Baroque Era
1666
French join Dutch in war against England • Dutch tighten their hold on East Indies by taking Celebes (Sulawesi, Indonesia) from Portugal • Five-day fire destroys much of London, including Old St Paul’s Cathedral • Gottfried von Leibniz (Ger): first major philosophical work, Dissertatio de Arte Combinatoria
1667
Dutch, French, English and Danes conclude the Treaty of Breda • King Louis XIV (Fr) tries to seize Flanders from Spain • Portugal’s king Alfonso VI is exiled • Russia gets eastern Ukraine from Poland in the Treaty of Andrussovo • Pope Alexander VII dies; is succeeded by Clement IX • John Milton (Eng): Paradise Lost • Rembrandt - The Jewish Bride
1668
Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I joins War of Devolution against France • France seizes Burgundy, but by Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Spain regains it; France keeps Spanish Netherlands border towns • Quaker lawyer William Penn (Eng) is imprisoned in the Tower of London for questioning the doctrine of the Trinity in his book Sandy Foundation Shaken • Jean Baptiste Racine (Fr): play Les Plaideurs • Moliere (Fr): play L’Avare (The Miser)
1669
James, Duke of York, brother and heir of King Charles II (Eng), is suspected to have rejected Anglicanism for Roman Catholicism • Venice loses Mediterranean island of Crete to Ottoman Empire • India's Muslim Mogul rulers ban Hinduism and smash Hindu temples
1670
King Charles II (Eng) signs Treaty of Dover with King Louis XIV (Fr) promising to help France against Spain and the Dutch Republic • James, Duke of York, heir to Charles II, declares his Roman Catholicism • Clement X is elected Pope • Philosopher Blaise Pascal (Fr) defends Christianity against sceptics in his book Pensees
John Milton dictating “Paradise Lost” to his daughters,
painting by Eugene Delacroix, ca. 1826.
1666
Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Ballet des muses debuts at the palace of St Germain-en-Laye. The work anticipates the solo concerto texture with its introduction to the exquisite ‘Trop indiscret Amour’, where solo violin sections, representing Orpheus, alternate with ensemble tutti. Lully himself performs the violin part.
Le Ballet des Muses: Jean Baptiste Lully
Carlo Pallavicino becomes Vice-Kapellmeister to Elector Johann Georg II in Dresden, where Heinrich Schutz (81 this year) is principal Kapellmeister in name.
Carlo Pallavicino becomes Vice-Kapellmeister to Elector Johann Georg II in Dresden, where Heinrich Schutz (81 this year) is principal Kapellmeister in name.
Antonio Stradivari, by Edgar Bundy, 1893: a romanticized image of a craftsman-hero
12 July
Antonio Cesti’s Nettuno e Flora, with text by Francesco Sbarra, premieres at the Hofburg in Vienna. The opera sets an allegorical tale about Margarita Teresa's journey from Spain to Vienna to marry her uncle, Leopold I. The Holy Roman Emperor, who weds his 15-year-old niece in December this year, contributes an aria to the production, while additional ballet music is provided by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer.
Leopold I in costume as Acis in La Galatea (1667, by Jan Thomas van Ieperen).
14 August
Matthew Locke’s polychoral anthem Be Thou Exalted Lord is first performed at the Chapel Royal in celebration of the Duke of Albemarle’s naval victory against the Dutch.
Jean-Féry Rebel, French composer, born.
Michelangelo Faggioli, Italian composer, born.
Jean-Féry Rebel
Jean-Féry Rebel (18 April 1666 – 2 January 1747) was an innovative French Baroque composer and violinist.
Rebel, a son of the singer Jean Rebel, a tenor in Louis XIV's private chapel, was a child violin prodigy. He became, at the age of eight, one of his father's most famous musical offspring. Later, he was a student of the great composer Jean-Baptiste Lully. He was a violinist, harpsichordist, conductor and composer.
By 1699, at age 33, Rebel had become first violinist of the Académie royale de musique (also known as the Opéra). He travelled to Spain in 1700. Upon his return to France in 1705, he was given a place in the prestigious ensemble known as the Vingt-quatre violons du roy. He was chosen Maître de Musique in 1716. His most important position at court was Chamber Composer, receiving the title in 1726. Rebel served as court composer to Louis XIV and maître de musique at the Académie, and directed the Concert Spirituel (during the 1734-1735 season).
Rebel was one of the first French musicians to compose sonatas in the Italian style. Many of his compositions are marked by striking originality that include complex counter-rhythms and audacious harmonies that were not fully appreciated by listeners of his time. His opus Les caractères de la danse combined music with dance, a French tradition, and presented innovative metrical inventions. The work was popular and was performed in London in 1725 under the baton of George Frideric Handel.[citation needed] In honor of his teacher, Rebel composed Le tombeau de M. Lully (literally, "The Tomb of Monsieur Lully"; figuratively, "A Tribute to Lully"). Some of Rebel's compositions are described as choreographed "symphonies." Among his boldest original compositions is Les Élémens ("The Elements") which describes the creation of the world – the beginning, « Le Chaos », is surprisingly modern.
Jean-Ferry Rebel Violin Sonatas
Jean-Féry Rebel (1666-1747) Violin Sonatas
1. No. 8 in D minor 0:00
2. No. 5 in D major 11:24
3. No. 6 in B minor 22:05
4. No. 1 in A major 32:03
5. No. 3 in A minor 41:27
6. No. 9 in F major ('La Venus') 48:38
7. No. 7 in G minor ('L'Immortelle') 56:44
8. No. 4 in E minor ('La Junon') 1:07:37
Jean-Féry Rebel: Tombeau pour Monsieur de Lully
J.-F. Rebel: Ballets sans Paroles
Caprice, ballet
«LES ÉLÉMENTS»
«LES PLAISIRS CHAMPÊTRES» for Ensemble
«LES CARACTÈRES DE LA DANSE» Ballet
«LA FANTAISIE» Ballet
Michelangelo Faggioli
Michelangelo Faggioli (1666–1733) was an Italian lawyer and celebrated amateur composer of humorous cantatas in Neapolitan dialect. A founder of a new genre of Neapolitan comedy, he was as the composer of the opera buffa La Cilla in 1706
Michelangelo Faggioli - Io me struio
1667
Johann Christoph Pepusch is born in Berlin.
Johann Rosenmuller, now a trombonist and composer at St Mark’s, Venice, publishes his Sonate da camera a 5 stromenti.
Johann Rosenmüller: Sonata Decima à 5 in F Major
Giovanni Battista Vitali publishes his first Sonate, for two violins and continuo, in Bologna.
Vitali - Trio Sonatas Op. 2
5 January
Italian composer Antonio Lotti is born in Hanover, where his father, Matteo, is serving as Kapellmeister.
January/February
Jean-Baptiste Lully produces two comedies-ballets for Louis XIV: La pastorale comique and Le Sicilien, both staged at St Germain-en-Laye.
Lully - La Pastorale Comique: Chaconne
6/7 M ay
Leading German keyboard-composer Johann Jacob Froberger dies from a stroke in Hericourt, France, aged 50. He has requested for all his manuscripts to be destroyed after his death, in fear that his music will be incorrectly performed. Thankfully for posterity, his wish is ignored.
5 November
German composer Franz Tunder dies in Lubeck, aged about 53.
19 February
Antonio Cesti’s opera Le disgrazie d’Amore (The Misfortunes of Love) is first performed at the Hofburg in Vienna.
Le disgrazie d'Amore di Antonio Cesti / Prologo
15 November
The prodigious Pelham Humfrey. recently appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, joins Samuel Pepys for dinner. While impressed with Humfrey’s musical talent, Pepys finds the 20-year-old composer odious and arrogant, afterwards writing that he is ‘full of form and confidence and vanity, and disparages everything and everyone’s skill but his own’.
4 December
Michel Pignolet de Montéclair, French composer, born.
Johann Christoph Pepusch
John Christopher Pepusch, German Johann Christoph Pepusch, (born 1667, Berlin [Germany]—died July 20, 1752, London, Eng.), composer who was an important musical figure in England when George Frideric Handel was active there.
After studying theory and organ music, Pepusch at age 14 obtained a position at the Prussian court; he remained there until 1697. He traveled to the Netherlands and after 1700 settled in England. He took a doctorate in music from the University of Oxford in 1713 and soon became music director to the duke of Chandos. In the 1720s he became music director at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, for which he wrote several masques and arranged the tunes and composed the overtures for John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera (1728) and its sequel Polly (unperformed until 1777). In 1737 he became organist at the Charterhouse. Pepusch was in demand as a teacher; William Boyce was among his pupils. He also collected a magnificent library of music books and scores. Interested in music of the Renaissance and of ancient Greece and Rome, he strongly influenced early musical antiquarianism in England; one result was the publication of Boyce’s anthology Cathedral Music (of 16th- and 17th-century England).
Pepusch helped form the Academy of Ancient Music, which performed works by 16th-century composers, and edited some works of Arcangelo Corelli. Pepusch’s own compositions include cantatas, concerti, and chamber music.
Pepusch remained Director of the Academy until his death in 1752, whereupon he was succeeded by Benjamin Cooke. Pepusch died in London.
Johann Christoph Pepush Concertos for London
Johann Christoph Pepusch - Concertos and Sonatas
Johann Christoph Pepusch: 'Venus and Adonis'
Antonio Lotti
Antonio Lotti (5 January 1667 – 5 January 1740) was an Italian Baroque composer.
Lotti was born in Venice, although his father Matteo was Kapellmeister at Hanover at the time. Oral tradition says that in 1682, Lotti began studying with Lodovico Fuga and Giovanni Legrenzi, both of whom were employed at St Mark's Basilica, Venice's principal church, although there is no documentary evidence. Lotti made his career at St Mark's, first as an alto singer (from 1689), then as assistant to the second organist, then as second organist (from 1692), then (from 1704) as first organist, and finally (from 1736) as maestro di cappella, a position he held until his death. In 1717 he was given leave to go to Dresden, where a number of his operas were produced, including Giove in Argo, Teofane and Li quattro elementi (all with librettos by Antonio Maria Lucchini). Other works written in Venice include Giustino; Trionfo dell'Innocenza; the first act of Tirsi, Achille Placato, Teuzzone, Ama più che non si crede, Il comando inteso e tradito, Sidonio, Isaccio tiranno, La forze de sangue, Il Tradimento traditore di sè stesso, L'Infedeltà punita, Poresenna, Irene Augusta, Polidoro, Foca superbo, Alessandro Severo, Il Vincitore Generossi.
What is indeed well-documented is Lotti’s employment at various other Venetian institutions, including the Scuolo dello Spirito Santo, one of the scuole piccole. The governing body of the scuola, the Provveditori di Comun, contracted Antonio Lotti in 1695 to provide music at the scuola for the annual feast of Pentecost and the two days after for total of at least eight years. More significantly, he redistributed the balance between singers and instrumentalists in a way that reflects a change of musical texture and style in the sacred music performed there. There is one more venue for which Lotti is known to have composed sacred music, namely, the Dresden court of Friedrich Augustus I, Elector of Saxony) where Lotti was in residence from 1717 to 1719. While in Venice, the king had engaged Lotti specifically to compose for the Italian opera troupe that he had assembled.
In Dresden he also composed a handful of operas, including Odii del Sangue delusi. He returned to his job at San Marco in Venice in 1719 and remained there until his death in 1740.
Lotti wrote in a variety of forms, producing masses, cantatas, madrigals, around thirty operas, and instrumental music. Some of his sacred choral works are unaccompanied (a cappella) but many of them are composed in the concertato style with strings, basso continuo, and occasionally oboes and trumpets. His more progressive works foreshadow the gallant style, considered a transition between the established Baroque and emerging Classical styles. Lotti is thought to have influenced Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, and Jan Dismas Zelenka, all of whom had copies of Lotti's mass, the Missa Sapientiae.
Lotti was a notable teacher, with Domenico Alberti, Benedetto Marcello, Giovanni Battista Pescetti, Baldassare Galuppi. He was married to the noted soprano Santa Stella.
Antonio Lotti Crucifixus à 8 voix
Antonio Lotti: Missa pro defunctis (Requiem in d)
Antonio Lotti - "Missa sapientiae" - messa in sol min/ G min)
Antonio Lotti - Vesper Psalms
Antonio Lotti - Miserere №1 D minor, №2 G minor
Michel Pignolet de Montéclair
Michel Pignolet de Montéclair (4 December 1667 – 22 September 1737) was a French composer of the baroque period.
He was born Michel Pignolet in Andelot, Haute-Marne, France, and only later added "Montéclair" (the name of a fortress in his home town) to his name. Little is known of his life, and there are no known portraits. He was the son of a weaver; his entrance into the choir school at the age of nine may have been the only chance of escaping the poverty of a weaver's life. In 1687, he went to Paris and joined the orchestra of the Opera, where he played the basse de violon. In Paris he studied with Jean-Baptiste Moreau.
At some point between 1687 and the early years of the new century, he seems to have been maître de musique to the Prince de Vaudémont and to have followed him to Italy. It was probably from there that he brought the idea to add the double bass to the opera orchestra.
All the time Montéclair must have worked as a music teacher of high regard: among his pupils were the daughters of his colleague François Couperin. Montéclair's approach to teaching was fresh and almost modern. He published books on teaching music (e.g., in 1709), and around 1730 he published Recueil de brunettes, which contains vocal music adapted for flute. The collection was expressly intended as a pedagogical tool to teach French style, and for this reason the music is underlaid with the text. He opened a music shop in 1721, retired from teaching in 1735, and gave up his position in the opera orchestra shortly before his death. He died in Domont in 1737.
Montéclair was not greatly productive as a composer, but was an innovator in orchestration who had a significant influence on the development of the art form. His work was later taken up by Jean-Philippe Rameau. His specialty was using certain instruments to enhance the stage scene, e.g., letting horns play softly behind the stage to simulate a faraway hunt. Among his stage works are Festes de l'été and Jephté, which was considered difficult by contemporaries.
La Mort de Didon - Michel Pignolet de Montéclair
P. M. Monteclair - concerts No 4 for two Flute a-moll
Michel Pignolet de Montéclair - Quatrième Concert
Monteclair - Concerto No.1 for Traverso flute & B.C
Montéclair - Cantate "le Dépit Généreux"
1668
John Eccles, English composer, born.
Benigne de Bacilly publishes his treatise Remarques curmuses sur l'art de bien chanter, one of the most valuable sources on 17th-century French vocal practice.
Violin virtuoso and composer Heinrich von Biber is appointed musician and valet de chambre to the Bishop of Olmutz, Kromerfz Castle, Moravia.
John Blow (aged about 20) is appointed organist of Westminster Abbey in London. The following year he secures an additional court post as musician for the virginals.
Francesco Cavalli is appointed maestro di capella at St Marks, Venice
Original facade of St. Mark's Basilica
Italian-born composer Antonio Draghi becomes assistant Kapellmeister to the dowager Empress Eleonora in Vienna. He is promoted as her chief Kapellmeister the following year.
Empress Eleonora as Diana, by Frans Luycx, 1651
4 February
Jacopo Melani’s opera Il Girello, a satirical critique of absolutism, is first performed at the Palazzo Colonna in Rome. Incorporating a prologue composed by Alessandro Stradella, it becomes one of the most successful operas of the century.
Jacopo Melani - Chiedo Numi" from "Il Girello"
11 April
The 31-year-old Dietrich Buxtehude secures the position of organist at the Lubeck Marienkirche. Four months later he marries his predecessor’s youngest daughter, Anna Margarethe Tunder, very possibly a condition of his employment.
Late April
Jean-Baptiste Lully collaborates with Philippe Quinault (1635-1688), later his prized opera librettist, on the court ballet La grotte de Versailles, introduced around this time at Versailles.
Ouverture de "La Grotte de Versailles" (Harpsichord) - Jean-Baptiste Lully
12/14 July
Antonio Cesti’s Il pomo d’oro (The Golden Apple), based on the Judgement of Paris myth, is premiered in two parts at the Hoftheater auf der Cortina in Vienna. The opera is Cesti’s most famous creation, if only because of its vast scale, lasting eight hours and incorporating 50 sung parts, imaginative scenic effects and 23 stage sets. Presented for the birthday celebrations of Leopold’s wife (his niece, Margarita Teresa), it is by all accounts the most lavish musical stagework of the 17th century.
A. Cesti - Il pomo d'oro, festa teatrale (1668)
Just one of the 23 set designs for Cesti's Il pomo d’oro
18 July
A man marries above his station in George Dandin, a comedie-ballet by Moliere with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully, introduced at Versailles.
Henry Du Mont brings out his Motets a deux voix avec la basse continue.
Henry du Mont: Grands motets
Jean-Baptiste Lully composes his motet Plaude Laetare.
Jean-Baptiste Lully: Plaude laetare Gallia [motet] for choir, winds, brasses, strings & b.c.
John Eccles
John Eccles (1668 – 12 January 1735) was an English composer.
Born in London, eldest son of professional musician Solomon Eccles, John Eccles was appointed to the King's Private Music in 1694, and in 1700 became Master of the King's Musick. Also in 1700 he finished second in a competition to write music for William Congreve's masque The Judgement of Paris (John Weldon won).
Eccles was very active as a composer for the theatre, and from the 1690s wrote a large amount of incidental music including music for Congreve's Love for Love, John Dryden's The Spanish Friar and William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Jointly with Henry Purcell he wrote incidental music for Thomas d'Urfey's Don Quixote. He became a composer to Drury Lane theatre in 1693 and when some of the actors broke off to form their own company at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1695, he composed music for them as well.
Eccles also wrote music for the coronation of Queen Anne and a number of songs. Many of his most famous songs, such as "I burn, I burn" were composed for actress-singer Anne Bracegirdle to perform.
John Eccles - Symphony for Venus (The Judgment of Paris)
John Eccles - «SEMELE»
Opera in 3 acts - Libretto: William Congreve - 1707
Act I 0:01
Act II 30:11
Act III 54:03
1669
Henry Du Mont and Pierre Robert are appointed to share the duties of compositeur de la musique de la chapelle et de la chambre to the court of Louis XIV.
Christopher Simpson, one of England’s leading instrumental composers, dies in London, aged in his mid-60s.
Giovanni Battista Vitali, in Bologna, publishes his Sonate Op. 5, twelve pieces for two to five instruments and basso continuo.
Giovanni Battista Vitali - Sonatas Op.XI
Varie Sonate alla Francese e all'Italiana a 6, Op. 11
Sonata in B flat major
Sonata in G minor 7:41
Sonata in E minor 11:49
Sonata in C minor 15:41
Sonata in E flat major 20:47
Sonata in C major 25:12
Sonata in A major 32:12
Sonata in D major 36:19
Sonata in F major 39:41
Sonata in A minor 43:48
Sinfonia à 6 in D minor 49:57
Toccata (form Partite sopra diverse sonate) 52:01
Grave à 6, an homage to Giovanni Battista Vitali 54:44
Barabano, for ensemble 58:02
17 February
Alessandro Melani’s L’empio punito, the first opera on the subject of Don Juan, is premiered in the Palazzo Colonna, Rome.
L'EMPIO PUNITO by Alessandro Melani
16 April
Antonio Bertali, Kapellmeister to imperial court in Vienna, dies aged 64.
Giovanni Felice Sances succeeds him, having served 20 years as assistant Kapellmeister. This same year Sances is ennobled by Leopold I.
June
Librettist Pierre Perrin and Jean Baptiste Colbert, minister to Louis XIV, establish the Academie d’Opera (also known as the Academie de Musique, or Paris Opera) to promote a French form of opera.
2 February
Louis Marchand, French composer, born.
13 February
Jean-Baptiste Lully and Benserade's Ballet de Flore is performed at the Tuileries Palace, Paris. Later this year Lully collaborates with Moliere on the comedy-ballet Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, performed at Chambord.
Jean-Baptiste Lully - Ballet Royal de Flore: Plainte de Vénus sur la mort d'Adonis
14 October
Antonio Cesti, feted Italian composer of some of the century’s most famous operas, dies in Florence, aged 46. A rumour will later escalate that he was poisoned by rivals.
20 October
Johann Nicolaus Bach, German composer, born.
9 December
The librettist Giulio Rospigliosi, for the last two years Pope Clement IX, dies in Rome, aged 69.
Louis Marchand
Louis Marchand (2 February 1669 – 17 February 1732) was a French Baroque organist, harpsichordist, and composer. Born into an organist's family, Marchand was a child prodigy and quickly established himself as one of the best known French virtuosi of his time.
Marchand's father Jean was an organist in Lyon. As a child, the future composer showed exceptional talent: one contemporary account, by Évrard Titon du Tillet, states that already at the age of 14 he was offered the prestigious position of organist at the Nevers Cathedral. By age 20 he settled in Paris and married, eventually becoming organist of several Parisian churches, including Saint-Benoît-le-Bétourné (fr), the church of the Cordeliers Convent, the Jesuit church in rue St Jacques, and the church of Saint-Honoré Abbey (de). At around 1707–8 he became one of court organists.
Between 1713 and 1717 Marchand went on a long concert tour of Germany, at one point performed before the emperor. After his return to France Marchand once again settled in Paris and worked as organist for the Cordeliers Convent, augmenting his income with teaching.
Louis Marchand - Pièces De Clavecin, Book 1, Suite in D Minor
Louis Marchand - Pieces de Clavecin - 1702
Louis Marchand - Pièces d'orgue
Johann Nicolaus Bach
Johann Nicolaus Bach (20 October 1669 – 4 November 1753) was a German composer of the Baroque period.Johann Nicolaus was the eldest son of Johann Christoph Bach and the second cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach. He was educated at the University of Jena, where he later became organist. He was probably born at Eisenach, where his father was employed as a musician, attended the Eisenach Latin school until 1689, and was a student of the Jena city organist J.M. Knüpfer, a son of Sebastian Knüpfer; after an Italian sojourn in 1696, he became organist at the Stadtkirche and the Kollegiatkirche in Jena.
He was influenced by Antonio Lotti. He later joined the Danish army. He then returned to Jena where he lived for the rest of his life. Few of his compositions survive. He was also a maker of harpsichords and organs.
Surviving pieces include a mass, two chorale preludes on "Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g'mein" and a Singspiel Der jenaische Wein- und Bierrufer, this in the form of a quodlibet on Jena student traditions.
1670
Italian composer Antonio Caldara is born around this time in Venice.
Founder of the French harpsichord school, Jacques Champion Chambonnieres publishes 60 keyboard works in two anthologies entitled Pieces de clavessin.
Jacques Champion De Chambonnières - Pieces de Clavecin
Jacques Champion de Chambonnières - Livre premier de clavecin.
1. SUITE NO.1 in A MINOR (12'32)
2. SUITE NO.2 in C MAJOR (7'43) 12:15
3. SUITE NO.3 in D MINOR (first part 10'27) 19:52
4. SUITE NO.3 in D MINOR (continued 5'36) 30:08
5. SUITE NO.4 in F MAJOR (8'27) 35:41
6. SUITE NO.5 in G MINOR (14'34)
4 February
Louis XIV dances his last role, performing in Les amants magnifiques by Jean-Baptiste Lully and Moliere, staged at St Germain-en-Laye.
Lully "Les amants magnifiques" Suite
23 April
Loreto Vittori, Italian composer and one of the earliest operatic castratos, dies in Rome, aged 69.
18 July
Italian composer Giovanni Bononcini is born in Modena.
Arcangelo Corelli, aged 17, enrols at the recently created Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna.
Giovanni Legrenzi issues his beautiful sacred motet collection Acclamationi Divote (Book I) for solo voice. Op. 10. This year the composer becomes choirmaster at the Ospedale dei Derelitti (Hospital for the Abandoned) in Venice.
Legrenzi - Two motets
Acclamationi Divote a voce sola, Libro Primo. Op.10 (Bologna, 1670)
Johann Pachelbel enters the Gymnasium Poeticum at Regensburg as a scholarship student. Outside the Gymnasium he studies music with Kaspar Prentz.
14 October
Jean-Baptiste Lully and Moliere produce Le bourgeois gentilhomme (The Commoner Gentleman), their most famous collaboration, at Chambord. Repeated several times, the comedie-ballet transfers to the Palais-Royal in Paris where it sustains a lengthy run before a paying public.
Lully - Le bourgeois gentilhomme (excerpts)
Lully - Le bourgeois gentilhomme: Marche pour la cérémonie des turcs
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme - Lully - Molière (Fragmentos)
Antonio Caldara
Antonio Caldara (1670 – 28 December 1736) was an Italian Baroque composer.
Caldara was born in Venice (exact date unknown), the son of a violinist. He became a chorister at St Mark's in Venice, where he learned several instruments, probably under the instruction of Giovanni Legrenzi. In 1699 he relocated to Mantua, where he became maestro di cappella to the inept Charles IV, Duke of Mantua, a pensionary of France with a French wife, who took the French side in the War of the Spanish Succession. Caldara removed from Mantua in 1707, after the French were expelled from Italy, then moved on to Barcelona as chamber composer to Charles III, the pretender to the Spanish throne (following the death of Charles II of Spain in 1700 without any direct heir) and who kept a royal court at Barcelona. There, he wrote some operas that are the first Italian operas performed in Spain. He moved on to Rome, becoming maestro di cappella to Francesco Maria Marescotti Ruspoli, 1st Prince of Cerveteri. While there he wrote in 1710 La costanza in amor vince l'inganno (Faithfulness in Love Defeats Treachery) for the public theatre at Macerata.
With the unexpected death of Emperor Joseph I from smallpox at the age of 32 in April 1711, Caldara deemed it prudent to renew his connections with Charles III – soon to become Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI – as he travelled from Spain to Vienna via northern Italy. Caldara visited Vienna in 1712, but found Marc'Antonio Ziani and Johann Joseph Fux firmly ensconced in the two highest musical posts. He stopped at the Salzburg court on his return journey to Rome, where he was well received (and to which he subsequently sent one new opera annually from 1716 and 1727). In 1716, following the death the previous year of Ziani and the promotion of Fux to Hofkapellmeister, Caldara was appointed Vize-Kapellmeister to the Imperial Court in Vienna, and there he remained until his death.
Caldara is best known as a composer of operas, cantatas and oratorios. Several of his works have libretti by Pietro Metastasio, the court poet at Vienna from 1729.
Antonio Caldara - 12 Sinfonie a quattro
No. 1 in D major "Il martiro di S. Terenziano" 0:00
No. 2 in C major "Il Battista" 5:32
No. 3 in F minor "La morte d'Abel" 9:39
No.4 15:01
No. 5 in B flat major "San Pietro in Caesarea" 19:57
No. 6 in G minor "San Elena al Calvario" 24:50
No. 7 in D major "Gerusalemme convertita" 29:56
No. 8 in B major "Sedecia" 33:40
No. 9 in B flat major "Gesù presentato nel Tempio" 38:13
No. 10 in E minor "Gioseffo, che interpreta i sogni" 43:28
No. 11 in D minor "Naboth" 47:04
No. 12 in A minor "La passione di Gesù Signor..." 51:37
Missa Dolorosa - Antonio Caldara
Antonio Caldara - Stabat Mater
Antonio Caldara - Dies Irae (c.1720)
A. Caldara - Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo - Oratorium
Antonio Caldara - «Confitebor tibi Domine» for Soprano, Coro, Oboe, Strings and B.C.:
Though he was a prolific and gifted composer, Bononcini’s abilities are dwarfed by comparison with Handel’s. Only in opera, where both used the same highly conventionalized idiom, are the two men comparable. Nonetheless, Bononcini achieved a simple and fluent melodic style and the ability to write well for his singers.
Giovanni Bononcini - Divertimenti Op.7
1. No.1 in F major 0:00
2. No. 2 in D minor 8:59
3. No. 3 in A minor 18:39
4. No. 4 in G minor 27:19
5. No. 5 in B flat major 33:34
6. No. 6 in C minor 44:12
7. No. 7 in E minor 53:41
8. No. 8 in G major 1:00:54
G. B. Bononcini: San Nicola di Bari (1693) / Oratorio a quattro
G. B. Bononcini: La costanza non gradita nel doppio amor d'Aminta (1694)
Giovanni Bononcini
Giovanni Bononcini, Bononcini also spelled Buononcini, (born July 18, 1670, Modena, Duchy of Modena—died July 9, 1747, Vienna), composer, chiefly remembered as Handel’s rival in England.
He studied with his father, composer and theoretician Giovanni Maria Bononcini, and later at Bologna. Precocious musical gifts won him his first appointment, as a cellist, in 1687, and he soon became maestro di cappella of S. Giovanni in Monte. He moved to Rome about 1691 and in 1698, after a brief period in Venice, settled in Vienna with his brother, the composer Antonio Maria Bononcini.
In 1720 he was invited to London by the new operatic organization, the Royal Academy of Music. His rivalry with Handel and their backing by opposed political and social factions ended in defeat for Bononcini. His backers were a group of noblemen; Handel was backed by the king. A three-act opera, Muzio Scevola, was looked upon as a public competition, with Bononcini and Handel composing the second and third acts, respectively. Handel was judged the winner. This reverse and others led to Bononcini’s loss of support.
Eight of his operas were produced in London, the most successful being Astarto, Crispo, and Griselda. Other compositions of this period include an anthem on the death (1722) of the Duke of Marlborough and harpsichord and chamber music. In the early 1730s he went to Paris, leaving England in disgrace after submitting to the Academy of Ancient Music as his own composition a madrigal actually written by Antonio Lotti. His last work, Te Deum, was written in Vienna in the 1740s.
Rembrandt - The Jewish Bride