Geminiani: Concerti Grossi, Vol. 1

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Cat No: 8553019

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099401920

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: GEMINIANI

Description
Francesco Geminiani (1687 - 1762)Concerti Grossi Vol.1Op. 2, Nos. 1- 6, Op. 3, Nos. 1- 4 The violinist and composer Francesco Geminiani was one ofthose Italian musicians who found a ready livelihood in England in the firsthalf of the eighteenth century. Born in Lucca in 1687, he was a pupil ofCorelli and ofAlessandro Scarlatti in Rome, after earlier violinlessons from his father, whom he succeeded in Lucca in 1707 in the Capella Palatina,the principal musical establishment of the city. He was released from hisobligations there in 1710, as a result of the alleged frequency of hisabsences, and led the opera orchestra in Naples from the following year. Herehe was referred to as furibondo, a reference to a tendency to freedom in rhythmthat was not always welcome, a trait perhaps acquired from his teacher Corelli,who had had his own problems in Naples. In 1714 Geminiani moved to London,where he enjoyed immediate success as a performer and the patronage of Johann AdolfBaron von Kielmansegg, the Hanoverian courtier who had been instrumental inbringing Handel to Hanover and thence to England. Geminiani dedicated his firstset of a dozen violin sonatas to v6n Kielmansegg in 1716 and was indebted tothe Master of the King's Horse for his introduction to the court of King GeorgeL before whom he played accompanied his own insistence, by Handel. Geminiani won the support of a number of the nobility inEngland and exercised very considerable influence also through his pupils,including the young violinist Matthew Dubourg, who spent a considerable part ofhis life in Dublin, where he led the orchestra at the first performance ofHandel's Messiah, Michael Festing, later Master of the King's Musick,and the Newcastle composer Charles Avison. Charles Burney, whatever his laterthoughts on the subject, admits in a letter of 1781 that as a young man"Handel, Geminiani and Corelli were the sole Divinities of [his]Youth", although he was later "drawn off from their exclusiveworship... by keeping company with travelled and heterodox gentlemen, who werepartial to the Music of more modern composers whom they had heard in Italy".Indebted as he was to his own teacher Corelli, Geminiani derived his own styleof writing largely from him. Evidence of this may be seen in his publication in1726 and 1727 of arrangements of Corelli's twelve violin sonatas as concertigrossi. Through the agency of the Earl of Essex it was proposed in 1728 thatGeminiani should become Master and Composer of State Music in Ireland, but fromthis position he was, as a Catholic, excluded, and the honour went instead tohis pupil Dubourg. In London Geminiani continued teaching and performing,taking part in series of subscription concerts and in 1732 publishing two setsof concerti grossi, Opus 2 and Opus 3. He extended hisactivities, at the same time, to Ireland, where Matthew Dubourg was nowestablished, continuing his connection with Dublin as occasion and Dubourgdemanded during the following years. Q
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