Search Results

Member of Chédeville family [Chefdeville]

(b Sérez, Eure, Feb 20, 1705; d Paris, Aug 6, 1782). French composer, arranger, musette maker, player, and teacher, brother of Pierre and Esprit Philippe Chédeville. His great uncle Louis Hotteterre was one of his godfathers and may have taught him music and the art of turning instruments. In the early 1720s he entered the opera orchestra as oboe and musette player, and on November 1, 1725 he took over the reversion of Jean Hotteterre’s post in the Grands Hautbois from Esprit Philippe. After Jean’s death in 1732, he acquired the title to this post.

On December 2, 1729 he took out his first privilege to publish his own compositions. At first he called himself ‘Chedeville le jeune’ on the title-pages of these works; from op.3 he listed himself as ‘Chedeville le cadet’. The dedications of many of his works show that he was much sought after as a musette teacher by members of the most highly-placed families in France. He taught Princess Victoire from about ...

[Clementi, Mutius Philippus Vincentius Franciscus Xaverius]

(b Rome, Jan 23, 1752; d Evesham, Worcs., March 10, 1832). English composer, keyboard player and virtuoso, teacher, music publisher, entrepreneur, and piano manufacturer of Italian birth.

The oldest of seven children of Nicola Clementi (1720–89), a silversmith, and Magdalena (née Kaiser), Clementi began studies in music in Rome at a very early age; his teachers were Antonio Boroni (1738–92), an organist named Cordicelli, Giuseppi Santarelli (1710–90), and possibly Gaetano Carpani. In January 1766, at the age of 13, he secured the post of organist at his home church, S Lorenzo in Damaso. In that year, however, his playing attracted the attention of an English traveller, Peter Beckford (1740–1811), cousin of the novelist William Beckford (1760–1844) and nephew of William Beckford (1709–70), twice Lord Mayor of London. According to Peter Beckford’s own forthright explanation, he ‘bought Clementi of his father for seven years’, and in late ...

(b Würzburg, March 13, 1767; d Paris, June 19, 1844). German horn player, composer and teacher, active in France. Son of the Hungarian-born principal horn at the Würzburg court, Friedrich Domnich (b Ofen, 9 June 1729; d Würzburg, 22 April 1790), he was the most famous of three horn-playing brothers; the others were Jacob (b Würzburg, 1758; d Philadelphia, after 1806), who in about 1790 emigrated to Philadelphia and taught and played extensively there, and Arnold (b Würzburg, 29 Sept 1771; d Meiningen, 14 July 1834), who was employed at the Saxe-Meiningen court from 1786 until 1834, becoming principal horn in 1803. At an early age Heinrich entered the band of Count von Elz at Mainz, but when subjected to livery service he left in 1783 for Paris, where he studied with Punto for two years. In 1785 he earned praise for the neatness and facility of his playing as second to Jean Lebrun in a double concerto at the Concert Spirituel; this was the first of at least eight appearances there by Domnich between ...

(b Jirapa, Ghana, June 22, 1958). Ghanaian xylophone maker, player, and teacher. Born into a family of gyilli makers and players in northwest Ghana, Doozie began playing at six years of age. When he was 12 his father taught him to make his first gyilli and he was a practised maker by age 15. After secondary school Doozie moved to Accra to become a xylophonist with the Ghana Dance Ensemble. He was also an instructor at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon. Among other appointments, he has performed with the National SO Ghana and has been associated with the Institute of African Studies and the music and performing arts departments of the University of Ghana. In 1990 he established a workshop to produce xylophones; he made the xylophones used in the Broadway production of The Lion King. He has also restored instruments in museum collections. He continues to teach and perform and is managing director of Dagarti Arts and Music in Accra and a member of the Arts Council of Ghana. He is also involved in promoting fair trade practices. Doozie’s xylophone bars—from eight to 18 for each instrument—are made of aged, fire-dried planks of wood from male shea trees. Gourd resonators are affixed under the bars, which are tied to the curved frame. The tips of the wooden beaters are padded with rubber recycled from tyres....

[Johann Friedrich Conrad; Frédéric]

(b Hanover, Aug 10, 1759; d Quebec, 12/Jan 13, 1836). Canadian musician of German birth. The son of a military band musician, he is reported to have been a violin prodigy. In 1777 he enlisted in one of the Brunswick regiments destined for Canada. Discharged in 1783, he settled in Quebec, where he made a living as instrumentalist, teacher, tuner, repairman, and importer of instruments and sheet music. He was probably the first full-time musician in Canada who left a mark both immediate and lasting. His activities, probably as a director and conductor, enhanced the holding of subscription concerts in Quebec in the 1790s, featuring orchestral and chamber music by J.C. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Pleyel and others. Many of the printed parts assumed to have been supplied by Glackemeyer are still preserved. Prince Edward (later Duke of Kent), in Quebec 1791–4, is said to have appointed him a regimental bandmaster....

(b Belfast, Aug 12, 1839; d Manchester, Dec 12, 1911). English clarinettist, brass band conductor and teacher. He was the son of a military bandmaster and had a precocious musical talent; by the age of 11 he was appearing as a piccolo soloist with Louis Jullien’s orchestra. He also appears to have been a talented pianist, but it was as a clarinettist that he made his mark as a player. After touring with a number of theatre bands he became leader of the Harrogate Spa Band, and in 1861 he joined the Hallé Orchestra in which he remained for most of his playing career. In the 1850s he started to conduct brass bands, and he went on to have influential associations with the most successful Victorian bands, particularly the Meltham Mills Band. At the time of his death Gladney was widely referred to as the father of the brass band movement. With two other successful Victorian band conductors, Edwin Swift and Alexander Owen, he shaped the format and idiom of the British brass band. The standard instrumentation comes from their preferred combination of forces (...

(David )

(b Chicago, IL, Jan 27, 1950). American horn player, historical horn maker, music educator, and composer. He studied horn with Ernani Angelucci, John Barrows, Helen Kotas, Ethel Merker, Frank Brouk, and Dale Clevenger. He was appointed assistant principal horn for the Detroit Symphony in 1972, and has also performed as principal horn with the Mexico City Philharmonic (1978–80), the Cincinnati Symphony (1984–6), the Toledo Symphony (1990–7), and as guest principal horn with the Antwerp Philharmonic/Royal Flemish Orchestra. He has taught the horn at Interlochen Arts Academy, Wheaton College, Oakland University, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Michigan, the School of Perfection in Mexico City, and the Carl Nielsen Academy in Odense, Denmark. Greer has written solo pieces for both the modern and natural (valveless) horn, as well as a mass for hunting horns and organ.

Noted for his flexible tone and facile technique, Greer has toured widely as a soloist and has made notable recordings, particularly on the natural horn; those recordings include Beethoven’s Sonata for horn, Brahms’ Trio for horn, violin, and piano, and the horn concertos of Mozart....

[Louis]

(b Berlin, 17 Feb ?1821; d Berlin, May 23, 1882). German harpist, teacher and composer, son of Karl Grimm. He studied the harp with Josef Hasselmans at the Strasbourg Conservatory and perfected his skill in Leipzig with Elias Parish Alvars. From 1837 he performed with great success and was much in demand, particularly by Liszt and Bülow. In 1844 he was the principal harpist at the royal chapel in Berlin and 25 years later received the title königliche Concertmeister.

Grimm was the founder of the modern German school of harp playing. Among his pupils were Albert Zabel, Wilhelm Posse, Franz Poenitz, Rosalia Spohr (wife of Louis Spohr) and Ferdinand B. Hummel. His compositions for the harp are unpublished.

(b Bohemia, 1710/11; d Dresden, March 30, 1771). Bohemian horn player, teacher, inventor and composer. He was appointed second horn of the Dresden Hofkapelle in 1737 and continued in that capacity until about 1768, being paired initially with J.G. Knechtel, later with Carl Haudek. Hampel contributed to the development of both the instrument and its technique, and his innovations were widely imitated. He extended the horn's range downwards by developing the middle and low registers. During his tenure at Dresden, second horn parts became more independent of first parts and a new idiomatic second horn style appeared, the latter characterized by rapid arpeggios and wide leaps, sometimes extending down to the second harmonic, with occasional factitious tones in the low register (e.g. e, f and f ♯). This new style was soon imitated elsewhere, and from it developed a species of second horn player (...

[Karel]

(b Dobřiš, Nov 1721; d Dresden, July 25, 1802). Bohemian horn player and teacher. From 1738 to 1744 he studied with Johann Schindelárž [Jan Šindelář], who was principal horn player at Prince Mannsfeld’s court at Prague. Haudek joined Count Kinsky’s orchestra in 1744 and became Konzertmeister to Prince J.A. von Auersperg in 1746. He was appointed third horn player in the Dresden Hofkapelle in 1747, becoming first horn about 1756 (Marpurg), probably succeeding J.G. Knechtel. The second horn player at Dresden was Anton Joseph Hampel, with whom Haudek worked to develop the technique of hand-stopping for playing chromatic scales.

According to Dlabacž, Haudek and Hampel performed the most difficult Duettkonzerte in front of the entire Dresden court. Haudek’s 28 horn Duetts (ed. C. Larkins London, 1994), require a well-developed hand-stopping technique for both horn parts. Dlabacž also mentioned solos, Duettkonzerte and partitas written by Haudek for his many pupils (among whom were Franz Wiesbach and Giovanni Punto). Haudek became ill in ...

[‘le Romain’]

Member of Hotteterre family

(b Paris, Sept 29, 1673; d Paris, July 16, 1763). French instrument maker, instrumentalist, composer, and teacher, son of Martin Hotteterre. He was the most celebrated member of the family, and had a brilliant career as a player, teacher and composer. Several years before his mother’s death in 1708, Jacques’s father gave him 3000 livres to acquire the post of ‘grand hautbois du roy’. He obtained the reversion of the post of ‘flutte de la chambre de roy’ on 26 August 1717 (for 6000 livres) on the retirement of René Pignon Descoteaux, although he is referred to as such on the title page of his Premier livre de pièces, published nine years earlier. In 1747 his court posts passed to his eldest son, Jean-Baptiste Hotteterre (b Paris, 1 Aug 1732; d Paris, 9 Sept 1770), a maker and player of woodwind instruments. On ...

(b Bozí Dar [Gottesgab], Bohemia, March 11, 1795; d Prague, Jan 29, 1871). Czech horn player, teacher and inventor. He graduated from the Prague Conservatory in 1817, and played the horn in the theatre orchestra of Pest from 1819 to 1822 and in the Vienna Hofoper (Kärntnertortheater) from 1822 to 1 December 1824. He then returned to Prague to become principal horn in the Estates Theatre. In June 1826 he was summoned by B.D. Weber, the director of the Prague Conservatory (whose variations ‘for the newly invented keyed horn’ Kail had performed in 1819), to be its first professor for trumpet and trombone (both with valves). From 1852 he also taught the flugelhorn; he retired in 1867.

On 1 November 1823 Kail obtained a privilege, together with the Vienna maker Joseph Riedl, for a trumpet with two Vienna valves; on 11 September 1835 the two received a privilege for a rotary valve; and from ...

[Apuakehau, Jr., Joseph Kekuku‘upenakana‘iapuniokamehameha ]

(b La‘ie, Oahu, Hawaii, 1874; d Dover, NJ, Jan 016, 1932). American steel guitarist, teacher, and inventor. The Hawaiian steel guitar’s invention is largely credited to Joseph Kekuku. Joseph and his cousin, Samuel Kalanahelu Nainoa (1877–1950) were raised in the rural village of La‘ie, Oahu. By the age of 11, the close companions had become skilled musicians under the tutelage of the elders of La‘ie. Prior to the creation of the Hawaiian steel guitar, Hawaiian musical combos featured primarily violin, flute, “Spanish” guitar, and ‘ukulele performances. Sam played the violin, while Joseph spent much of his time trying to make his guitar sound like Sam’s violin.

Joseph’s first experiments involved running various implements across the strings of a conventional gut-string guitar, including a steel bolt, a penknife, a pocket comb, a dull straight razor blade, and a tumbler, with the guitar laying across his lap. When the cousins enrolled as boarding students at Kamehameha School for Boys in the fall of ...

(b Philadelphia, PA, 1945). American maker of historical woodwinds, performer, and teacher. He founded Levin Historical Instruments, Inc. around 1970 to produce period instrument replicas in collaboration with Steven Silverstein, who was once a partner in the business. Levin arrived on his instrument designs by exploring museum collections in Europe, particularly Germany and Holland. His mentors included friedrich von Huene , Anthony Baines, william Dowd , and Gerrit and Henk Klop. Eventually, his company offered Renaissance- and Baroque-style recorders, cornetti, shawms, and dulcians (fagotti), as well as Baroque and Classical bassoons and oboes. Levin dissolved the company in 1990 to pursue a career in software development and technical writing, but his instruments continue to be sought after and remain in use worldwide.

Levin graduated from the Manhattan School of Music (BA, 1967), where he studied modern bassoon with Elias Carmen. He became a faculty member at the Oberlin College Baroque Performance Institute (...

(b Nuremberg, Germany, July 31, 1901). American organist. He immigrated to the USA in 1912 and in Salt Lake City was a pupil of the Mormon Tabernacle organist J. J. McClellan. Beginning in 1918 he worked for several years as a theater organist. During the 1920s, except for two years he spent studying with Henri Libert, Vierne, and Widor in Paris (1924–6), he was employed as organist and lecturer at UCLA. In the summers he returned to Salt Lake City where in 1924 he joined the staff of organists at the Tabernacle; he was later senior organist (1939–77). He became widely known through two media: his Organ Voluntaries (1937) and later publications of sacred selections, all arranged on two or three staves, which served countless pianists pressed into service as organists; and his broadcasts with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (1929–77). Schreiner, who held both a BA (...

(b Hirschberg [now Jelenia Góra, Poland], March 31, 1853; d Leipzig, Jan 16, 1940). German flautist, teacher and inventor . He performed as principal flautist in the Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1881 to 1917, and taught at the Leipzig Conservatory from 1908 to 1932. Schwedler was the last major exponent of the conical-bore ‘simple-system’ flute, whose advantages he strove to retain whilst matching the manifest advantages of Boehm's 1847 system. In 1885 he designed the ‘Schwedler-Kruspe flute’, built for him by Friedrich Wilhelm Kruspe. In 1898 Schwedler designed his ‘Reformflöte’, collaborating with F.W. Kruspe's son, Carl jr (established since 1893 in Leipzig), which he later improved in 1912. Among improved features of these models were head-joint in metal, redesigned embouchure-hole and a mechanism to facilitate the fingering of F/F♯. After a rift with Krupse, Schwedler’s later models were made from 1917 by Moritz-Max Mönnig (1875–1949), the last of which Hindemith dubbed ‘the six-cylinder flute’, because of its technical complexity. These developments are documented in his ...

(b Detroit, MI, July 12, 1957). American horn player, teacher, and brass instrument maker. He was a pupil of Lowell Greer (Detroit Symphony Orchestra) and Philip Farkas (Indiana University) and holds a BM from Wayne State University and a MM degree from Indiana University.

A pioneer in the United States in natural horn performance and teaching, Seraphinoff has been on the faculty of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (modern and natural horn) since 1986, and has made reproductions of baroque and classical natural horns and trumpets since 1983. As a modern horn player he has performed with the Toledo Symphony, Michigan Opera, and Detroit Symphony Orchestra. His activities as natural horn player include performances with virtually every period instrument orchestra in the United States, including the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, and the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra. His publications cover a wide range of topics, from horn performance and history to brass instrument technology. Since ...

(b Reinsdorf, nr Artern, Nov 8, 1725; d Leipzig, Feb 4, 1805). German flautist, teacher and flute maker. In 1750 he received the degree of Imperial Public Notary at Leipzig University. At about this time he began to make flutes. In 1754 he became principal flautist of the Grosses Conzert, a forerunner of the Gewandhaus orchestra. His career, interrupted by the disbanding of the orchestra during the Seven Years War, included solo tours as far afield as St Petersburg. J.F. Reichardt's accounts of his own travels (published 1774–6) took note of Tromlitz and only three other Leipzig virtuosos. Tromlitz left the orchestra in 1776 and devoted himself to teaching, writing, composition and flute making. He recorded his ideas and teaching methods in several texts which shed much light on late 18th-century flute playing and performing practice. His Kurze Abhandlung vom Flötenspielen (1786) announced his rejection of merely average standards of performing and instrument making; this was to become a constant theme of his. He introduced the elements at the core of his ideal: clarity of articulation and expression; perfect intonation in a system having both large (5-comma) and small (4-comma) semitones, for which the E♭ and D♯ keys invented by J.J. Quantz in ...