Collector or Curator

[Ennal, Charles-Ernest]

(b Fockenhof, Kurland, Feb 14, 1722; d Paris, March 24, 1791). French dilettante, amateur violinist and composer, patron of the arts and instrument collector. A magnificent and very wealthy nobleman, he both amused and astounded his contemporaries. M. Audinot in his comic opera La musicomanie (1779), and possibly E.T.A. Hoffmann in his tale Die Serapionsbrüder (1819), attempted to evoke his strange personality, emphasizing its ridiculous nature.

At the death of his father, a landed nobleman, in 1747, Bagge inherited a large fortune which enabled him to study the violin in Italy with Tartini. By 1750 he had settled in Paris; in the following year he was awarded the title chambellan du Roi de Prusse (then Frederick II) and married the daughter of the Swiss banker Jacob Maudry. With Maudry's death in 1762 the very large inheritance proved a source of contention to the ill-matched couple and they soon separated. Bagge later attempted to gain possession of the inheritance of Mme Maudry, who had died in ...

(b Casale Monferrato, March 14, 1755; d Salabue, Dec 15, 1840). Italian collector of violins. He was of noble birth and endowed with both a natural curiosity about violins and the means to satisfy it. His first great opportunity came in 1775–6 when he acquired ten Stradivari violins, together with tools, patterns and all that remained of Stradivari's violin-making equipment (now owned by the city of Cremona) from the master's son Paolo. For the next 50 years, with the assistance of the Mantegazza family, Cozio avidly traced and where possible purchased fine Italian violins of the Cremonese school, scrupulously noting down their details in his Carteggio (ed. R. Bacchetta, Milan, 1950; partial Eng. trans., 1987). He also gave much assistance and encouragement to many violin makers, including G.B. Guadagnini and Giacomo Rivolta.

Much of Cozio's collection was eventually acquired by another energetic enthusiast, Luigi Tarisio. The instruments included the famous unused Stradivari of ...

(Pio Francesco Antonio Maria)

(b Genoa, April 27, 1717; d Padua, Oct 15, 1794). Italian diplomat, theatre director, librettist and art collector, and one of the principal catalysts of reform in 18th-century opera and ballet. The francophilia that coloured nearly all Durazzo's theatrical endeavours was largely the result of his birth into a noble Genoese family (of Albanian origin) with a long history of commercial and political dealings with France. The Durazzos (who produced several doges, including Giacomo's older brother Marcello) were active in Genoa's theatrical life, notably as proprietors of the Teatro del Falcone. Following his inscription into the nobility in 1744, Giacomo was entrusted with several commercial and diplomatic missions to France, during one of which, in 1748, he and his compatriot Agostino Lomellini conceived a plan to rework Quinault and Lully's Armide as an Italian opera on reformed principles. As versified by Migliavacca and set by Traetta, this project was realized in Vienna in ...

(b Denholm, Roxburghshire, Sept 8, 1775; d Batavia [now Jakarta], Indonesia, Aug 28, 1811). Scottish antiquarian and folksong collector. He was a powerful force in Edinburgh's intellectual life from the mid-1790s until his departure for India in 1802. His two outstanding contributions to Scottish folksong scholarship were in helping Walter Scott to collect material for the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802) and editing the 16th-century political tract The Complaynt of Scotland, adding to it a Preliminary Dissertation which, though prone to irrelevance, is a mine of indispensable material about Scottish folk music and Border customs. Leyden also edited the Scots Magazine for a short period, did pioneering philological work on the Scots dialect and on oriental languages, wrote poetry prolifically and was a qualified surgeon.

[ Johann Baptist ]

( b Cologne, bap. Jan 15, 1730; d Oxford, Dec 12, 1812). German violinist, collector of national melodies and watercolour artist . Son of a watchmaker, he sang in the choir of Cologne Cathedral for six years from 1744. By 1751 he was in Nancy and in about 1754 he went to London where he taught drawing at a ladies' school and played the violin in concerts at inns. He then moved to Lewes, where he taught music to officers and came under the influence and patronage of the artist Robert Price of Foxley. In 1758 he was living and working as a musician in Bristol, and in the following year he began an association with the Three Choirs Festival (where he led the second violins) which lasted until about 1776.

In 1759 he was elected to lead the Oxford Music Room band, which held weekly concerts, and he remained in Oxford thereafter. He married Elizabeth Jenner in ...

( b Kremon, nr Riga, June 23, 1773; d Berlin, Aug 12, 1836). German music collector . He studied at Jena University (1792–6) and from 1798 worked as a solo tenor, concert organizer and singing teacher in Hamburg. After his marriage with Amalie Manicke, the daughter of a rich Hamburg aristocrat (1811), he devoted himself to his music collection. In 1813 he moved to Berlin; from 1814 he was a member of the Sing-Akademie. He travelled extensively to enlarge his collection and corresponded with other collectors, especially Aloys Fuchs and R.G. Kiesewetter, and he was director of the library of the Sing-Akademie from 1833.

Poelchau started a general collection of manuscripts in his youth. Later he concentrated on music, dividing his collection into four sections: books on music from the 15th–17th centuries; printed music from the 16th–17th and the 18th–19th centuries; and music manuscripts. He also collected letters by and portraits of musicians. As the owner of many Bach manuscripts he played an important role in the emerging Bach renaissance; he also possessed autographs by Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and many manuscripts of works by Keiser, J.H. Rolle, Telemann and others. A series of editions from his collection was begun in ...

[Prach, Ivan; Práč, Jan Bohumir]

( b Silesia, c 1750; d ?St Petersburg, c 1818). Czech composer, teacher and folksong collector . Much of his life was spent in Russia. From 1780 until 1795 he taught music at the Smolnïy Institute, and in 1784 he was appointed harpsichord teacher at the St Petersburg Theatre School. His keyboard compositions include a sonata in C (1787), six variations on an allemande by Martín y Soler (1794), Fandango (1795), 12 variations (1802), a sonata based on Russian themes (1806), eight variations on the folktune Tï podi, moya korovushka, domoy (‘Be off home with you, my little cow!’, 1815) and an unpublished rondo. He also made a keyboard arrangement of the music from Martín y Soler’s opera Gorebogatïr Kosometovich (‘The Sorrowful Hero Kosometovich’) and Pashkevich’s Fevey (both 1789). His most important work, however, was the Sobraniye narodnïkh russkikh pesen s ikh golosami...

(b Swalwell, nr Newcastle upon Tyne, March 5, 1748; d London, Jan 25, 1829). English composer, viola player and song collector. As the son of a music teacher he learnt the rudiments of music early, but after the death of his father in 1757 he was apprenticed to a boat builder, Edward Davison of South (or North) Shields. He resumed musical studies with Charles Avison of Newcastle, playing the violin in local concerts. His earliest known composition, now lost, was an anthem written for the consecration of St John’s, Sunderland, on 6 March 1769. About 1770, after finishing his apprenticeship, he became leader of the theatre band and conductor of the concerts first at Scarborough and then at Durham. Encouraged by Luigi Borghi, in 1772 he moved to London to play second violin at the King’s Theatre, transferring to principal viola the following season. He held that position for 18 years, even after replacing Michael Arne as house composer to Covent Garden in autumn ...

(b Ivanovskaya Sloboda, nr Belgorod, c1740; d St Petersburg, c1810). Ukrainian folksong collector and composer, resident in Russia. In 1761 he entered the Russian Imperial court as a singer and gusli player. Apparently by 1792 he left the court and continued to pursue his musical activities under the patronage of the Russian aristocracy. His Sobraniye russkikh prostïkh pesen s notami (‘Collection of Simple Russian Songs with Music’) was the first printed collection of Russian folksongs with melodies. Parts i-iii were published anonymously with texted melodies and a single bass line. In part iv and the 1796 edition of part i, Trutovsky added a fuller harmonic texture. The collection contained songs popular in St Petersburg at the time; parts iii–iv also contained Ukrainian songs. The melodies were mostly transcribed by Trutovsky himself although he used some materials from manuscript songbooks, previously published collections of songs texts, music by Russian composers and, in part iv, his arrangement of a Ukrainian song by Józef Kozłowski. Trutovsky did not organize the songs into categories; the ordering is based only on alternation between fast and slow songs. In his foreword he complains about the songs not written ‘according to the rules’ and, accordingly, he made them match the European system of keys, harmony and metre, adding instrumental lines for those wanting to play the songs on instruments or to sing them with instrumental accompaniment. The collection has considerable interest as a document of musical practices and repertory of the time. L′vov and Pratsch published 46 of the songs in their collection and several were used by the Russian composers Pashkevich, Serov, Musorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. Few of Trutovsky’s own compositions have survived. His song ...

(b c1730; d London, 1794). English collector and editor. He was secretary of the Noblemen’s and Gentlemen’s Catch Club from its foundation in 1761 until his death. On inheriting the estate of Edmund Horne, a Captain of Marines, he changed his name to Warren-Horne.

He spent much of his life acquiring, copying and publishing music, both for the Catch Club and for his own benefit. He was responsible for the most complete collection of glees, canons, catches and madrigals published in the 18th century, which became known as ‘Warren’s Collection’ and was a standard source of such music for many years. In addition to hundreds of contemporary pieces it contained a number of older works. The Apollonian Harmony, probably also compiled by Warren, contained many 16th-century madrigals. His most ambitious effort, however, was a large anthology of Renaissance choral music in six volumes. 100 copies were projected in ...

[Don Preciso ]

( b Dima, Durango, Dec 27, 1756; d Madrid, March 24, 1826). Basque folklorist and historian . He had his secondary education in Morúa, Alava province, where he studied music, literature and history, and perfected the Castilian language. Early in 1775 he began copying historic documents in the archives of Vitoria and in July of that year went to Madrid to train as a public notary. He worked as such at Madrid from 1783 to 1799 and again from 1800 to 1813. In 1792 he entered the literary controversy caused by Crotalogía o Ciencia de las castañuelas (Madrid, 1789), Juan Fernández de Rojas’s mock-heroic treatise on playing the castanets. In the midst of numerous contributions to the Diario de Madrid signed with fanciful pseudonyms he published there in 1795 an essay, under the name Don Preciso, on contradanzas and other popular diversions of Francophile Spaniards, the 86-word title of which begins ...