by Tim Rayborn
Somehow he was offered a job in 1703 as the music teacher at the Conservatorio dell’ Ospedale della Pietà, a school and home for (mostly) orphaned girls. A good-looking young priest, a school full of teenage girls eager to learn—this has all the makings of one of those bad 1970s European sex comedy films that used to show up on late-night American cable TV. Indeed, Vivaldi was in trouble more than once for behaviors that were, to put it mildly, not suited to his profession. In 1737, he was officially censured. He was known to travel frequently, and among his traveling companions were two half-sisters: one, Anna Giraud (or Girò), was a student of his, and the other, Paolina, was his “nurse.” Carry on, Vivaldi? Confessions of a Baroque Composer?
Naturally, there was gossip about all of this, but Vivaldi denied that anything improper was happening. He continued to cut shrewd business deals to finance his extravagant and unpriestly lifestyle, making enemies along the way both inside and outside of the Church.
His greatest challenge, though, was the one that afflicted so many artists of all kinds over the centuries: changing tastes and a lack of desire, or even ability, to adapt. By 1741, his music was falling out of fashion, and he could no longer make the money he used to. As a result, he sold off many of his manuscripts to finance a move from Venice to Vienna. The exact reason why he chose this city is not clear, but Anna (with whom he was now openly involved) was an opera singer, and he might have moved there hoping to secure a position to write more operas at the court of Charles VI, bringing both of them well-paid work.
It was a good plan, but nothing came of it. Charles VI died shortly after Vivaldi’s arrival in late June 1741, completely ruining his hopes. Vivaldi himself died mysteriously about a month later. The causes are still unknown but may have been some kind of internal infection. Rumors of murder seem unfounded, but no one knows for sure; with his large ego and monetary obsession, he had certainly angered many. Since he was impoverished at the time, he was buried in a pauper’s grave. His work was largely forgotten—even the famous Four Seasons—until it was revived in the twentieth century.
Benedetto Marcello (1686–1739) and Rosanna Scalfi Marcello (d. 1742)
A class act
The sad story of Benedetto and Rosanna may not be of Romeo and Juliet proportions, but it does show the cruel way that courtly life, with its rigid social rules and class stratifications, could treat people in unfortunate situations in those earlier times. A noble who was part of Venice’s government, Benedetto was a capable composer. He was a younger contemporary of Vivaldi, certainly influenced musically by his esteemed colleague. Rosanna Scalfi was said to be a talented gondola singer—yes, they were boating down the canals back in those days, too. She studied voice with Benedetto from about 1723. Legend says that he heard her singing in a gondola while he was at his window overlooking the Grand Canal and became enchanted with her. She went on to learn composition and became a capable composer in her own right, writing a set of twelve cantatas.
Regardless of how they met, their relationship blossomed and they were wed in a secret religious ceremony in May 1728. There was only one problem: the marriage was never given a civil ceremony, because marriage between a noble and a commoner was not generally permitted unless various legal hurdles were jumped.
Poor Benedetto died in 1739 of tuberculosis, a common enough killer of all classes in those days, and the marriage was declared illegal and null. Rosanna was thus ineligible to inherit his wealth and was left destitute. In 1742 she sued his brother, Alessandro Marcello, seeking financial support, but her suit was rejected, again on the grounds that she had no claim to any of the family’s money. Though she was still performing at this time, it seems she died shortly after in poverty, rejected and forgotten.
Francesco Maria Veracini (1690–1768)
A lame excuse
The long-lived Veracini had a few notable mishaps that might have ended his life. The son of a pharmacist and undertaker (presumably if the drugs didn’t work for his patients, his father had a back-up job), Veracini was a virtuoso violinist. His bowing technique even impressed the great Tartini, causing the latter to leave the vicinity and lock himself away to practice. Veracini was also noted for being arrogant and a bit eccentric. He traveled far and wide, eventually ending up in the service of the Prince Elector Friederich Augustus of Saxony. As is often the case, those musicians or composers already in the monarch’s service resented anyone new coming in, especially someone as talented and conceited as he was.
He began to suspect plots against his life, and after a quarrel about the abilities of some of his German colleagues (which he thought were severely lacking), he took a very strange course of action. As recorded by Johann Mattheson, a printer:
Moreover here in Dresden a distressing incident has happened to one of our great virtuosos a short while ago. It is, namely, Mr. Veracini, our world famous violinist (who) suddenly became mad and so delirious that he threw himself out of a second storey window on August 13th, 1722, and broke his foot in two places and (also) his hip, and is given little hope for regaining his good sense as well as for the healing of his body. The blame for such derangement of his understanding is due partly to his all-too-great application to music, partly to the reading of chemical (alchemical) writings in which he let himself get so involved that he finally could no longer sleep.
Apparently Veracini’s devotion to the occult sciences was making him a bit loopy. Other accounts state that he leapt while fleeing from a fight, because he feared for his life. He may have thought that some desired to kill him out of jealousy for his musical talent. It seems that his arrogance had made him a bit paranoid. In any case, the accident gave him a limp for the rest of his days. He traveled again to London and had considerable success initially, but the failure of his opera Roselinda (based on Shakespeare’s As You Like It) prompted him to leave London and return to Italy in 1745. The ship was wrecked on the crossing of the English Channel and two of his prized violins were lost, but he survived. Perhaps he thought it was an elaborate assassination plot.
Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770)
The devil made him do it
Tartini was a superb violinist; he had studied at Padua and shown great promise. However, as seems to be a recurring theme among these young Italian composers, the young man soon got himself in trouble over a woman. Originally intending to enter the Franciscan Order and study for the priesthood, he instead secretly married Elizabetta Premazore, a fellow student and (to make things more complicated) a favorite of Cardinal Giorgio Cornaro, bishop of Padua. The cardinal was not pleased and immediately ordered Tartini’s arrest. To make matters worse, Tartini’s family was unhappy because of the young lady’s inferior social class. He fled to Padua and, disguised as the friar he had intended to be, was given refuge in the monastery at Assisi (of St. Francis fame) in Umbria, north of Rome. The cardinal eventually cooled down and forgave Tartini, and he was able to return.
In the meantime, he had developed his violin skills to an astonishing degree. As with Paganini (we’ll discuss him in the Romantic Era chapter), rumors circulated about Tartini’s seemingly inhuman technical virtuosity and its presumed supernatural origin. In the nineteenth century, some said that he had six fingers on his left hand, which was the only way he could play his own very difficult works.
Tartini’s most famous piece is his Sonata in G Minor: Il trillo del Diavolo, or “The Devil’s Trill,” composed in the later 1740s. The details surrounding its origin are rather macabre and fascinating. Tartini himself describes the setting:
One night I dreamt that I had made a bargain with the Devil for my soul. Everything went at my command—my noble servant anticipated every one of my wishes. Then the idea struck me to hand him my fiddle and to see what he could do with it. But how great was my astonishment when I heard him play with consummate skill a sonata of such exquisite beauty as surpassed the boldest flight of my imagination. I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted; my breath was taken away; and I awoke. Seizing my violin
I tried to retain the sounds I had heard. But it was in vain. The piece I then composed, the Devil’s Sonata, although the best I ever wrote, how far below the one I heard in my dream!
Tartini never had another such dream, and perhaps it’s just as well. The piece is still regarded as incredibly difficult and virtuosic by modern violinists, and Tartini’s reputation as one of the great violinists in classical music history is well assured. The fate of his immortal soul, however, is not known.
Jean-Marie Leclair (1697–1764)
Sticking the knife in and turning it III
A native of Lyons, Leclair was a skilled violinist who also wrote fine music for both violin and flute. Indeed, he was the first Frenchman to write violin concertos, taking a cue from Vivaldi’s works, which had become popular in Paris. His skill on the violin ranks him alongside the leading Italian violinists of the day. Unfortunately for him, he is most often remembered today, if at all, because he was brutally murdered.
He traveled widely but by the 1750s was living in Paris. In 1758 his marriage ended, and for some odd reason Leclair chose to move to the Rue de Careme-Prenant, a bad neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris. Why? He surely had enough money and no real reason to do so. Maybe he wanted to try out the artistic life of squalor for himself, though it would be some decades before this fad really caught on. But for whatever reason, there he stayed, and there his life ended.
On the morning of October 23, 1764, his gardener found him lying in a pool of his own blood; he had been stabbed three times. The crime was never solved, though there are several suspects, including a disgruntled nephew now considered by many to be the most likely candidate, the gardener, and Leclair’s ex-wife. After his death, she was entitled to auction his house and possessions to raise money, and no surprise, this is exactly what she did. In fairness, she did also see to it that his works were republished and that his unpublished music saw the light of day, saving it for future generations. But then again, maybe that was just to dispel the suspicion that undoubtedly lingered around her.
John Taylor (1703–1772)
Lights out
“Chevalier” Taylor (one of his preferred titles) was not a composer, but a doctor who, despite having legitimate training, comes off to modern readers as a self-promoting quack. He has the dubious distinction of botching eye operations on the two great giants of the Baroque, possibly killing one of them as a result. The son of an apothecary, he studied medicine and gained a position as eye doctor to King George II of England and others, whether through fraud, bluffing, or sheer nerve. He traveled widely in a coach painted with eyes to promote himself, and while in Leipzig in 1749 he met Johann Sebastian Bach, then in his sixties and suffering from failing eyesight. Bach consented to an operation to restore his sight, which didn’t succeed. A second operation proved no better, and by then, Bach was totally blind.
Possibly as a result of these surgeries (infection and such), Bach’s health began to deteriorate, he suffered a stroke, and within a year, he was dead. Was Taylor remorseful? Not that we can determine. He probably wasn’t even aware that his work could have been a factor.
Back in England only a year later, he paid a visit to the other great master of the late Baroque era, George Frederic Handel. Handel’s eyesight was also failing, though the cause is not certain. For reasons unknown—Taylor was already being denounced publicly as a quack—Handel also agreed to an operation, which was just as unsuccessful and his eyesight continued to deteriorate. While Handel would live for another eight years, it would be in darkness. He seems to have contacted Taylor for another operation a few years later, such was the magnitude of the man’s ability to bluff in the face of criticism.
Bach and Handel have another curious connection—they were born in the same year, 1685. But despite their admiration for each other’s works, they were destined never to meet. Bach once traveled to Halle (near Leipzig) to meet Handel, but missed him by a day.
There is some slight poetic justice to the story of this quack who wrecked the lives of our two finest Baroque composers: Taylor also went blind before his own death in 1772 (some say 1770).
Louis-Gabriel Guillemain (1705–1770)
Sticking the knife in and turning it far too many times
The French composer Guillemain lived in the transitional period between the Baroque and the Classical eras, the so-called Rococo or Galante era. Though little-known today, he was well regarded in his own time. From 1737, he was a musicien ordinaire to King Louis XV and was said to be one of the highest-paid musicians of the court, even performing in private concerts for the king and queen, though there is evidence that he may have suffered from stage fright when appearing in front of larger audiences and tried to avoid those situations.
As can happen to those of humbler backgrounds who quickly come into large incomes, he eventually gave himself over to an extravagant lifestyle and spent too much money, probably in an attempt to keep up with those around him who were wealthier. As his debts piled up he began drinking, heavier in his later years. He was able to keep ahead of troubles for some time, but there is a mystery surrounding his death. It is possible that his drinking killed him, but there were rumors of a far darker fate. Many believed that he had committed suicide by a dreadful, bloody death in which he stabbed himself fourteen times. The very thought of self-inflicting that kind of harm is staggering and horrifying. Could he really have done this to himself in a fit of drunken madness, despondent over debts that he couldn’t pay? Or was he savagely murdered by one of his many creditors?
While he was given a proper burial—which would tend to rule out suicide because committing suicide prevented one from being buried in hallowed ground—it was with great haste: on the day he died, in fact. It could be that this hasty action was an attempt to hide something, such as a murder or an illness. We will never know the truth, but the fact that this rumor exists at all says that some believed it. Given how difficult it is for awful secrets to be kept quiet, it’s certainly possible that poor Louis-Gabriel went to his grave in a truly terrible way.
5
The Classical Era
While the whole of Western music has been labeled “classical” in modern designation, the actual “Classical era” in music history refers to a period from the later eighteenth century into the early nineteenth, between the Baroque and Romantic periods. Its giants were Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and sometimes Schubert, collectively known as the “First Viennese School” since they all lived and worked in and around Vienna at various times. Schubert, whom we will look at in the next chapter, is also considered an early Romantic. So the Classical era encompasses roughly 1750 to 1820 or 1830, depending on whom you consult. As is the case for all of these dates, we shouldn’t assign arbitrary starts and cut-offs to artistic eras. Bearing that in mind, these are the years in which the four composers above wrote the majority of their work.
This musical style coincided with the rise of neo-Classicism in architecture (i.e., the resurrection of Greco-Roman styles); this is why you see so many Greek- and Roman-looking buildings in London, Paris, and Washington, DC, from that time. Also included in the package were Enlightenment philosophy, the beginnings of the scientific method, intense debate over political systems, and—as a result of that—the American and French Revolutions. Those last two were obviously not so great for King George III and the French aristocracy, but they did fuel democratic ideals and the creation of political systems that are still with us, for better and worse.
During this time, orchestral music started to become “bigger,” longer, and more epic in scope. Even the orchestras themselves were increasing in size. The piano replaced the harpsichord as the keyboard instrument of choice—both for soloists and in groups—because it offered more range and volume, more of the “expression” that all those just-on-the-edge-of-Romanticism ears desired. Instruments like the clarinet appeared, to be followed by many new inventions and innovations in the nineteenth century. Classical music became quite “classical.”
Frantisek Kotzwara (1730/31–1791)
All choked up
Known as František Kočvara in his native Prague, this fellow was a skilled double bass player and composer. He seems to have traveled considerably, finally finding a home in London where his works were published from the 1770s. He left little of note except one popular composition, The Battle of Prague. More notable is the manner of his death, which was quite shocking for the time and hints at some very dark fetishes indeed.
It seems that on September 2, 1791, he visited a prostitute, one Susannah Hill, at her lodgings in Westminster; he had a history of visiting such ladies in his travels. After dinner and alcohol, he paid her two shillings and bluntly asked her to castrate him. Exactly what was in those drinks, we don’t know. Anyway, she refused but didn’t want to lose his money, so she agreed when he asked her instead to fix a noose about his neck and tie the other end to a doorknob, so that he might be partially strangled while they engaged in the act. At some point, however, things went wrong and he died in one of the first recorded cases of erotic asphyxiation. Poor Susannah was brought to trial on a murder charge but was acquitted; the jury believed her when she insisted that it was an accident.
The account was considered too scandalous to report to the Georgian public, and the judge ordered the trial details to be destroyed. Naturally, they soon found the light of day anyway, since who could resist a story like this? A few years later in 1797, a pamphlet with the inventive title of Modern Propensities; or, An Essay on the Art of Strangling circulated. It depicted a drawing of the young lady and Kotzwara on the front cover, he with a noose about his neck and looking mightily pleased, she flashing an equally large smile as she puts the noose in place. This particular fetish survived into Victorian underground society, and respectable and wealthy gentlemen could secretly visit “Hanged Men’s Clubs” to engage in hoped-for arousal by similar techniques. Needless to say, this sometimes also went horribly wrong, and the need to hush it all up must have been even greater than in the eighteenth century.