1678–1729, Italian Haym was the skilful literary adaptor who prepared several of Handel’s best opera libretti, including Radamisto, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Tamerlano and Rodelinda. Rather than writing new texts for Handel, Haym’s talent was reorganizing old Italian texts so that they were adequately dramatic and balanced while also reducing the amount of simple recitative for ...
(Fran-cha’-sko Lan-de’-ne) c. 1325–97 Italian composer Blind as the result of an attack of smallpox as a young child, Landini turned to music, learning to play the organ and several other instruments. He also sang and wrote poetry. Over 150 musical works by him survive, forming over one quarter of the known repertory of the fourteenth century. Most of ...
(Ne-ko-las’ Gôm-bâr) c. 1495–1560 Flemish composer Joining the Burgundian court around 1525, Gombert travelled widely with the emperor, Charles V, and composed music for state occasions. At a time when many composers were moving towards a style based on clear enunciation of the text and balanced phrases, Gombert wrote complex polyphony with long-breathed melodic lines, unbroken by ...
(Fran-ches’-ko Ka-val’-le) 1602–76 Italian composer Cavalli was born Caletti but took the name of his first patron. His life was centred on the basilica of St Mark’s, where his teacher, Monteverdi, was maestro di cappella. He became second organist there in 1639, principal organist in 1665, and maestro di cappella in 1668. He was the most gifted ...
(Fran-chas’-ko Ja-men-ya’-ne) 1687–1762 Italian composer and violinist Geminiani was born in Lucca and studied in Rome with Corelli. In 1714 he went to England, where he remained for the rest of his life. Geminiani established a fine reputation as a teacher, composer and violin virtuoso. His earliest concertos – arrangements of Corelli’s celebrated sonatas for violin and continuo (op. 5) ...
(A-tyen’ Ne-ko-las’ Ma-ül’) 1763–1817 French composer Méhul is known primarily for his many opéras comiques and for his symphonies. Between 1778 and 1779 he moved to Paris, where he studied with the composer Jean-Frédéric Edelmann. When the Paris Conservatoire was founded in 1795, Méhul was made one of its inspectors. Although heavily influenced by Gluck, he was one of ...
(O’-to Ne’-ko-li) 1810–49 German composer Nicolai studied in Berlin with Zelter, and in 1833 became organist at the embassy chapel in Rome, but he resigned in 1836 to pursue a career as an opera composer. He quickly found fame with Enrico II (‘Henry II’, 1839) and Il templario (The Templar’, 1840), and also made an impression as a conductor in ...
(Organ, b. 1971) The son of jazz organist Papa John DeFrancesco, Joey’s keyboard skill and enthusiasm were well-recognized even before 1987, when he was a finalist in the annual Thelonious Monk Competition. Indebted in style to Jimmy Smith, DeFrancesco played with Miles Davis and recorded on Columbia Records prior to his graduation from high school. His prodigious ...
1598–1659, Italian Venetian-born librettist Gian Francesco Busenello had a particular talent for the commercial operas that became fashionable in Italy in the first half of the seventeenth century. Busenello possessed a certain cynical realism about life that served him and his composers well when it came to insights into human behaviour. Busenello was never judgemental in his treatment of his ...
1602–76, Italian Francesco Cavalli was in the right place at the right time when the first opera house, the Teatro San Cassiano, opened in Venice in 1637. The following year, Cavalli, with Orazio Persiani (fl. 1640) as librettist, produced La nozze di Teti e di Peleo (‘The Wedding of Teti and Peleo’, 1638) for the ...
Premiered: 1643, Venice Libretto by Giovanni Faustini Background Egisto and Clori, two lovers from Delos, have been captured by pirates and sold to different masters. On the day of her marriage to Lidio, Climene has also been captured and sold to the same master as Egisto. Act I One year later, Egisto and Climene have escaped ...
1574–1620, Italian Composer and tenor Francesco Rasi took part in the first performances of Peri’s Euridice and Caccini’s Rapimento di Cefalo in Florence in 1600. By then he was already an experienced and much-admired performer, after 10 years in the service of aristocratic patrons, including Duke Fernando I of Tuscany before 1594, and, after 1598 the ...
1653–97, Italian Castrato Siface made his singing debut in Rome in 1672. He enjoyed considerable early success in Italy and created a sensation in Venice as Syphax in Cavalli’s Sciopine affricano (‘Scipio Africanus’, 1685). Siface became so identified with the part that ‘Syphax’ became his nickname. Siface was taken up by many important personalities, including ex-Queen Christina of Sweden ...
1686–1768, Italian Porpora was born and trained in Naples, where he also taught and worked for much of his career. His first opera was Agrippina (1708), and a few years later he composed Arianna e Teseo (1714) using a new libretto by Pariati. Between 1715 and 1721 Porpora worked at the Conservatorio di St Onofrio, where he became ...
c. 1680–c. 1759, Italian Francesco Bernardi was nicknamed ‘Senesino’ after his birthplace, Siena. His first known performance was at Venice in 1707–08, and he sang for Caldara at Bologna in 1709. He was dismissed from Dresden in 1720 because he refused to sing an aria during rehearsals for Johan David Heinichen’s (1683–1729) Flavio Crespo (1720). He joined the ...
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