Biografia zilei: Francesco Maria Veracini

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Francesco Maria Veracini
Francesco Maria Veracini
Date personale
Născut	1 februarie 1690[1][2][3][4][5][6]  Florența, Marele Ducat de Toscana[7]
Decedat	31 octombrie 1768 (78 de ani)[1][2][3][4][5][6]  Florența, Marele Ducat de Toscana[8]
Ocupație	compozitor dirijor violonist
Activitate
Gen muzical	operă
Instrument(e)	vioară

Francesco Maria Veracini (* 1 februarie 1690, Florența - † 31 octombrie1768, Pisa), violonist și compozitor italian; virtuoz renumit al vremii, și-a desfășurat activitatea la Londra, Dresda și Praga. A compus opere, cantate, concerte și sonate pentru violă.

00:00 Sonata No 1 in D major: Toccata: Adagio e come stà, Presto, Adagio - Capriccio primo: Allegro ma non presto - Allegro - Epilogo della Toccata: Largo e nobile, Presto, Adagio - Capriccio secondo: Allegro e brillante, Più allegro
19:18 Sonata No 2 in B flat major: Polonese: Tempo giusto - Largo, e staccato - Capriccio terzo, con due soggetti: Allegro, e grandioso - Aria schiavona: Tempo comodo - Giga: Allegro assai
35:18 Sonata No 3 in G major: Ritornello: Allegro - Largo, e nobile - Capriccio quarto, con tre soggetti: Allegro - Aria rustica: Allegro
50:43 Sonata No 4 in F major: Allegro - Cotillion: Capriccio quinto: Allegro assai - Largo - Menuet (1711): Affettuoso
1:05:11 Sonata No 5 in G minor: Adagio assai - Capriccio VI, con due soggetti: Allegro assai - Allegro assai - Giga: Allegro
1:20:42 Sonata No 6 in A major: Siciliana: Larghetto - Capriccio VII: Allegro e con affetto - Andante moderato - Largo - Allegro assai
1:41:01 Sonata No 7 in D minor: Entrata: Tempo aggiustato - Allemanda: Allegro ma non presto - Largo e cantabile - Giga: Allegro
1:52:12 Sonata No 8 in E minor: Allegro - Ritornello: Largo e staccato, Cantabile, Ritornello - Giga: Allegro
2:03:10 Sonata No 9 in A major: Allegro moderadamente - Adagio - Scozzese: Un poco andante ed affettuoso, Largo, Un poco andante ed affettuoso
2:13:10 Sonata No 10 in F major: Allegro moderato - Ritornello: Largo e staccato - Allegro moderato
2:23:30 Sonata No 11 in E major: Tempo giusto - Largo e nobile - Capriccio VIII: Allegro ma non presto - Menuet affettuoso, Gavotta: Allegro, Menuet da capo
2:41:00 Sonata No 12 in D minor: Passagallo: Largo assai e come stà, ma con grazia - Capriccio cromatico con due soggetti e loro rovesci: Allegro ma non presto - Adagio - Ciaccona: Allegro ma non presto

The Locatelli Trio
Elizabeth Wallfisch, violin / Richard Tunnicliffe, cello / Paul Nicholson, harpsichord, organ

For those interested in the artwork, it´s Capriccio with St. Paul's and Old London Bridge, c.1744-48 (oil on canvas) by Antonio Joli (1700-1777)

Francesco Maria Veracini was born in Florence on 1 February 1690 into a family of musicians, and was taught by his uncle, the violinist and composer Antonio Veracini, among others. The young Francesco Maria worked in Florence until 1711 when he began to appear in Venice, and in 1714 he travelled north of the Alps for the first time, visiting London and Düsseldorf before eventually settling in Dresden. Veracini worked as a highly paid member of the Italian musical establishment at the Dresden court between 1717 and 1723, when he returned to his home city. Shortly before he left Dresden, on 13 August 1722, he threw himself from an upstairs window. Johann Mattheson claimed that the cause was a fit of madness brought on by excessive musical and alchemical studies, but Veracini suggested in later life that jealous colleagues had conspired to murder him. Be that as it may, Veracini survived and remained in Italy until 1733, when he once more travelled to London. He worked there on and off until 1745 when he returned to Italy for the last time; according to Charles Burney he was shipwrecked in the Channel, and lost his treasured Stainer violins ‘St Peter’ and ‘St Paul’. Veracini’s relatively uneventful last years were taken up with directing the music in two Florentine churches, and with writing a treatise, Il trionfo della practica musicale. He died in Florence on 31 October 1768.

To some extent, Veracini seems to have treated his Sonate accademiche as an autobiographical record of his life as travelling virtuoso. One of the movements, the Menuet in Sonata No 4, is dated 1711 in the edition, while Sonata No 2 clearly recalls his time at Dresden, for it begins with a Polonese (the electors of Saxony were also kings of Poland), and also includes an Aria schiavona or ‘Slavonic air’. Sonatas Nos 3, 8 and 10 have movements entitled Ritornello that use the idiom of the operatic aria and seem to reflect Veracini’s experience as an opera composer. Two movements, the Cotillion of Sonata No 4 and the Scozzesse of Sonata No 9, seem to reflect his time in England. The Cotillion was a lively ballroom dance, particularly popular in England (though Veracini’s movement is contrapuntal rather than balletic), while his Scozzesse is a ornamented setting of the popular Scots tune ‘Tweedside’. Horace Mann, the British ambassador in Florence, heard Veracini play it there in May 1750 and wrote to Horace Walpole that: ‘Veracini shone much, and particularly in a sonata in which he brings in Tweed’s side, which he always plays when I am present.’ Indeed, by combining a conservative style with brilliant virtuosity, Veracini made his music particularly attractive to the English. An obituary in a Florentine newspaper remarked that ‘he acquired, especially beyond the mountains, a reputation as a player that no one, perhaps, has equalled’, and added that ‘in England he was applauded extraordinarily’.

Peter Holman