Sujet
Grove Music Online
Objet
HERMINE W. WILLIAMS: 'Conti, Francesco Bartolomeo', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 1 June 2004), http://www.grovemusic.com :
"Conti, Francesco Bartolomeo (b Florence, 20 Jan 1681/2; d Vienna, July 1732). Italian theorbist and composer. […] News of his virtuoso playing spread beyond Italy and by 1701 the Habsburg court in Vienna had offered him an appointment as associate theorbist with the same stipend paid to the principal theorbist, Orazio Clementi. Conti served in this capacity from 1701 to 1708, except for the period from October 1706 until July 1707, when his name is absent from the records. On the death of Clementi in August 1708 he was promoted to principal theorbist, a position which he held until illness forced him to retire in 1726.
Conti was also a highly skilled mandolin player and composed one of the earliest sonatas for this instrument. […] He was elected a member of the Accademia Filarmonica, Bologna, in 1708 and near the end of his career earned the title of ‘first theorbist of the world’for his part in the performance of J.J. Fux’s Costanza e fortezza in Prague in 1723.
Long before the Habsburgs officially recognized Conti as a composer, he had distinguished himself at court with several successful performances of his music, including the opera Clotilde, presumably written for Carnival 1706, although neither a score nor any contemporary accounts of the production are known to have survived. […] The oratorio Il Gioseffo, with a text designed to honour Emperor Joseph I, whose coronation occurred in March 1706, was another such work. After a lapse of four years, Conti presented the court with an oratorio (1710) and an opera (1711) before being asked to fill a vacancy created by the promotion of J.J. Fux to vice-Kapellmeister. His appointment in 1713 as court composer entitled him to receive two stipends, one as composer and one as theorbist, the combined total of which made him one of the highest paid musicians in Vienna.
Conti married three times. After the death of his first wife, Theresia (Kugler), in April 1711, he married the wealthy prima donna, Maria Landini, a widow with three children. Not only had she inherited her husband’s estate, but she was the highest paid musician in Vienna at that time. She sang the leading role in each of Conti’s operas from 1714 to 1721. After her death in 1722, the position of prima donna remained vacant until 1724, when the court appointed Maria Anna Lorenzani. She sang the leading role in three of Conti’s operas, and became his third wife in April 1725. Conti became ill in 1726 and by 1729 had left Vienna for Italy. Presumably he went back to Florence, where he owned a house and other property. By 1732 he had returned to Vienna and presented two new works at the court before his death in July of that year."
Utilisateur
AS