Directory

Girolamo Frescobaldi

1583–1643, ITALIAN

Frescobaldi was one of the first great keyboard virtuosos (he played organ and harpsichord, as well as being a fine singer) and the first eminent composer to focus on music for an unaccompanied keyboard. He was born in Ferrara and spent most of his career in Rome, where he was organist at St. Peter’s for most of the period from 1608 until his death (he had an interlude working at the Medici court in Florence from 1628 to 1634). During his lifetime, he was internationally famous, and his music continued to be admired and influential for several decades afterward (it was, for example, studied by the young J.S. Bach some 60 years later). His style was lively and inventive, often showing dramatic changes of tempo. In addition to keyboard works, he wrote sacred and secular vocal music and compositions for instrumental ensembles.

KEY WORKS: Toccate e partite… libro primo (First Book of Toccatas and Partitas), 1615; Ego sum panis vivus (I Am the Living Bread [vocal]), 1621; Fiori musicali (Musical Flowers [a collection of sacred organ music]), 1635

Heinrich Schütz

1585–1672, GERMAN

More than anyone else, Schütz put German music on the map, giving it an importance that it had never previously enjoyed and establishing high intellectual and technical standards that became characteristic of the country’s composers. He spent most of his long career at the court in Dresden, but he also worked elsewhere in Germany and he made two lengthy visits to Venice and two to Copenhagen. His large output (there are more than 500 surviving works) is highly varied. Most of his music is religious, but he also wrote, for example, the first German opera, Dafne (1627), although this does not survive. His early work was much influenced by the ornate style of Italian music, but it became a lot more austere, probably in part because the devastation caused by the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) discouraged extravagance in the arts.

KEY WORKS: Psalmen Davids (Psalms of David), 1619; Symphoniae sacrae 1 (Sacred Symphonies, Book One), 1629; Musikalische Exequien (Funeral Music), 1636; Historia der Geburt Jesu Christi (Story of the Birth of Jesus Christ, popularly known as Weihnachtshistorie, Christmas Story), 1660

HEINRICH SCHÜTZ, c. 1650

Isabella Leonarda

1620–1704, ITALIAN

At the age of 16, Isabella Leonarda, a member of a local aristocratic family, entered a convent in Novara, northwest Italy, where she spent the rest of her life. During this period of almost 70 years she became head of the convent and one of the leading female composers of her time, with about 200 works to her credit. They are mainly sacred vocal works of various kinds, but she also wrote secular instrumental pieces, including a set of four sonatas that are thought to be the first sonatas ever published by a woman (the majority of her work was published in handsome editions during her lifetime, mainly in Bologna but also sometimes in Milan and Venice). Leonarda confined her composing to periods allocated to rest so that it did not distract her from her normal duties as a nun.

KEY WORKS: Ave suavis dilectio (Hail, Sweet Love), 1676; Ave Regina caelorum (Hail, Queen of Heaven), 1684; Sonata for Solo Violin and Continuo, 1693

Dieterich Buxtehude

c. 1637–1707, DANISH-GERMAN

The date and exact place of Buxtehude’s birth are uncertain. Reflecting the complex, shifting political geography of the time, he is sometimes described as Danish and sometimes as German. His early career was spent in what is now Denmark, and from 1668 until his death he held the highly prestigious post of organist at the Marienkirche (St. Mary’s Church) in Lübeck (now in Germany), a huge and wealthy church with an outstanding musical tradition. In effect, he was music director for the whole city. He was acclaimed as one of the greatest organists of his time and his compositions for the instrument form the most important body of such work before those of J.S. Bach. Buxtehude also wrote a good deal of sacred (and some secular) vocal music and instrumental music for various combinations of instruments, mainly strings.

KEY WORKS: Membra Jesu nostri (The Limbs of our Jesus [oratorio]), 1680; Seven Trio Sonatas (for violin, viola da gamba, and harpsichord), 1696; Passacaglia in D minor, c. 1690–1700

Marc-Antoine Charpentier

1643–1704, FRENCH

Charpentier spent most of his life in Paris, where he enjoyed a busy and varied career. The bulk of his large output is devoted to sacred music, which he wrote for churches, convents, and private patrons, notably Marie of Lorraine, Duchess of Guise (known as Mademoiselle de Guise), who was devoted to both religion and music. These works include Masses, psalm settings, and various other types of composition. Charpentier also wrote chamber music and work for the stage, sometimes in collaboration with the great dramatist Molière. His most famous composition today is the majestic, uplifting instrumental prelude to his Te Deum. This work was lost until 1953, but the year after its rediscovery the prelude was adopted as the theme music of the European Broadcasting Union, used to precede programs such as the Eurovision Song Contest.

KEY WORKS: Mass for Four Choirs, c. 1670–1675; The Denial of St. Peter (oratorio) c. 1680–1700; Andromeda (music for Pierre Corneille’s play), 1682; Te Deum, c. 1692

Johann Pachelbel

1653–1706, GERMAN

One of the leading German musicians of his time, Johann Pachelbel was distinguished as an organist and teacher as well as a composer. He was born and died in Nuremberg, but he also worked in a number of other places in Germany and Austria, including Erfurt, Stuttgart, and Vienna, and his reputation as an organist was such that he was offered—but declined—a post in Oxford. In addition to his notable organ compositions, Pachelbel’s large output includes chamber music, pieces for harpsichord, and vocal works of various kinds. Following his death in 1706, he was little known except to musical scholars, and he did not achieve widespread fame until the 1970s, when his serene but joyous Canon in D major became a surprise hit, being recorded again and again, featuring as background music in film and television, and inspiring adaptations in pop music.

KEY WORKS: Canon and Gigue for 3 Violins and Basso Continuo (Canon in D major), c. 1680–1690; Musicalische Ergötzung (Musical Delight [collection of chamber music]), c. 1691; Hexachordum Apollinis (Six Strings of Apollo [arias for organ or harpsichord]), 1699

Tomaso Albinoni

1671–1751, ITALIAN

Albinoni was Vivaldi’s leading contemporary among Venetian composers and almost as prolific. He is believed to have written about 80 operas (although few of them have survived in complete form), which he successfully staged in Venice over a period of almost half a century—a remarkable achievement at a time of rapidly changing fashions, and a reflection of his gift for appealing melody. They also won acclaim outside Italy. Albinoni’s other works include numerous concertos (notably for oboe) and sonatas (likewise internationally successful in his time) and some church music. Curiously, the piece most closely associated with his name—the dreamily mellifluous “Albinoni’s Adagio”—is not actually by him. In 1958, the musicologist Remo Giazotto published an Adagio in G minor as a work that was based on a supposed fragment of manuscript by Albinoni, but it is now thought to be almost entirely by Giazotto.

KEY WORKS: 12 Trio Sonatas (his first published works), 1694; Pimpinone (opera), 1708; Concerto in D minor for Oboe, 1722

Thomas Arne

1710–1778, BRITISH

Although he wrote music of various types (including Masses—he was a Catholic), Arne specialized in work for the stage (his sister was an actress and his wife a singer). He had long associations with two major London theaters (Covent Garden and Drury Lane) and also with Vauxhall Gardens, a leading center of popular entertainment. His large output includes operas, oratorios, masques, and incidental music for plays. Much of his work is routine, but at his best he had a memorable gift for melody, as in his most famous piece, the stirring song “Rule, Britannia!” It was originally part of Arne’s patriotic masque Alfred (about Alfred the Great), but it was such a success that it quickly achieved an independent life. His other famous songs include “Where the Bee Sucks,” sung by Ariel in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

KEY WORKS: Comus, 1738; Alfred, 1740; Music for The Tempest, 1740, Artaxerxes, 1762; Love in a Village, 1762

THOMAS ARNE, c. 1760