Music Educator

(b Naples, 1691; d Naples, Jan 28, 1761). Italian composer and teacher. According to Burney, he was ‘one of the greatest Neapolitan masters of his time’.

Feo received his musical training at the Conservatorio di S Maria della Pietà dei Turchini at Naples, which he entered on 3 September 1704; among his fellow students were Leonardo Leo and Giuseppe de Majo, who later married Feo’s niece, Teresa Manna. He first studied with the secondo maestro, Andrea Basso, and after 1705 also with Nicola Fago, the then newly appointed primo maestro. According to some 19th-century sources, Feo is said to have left the conservatory about 1708 to study counterpoint with G.O. Pitoni in Rome. This claim has not been substantiated, and it is now believed that he remained at the Turchini until 1712.

On 18 January 1713 he presented to the Neapolitan public his first opera, L’amor tirannico, ossia Zenobia...

(b Lübeck, March 12, 1663; d Halle, June 8, 1727). German theologian and educator. A major figure in the development of Pietism, he was a leader in the reform of education in German Protestant schools, and founded the celebrated Orphans' School and so-called Franckeschen Foundation in Glaucha, outside Halle. Francke attended the gymnasium in Gotha, 1673–9, and became a theology student at the Erfurt Hochschule in 1679. He then studied for three years at Kiel, and spent a brief period in Hamburg studying Hebrew with the scholar Esdras Edzardus. He completed his university training in Leipzig, received the master's degree in 1685, and stayed in that city to lecture in philosophy. For two years from 1687 he lived in Lüneburg, where he continued his religious studies and also experienced a reawakening of religious commitment. His Pietistic convictions were largely developed through contact with Philipp Jakob Spener in Dresden, with whom he spent two months in ...

[Pietrantonio]

(b ?1695–1700; d Naples, Aug 15, 1777). Italian composer and teacher. On 25 April 1742 he succeeded Giovanni Veneziano as secondo maestro of the Neapolitan Conservatorio di S Maria di Loreto. After the death of the primo maestro, Francesco Durante (30 September 1755), he shared the musical direction with Gennaro Manna, maestro di cappella of Naples Cathedral, and after 10 April 1760 also with the aging Nicolò Porpora. But Porpora and Manna resigned after one year, and on 15 May 1761 Gallo became sole director. Among the students trained there during his 35 years as a master of the conservatory were Pasquale Anfossi, P.A. Guglielmi, Antonio Sacchini, Fedele Fenaroli, Giuseppe Giordani, Domenico Cimarosa and Niccolò Zingarelli. Although Gallo served S Maria di Loreto longer than any master before, he was the least remembered. At first he was overshadowed by Durante, later by his own student and successor, Fenaroli....

(b The Hague, April 23, 1686; d North Aston, Oxon, Nov 15, 1773). English bass, teacher and composer. His father, also named Bernard, came to England in 1688 and became Page of the Back Stairs to William III. He was a chorister at the Chapel Royal from 1697 to 1705, and thus one of Blow’s latest pupils. He was appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel in 1708, and received a second place there in 1734. In 1727 he succeeded Croft as Master of the Children and as Tuner of the Regals and Organs. In 1711 he became in addition a lay vicar of Westminster Abbey, and from 1740 he was also Master of the Choristers there. For a brief period in 1714 he was also a lay clerk at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. He retired from active duties in 1757, though nominally remaining a member of the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey choirs. He spent his later years at North Aston, near Oxford, where a memorial tablet to him was erected by his pupil T.S. Dupuis. He was buried at Westminster Abbey....

[Giannotti, Pierre]

(b Lucca, early 18th century; d Paris, June 19, 1765). Italian composer, teacher and double bass player. His first set of violin sonatas appeared in Paris in 1728. In March 1739 he was engaged as a double bass player at the Paris Opéra, a position he held until his retirement in 1758; his name also appears in a 1751 list of the members of the Concert Spirituel orchestra. His numerous compositions suggest that he may also have played the violin. One of his two-violin sonatas was performed at the Concert Spirituel in 1749, the only time he was so honoured. Yet he must have enjoyed some success, for his sonatas opp.2 and 5 remained in the catalogues of the music publisher Bailleux for eight years after his death. He also edited the collections of 12 Sinfonie opp.1 and 2 (Paris, n.d.) by Alberto Gallo, and of Sinfonie … dei più celebri autori d'Italia...

(b Arpino, March 12, 1687; d Naples, Oct 14, 1758). Italian male soprano and singing teacher. According to tradition he studied in his home town with M.T. Angelio, then moved to Naples to complete his training at the Conservatorio di S Onofrio. He was a singer in the Treasury of S Gennaro, Naples, from 1700 to 1707 and again from 1717 to 1736. In 1706 he was appointed singer of the Neapolitan royal chapel, a post he held throughout his career. From 1717 he was often absent from the choir for artistic reasons: on 17 November 1718 he requested three months' leave to sing at the Teatro Pace in Rome; on 16 December 1719 he set off for Messina, where he remained until May 1720; on 7 October he left for a stay of four months in Rome; and on 12 September 1724 he asked permission to ‘perform in the coming November and Carnival’ at the Teatro S Cassiano in Venice. In ...

(b Cremona, Oct 24, 1685; d Cremona, 1745). Italian composer, organist and teacher. He studied music with T.B. Gaffi and after his ordination as a priest he was appointed organist of Cremona Cathedral on 14 December 1708. He later became maestro di cappella there and held the post until 27 April 1727. In 1712 he travelled to Lodi for the celebration of the feast of St Teresa, and to Piacenza for the canonization of St Andrea Avellino. On 30 May 1737 he directed some of his own music in the Chiesa delle Grazie, Lodi, and on 29 November 1740 music by him was performed in Cremona Cathedral for the funerary service of Emperor Karl VI. At the beginning of the same year Padre Martini had undertaken to obtain for Gonelli the post of maestro di cappella at Loreto, but Gonelli refused the post. In 1743, together with Leo, Porpora, Jommelli and Martini, he was one of the judges for the post of ...

(bap. Oxford, May 24, 1688; bur. Oxford, Jan 7, 1741). English organist and music copyist, son of Richard Goodson. He was baptized at the church of St Cross. He succeeded his father as professor of music at Oxford and as organist of Christ Church. Goodson was listed as choirboy at Christ Church from 1699 to 1707 and as singing-man from 1712 to 1718; Thomas Ford ( GB-Ob MS Mus.e.17) stated that he was appointed organist of Newbury on 24 August 1709. He matriculated on 3 March 1714 and graduated BMus on 1 March 1717. A number of manuscripts in Christ Church and the Bodleian Library, Oxford, contain music copied by him, but he does not appear to have been a composer, unless two anonymous works in his hand – an act song, Festo quid potius die ( Ob MS Mus.Sch.C.143, Och Mus 37, 1142b), and an incomplete Ode for St Cecilia's Day, ...

(b Aberdeen, c1692; d South Carolina, 1754/5). Scottish tenor, author and antiquary. He graduated at Aberdeen University, lived for a time by teaching languages and music, and then left for the Continent, spending some years in Italy, where presumably he was trained as a singer. He sang in C.A. Monza’s La principessa fedele at Messina in 1716 and Orlandini’s Lucio Papirio and Leo’s Sofonisba at Naples in 1717–18. He returned to Britain in 1719 and sang at four concerts at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre that winter. He was a member of the Royal Academy (at the King’s Theatre) during its first season (spring 1720), singing in Porta’s Numitore, Handel’s Radamisto (Tiridate) and Roseingrave’s arrangement of Domenico Scarlatti’s Narciso. He had a benefit at York Buildings on 6 February 1721 and another at the Little Haymarket Theatre on 26 January 1722. He was back at the King’s Theatre in ...

(b Naples, c1657; d Naples, 1728). Italian composer, organist and teacher. He was a pupil at the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo, Naples, and as early as 1677 he was an assistant teacher there. He was maestro di cappella of the conservatory from 1696 until his death, with an interruption between 1706 and 1709, probably for political reasons. He was succeeded by Francesco Durante. Among his pupils were Porsile, Porpora, Leonardo Vinci, Domenico Scarlatti and probably Pergolesi, who was a pupil at the conservatory from 1726. The fact that he was called to substitute the celebrated Francesco Provenzale as maestro di cappella of the treasury of S Gennaro and ‘Maestro della Fidelissima Città’ in the closing years of the 17th century is evidence of the reputation he enjoyed in Naples. He was replaced, in turn, by Domenico Sarro. Greco was one of the most influential teachers of his generation and he was important in shaping the stylistic development of Neapolitan music in the 18th century....

(b Paris, c1700; d Lyons, Feb 25, 1753). French composer and teacher. His life is outlined in Léon Vallas’ study on 18th-century musical life in Lyons. He began his career as a chorister at the Sainte-Chapelle (1705–12). His first work – a one-act divertissement, Le triomphe de l’amitié – was performed at Fontainebleau on 15 October 1714. Between then and 1733, the year he became maître de musique of the Paris Opéra, he gained a reputation in Paris as a singing teacher. A printing privilege of 1737 shows that he also held an official administrative post as conseiller changeur. This privilege was awarded for the publication of Le triomphe de l’harmonie, his masterpiece, first produced at the Paris Opéra on 9 May 1737. Grenet, accused it seems of collaborating with Clérambault and Rameau in the composition of Le triomphe, left Paris in 1739 for Lyons, where he had been invited by the consulate (the municipality) to be the town’s official music teacher. About the same time he became director of the Lyons Académie des Beaux-Arts and of the Académie Royale de Musique; he held these posts until his death. In ...

(b ?Münnerstadt, Bavaria, c1690; d after 1769). German composer and teacher. All that is known about this mid-18th-century composer, who contributed a significant thoroughbass manual, are the few sketchy biographical details he revealed in his own works and one comment in a contemporary edition of his music in which he is identified as a Benedictine monk at Gegenbach (Geistliche Arien mit Melodien, 1769). In his thoroughbass work of 1751 he said he had devoted many hours to music during the past 40 years; according to the title-page, he was senator and choir director at Münnerstadt. In the next year, the title-page of his Sing- und klingendes Lieb-, Lob-, und Danck- und Denckopfer indicates that he had become Ratsverwandter. A composer of sacred music and some keyboard pieces, which remain to be investigated, he also wrote the Wohl unterwiesene General-Bass-Schüler, as ‘a conversation between a teacher and student concerning thoroughbass in which are clearly explained all the serviceable rules of this science, theoretical as well as practical, together with which are shown some preludes using the important keyboard finger patterns’ (...

[Picander]

(b Stolpen, nr Dresden, Jan 14, 1700; d Leipzig, May 10, 1764). German poet and cantata librettist. After studies in his home town he matriculated in the faculty of law at Wittenberg University in 1719; a year later he moved to Leipzig, where he continued his studies and found employment as a private tutor. Henrici began his literary career in 1721 (using the pseudonym ‘Picander’) producing occasional verse, often on erotic subjects, and a number of satires that won him the enmity of their targets. Having justified his resulting rejection on poetic grounds, from December 1724 to December 1725 he brought out a series of devotional poems for the Sundays and feasts of the church year entitled Sammlung erbaulicher Gedancken. Shortly after the first instalments appeared he began working as a librettist for J.S. Bach. Bach and Henrici may have met through a common acquaintance with the Bohemian Count Franz Anton Sporck, the dedicatee of the ...

(b Navalmoral, Toledo, ?1633–43; d Toledo, before July 21, 1713). Spanish harpist, theorist, composer and teacher. Undoubtedly the theorist Andrés Lorente (see Jambou) and the Court harpist Juan de Navas were among his teachers. Huete was the harpist at Toledo Cathedral from 13 October 1681 to 14 June 1710; however he is remembered chiefly for his Compendio numeroso de zifras armónicas, con theórica, y pràctica para arpa de una orden y arpa de dos órdenes, y de órgano (Madrid, 1702–4), which marks the climax of a golden period for the two harp types (single-rank diatonic and two-rank chromatic) predominant in Spain between 1550 and 1700. Part i of the treatise (1702), containing secular pieces, is divided into three books for the beginner, intermediate and advanced player. Part ii (1704), containing sacred pieces, also consists of three books; the first contains 26 pasacalles which demonstrate Huete’s 11-mode system; the second presents the modes in descending and ascending octaves; and the third consists of psalm settings for voice(s), harp and/or organ (the organ is secondary to the harp in the treatise). The ...

(bap. Aldersgate, London, Feb 26, 1724; d London, April 15, 1764). English amateur musician. ‘In his younger days he was a great beau’, said Hawkins, who is the chief source of information about Immyns. ‘He had been guilty of some indiscretions, which proved an effectual bar to success in his profession, and reduced him to the necessity of becoming a clerk to an attorney in the city’. He cultivated music assiduously, playing the flute, viola da gamba and harpsichord, and had a ‘cracked counter-tenor voice’. As a member of the Academy of Ancient Music, and as a student and copyist to Pepusch, he became familiar with much old music, which he preferred to that of his own day. In 1741 he founded the Madrigal Society, which began as a small group of mechanics and tradesmen experienced in psalmody, meeting at a tavern in Fleet Street. Immyns was ‘both their president and instructor’, and in preparation for the meetings he copied out some 200 madrigals and canons: his MS survives at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. The music was confined to madrigals and other old music, by such composers as Ruffo, Lassus, Marenzio, Vecchi and Gesualdo; the English madrigalists were also explored. Immyns copied seven Palestrina motets for the society's use. From these modest beginnings sprang what is now the oldest musical association in existence....

(fl c1715–c1794). French composer and teacher. In the sources his surname appears as ‘Yzo’ until 1759, after which it becomes ‘Iso’. He was not related to the composer and bassoonist Etienne Ozi, or the bassoonist François Ozi, as has been suggested. He went to Moulins from Nevers and became, in 1736, maître de musique at the Académie de Musique and a director of a music school there: he was required to conduct rehearsals and concerts and teach singing and the violin. He left in 1742 and was probably in Paris by 1748. Between 1753 and 1754 he played a part in the Querelle des Bouffons by publishing under the name of Yzo an answer to Rousseau's Lettre sur la musique française (Paris, 1753) entitled Lettre sur celle de Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau … sur la musique. His op.1, a motet for full chorus and orchestra to words from Psalm xcvii, was published probably shortly before two one-act ...

(b Běleč, bap. April 21, 1730; d London, Oct 5, 1784). Bohemian violinist and composer. His father was a forester on the Wallenstein estate. He studied at the Patres Piares College, Slaný (1746–51), where he received a thorough musical education. From 1751 to 1753 he probably studied philosophy at Prague University; in 1753–4 he was enrolled in the faculty of law. Kammel’s marked musical talent, however, determined his career. At an unknown date Count Vincent of Waldstein sent him to Italy, where he was a pupil of Tartini in Padua. After returning to Prague Kammel excelled, according to contemporary witnesses, in the playing of adagios. By early 1765 (not 1774, as has often been maintained) he was in London; he is mentioned among London musical personalities in Leopold Mozart’s travel notes from that year. In 1766 he published his first compositions in London, at his own expense. He made his first known public appearance that year and his second on ...

[‘La Rochois’]

(b Caen, c1658; d Paris, Oct 9, 1728). French soprano and singing teacher, commonly but incorrectly known as Marthe Le Rochois. She may have studied with Michel Lambert, who brought her to the attention of his son-in-law, Lully. She entered the Paris Opéra in 1678 and retired in 1698. Lully chose her to create the major female roles in his Persée, Amadis, Roland, Armide and Acis et Galathée; she was best known for her performance of Armide, the memory of which caused Le Cerf de la Viéville to ‘shiver’ with delight. After Lully’s death in 1687 she sang the main female roles in works by Collasse, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Desmarest, Marais, André Campra and A.C. Destouches. Titon du Tillet called her the ‘greatest actress and the best model for declamation to have appeared on the Stage’ (Le parnasse françois, Paris, 1732/R). He also wrote:...

[Lionardo] (Ortensio Salvatore de [di])

(b San Vito degli Schiavoni [now San Vito dei Normanni], Aug 5, 1694; d Naples, Oct 31, 1744 ). Italian composer and teacher. He was one of the leading Neapolitan composers of his day, especially of theatre and church music.

The son of Corrado de Leo and Rosabetta Pinto, he went to Naples in 1709 and became a pupil of Nicola Fago at the Conservatorio S Maria della Pietà dei Turchini. At the beginning of 1712 his S Chiara, o L’infedeltà abbattuta, a dramma sacro, was performed at the conservatory; from the fact that it was performed again in the viceroy’s palace on 14 February it would seem that Leo’s work attracted unusual attention. On finishing his studies he was appointed supernumerary organist in the viceroy’s chapel on 8 April 1713 and at the same time was employed as maestro di cappella in the service of the Marchese Stella; he is also said to have been ...

( b ?Edinburgh, Dec 25, 1685; d Queen Anne County, MD, June 15, 1763). Scottish theorist and teacher . His father was a minister in Edinburgh, 1681–7, so he is likely to have spent his childhood there. As a young man, Malcolm devoted much time to teaching mathematics and related disciplines and to compiling various treatises, read both in Europe and America. It was his Treatise of Musick: Speculative, Practical and Historical (Edinburgh, 1721, 1779/R), that established his musical reputation. Relying on the writings of Descartes, Kircher, Mersenne and others, Malcolm's object was to ‘gather together in one system what lay scattered in several treatises’. Included are chapters on the history of music and on equal-temperament tuning, instruction in elements of composition, including melody, harmony, counterpoint, intervals, the musical scale and modulation, as well as directions for tuning a harpsichord. Hawkins considered it ‘one of the most valuable treatises on the subject of theoretical and practical music to be found in any of the modern languages’, and Stone has given evidence that Malcolm was the first British author to write a history of music in English rather than Latin....