Carlo Ambrogio Lonati
Encyclopedia
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, violinist and singer. Francesco Maria Veracini
Francesco Maria Veracini
thumb|150px|Francesco Maria Veracini.Francesco Maria Veracini was an Italian composer and violinist, perhaps best known for his sets of violin sonatas.-Life:Francesco Maria Veracini led a turbulent life...
described him in 1760 as one of the most virtuoso violinist of his century.
Life
Nothing is known so far about the family and the musical education of this composer and violinist. Between 1665 and 1667 he figured as a violinist in the viceroy's (Pedro Antonio de AragónPedro Antonio de Aragón
Pedro Antonio de Aragón was a Spanish nobleman, military figure and politician who served under Kings Philip IV and Charles II of Spain. He was the brother of Cardinal Pascual de Aragón, Viceroy of Naples, 1664 - 1666. the son of Enrique Ramón Folch de Cardona y Córdoba. He was born in...
) chapel in Naples.
Since 1673 he was in the service of Queen Christina of Sweden, he led her string orchestra, and from that time was also known as the "Queen's Hunchback" ('Il Gobbo della Regina'). He made friends with Alessandro Stradella
Alessandro Stradella
Alessandro Stradella was an Italian composer of the middle baroque. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.-Life:Not much is known about his early life, but he...
, his companion in notoriety. Together with Carlo Mannelli
Carlo Mannelli
Carlo Mannelli was an Italian violinist, castrato and composer.-Life:Mannelli spent major part of his life in Rome where he also worked during the opera performances and religious events. As a violinist nicknamed Carlo del Violino, he played the first violin in the most famous Roman musical...
and Lelio Colista
Lelio Colista
Lelio Colista was an Italian Baroque composer and lutenist.Funded by his father, who held an important position in the Vatican library, Colista early received an excellent musical education, probably at the Seminario Romano. He masterly managed several instruments, especially the lute and theorbo...
he counted among the "più valorosi professori musici di Roma". From this period was probably the majority of his compositions for several instruments.
In 1671, Teatro Tordinona
Tor di Nona
The Tor di Nona— now a small area in Rome's Rione V called "Ponte", which lies in the heart of the city's historic center, between the via dei Coronari and the Tiber— commemorates an unregretted mediaeval tower which stood there...
, the first public theater for opera performances in Rome, was openened with music by Bernardo Pasquini
Bernardo Pasquini
right|thumb|Bernardo PasquiniBernardo Pasquini was an Italian composer of opera and church music.He was born at Massa in Val di Nievole . He was a pupil of Antonio Cesti and Loreto Vittori...
. In 1673 he sang in Pasquini's L'Amor per vendetta. Lonati played the comic character Vafrindo singing and playing the violin on stage. The dual roles as a singer of funny songs and virtuoso performer on stage is considered his specialty. He was appointed as a violinplayer at Oratory of Santissimo Crocifisso
Oratory of Santissimo Crocifisso
The Oratorio del Santissimo Crocifisso or the Oratory of the Most Holy Crucifix is a building in central Rome, Italy. Located next to the church of San Marcello al Corso, it served as a prayer hall and meeting house for the Confraternita del SS. Crocifisso...
. Due to the closure of the theater Tordinona from the Holy Year 1675, it is suggested that Lonati left Rome and participated in two Venetian works of Giovanni Legrenzi
Giovanni Legrenzi
Giovanni Legrenzi was an Italian composer of opera, vocal and instrumental music, and organist, of the Baroque era...
.
Lonati also worked in Genoa, from autumn 1677 to carnival of 1678, as the impresario of the Falconi theater. In Genoa, Lonati was joined by Stradella. After the stabbing of Stradella Lonati left the city. (This period could be in the Royal Chapel of Madrid.)
In 1684 Lonati appears as a virtuoso
Virtuoso
A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...
in the service of Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. To the court of Modena
Modena
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....
Lonati composed his only oratorio. During the 1680s he worked at the Mantuan court, then spent his last years in Milan where five of his ten known operas were performed.
Lonati was present in London during the reign of James II of England
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
, in the company of the famous singer Giovanni Francesco Grossi
Giovanni Francesco Grossi
Giovanni Francesco Grossi , one of the greatest Italian singers of the age of bel canto, better known as Siface, was born at Pescia in Tuscany....
, who would serve the Queen of England, Maria Beatrice d'Este. The stay in London, Lonati is to be placed between the end of 1686 and 1688.
In 1691 the name of Lonati is still in the list of musicians employed at the court of Mantua. At that time, Lonati is increasingly present in the musical life in Milan.
Despite the lack of proof, the violinist Francesco Geminiani
Francesco Geminiani
thumb|230px|Francesco Geminiani.Francesco Saverio Geminiani was an Italian violinist, composer, and music theorist.-Biography:...
continues to be regarded as a student of the Lonati. The probable teaching of Lonati spread not only the violin but also singing.
It is not known if Lonati visited the court of Emperor Leopold I
Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor
| style="float:right;" | Leopold I was a Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and King of Bohemia. A member of the Habsburg family, he was the second son of Emperor Ferdinand III and his first wife, Maria Anna of Spain. His maternal grandparents were Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria...
, to whom he dedicated his last work, a set of twelve sonatas for violin and basso continuo. The 12 sonatas are considered his best composition due to the technical difficulties and expressive range.
Works
Lonati's few extant violin works reveal a bold, fluent style with (in his 1701 12 Sonate per violino e basso continuo) prominent double stopping and use of scordaturaScordatura
A scordatura , also called cross-tuning, is an alternative tuning used for the open strings of a string instrument, in which the notes indicated in the score would represent the finger position as if played in regular tuning, while the actual pitch is altered...
, as well as the idiosyncratic melodic writing that runs through all his music. His cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
s - long, varied and of unusual expressive force - rank with those of Stradella and Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti.-Life:Scarlatti was born in...
, while his surviving operas, in Venetian style, are characterized by mature da capo
Da capo
Da Capo is a musical term in Italian, meaning from the beginning . It is often abbreviated D.C. It is a composer or publisher's directive to repeat the previous part of music, often used to save space. In small pieces this might be the same thing as a repeat, but in larger works D.C...
arias and a penchant for the stile concitato
Stile concitato
Stile concitato or "agitated style" is a Baroque style developed by Claudio Monteverdi with effects such as having rapid repeated notes and extended trills as symbols of bellicose agitation or anger....
with brilliant writing for obbligato
Obbligato
In classical music obbligato usually describes a musical line that is in some way indispensable in performance. Its opposite is the marking ad libitum. It can also be used, more specifically, to indicate that a passage of music was to be played exactly as written, or only by the specified...
instruments.
Lonati had his work seldon printed, so it could not be copied by people that could "hardly read a watch".
- Amor stravagante (Libretto by Giovanni Filippo Apollonis Amor per vendetta o vero L'Alcasta), 1677 Genua, Teatro Falcone
- Amor per destino (Libretto by Nicolò MinatoNicolò MinatoCount Nicolò Minato was an Italian poet, librettist and impresario. His career can be divided into two parts: the years he spent at Venice, from 1650 to 1669, and the years at Vienna, from 1669 until his death....
s Antioco), 1678 Genua - Ariberto e Flavio, regi de Longobardi (Libretto by Rinaldo Cialli), 9. Dez. 1684 Venice, Teatro S. Salvatore.
- Enea in Italia (Giacomo Francesco BussaniGiacomo Francesco BussaniGiacomo Francesco Bussani was a Venetian librettist.He wrote seven known librettos; 5 for Antonio Sartorio, and one each for Carlo Pallavicino and Pietro Agostini....
), 1686 Milano, Regio Teatro Nuovo - I due germani rivali, 1686 Modena, Teatro Fontanelli
- Scipione africano (Libretto by Nicolò Minato), 1692 Milano, Regio Teatro; together with Paolo Magni
- L'Aiace (Libretto by Pietro d'Averara), 1694 Milano, Regio Teatro; together with Paolo Magni and Francesco Ballarotti
External links
- http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/carlo-ambrogio-lonati_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/