Josephine's Composer: The Life Times and Works of Gaspare Pacifico Luigi Spontini (1774-1851)

JOSEPHINE’S

COMPOSER

The Life Times and works of Gaspare Pacifico Luigi Spontini (1774-1851)

Andrew Everett MA

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: 1-800-839-8640

© 2013 by Andrew Everett MA. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/04/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3414-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3413-6 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 Growing Up In The Papal States (1774-1793)

Chapter 2 The Italian Operas (1795-1799)

Chapter 3 To Sicily (1799-1802)

Chapter 4 Settling In Paris (1803-1805)

Chapter 5 La Vestale And Fernand Cortez (1806-1810)

Chapter 6 Théâtre Italien (1810-1814)

Chapter 7 The Bourbon Restoration (1814-1815)

Chapter 8 Olympie (1815-1820)

Chapter 9 Hohenzollern Berlin (1820-1822)

Chapter 10 Nurhamal And Alcidor (1822-1825)

Chapter 11 ‘Agnes Von Hohenstaufen’ (1826-1829)

Chapter 12 Second Contract (1830-1835)

Chapter 13 Last Years In Berlin (1835-1840)

Chapter 14 Leaving Berlin (1841-1844)

Chapter 15 Final Years (1844-1851)

Chronology

Bibliography & References

List Of Works

INTRODUCTION

This is the first full length biography in English of a composer, who worked at the courts of four European dynasties before, during and after the Napoleonic era. His full name was Gaspare Luigi Pacifico Spontini. His grand operas usually gain a mention as major contributors to the development of 19th century opera and occasionally are revived, mostly frequently in Italy or France as being worthy examples of what are essentially important historical documents. The innovative quality especially of La Vestale and Fernand Cortes in the 1800’s in Paris is acknowledged. However, comparatively little really is known about Spontini the man. Even these two works have a tenuous hold on the fringes of the French and/or Italian repertory. La Vestale is easily his best known work. It has often been revived as a vehicle for an outstanding dramatic soprano like Maria Callas, Monserrat Caballe or in 1920’s for Rosa Ponselle. It partly prefigures Bellini’s Norma in the expressive demands on the soprano taking the title role.

Spontini’s music deserves to be better known. His progress as a composer meant that he took elements of the Neapolitan school to Paris and attempted to weld the French and Italian traditions into a noble neo-classical style of his own being particularly notable for its scale. He went to challenge the German tradition in Agnes von Hohenstaufen, providing a model for much of Wagner in its handling of large forces as well as using an historical setting.

His French operas (and Agnes) have been mounted in Italy when cast of singers who have the stamina to fulfil both its lyrical and dramatic demands and where there are choral resources, capable orchestras, spectacular decor and production. All have to be rostered to do justice to his concepts. In Agnes, particularly, among many other more ponderous things, there are sweetly lyrical soprano solos in the title role, which show him at his most persuasive. This opera also contains the amazing Act 2 finale, which in some ways is the most comprehensive and extended operatic ensemble ever written. There is nothing like it in Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi or Wagner or even Berlioz. Spontini thus stands at the turning point of opera from its later days as a formalised entertainment into grand opera—a precursor for the monumental dramas of historical penned by Berlioz in particular, Meyerbeer, Wagner and Verdi. He in addition provided his contemporaries with orchestral, vocal, choral and balletic resources, raised under his guidance and conductorship. He achieved this by insisting on rehearsals

As a personality, Spontini was not the most attractive of men. Coming from peasant stock from the Italian Marches, he was driven to achieve. He made a point of trying to please royal masters and hitching his future to the fate of that dynasty. Earlier in Paris and later in Berlin, he showed he could be forceful, arrogant and touchy in personal relationships. Nevertheless, he tried to be philanthropic especially in his later life. All in all, he was well-intentioned, but not very aware of the effect of his words and actions on others. Like Mendelssohn, he was interested in the contemporary music of Beethoven, Spohr and Weber as well as the dead masters of the classical period, like Haydn, Gluck and Bach; he especially revered Mozart.

This book has evolved from an interest in pre-Verdian opera. I have consulted various editions of Groves, translated Fragapane’s important 1954 Italian biography (and his 1983 revision) which both draw on scholarship of the day. Alberto Ghislanzoni covers the same territory, but is more fulsome as regards Spontini’s family and his relationship with them. This aspect I have developed as much as I could by reference to contemporary events arising from Napoleonic campaigns in Italy and the resistance of the Papacy and the effects on Catholic priests and faithful in Italy and in France.

Ghislanzoni also provides more details of those of his Italian operas, some of which have not yet been discovered. Sometimes the score has not yet been found or is incomplete, yet the libretto remains. He is in particular gives details of Gli Elisi delusi for Sicilian Royal family and the incomplete project Les Athéniennes including Goethe’s detailed analysis of libretto.

There are three sources from France. The earliest is 1810 by Alexandre Étienne Choron (who worked with Spontini) and François-Joseph Fayolle, Their attributions of the Italian works do not always add up to what is known now. There is a 1834 monograph in French by François-Joseph Fétis, who, although he knew Spontini, is not always accurate in his details, but can add interesting anecdotes. Clément’s mid-Victorian monograph (1868) is even less reliable, especially regarding the earlier Italian works.

Schnapp’s book on E T A Hoffmann however is revelatory about the earlier part of Spontini’s time in Berlin, including his relationship with Intendant von Brühl and the work done on the projected opera Sapho as part of the quota of operas he had agreed to provide for Berlin.

Translations from original French, Italian and German texts have all been made by the author. Where possible, the original casts of his operas have been identified, the plots, the musical structure made clear and a brief commentary offered, where possible from contemporary sources. In addition, where relevant, translations into English of opera titles and numbers have been made with a view to getting a flavour of the work. Recordings have helped enormously in appreciating his achievement from a musical point of view. There is certainly enough to get an overall picture, but the whole canon of his work is as yet far from complete.

This book therefore attempts to give Spontini his rightful place in musical history, but placed in the wider context of life before, during and after the hey-day of Napoléon in Italy, France and Prussia, as it affected him.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The main library assistance has been given by the staffs of Gateshead, Newcastle City, Newcastle University and Northumbria University Libraries in obtaining material through interlibrary loan. All illustrations are in the common domain, out of copyright.

For proof reading and useful comments in making the structure of book an easier read, am grateful to my daughter Catherine and my wife Mary. It is dedicated to them.

CHAPTER 1

GROWING UP IN THE PAPAL STATES (1774-1793)

The Appenines in the Marche region of central Eastern Italy send many spurs eastwards out towards the Adriatic Sea. On one of these northwest of the busy port of Ancona lies the hill city of Jesi (or Iesi). Much of its mediaeval walls and towers are still intact. The municipal square is dedicated to its most famous son, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, born there in 1194.[1] On 4 January 1710, composer Giovanni Pergolesi was born there going as a 15 year old to Naples to further his musical skills at the Conservatorio.

To the west of Jesi, both road and railway line run along the bottom of the River Esino until they eventually reach Rome. The whole area was part of the former Papal States. Above the river on its south side about16 kilometres from Jesi, there is the 700-year old hilltop township of Majolati. This is where the area’s third most famous son, Gaspare Luigi Pacifico Spontini was born.

Family background

His paternal grandfather Venanzo Spontini was one of 5 children from Fabriano, a town with a long history of paper-making, including the invention of the watermark. The Spontinis [2], moved sometime in the early years of the 18th century to Albacina about 9 kilometres east of Fabriano. Venanzo became a farm manager there. His wife Maria Diana presented him with 7 children, three of whom died in infancy. Two sons Giambattista and Giuseppe and two daughters Bernardina and Vittoria survived to adulthood.

Giambattista was born there in 1745 and in 1770 moved 18 kms eastwards to Majolati. There he married 27-year old Maria Teresa Geltrude Guadagnini [3] on 7 September 1772. She came from Monte San Vito northwest of Jesi. Both spouses had brothers, who entered the priesthood. Giambattista’s brother Don Giuseppe was a priest in Jesi. Two of Teresa’s brothers became priests. One of them Don Pietro was the parish priest at Monte San Vito, her home village. Giambattista Spontini lived in a small house in Majolati as tenants of Teresa’s grandmother’s family, the Amatoris. Her grandmother Olimpia Amatori had come from nearby Masaccio. [4]

Gaspare’s parents both worked in the local wheat fields, a crop which grows well here. On each lot of land was a farmhouse for the peasant who cultivated the land for the owner. Some peasants had become owners, but that was rare. Spontini’s parents had a house in the village and lived on the modest return from what they had. It allowed them to raise 5 children, 4 of whom were boys.[5] Of the seven children born to the couple 2 died in infancy.

The first son Antonio was born about June 1773. He was quickly followed by the second, Gaspare at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, 14 November 1774. He was taken the next day to be baptised at the parish church of San Stefano by the parish priest Don Giuseppe Ceccarelli. His names were Gaspare Luigi Pacifico. His god-parents were Giuseppe Amadio and Teresa Alessandrini, probably friends or relatives.

The couple would eventually acquire small tracts of land for 165 scudi, [6] paid by Spontini’s father for it. He added to his income by cobbling shoes. In the long term, Spontini’s father made enough money to buy land six months before the birth of his second son. He went on acquire more land, for instance at Poggio Cupro towards Fabriano in October 1789, 2 pieces of land at Maiolati itself and in Scisciano, north of Poggio Cupro for 1750 scudi. In his will dated 29 January 1807, he bequeathed his land solely to Spontini, as the other children were in ‘religion’. He was obviously an astute man, able to make the most of what came his way, despite the political instability of the time.

Nicolà was born two years after Spontini in about 1776 and Filippo about 1778. All four brothers attended the seminary in Jesi. The aim of the parents in sending was probably two-fold. The boys could attend the seminary to see if they were suited to going on later to the priestly life. If not at least they had been educated for a future career. On some ways, this got them out of the peasant life into a position of status in the community. It was not an uncommon practice and reflected the high status the priesthood in Catholic life.

Spontini’s education

By the time he was 6 years old, Spontini’s parents especially his father began to indicate that he also should now work towards trying out his vocation to the priesthood. In the event, despite being much more delicate than his brothers, Spontini would go on to survive them by many years.[7]

Staying with Uncle Giuseppe

In about 1781 Clorinda was born. In 1784 following the wishes of his parents, the eight year old Spontini started his studies. To make things easier for him, he went to live with one of his paternal uncles, Don Giuseppe Spontini, a parish priest of Santa Maria del Piano in the suburbs of Jesi on the site of an ancient Benedictine abbey. Don Giuseppe himself added to the history of the church by becoming involved in the reconstruction of the church’s altar.[8] His uncle’s duties seemed to include serving a number of other churches within the Jesi deanery. Uncle Giuseppe undertook to teach the boy Latin among other basic subjects and possibly other dead and modern languages, including French. One of the duties his uncle required of him at this time was to act as a witness to marriage ceremonies and settlements.[9]

All this was to prepare him for eventual admission as an external student to the seminary at Jesi on a day basis to undertake theological studies.

The Papal States had become politically more settled by 1774, the last year of the pontificate of Pope Clement XIV. From 1775 to 1799, there was a new Pope, Pius VI, who progressively had to face much trouble concerning both the internal and external spiritual and political authority of the church.[10] For the ordinary Catholic, belief and practice had been unchanged since the great reforming Council of Trent in the 16th century. Indeed, the teaching and exemplary life of the Archbishop of Naples, Saint Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists renewed the more traditional spirituality of both clergy and faithful.

His stay with his uncle was not without incident. The boy liked to hear the sound of the church bells of Santa Maria’s so much he used to go and perch up in the bell tower. This sometimes caused him to neglect his duties as altar boy during Mass. He would forget to come forward to present cruets containing water and wine at the beginning of the Offertory or when acting as thurifer neglected to present the thurible to the priest to incense the holy texts or the Body and Blood of Christ at the Consecration.

On another occasion, a storm caused vibrations which made the bell ring. A thunderbolt threw the boy from his perch in the tower to the floor. Although frightened, he escaped with bruises and bumps only. All in all he stayed for 6 years with this uncle. When he was about 10 or 11 years of age he started the seminary close to the Cathedral of San Settimo founded in the 16th century after the Council of Trent in Jesi by Bishop Gabriele del Monte. The course included studies in literature.[11]

Luigi Crudeli

However more important to Spontini and his future was the arrival of Luigi Crudeli, related to the organ-making family from Lucca, but based further south at Recanati near Loreto. He lodged with Spontini’s uncle working on building a small organ in the church. His activity would finish any further thoughts of any priestly vocation in the boy’s mind.

Spontini was entranced by the sounds he heard coming from a portable harpsichord Crudeli played. Following Crudeli around and listening intently to him, he tried to copy him, even having attempting to play the new organ when Crudeli’s back was turned. Crudeli responded by giving him some introductory lessons on the organ. The boy responded well. Crudeli shrewdly recognised the germ of future talent. He pleaded with the uncle to let his 14 year-old nephew study church music as a means of keeping his interest in the priesthood alive.[12]

On his way to the seminary in Jesi Spontini noticed a pretty young girl at a window. He raised his hat to her as he passed. His uncle on learning of this gallantry, threatened him with a whip. This caused the fourteen year-old boy to flee. He spent a night in an oven in a house in the Via del Verziere.

Off to stay with Uncle Pietro

Then the next morning he went on foot a few miles down the Esino valley to the hill top village of Monte San Vito to the north east of Jesi, where his mother came from and where her family lived. There were her artisan brothers, Dionisio and Aldobrando and the parish priest Don Pietro, one of the 12 clergy at the collegiate church of St. Pietro Apostolo. He lived with his sister Rosa, who probably acted as house-keeper to the clergy there. Don Pietro welcomed him with kindliness and he returned this with affection. The priest arranged his first lessons in the rudiments of music with Quintiliani, the maestro di capello at the Monte San Vito church.

Early musical studies

After a year when he had made enough progress, he returned to Jesi to Uncle Giuseppe, who acknowledged his mistake and proceeded to arrange for local tuition in music and the classics for him. This included work with the singer and composer of sacred music Vincenzo Ciuffulotti,[13] a young musician who in 1791 attended at the Pietà de’ Turchini in the Naples Conservatorio.

He spent time with Giuseppe Menghini organist and composer at San Lorenzo in Jesi, attended the school of Bartoli, the Jesi cathedral maestro di capello and spent time with Don Niccolò Bonanni, a composer of sacred music who had some contrapuntal skills and was maestro di capello at San Leonardo on Piazza IV Novembre in Masaccio. [14]

Backed by his uncle, Ciuffulotti and Serafino Salvati, a well-known local businessman, Spontini worked through the principles of musical theory as set out in treatises written by the most eminent contemporary musical writers. probably studying noted musical theorist Giovanni Battista Martini’s book on counterpoint, Saggio fondamentale di contrapuntto (Fundamental Samples of Counterpoint)[15], the 1725 treatise on counterpoint Gradus ad Parnassum (Steps to Parnassus) by Austrian theorist and composer Johann Joseph Fux, Antonio Borroni’s erudite history of music and the1683 work L’armonico practico al cembalo (Harmony Practice on the Keyboard) for the harpsichord by Vivaldi’s contemporary Francesco Gasparini, an Italian opera composer and teacher. As part of these studies, Spontini undoubtedly studied sonata form, either as sonata da camera or sonata da chiesa, It provided him with a basic formula not only for writing overtures but for creating sequences in writing arias, duets, trios and more extended numbers in his operas.

Music making, apart from traditional folk music, was mainly centred in many localities on church ceremonies, particularly feast days of local saints. It took the form of masses, motets, vocal solos as well as instrumental pieces (sonata da chies) which accompanied or punctuated the prayers regularly used during Mass. Only in the larger towns like Jesi could he see and hear the mainly comic works (apart the religious works in Lent) in the little theatre in Jesi put on while he was there (1788-1791).[16]

Salvati overcame the reluctance of Spontini’s father concerning a musical rather than a priestly career. He agreed to let him go to the Naples Conservatorio. About this time (1791) Spontini’s older brother Antonio began his formal studies for the priesthood at the Jesi seminary.

To Naples via Rome

During 1792 [17] Salvati took the 19 year old Spontini south to Rome. He spent some time studying there with Antonio Borroni, the maestro di capello at St. Peter’s in Rome after which Spontini travelled on with another friend to Naples.

Naples Conservatorio

The fees for his tuition and accommodation etc would have been provided by the money his father Giambattista had made through his own hard work, possibly with some additional funding from Salvati. The upshot was he was formally enrolled on January 1st 1793.

The Conservatorio records show:

Gaspare Spontini, a foreigner, admitted to the Royal Conservatorio of the Pietà, on the first day of January, on payment of 60 ducats per year, always payable the term before. The aforesaid boarding pupil is to enter on 30th January. The aforesaid is exempt from the obligation of having to copy the Conservatorio documents, during the whole residence.

Throughout Spontini’s time in Italy whether as pupil and composer, Naples was ruled by the benevolent despot, the Bourbon Ferdinand IV King of the Two Sicilies, nicknamed Nasone (Nosy). He had reigned since 1759, having married the Hapsburg princess, Maria Carolina, daughter of Maria Theresa and sister of Marie-Antoinette in 1768. Wishing to expunge Spanish influence, the Queen had determined to rule in her own right, as her husband not being interested much in government. He preferred hunting and young women. She appointed an English Catholic nobleman Sir John Acton to act as her Prime Minister. Thus Naples became aligned with England and Austria politically during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

By 1791, the effects of political instability in republican France were viewed with no little anxiety. This nervousness was increased by 1793 following the execution of the Queen’s sister, Marie Antoinette. The Kingdom of Naples now joined the First Coalition against France. It was the beginning of a chain of events that would effect not only the Royal family, but alter the course of Spontini’s career.

He started his studies in that part of the Conservatorio called Pietà dei Turchini founded in 1589, (the name ‘turchini’ deriving from the turquoise colour of their uniforms). Sited in Via Medina where Ciuffolotti himself had studied, it had amalgamated with three other similar charitable foundations, Santa Maria di Loreto, San Onofrio a Capuano (both sited in Via Medina also) and with Poveri di Gesù Cristo. [18]

The aim of the original charitable bodies had been to provide education for scugnizzi, i.e. poor boys and orphans. They were taught grammar, the arts, literature and works of charity. During the 18th century in particular music became a key study. Hence the Conservatorio could claim to have been originally founded in 1537 and so considered the oldest musical school in Europe.

Indeed it exerted a potent and influential force in music during the 17th and 18th centuries providing a suitable model for the foundation of conservatories established in other countries.[19] It was proud to count among noted past pupils working in different parts of Europe: - opera composers-Francesco Gasparini, Baldassare Galuppi, Niccola Antonio Porpora the Scarlattis, both Alessandro and his son Domenico, Giovanni Pergolesi, Domenico Cimarosa and Niccolo Piccinni, violinist composer Pietro Locatelli, composer of both operas and oratorios, (and a past Turchini pupil) Leonardo Oronzo Salvatore de Leo.

The Conservatorio worked to coordinate all the various foundations so that pupils gained mastery in a number of musical areas. It had a reputation for excellence in vocal music, allied to a grounding in harmony, orchestration and counterpoint in both solo and choral music for both church and stage.

Composers and musicians were needed at various royal, grand-ducal and other courts. as well as at theatres, both private or public, when regular seasons of opera seria and opera buffa, especially 1-act farsas were put on. Churches in Italy and indeed elsewhere in Europe with their attendant maestri di cappelli required a constant stream for both choral and instrumental religious music., viz short pieces, such as anthems and motets and sonatas, longer works such as masses appropriate for the different liturgical feasts of the Church’s year or for public events like coronations and deaths of notables. Oratorios were put on during Lent, when the theatres were closed for the penitential season with the aim of providing alternative staple musical fare.

Once Spontini was at the Conservatorio, he made rapid progress with his studies at fugue, counterpoint and composition under the nonagenarian Nicolò Salà, a minor composer of opera seria and oratorios, who served as professor there from 1793 to 1799. No doubt being set to study Salà’s 3 volumes of Regole del Contrappunto practico (Rules