Giovanni Battista or Giambattista Martini,
O.F.M. Conv. (24 April 1706 – 3 August 1784), also known as Padre Martini, was an
Italian Conventual Franciscan friar, who was a leading musician, composer, and music historian of the period and a mentor to
Mozart.
Biography
Giovanni Battista Martini was born in
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different na ...
, in that era part of the
Papal States. His father, Antonio Maria Martini, a violinist, taught him the elements of music and the violin and he later learned singing and
harpsichord playing from Padre Pradieri, and counterpoint from Antonio Riccieri and
Giacomo Antonio Perti. Having received his education in classics from the priests of the
Oratory of Saint Philip Neri
The Confederation of Oratories of Saint Philip Neri ( la, Confoederatio Oratorii Sancti Philippi Nerii) abbreviated CO and commonly known as the Oratorians is a Catholic society of apostolic life of Pontifical Right for men ( priests and lay- ...
, he afterwards entered the
novitiate of the
Conventual Franciscans at their
friary in
Lago, at the close of which he professed
religious vows and received the
religious habit of the Order on 11 September 1722.
In 1725, though only nineteen years old, he received the appointment of chapel-master at the
Basilica of San Francesco in Bologna, where his compositions attracted attention. At the invitation of amateurs and professional friends he opened a school of composition at which several celebrated musicians were trained; as a teacher he consistently declared his preference for the traditions of the old Roman school of composition. Martini was a zealous collector of musical literature, and possessed an extensive musical library.
Burney estimated it at 17,000 volumes; after Martini's death a portion of it passed to the Imperial library at
Vienna, the rest remaining in Bologna, now in th
Museo Internazionale della Musica(ex Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale).
Most contemporary musicians speak of Martini with admiration, and
Leopold Mozart consulted him with regard to the talents of his son,
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The latter went on to write the friar in very effusive terms after a visit to the city. The
Abbé Vogler, however, makes reservations in his praise, condemning his philosophical principles as too much in sympathy with those of Fux, which had already been expressed by P. Vallotti. His ''Elogio'' was published by Pietro della Valle at Bologna in the same year.
In 1758 Martini was invited to teach at the
Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna. He died in Bologna.
Among Martini's pupils: the
Belgian André Ernest Modeste Grétry, the
Bohemian
Josef Mysliveček
Josef Mysliveček (9 March 1737 – 4 February 1781) was a Czech composer who contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music. Mysliveček provided his younger friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with significant com ...
, the
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
Maksym Berezovsky, his fellow Conventual Franciscan friar,
Stanislao Mattei, who succeeded him as conductor of the girls choir, as well as the young
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
Johann Christian Bach and the famous Italian cellist
Giovanni Battista Cirri.
The greater number of Martini's mostly sacred compositions remain unprinted. The
Liceo of Bologna possesses the manuscripts of two oratorios as well as three
intermezzos, including
L'impresario delle Isole Canarie
' (The impresario from the Canary Islands), also known as ''L'impresario delle Canarie'' or ''Dorina e Nibbio'', is a satirical opera intermezzo libretto attributed to Metastasio (Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi), written in 1724 to be performed ...
; and a requiem, with some other pieces of church music, are now in Vienna. were published at Bologna in 1734, as also twelve ''Sonate d'intavolalura''; six ''Sonate per l'organo ed il cembalo'' in 1747; and ''Duetti da camera'' in 1763. Martini's most important works are his ''Storia della musica'' (Bologna, 1757–1781) and his ''Esemplare di contrappunto'' (Bologna, 1774–1775). The former, of which the three published volumes relate wholly to ancient music, and thus represent a mere fragment of the author's vast plan, exhibits immense reading and industry, but is written in a dry and unattractive style, and is overloaded with matter which cannot be regarded as historical. At the beginning and end of each chapter occur puzzle-canons, wherein the primary part or parts alone are given, and the reader has to discover the canon that fixes the period and the interval at which the response is to enter. Some of these are exceedingly difficult, but all were solved by
Luigi Cherubini.
The ''Esemplare'' is a learned and valuable work, containing an important collection of examples from the best masters of the old Italian and Spanish schools, with excellent explanatory notes. It treats chiefly of the tonalities of the plain chant, and of counterpoints constructed upon them. Besides being the author of several controversial works, Martini drew up a ''Dictionary of Ancient Musical Terms'', which appeared in the second volume of GB Doni's Works; he also published a treatise on ''The Theory of Numbers as Applied to Music''. His celebrated canons, published in London, about 1800, edited by Pio Cianchettini, and his unpublished set of 303 canons,
show him to have had a strong sense of musical humour.
References
*
Sources
*Sadie, S. (ed.) (1980) ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians'',
ol. # 11
*Elisabetta Pasquini, ''Gimbattista Martini''. Palermo, L'Epos, 2007.
External links
*More information, including full text, of Martini'
Storia della musicain the University of North Texas Music Library's Virtual Rare Book Room
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martini, Giovanni Battista
Italian Classical-period composers
01
1706 births
1784 deaths
Italian Baroque composers
Italian music theorists
Italian male classical composers
Conventual Friars Minor
18th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests
Musicians from Bologna
18th-century Italian composers
18th-century male musicians