In London during the year probably at Westminster - Henry Purcell came into the world as yet another representative of an

Transcription

1 SONS & BROTHERS Music which is melodious yet so put together as to reflect the perfect order of the universe the harmony of the spheres : that is the baroque Ideal. In the words of remarkable composer and theorist Johann Joseph Fux ( ): A composition meets the demands of good taste if it is well constructed, avoids trivialities as well as wilful eccentricities, aims at the sublime but moves in a natural ordered way, combining brilliant ideas with perfect workmanship. A man who concurred with Fux s claim was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Not that he is represented in music on our program, but in other respects he serves our musical dynasties theme well. And coming after all others represented here, WAM is in a qualified position to reflect on the undercurrents and influences which they brought to bear on his work. In the spring of 1789, Mozart set out on one of the most extensive adulthood journeys he would undertake. The plan was to visit a series of cities lying northward of his adopted home in Vienna: Prague, Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin (where CPE Bach had died one year previous). His aristocratic patron and fellow freemason, Prince Karl Lichnowsky, who had his own reasons for travelling to Berlin, offered Mozart an 18 th century prototype of ridesharing: the passage to Berlin (in his princely 4-horse carriage) was free of charge! Once at Leipzig, they spent about three days where Mozart s itinerary ran something like this: Monday 20 April 1789: arrives in Leipzig Wednesday 22: improvises on Bach s organ in the Thomaskirche Thursday 23: departs Leipzig Saturday 25: arrives at Sans Souci Palace, Potsdam (former place of employment of CPE Bach)

2 Johann Friedrich Rochlitz ( ), who graduated from the Thomasschule and remained in Leipzig to study theology, ten years later reported that Johann Friedrich Doles (a student of JS Bach at the Thomasschule, who through 1789 was Bach s successor as cantor of the Thomasschule and director of the Thomanerchor) surprised Mozart with a performance of the double-choir motet Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied [BWV 225] by Sebastian Bach... he was told that the school possessed a complete collection of his motets and preserved them as a sort of sacred relic. That's the spirit! [Mozart] cried. Let's see them! There was, however, no score... so [Mozart] had the parts given to him, and... sat himself down with the parts all around him exclaiming, Now, there is something from which one can learn! Rochlitz also reported that Mozart requested a copy of the parts and valued them very highly. In the music of JS Bach, the different forms and styles of the baroque came together and were, as Fux required, brought to perfection. Johann Sebastian Bach came from a musical family stretching back through many generations, and the Bachs were well-known throughout their home ground of Thuringia in what is now southeast Germany. The Bach family members were church and court musicians, teachers, and one or two were instrument-makers. Though Bach himself travelled less than some of his contemporaries, he seems to have been able to draw freely and widely on the developments taking place throughout the western musical world. Later in Bach s life, during his Leipzig years, his son Carl Philipp Emanuel wrote that no musician of any consequence visiting Leipzig would fail to call upon my father. as Mozart did posthumously. Leipzig was a strategic, cosmopolitan, university town, and visiting musicians would drop in, or stay at Bach s apartments in the Thomasschule building, where they would make music together on whatever ensemble of

3 instruments the occasion could muster. Many of Bach s later concertos were written or modified for such occasions the 3 and 4 harpsichord concertos for example. After JS Bach s death in 1750, his music was all but forgotten. Only in Leipzig was his memory kept alive, as well as a few other little pockets of reverent admiration. In April 1782, prior to his see-for-himself Leipzig experience, Wolfgang Amadeus had written to his father, Leopold, in Salzburg: Every Sunday, at Twelve, I go to Baron van Swieten [President of the Court Commission Studies in Vienna] and there we play nothing but Handel and Bach. I am just building up a collection of fugues by Old Sebastian as well. On one such Sunday, when Mozart proclaimed to Baron van Swieten, Bach is the father; we are the children!, it was not, however, the figure he endearingly called Old Sebastian. Rather, he was invoking CPE, the son. Whilst Johann Sebastian tried to forge a direct connection between the musician and God, CPE on the other hand sought an emotional connection (Empfindsamkeit sensibility ) between the musician and the listener. Without doubt, Mozart saw CPE as the most important link between the music of Johann Sebastian and his own. It was through JS Bach s youngest son Johann Christian that the 8 year old Mozart long before first became aware of the Bach family. Earning the nickname of the London Bach, JC Bach had made his name as an opera composer in London. During Mozart s first extensive journey, their 1764 meeting in London led to a lifelong friendship and a niggling urge to seek out the (biological) father. In London during the year probably at Westminster - Henry Purcell came into the world as yet another representative of an

4 active family of musicians. (Other variants of the name include Persill, Pursal, Pursel and Pursill.) His father, Thomas, was a tenor and composer, and in a letter to the singer, John Gosling, Thomas mentions my sonne Henry is composing: wherein you will be chiefly consern d. Thomas fathered four boys: another sonne, Daniel, 5 years Henry s junior, achieved some recognition as a composer and organist at Magdalen College, Oxford where he became well known not only as a local musician but also as a maker of puns and an excellent drinking companion! Prodigiously gifted, Henry entered the Chapel Royal as Child of the Chapel Royal, namely a boy treble. Children were sought after singers in church because their high voices were considered closest to the angels. John Playford s Catch as Catch Can, or the Musical Companion includes a 3-part song, Sweet Tyranness, that Henry wrote, aged 8. His voice broke at the age of 14, which for that time, was unusually young. Never mind; he was soon appointed unpaid assistant to John Hingeston, Keeper (i.e. maintainer) of the King s Wind and Keyboard Instruments, the idea being that Henry would succeed him which he eventually did. After one year s training, and for the following four years, Henry was engaged to tune the organ at Westminster Abbey. He was also appointed composer-in-ordinary for the Four and Twenty Violins of the King (Charles II), in succession to Matthew Locke and, in 1679, succeeded his organ teacher, John Blow, as organist at the Abbey a post which not only entitled him to a rare salary but also the rent of a house in St Ann s Lane, Westminster. In July 1682, Purcell re-entered the Chapel Royal as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal as well as its organist. In December, on Hingeston s death, Henry was appointed Keeper of the King s Wind and Keyboard Instruments, by which time, the role also included organ building. (Think JS Bach s other field of expertise.)

5 Apart from increased activity as a composer in his final period, particularly for the theatre (the incidental music for Abdelazer was written in the last year of his life) there is not much personal information about Purcell. On his dying day, so feeble that his hand could barely hold a quill, he made his last will and testament. Five days later, his funeral took place in Westminster Abbey with the music being sung by the combined Abbey and the Chapel Royal choirs. At no cost to his widow, Frances, he was buried next to the Abbey organ that he had maintained since his teens. Almost overnight, the universally acknowledged master of Neapolitan baroque music, Alessandro Scarlatti (as new maestro di cappella at the Viceregal Chapel) revolutionised the prevailing provincial musical atmosphere at Naples when he arrived there in February In his luggage, he brought all that he had so far directly inherited from the grand Italian musical forms opera, oratorio, cantata and instrumental composition which he had received from Pietro Francesco Cavalli, Giacomo Carissimi, Alessandro Stradella and Giovanni Legrenzi. The abrupt resignation of the old Neapolitan guard Francesco Provenzale (c ) and six of his colleagues all disappointed, upon the death of Pietro Andrea Ziani (c ), that Provenzale was passed over in favour of Scarlatti, ensured that the way was clear for Scarlatti's breath of fresh air. His operas and cantatas, serenatas and oratorios, and especially his instrumental works all brought new life to the south. He was to write over one hundred operas, six hundred cantatas and a number of oratorios. He was also frequently commissioned by members of the European nobility to compose sonatas for wind and string instruments as well as harpsichord pieces and concerti grossi. Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro s sixth son, was JS Bach s exact contemporary. Father Scarlatti no doubt exposed his son to the

6 best possible training in Naples and then, around 1708, took him to Venice to study with Francesco Gasparini, himself a pupil of Arcangelo Corelli. From Venice, the younger Scarlatti journeyed to Rome with Handel where they both performed before Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in his private chambers. About 1720 Domenico moved to Lisbon, and some ten years later to Madrid. Thus sidelined on the edge of mainstream European musical developments, rather like Joseph Haydn, Scarlatti was forced to be extra-creative and develop his own style. Consequently, Domenico Scarlatti is perhaps best-known today for his keyboard sonatas, in which he borrowed liberally from Hispanic folk tunes and rhythms creating a unique blend which might be called Iberian Baroque. Giovanni Battista Sammartini is the most prolific of the preclassical symphonists. Unfortunately, Sammartini has gone down in history as a facile, superficial composer Haydn nicknamed him the Scribbler but it can t be denied that his influence was extensive. Working in Milan, he simultaneously served as maestro di capella for as many as eleven churches! (CPE Bach thought that five was enough!) Unlike his oboist, recorder-playing brother, Giuseppe who went to London, Giovanni remained in Milan all his life, keeping up a phenomenal output and making a name for himself in London, Paris, Vienna, Prague, Mannheim and many other important German cities without actually going to any of them! His fame was enhanced by visits from JC Bach, Quantz, Gluck, Boccherini and Mozart a list similar in length to JS & CPE Bach s, Corelli s and Vivaldi s famous admirers. All were eager to seek Sammartini out as the latest thing in style direction, some aspects of which are carefully contained in this Sinfonia in C major.

7 Lastly, the Marcello brothers of Venice are an interesting case. Both nobili dilettanti and composers, the younger was also a magistrate, an author on music and a teacher. The elder, Alessandro Ignazio, was a tenor, played the violin and wrote music under the name, Eterio Stinfalico his pseudonym as a member of the celebrated Roman Accademia dell Arcadia. (Taking their cue from classic and pastoral mythology, rituals of the Academy included Academics assuming pastoral names.) Alessandro is probably most well-known for his Concerto for oboe, S.Z799, in which he is able to engage genuine baroque affections through his use of lyricism and consecutive, suspended dissonances. The work s significance was affirmed by JS Bach s transcription of it for harpsichord BWV974 before writing his double concerto for oboe and violin. Brother Benedetto, likewise a member of the Accademia dell Arcadia, writing music under the pseudonym Driante Sacreo, was forced by their father to pursue a legal career. In 1707, after being selected by lot to sit on the Grand Council of the Republic, he held a couple of important public service posts: Governor of Pola ( ) and Chamberlain of Brescia ( ). Despite his legal prominence, he illegally married his singing student Rosanna Scalfi in 1728 (a nobleman was forbidden to marry a commoner). After his death by tuberculosis, Rosanna was disqualified from inheriting his estate. In 1742, she filed a petition against Alessandro, seeking his financial support, but was dismissed. During his life, Benedetto s name was most closely associated with satire and criticism. He was the unremorseful author of the satire on Italian opera particularly of Vivaldi and his generation Il teatro all mode, and a satire on castrated singers Il flagella dei musici (1721). Tim Blomfield 2017