Sujet
Grove Music Online
Objet
DOMINIQUE DUJARDIN: 'Vitzthumb, Ignaz', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 4 June 2004), http://www.grovemusic.com :
"Vitzthumb [Fitzthumb, Witzthumb, Vistumb], Ignaz [Ignace]
(b Baden, nr Vienna, 14 Sept 1724; d Brussels, 23 March 1816). Austrian conductor, teacher, impresario and composer, active in the southern Netherlands. In 1735, at the age of 11, he arrived in Brussels and entered the service of Archduchess Marie-Elisabeth, governor of the Netherlands, as a choirboy. In 1740 he was appointed court timpanist in the same department as the trumpeter François-Antoine Vitzthumb, his half-brother. He was to hold this post for over 40 years, although his other commitments subsequently obliged him to relinquish his duties to his son Paul (1761–1838). In 1742, during the War of Austrian Succession (1740–48), he enlisted as a drummer in a regiment of Hungarian hussars commanded by Colonel Count Hadik. He was demobilized in September 1748, returned to Brussels and took up his post as timpanist again. He is mentioned among the court musicians as a composer, tenor and violinist in 1758 and 1759, and as a composer from 1760 to 1775.
However, it was in the theatre that Vitzthumb was to show his talent. On returning from war he took part in the Flemish and French spectacles staged in Brussels by amateur companies: the Chambres de Rhétorique or Sociétés Bourgeoises. In 1758 he joined the Compagnie Saint-Charles, under the patronage of the Duke of Arenberg, which performed at the Petit Théâtre du Coffy. Performances of works by Vitzthumb (in the presence of the court) are first mentioned in the press in 1761, when his prologue Le temple des arts was performed at the Concerts Bourgeois, to which he belonged, and the pastoral ballet L’éloge de la vertu, ou Le tribut des cœurs was performed at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, where, in the same year, he is mentioned as teacher of the troupe’s children. From 1763 to 1766 he held his first appointment at La Monnaie as maître de musique et de chant under the brilliant direction of Guillaume Charlier, Pierre Van Maldere and Philippe Gamond. The directors who succeeded them thought him too severe, however, and replaced him with Granier. At the request of the citizens of Brussels, he then became director of a Chambre de Rhétorique, and took it on tour in Holland for the first time in 1768. This company was so successful that it constituted serious competition to La Monnaie, whose directors persuaded the government to ban its performances. Thanks to the support of d’Hannetaire and the Duke of Arenberg, Vitzthumb returned to La Monnaie as orchestral conductor in 1770. On 14 August 1771 he and the opera’s leading singer, Louis Compain-Despierrières, obtained an exclusive licence to direct La Monnaie for a period of ten years, from Easter 1772. […] On 31 May 1777, weighed down by enormous financial burdens, he announced the closure of the theatre. He was then imprisoned for debt and financially ruined. […]
From 1779 to 1781 Vitzthumb directed the Théâtre Français of Ghent with Mees, Debatty and Lambert, and then returned to La Monnaie as maître de musique et de chant. On 27 December 1786 he was appointed maître de musique at the royal chapel, a post left vacant by the death of H.-J. De Croës. […] like many freemasons he took part in the uprising against Joseph II in the Brabantine revolution (1787–90). This action cost him his post, from which he was dismissed on 14 March 1791. On 23 April he announced his departure for Amsterdam, where he had been offered a post as maître de musique and stage manager at the theatre of the college of drama and opera. However, the following year he fell seriously ill, and his son Paul brought him back to Brussels, where he lived for many more years in near-poverty but still remembered by musicians."
Utilisateur
AS