Giovanni Battista Martini
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
.
Biography
Martini was born at BolognaBologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
.
His father, Antonio Maria Martini, a violinist, taught him the elements of music and the violin; later he learned singing and harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
playing from Padre Pradieri, and counterpoint from Antonio Riccieri and Giacomo Antonio Perti
Giacomo Antonio Perti
Giacomo Antonio Perti was an Italian composer of the Baroque era. He was mainly active at Bologna, where he was Maestro di Cappella for sixty years...
. Having received his education in classics from the fathers of the oratory of San Filippo Neri, he afterwards entered upon a noviciate at the Franciscan monastery at Lago, at the close of which he was received as a Minorite on September 11, 1722.
In 1725, though only nineteen years old, he received the appointment of chapel-master in the Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
church at Bologna, where his compositions attracted attention. At the invitation of amateurs and professional friends he opened a school of composition at which several celebrated musicians were trained; as a teacher he consistently declared his preference for the traditions of the old Roman school of composition. Padre Martini was a zealous collector of musical literature, and possessed an extensive musical library. Burney
Charles Burney
Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian and father of authors Frances Burney and Sarah Burney.-Life and career:...
estimated it at 17,000 volumes; after Martini's death a portion of it passed to the Imperial library at Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, the rest remaining in Bologna, now in the Museo Internazionale della Musica (ex Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale).
Most contemporary musicians speak of Martini with admiration, and Leopold Mozart
Leopold Mozart
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 for his violin textbook Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule.-Childhood and student years:He was born in Augsburg, son of...
consulted him with regard to the talents of his son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
. Abt Vogler
Georg Joseph Vogler
Georg Joseph Vogler, also known as Abbé Vogler , was a German composer, organist, teacher and theorist.Vogler was born at Pleichach in Würzburg...
, however, makes reservations in his praise, condemning his philosophical principles as too much in sympathy with those of Fux, which had already been expressed by P. Vallotti. His Elogio was published by Pietro della Valle at Bologna in the same year.
In 1758 he was invited to teach at the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna.
Among Martini's pupils: the Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
André Ernest Modeste Grétry
André Ernest Modeste Grétry
André Ernest Modeste Grétry was acomposer from the Prince-Bishopric of Liège , who worked from 1767 onwards in France and took French nationality. He is most famous for his opéras comiques....
, the Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
n Josef Mysliveček
Josef Myslivecek
Josef Mysliveček was a Czech composer who contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music...
, the Ukrainian
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
Maksym Berezovsky
Maksym Berezovsky
Maksym Sozontovych Berezovsky was a Ukrainian composer, opera singer, and violinist.Berezovsky was the first Ukrainian composer to be recognized throughout Europe and the first to compose an opera, symphony, and violin sonata. His most popular works are his sacred choral pieces written for the...
, Stanislao Mattei
Stanislao Mattei
Stanislao Mattei was an Italian composer, musicologist, and teacher. A pupil of Giovanni Battista Martini, Mattei's music bares a close resemblance to his style of composition...
, the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach was a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as 'the London Bach' or 'the English Bach', due to his time spent living in the British capital...
and the famous Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
cellist Giovanni Battista Cirri
Giovanni Battista Cirri
Giovanni Battista Cirri was an Italian cellist and composer in the 18th century.-Biography:Cirri was born in Forlì . He had his first musical training with his brother Ignazio and was for a time organist at Forlì Cathedral...
.
The greater number of Martini's sacred compositions remain unprinted. The Liceo of Bologna possesses the manuscripts of two oratorios; and a requiem, with some other pieces of church music, are now in Vienna. Litaniae atque antiphonae finales B. V. Mariae were published at Bologna in 1734, as also twelve Sonate d'intavolalura; six Sonate per l'organo ed il cembalo in 1747; and Duetti da camera in 1763. Martini's most important works are his Storia della musica (Bologna, 1757–1781) and his Esemplare di contrappunto (Bologna, 1774–1775). The former, of which the three published volumes relate wholly to ancient music, and thus represent a mere fragment of the author's vast plan, exhibits immense reading and industry, but is written in a dry and unattractive style, and is overloaded with matter which cannot be regarded as historical. At the beginning and end of each chapter occur puzzle-canons, wherein the primary part or parts alone are given, and the reader has to discover the canon that fixes the period and the interval at which the response is to enter. Some of these are exceedingly difficult, but all were solved by Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries....
.
The Esemplare is a learned and valuable work, containing an important collection of examples from the best masters of the old Italian and Spanish schools, with excellent explanatory notes. It treats chiefly of the tonalities of the plain chant, and of counterpoints constructed upon them. Besides being the author of several controversial works, Martini drew up a Dictionary of Ancient Musical Terms, which appeared in the second volume of GB Doni's Works; he also published a treatise on The Theory of Numbers as Applied to Music. His celebrated canons, published in London, about 1800, edited by Pio Cianchettini, show him to have had a strong sense of musical humour.
Professor Peter Schickele
Peter Schickele
Johann Peter Schickele is an American composer, musical educator, and parodist. He is best known for his comedy music albums featuring his music that he presents as music written by the fictional composer P. D. Q...
, in his satirical "study" of the life of the fictitious P.D.Q. Bach has "found" that P.D.Q. Bach's second phase of life, the soused period, was shaped in part by Padre Martini (and further by his association with Thomas Collins).
External links
- More information, including full text, of Martini's Storia della musica in the University of North Texas Music Library's Virtual Rare Book Room
Sources
- Sadie, S. (ed.) (1980) The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, [vol. # 11].
- Elisabetta Pasquini, Gimbattista Martini. Palermo, L'Epos, 2007. ISBN 978-88-8302-343-9