incorporating dances, is scored for two to four violins and continuo.
William Young - Sonata IV a 4 (1653)
26 March
James Shirley's masque Cupid and Death, with music by Christopher Gibbons (and possibly Matthew Locke), is first performed in London lor the principal pleasure of the Portuguese ambassador.
CUPID & DEATH (Cupido e Morte) - Introduzione.
Masque di James Shirley. Musiche di Matthew Locke e Christopher Gibbons (1653).
20 February
Luigi Rossi, opera composer and prolific writer of canzonettas and cantatas, dies in Rome, aged about 55.
1 June
German composer and organist Georg Muffat is baptised in Megeve, Savoy.
Marc'Antonio Ziani, Italian composer, born.
Carlo Francesco Pollarolo, Italian composer, born.
Georg Muffat
Georg Muffat (1 June 1653 – 23 February 1704) was a Baroque composer and organist. He is most well known for the remarkably articulate and informative performance directions printed along with his collections of string pieces Florilegium Primum and Florilegium Secundum (First and Second Bouquets) in 1695 and 1698.
Georg Muffat was born in Megève, Duchy of Savoy (now in France), of André Muffat (of Scottish descent) and Marguerite Orsyand. He studied in Paris between 1663 and 1669, where his teacher is often assumed to have been Jean Baptiste Lully. This assumption is largely based on the statement "For six years ... I avidly pursued this style which was flowering in Paris at the time under the most famous Jean Baptiste Lully." This is ambiguous (in all of the languages in which it was printed) as to whether the style was flourishing under Lully, or that Muffat studied under Lully. After leaving Paris, he became an organist in Molsheim and Sélestat. Later, he studied law in Ingolstadt, afterwards settling in Vienna. He could not get an official appointment, so he travelled to Prague in 1677, then to Salzburg, where he worked for the archbishop for some ten years. In about 1680, he traveled to Italy, there studying the organ with Bernardo Pasquini, a follower of the tradition of Girolamo Frescobaldi; he also met Arcangelo Corelli, whose works he admired very much. From 1690 to his death, he was Kapellmeister to the bishop of Passau.
Georg Muffat: 12 Concerti Grossi
1. Concerto No.1 in d "Bona nova" [Sonata.Grave-Allegro-Ballo.Allegro-Grave-Aria-Giga]
2. Concerto No.2 in A "Cor vigilans" [Sonata.Grave-Presto-Corrente.Allegro=Grave-Gavotta-Rondeau.Allegro]
3. Concerto No.3 in B "Convalescentia" [Sonata.Grave-Aria.Presto-grave-Giga I.Presto-Giga II.Allegro]
4. Concerto No.4 in g "Dulce somnium" [Sonata.Grave-Sarabanda.Grave-Grave-Adagio-Aria.Allegro-Borea]
5. Concerto No.5 in D "Saeculum" [Sonata.Grave-Allegro-Allemanda.Largo.Grave-Gavotta-Menuet]
6. Concerto No.6 in a "Quis hic?" [Sonata.Allegro-Aria.Allegro-Grave-Aria.Allegro-Borea]
7. Concerto No.7 in E "Deliciae Regum" [Sonata.Grave-Aria.Largo-Gavotta-Grave-Giga.Allegro-Menuet]
8. Concerto No.8 in F "Coronatio Augusta" [Sonata.Grave-Allemanda.Largo-Grave-Gavotta-Rondeau.Allegro]
9. Concerto No.9 in c "Victoria maesta" [Sonata.Grave-Allegro-Aria.Allegro-Allegro-Grave-Sarabanda.Adagio-Borea]
10. Concerto No.10 in G "Perseverantia" [Allemanda.Largo-Grave-Gavotta-Menuet]
11. Concerto No.11 in e "Delirium amoris" [Sonata.Grave-Ballo.Allegro-Grave-Menuet.Allegro-Giga]
12. Concerto No.12 in G "Propita Sydera" [Sonata.Grave-Aria.Largo-Gavotta-Grave-Ciacona-Borea.Allegro]
Marc'Antonio Ziani
Marc'Antonio Ziani (ca. 1653 – 22 January 1715) was an Italian composer living in Vienna.
Ziani was born in Venice. He probably studied with his uncle, the organist Pietro Andrea Ziani. From 1686 to 1691 Ziani was maestro di cappella to Duke Ferdinando Carlo di Gonzaga in Mantua, but simultaneously developed his career as an opera composer in Venice. In 1700 Ziani was appointed vice Hofkapellmeister to Leopold I in Vienna, and on 1 January 1712 Charles VI promoted him to Hofkapellmeister. He was succeeded by Johann Fux. He died in Vienna.
Marc'Antonio Ziani - Alma redemptoris Mater per controtenore, archi e basso continuo in re maggiore
Carlo Francesco Pollarolo
Carlo Francesco Pollarolo (ca. 1653 – 7 February 1723) was an Italian composer, chiefly of operas. Born into a musical family, he became the cathedral organist of his home town of Brescia. In the 1680s he began composing operas for performance in nearby Venice. He wrote a total of 85 of them as well as 13 oratorios. His operatic style is noted for its development of arias accompanied by the orchestra and it shows some influence from the contemporary French opera of Jean-Baptiste Lully.
Carlo Francesco Pollarolo - Preludio Primo Tuono and Sonata Prima Primo Tuono
1654
Giovanni Legrenzi issues his first opus, Concerti musicali per uso di chiesa, in Venice.
Op. 1-Missa a 4 voci e doi violini (1654) - Part I
I. Kyrie - 0:00
II. Ritornello - 2:38
III. Christe - 3:15
IV. Ritornello - 4:20
V. Kyrie - 5:00
VI. Gloria - 6:52
VII. Domine Deus rex caelestis - 10:17
VIII. Domine fili - 11:45
Op. 1- Missa a 4 voci e doi violini (1654) - Part II
IX. Domine Deus agnus Dei - 0:00
X. Qui tollis - 1:29
XI. Qui sedes - 4:00
XII. Quoniam tu solus - 5:33
XIII. Sonata La tassa - 9:20
Op. 1- Missa a 4 voci e doi violini (1654) - Part III
IX. Domine Deus agnus Dei - 0:00
X. Qui tollis - 1:29
XI. Qui sedes - 4:00
XII. Quoniam tu solus - 5:33
XIII. Sonata La tassa - 9:20
12 January
Francesco Cavalli’s opera Xerse premieres and triumphs at the Teatro San Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. The libretto, by Nicolo Minato. will be later used by Handel.
Ombra mai fu Xerse - Francesco Cavalli
12 February
The comic opera Dal male il bene (Good Comes from Bad), jointly composed by Antonio Abbatini and Marco Marazzoli, premieres in Rome during the wedding festivities of Maffeo Barberini and Olimpia Giustiniani.
Maffeo Barberini and Olimpia Giustiniani
John Playford publishes A Breefe Introduction to the Skill of Musick, in London.
4 January
Antonio Cesti's new opera Cleopatra inaugurates Archduke Ferdinand’s Komodienhaus at Innsbruck. The purpose-built opera house is the first of its kind in a German speaking country.
Komodienhaus at Innsbruck
24 March
German composer and organist Samuel Scheidt, court Kapellmeister at Halle, dies aged 66. He is remembered for his church music, particularly his many organ chorale preludes.
April-May
Carlo Caproli's opera Le nozze di Peleo e di Teti (The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis), commissioned by Cardinal Mazarin, receives nine performances at the Petit Bourbon, Paris. Accommodating the Italian genre to French taste, ballets form entrees between the scenes of the opera and local musicians are included among the performers. The 15-year-old Louis XIV, who dances several roles in the ballets, invites the public to attend the final two performances.
Louis XIV as La Guerre in Les Nopces de Pélée et de Thétis
25 July
Agostino Steffani, Italian composer, born.
Agostino Steffani
Agostino Steffani, (born July 25, 1654, near Venice [Italy]—died Feb. 12, 1728, Frankfurt am Main [Germany]), composer, singer, cleric, and diplomat, celebrated for his cantatas for two voices.
Steffani studied music in Venice, Rome, and Munich, where he served the Elector of Bavaria from 1667 to 1688, becoming by 1681 director of chamber music. He left Munich and entered the service of the Duke of Brunswick, later elector of Hanover. After some years he ceased to be musical director, however, and entered upon a new career. While continuing to practice music, he became important as a diplomat based in Düsseldorf (1703–09), going on several missions and acting for a short time as ambassador in Brussels. He returned to Hanover in 1709. It was he who induced Handel to settle in Hanover and hence, indirectly, in London, when the new elector became King George I. Steffani was ordained in 1680 and later became papal protonotary for north Germany, with the status of bishop. He composed about 20 operas, most of them before 1700. It was, however, his numerous chamber duets in cantata form—following, with considerable melodic and structural distinction, the models of Luigi Rossi, Giacomo Carissimi, and Alessandro Stradella—that won for Steffani a European reputation; more than 100 of these are known.
Agostino Steffani - Stabat Mater (1728)
Agostino Steffani - Sperate in Deo
Agostion Steffani - Cantata "Lagrime Dolorose"
AGOSTINO STEFFANI: NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Agostino Steffani - Arias
Agostino Steffani - "Sonate da Camera à Tre, due Violini, Alto e Basso" (1705) - Sonata I
Agostino Steffani - Sonata II
Agostino Steffani - Enrico Leone
1655
Giovanni Legrenzi publishes his touching Harmonia d’affetti devoti (Music of Devotional Moods), his first book of motets and psalm settings. This year also sees the publication of his first book of instrumental sonatas, Sonate a due, e tre, Op. 2.
Legrenzi - Sonata Op.2 No.1 - La Cornara
Biagio Marini issues his final instrumental collection, Diversi generi di sonate, comprising both da camera and da chiesa sonatas. He also publishes his final sacred work, Lagrime di David (Tears of David) for voices, strings and organ.
Biagio Marini, Miserere I a 3 voci e basso continuo
Le lacrime di Davide sparse nel Miserere, 1655
Composer and organist Johann Rosenmuller, currently teaching at Leipzig’s Thomasschule, is imprisoned along with some of his pupils on suspicion of homosexual activity. Escaping both jail and Leipzig, he resettles in Venice three years later, finding employment at St Mark’s
as a trombonist.
Barbara Strozzi brings out her luminous Sacri musicali affetti, featuring some of the earliest spiritual cantatas, in Venice. In her dedication to Archduchess Anne of Innsbruck, Strozzi highlights her place as a female composer in a man’s world. She concludes with sycophancy characteristic of the age: ‘on the lightest leaves I fly in devotion to bow down before you’.
Barbara Strozzi - Salve Regina - I, (from: Sacri musicali affetti, libro I op. 5, Venice, 1655)
Barbara Strozzi - Salve Regina - II, (from: Sacri musicali affetti, libro I op. 5, Venice, 1655)
22 January
Michel de La Guerre's Le Triomphe de l'Amour (The Triumph of Love) is first performed at the Louvre in Paris. With music throughout (now lost), the work stands as the earliest known French pastorale.
4 May
Piano inventor Bartolomeo Cristofori is born in Padua.
Bartolomeo Cristofori, in full Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori, (born May 4, 1655, Padua, Republic of Venice [Italy]—died January 27, 1732, Florence), Italian harpsichord maker generally credited with the invention of the piano, called in his time gravicembalo col piano e forte, or “harpsichord that plays soft and loud.” The name refers to the piano’s ability to change loudness according to the amount of pressure on the keys, a quality foreign to the harpsichord. Cristofori achieved that effect by replacing the plucking mechanism of the harpsichord with a hammer action capable of striking the strings with greater or lesser force. He moved from Padua to Florence about 1690 at the request of Prince Ferdinando de’Medici, an accomplished harpsichordist, a move suggesting that Cristofori had already established a reputation as a skilled keyboard instrument builder. (A three-keyboard harpsichord dated 1702, sometimes attributed to Cristofori and bearing the arms of Ferdinando, is preserved at the Stearns Collection at the University of Michigan.) Cristofori apparently invented the piano about 1709, and, according to contemporary sources, four of his pianos existed in 1711. In 1713 Ferdinando died, and Cristofori remained in the service of the grand duke, Cosimo III, later (1716) becoming responsible for the care of an instrument collection assembled by Ferdinando; of 84 instruments, 7 were harpsichords or spinets of Cristofori’s manufacture. His frames, being made of wood in the manner of a harpsichord, were not capable of withstanding the string tension that allowed later pianos their more-powerful tone. Nevertheless, to judge by three surviving examples—at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Museum of Musical Instruments in Leipzig, and the Museum of Musical Instruments in Rome—his pianos were responsive and had a wide dynamic range. Cristofori’s design was largely ignored in Italy, but it soon became known and adopted in Germany through articles in dictionaries of music.
4 November
Antonio Cesti's opera L'Argia is premiered at the Hoftheater in Innsbruck for the pleasure of the visiting Queen Christina of Sweden, who has recently abdicated her throne.
8 November
The annual music festival for The Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy is begun by a group of London merchants, themselves all vicars’ sons. The charity is founded during the Commonwealth period due to Cromwell’s widespread persecution of clergy who remain loyal to the Crown. For centuries to come, it provides funds for clergy families in financial need.
Robert de Visée, French lutenist, guitarist, theorbist and viol player, born.
December
Queen Christina of Sweden takes up residence in Rome in the Palazzo Farnese. She immediately establishes regular artistic and scholastic meetings which in time give rise to the Accademia Reale.
Gottfried Finger, Moravian composer, born.
Sébastien de Brossard, French music theorist, composer and collector, born.
30 December
Francesco Cavalli’s opera Erismena is first staged at the Teatro San Apollinare in Venice. An English language version is later prepared and may have been performed in London in the 1670s.
Francesco Cavalli - Erismena
Robert de Visée
Robert de Visée (c.1655 – 1732/1733) was a lutenist, guitarist, theorbist and viol player at the court of the French kings Louis XIV and Louis XV, as well as a singer and composer for lute, theorbo and guitar.
Robert de Visée's place and date of birth are unknown. He probably knew Francesco Corbetta and would have been familiar with his music. Fétis (1865, pp. 365–66) claimed that he studied with Corbetta and this information has been repeated uncritically in later sources including Strizich and Ledbetter 2001. It is however unsupported by any documentary evidence (Charnassé, Andia, and Rebours 2001, p. 21). He is first mentioned (by Le Gallois) in 1680, and at about that time became a chamber musician to Louis XIV, in which capacity he often performed at court. In 1709 he was appointed as a singer in the royal chamber, and in 1719 he was named 'Guitar Master of the King' (Maître de Guitare du Roi) to Louis XV, the ten-year-old great-grandson of Louis XIV who succeeded to the throne in 1715.
Jean Rousseau reported in a letter of 1688 that he was a respected musician at Versailles, and also played the viol (Strizich and Ledbetter 2001). The last payment in his name in state documents is dated 1732. It is to be assumed that he died about that time (Charnassé, Andia, and Rebours 2001, p. 25).
Visée published two books of guitar music which contain twelve suites between them, as well as a few separate pieces: Livre de guitare dédié au roi (Paris, 1682) and Livre de pièces pour la guitare (Paris 1686). He also published a collection of pieces for the theorbo and lute Pièces de théorbe et de luth (Paris, 1716)
Robert De Visée Les Suites pour Théorbe
Gottfried Finger
Gottfried Finger (ca. 1655-6 – buried 31 August 1730), also Godfrey Finger, was a Moravian Baroque composer. He was also a virtuoso on the Viol, and many of his compositions were for the instrument. He also wrote operas. Finger was born in Olomouc, modern-day Czech Republic, and worked for the court of James II of England before becoming a freelance composer. The fact that Finger owned a copy of the musical score of the work Chelys by the Flemish composer Carolus Hacquart suggests that the two composers may have worked together in England.
He died in Mannheim.
Gottfried Finger - Sonata in C for Trumpet, violin, Oboe and Continuo
Sébastien de Brossard
Sébastien de Brossard, (12 September 1655 – 10 August 1730) was a French music theorist, composer and collector.
Brossard was born in Dompierre, Orne. After studying philosophy and theology at Caen, he studied music and established himself in Paris in 1678 and remained there until 1687.
In 1687, Brossard was named a vicar at the Strasbourg Cathedral. He remained there until 1698. He founded an Académie de Musique at Strasbourg in 1687 and arranged Lully's Alceste for performance there. It was during the decade he spent in Strasbourg that he acquired the bulk of his music library, which has since become legendary. A collection of 157 sonatas acquired by Brossard bears the name Codex Rost, after the Cantor at Baden-Baden, Franz Rost (1640-1688). It is sometimes the only source of works by certain German and Italian composers of the 17th century.
In 1698, Brossard was appointed chapel master at the Cathedral of Meaux and remained in that post until 1715. After his retirement, he worked on liturgical publications for the diocese. He died at Meaux in 1730, at age 75.
Sébastien de Brossard
ORATORIO SOPRA L'IMMACULATA CONCEPTIONE DELLA B. VERGINE [SDB.56]
SONATA 2da (ut majeur) [SdB.224]
LEANDRO [SdB.77]
DIALOGUS PŒNITENTIS ANIMAE CUM DEO [SDB.55]
Sébastien de Brossard - Stabat Mater
Sébastien de Brossard: Grand Motet "Miserere mei Deus"
Velázquez - The Rokeby Venus