Giovanni Punto
Encyclopedia
Giovanni Punto (September 28, 1746, Žehušice, Czechia – February 16, 1803, Prague, Czechia) was a Czech horn player (more correctly, he played the cor basse) and a pioneer of the hand-stopping
technique which allows natural horn
s to play a greater number of notes.
He was an international celebrity in the 18th and early 19th centuries, known in London
, Paris
, and throughout Germany
; one critic wrote in 1800 after a performance by Punto and Beethoven of Beethoven's Op. 17 Sonata for Horn and Piano
-
He is widely accounted to have been one of the foremost virtuosi of the horn in history.
in Bohemia
. His father was a serf
bonded to the estate of Count Joseph Johann von Thun, but the young Stich was taught singing, violin and finally the horn. The Count sent him to study horn under Joseph Matiegka in Prague
, Jan Schindelarz in Munich
, and finally with A. J. Hampel in Dresden
(from 1763 to 1764). This last was especially significant as Hampel taught Stich the pioneering hand-stopping
technique which he later improved and extended.
Stich then returned to the service of the Count, where he remained for four years, earning a reputation for volatility and troublemaking. At the age of 20 Stich ran away, with four friends. The Count, who had invested heavily in his prodigy, dispatched soldiers with orders to knock out Stich's front teeth to prevent him ever playing the horn again. Fortunately they failed to capture the party, and Stich crossed into Italy, into the Holy Roman Empire.
, to the court orchestra, but left after a few years when they refused to give him the post of Konzertmeister. After this he began to travel and play as a soloist, touring much of Europe including England. Charles Burney
heard him play in Koblenz
in 1772, saying:
Punto was particularly popular in Paris, playing there 49 times between 1776 and 1788, but his use of hand stopping was criticized by some in London, possibly due to the novelty of the technique. In 1777, however, he was invited to teach the horn players in the private orchestra of George III.
Punto also composed pieces to better display his own virtuosity (a common practice then). By studying these works we know that he was a master of quick arpeggios and stepwise passagework.
1778 seems to have been a particularly good year for Punto; not only did he meet Mozart in Paris (Mozart reported to his father Leopold
that "Punto plays magnifique."), he also appears to have made arrangements with some Parisian publishers; nearly all his subsequent compositions were published in Paris, whereas they were previously listed in Breitkopf
's catalogue. Finally, a new horn was made for him, a silver cor solo, which he used for the rest of his life.
Punto actively sought a permanent position where he could conduct as well as compose and play. and in 1781 he duly entered the service of the Prince Archbishop of Würzburg, whence he moved to become the Konzertmeister (with a pension) for the Comte d’Artois (later to become Charles X of France
) in Paris. His success was such that in 1787 he was able to secure leave of absence and tour the Rhineland in his own coach (a mark of considerable wealth at the time).
On returning to Paris in 1789 Punto was appointed conductor of the Théâtre des Variétés Amusantes, where he remained for ten years, leaving in 1799 only after they refused to appoint him to the staff of the newly founded Paris Conservatoire. Moving on to Vienna via Munich, Punto met Beethoven, who wrote his Op. 17 Sonata for Horn and Piano for the two of them. They premièred the work on 18 April 1800 at the Burgtheater and the following month the pair played the work again in Pest, Hungary (it was here that the critic commented "who is this Beethoven?...").
. A reviewer commented:
In 1802, after a short trip to Paris, Punto developed "Brustwassersucht" (pleurisy
), then a common illness of wind players. He died five months later on 16 February 1803, being accorded a "magnificent" funeral in the Church of St. Nicholas attended by thousands. Mozart's Requiem
was performed at the graveside.
Among his surviving compositions are:
Hand-stopping
Hand-stopping is a technique by which a natural horn can be made to produce notes outside of its normal harmonic series. By inserting the hand, cupped, into the bell, the player can reduce the pitch of a note by a semitone or more...
technique which allows natural horn
Natural horn
The natural horn is a musical instrument that is the ancestor of the modern-day horn, and is differentiated by its lack of valves. It consists of a mouthpiece, some long coiled tubing, and a large flared bell. Pitch changes are made through a few different techniques:* Modulating the lip tension as...
s to play a greater number of notes.
He was an international celebrity in the 18th and early 19th centuries, known in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and throughout Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
; one critic wrote in 1800 after a performance by Punto and Beethoven of Beethoven's Op. 17 Sonata for Horn and Piano
Horn Sonata (Beethoven)
Beethoven composed his Horn Sonata in F major, Op. 17 in 1800 for the virtuoso horn player Giovanni Punto. Beethoven was not yet well-known at the time of this composition, and after the premiere of the piece, played by Punto, a critic wrote, "Who is this Beethover? His name is not known to us...
-
He is widely accounted to have been one of the foremost virtuosi of the horn in history.
Early life
Punto was born in ŽehušiceŽehušice
Žehušice is a market town in the Czech Republic....
in Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
. His father was a serf
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
bonded to the estate of Count Joseph Johann von Thun, but the young Stich was taught singing, violin and finally the horn. The Count sent him to study horn under Joseph Matiegka in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Jan Schindelarz in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, and finally with A. J. Hampel in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
(from 1763 to 1764). This last was especially significant as Hampel taught Stich the pioneering hand-stopping
Hand-stopping
Hand-stopping is a technique by which a natural horn can be made to produce notes outside of its normal harmonic series. By inserting the hand, cupped, into the bell, the player can reduce the pitch of a note by a semitone or more...
technique which he later improved and extended.
Stich then returned to the service of the Count, where he remained for four years, earning a reputation for volatility and troublemaking. At the age of 20 Stich ran away, with four friends. The Count, who had invested heavily in his prodigy, dispatched soldiers with orders to knock out Stich's front teeth to prevent him ever playing the horn again. Fortunately they failed to capture the party, and Stich crossed into Italy, into the Holy Roman Empire.
Punto in Italy
On arriving in Italy, Stich changed his name to Giovanni Punto (more or less an Italianisation of his given name) and went to work in the orchestra of the Prince of Hechingen. From there he moved to MainzMainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
, to the court orchestra, but left after a few years when they refused to give him the post of Konzertmeister. After this he began to travel and play as a soloist, touring much of Europe including England. Charles Burney
Charles Burney
Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian and father of authors Frances Burney and Sarah Burney.-Life and career:...
heard him play in Koblenz
Koblenz
Koblenz is a German city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck and its monument are situated.As Koblenz was one of the military posts established by Drusus about 8 BC, the...
in 1772, saying:
Punto was particularly popular in Paris, playing there 49 times between 1776 and 1788, but his use of hand stopping was criticized by some in London, possibly due to the novelty of the technique. In 1777, however, he was invited to teach the horn players in the private orchestra of George III.
Punto also composed pieces to better display his own virtuosity (a common practice then). By studying these works we know that he was a master of quick arpeggios and stepwise passagework.
1778 seems to have been a particularly good year for Punto; not only did he meet Mozart in Paris (Mozart reported to his father Leopold
Leopold Mozart
Johann Georg Leopold Mozart was a German composer, conductor, teacher, and violinist. Mozart is best known today as the father and teacher of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and for his violin textbook Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule.-Childhood and student years:He was born in Augsburg, son of...
that "Punto plays magnifique."), he also appears to have made arrangements with some Parisian publishers; nearly all his subsequent compositions were published in Paris, whereas they were previously listed in Breitkopf
Breitkopf & Härtel
Breitkopf & Härtel is the world's oldest music publishing house. The firm was founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf . The catalogue currently contains over 1000 composers, 8000 works and 15,000 music editions or books on music. The name "Härtel" was added when Gottfried...
's catalogue. Finally, a new horn was made for him, a silver cor solo, which he used for the rest of his life.
Punto actively sought a permanent position where he could conduct as well as compose and play. and in 1781 he duly entered the service of the Prince Archbishop of Würzburg, whence he moved to become the Konzertmeister (with a pension) for the Comte d’Artois (later to become Charles X of France
Charles X of France
Charles X was known for most of his life as the Comte d'Artois before he reigned as King of France and of Navarre from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. A younger brother to Kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile and eventually succeeded him...
) in Paris. His success was such that in 1787 he was able to secure leave of absence and tour the Rhineland in his own coach (a mark of considerable wealth at the time).
On returning to Paris in 1789 Punto was appointed conductor of the Théâtre des Variétés Amusantes, where he remained for ten years, leaving in 1799 only after they refused to appoint him to the staff of the newly founded Paris Conservatoire. Moving on to Vienna via Munich, Punto met Beethoven, who wrote his Op. 17 Sonata for Horn and Piano for the two of them. They premièred the work on 18 April 1800 at the Burgtheater and the following month the pair played the work again in Pest, Hungary (it was here that the critic commented "who is this Beethoven?...").
Return home
In 1801, 33 years after leaving, Punto returned to his homeland, playing a grand concert on 18 May in the National Theater in PraguePrague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. A reviewer commented:
In 1802, after a short trip to Paris, Punto developed "Brustwassersucht" (pleurisy
Pleurisy
Pleurisy is an inflammation of the pleura, the lining of the pleural cavity surrounding the lungs. Among other things, infections are the most common cause of pleurisy....
), then a common illness of wind players. He died five months later on 16 February 1803, being accorded a "magnificent" funeral in the Church of St. Nicholas attended by thousands. Mozart's Requiem
Requiem (Mozart)
The Requiem Mass in D minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was composed in Vienna in 1791 and left unfinished at the composer's death. A completion by Franz Xaver Süssmayr was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had anonymously commissioned the piece for a requiem Mass to commemorate the...
was performed at the graveside.
Legacy
Franz Joseph Fröhlich writes of Punto:Among his surviving compositions are:
- 16 horn concerti (nos. 9, 12, 13, 15 and 16 lost)
- a concerto for two horns and 103 horn duos
- 47 horn trios
- 21 horn quartets
- a horn sextet
- a concerto for clarinet
- a book of daily exercises for horn
Sources
- Sadie, Stanley (Ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and MusiciansGrove Dictionary of Music and MusiciansThe New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...
, 2nd edition. Grove's Dictionaries, New York, 2000 - Tuckwell, BarryBarry TuckwellBarry Emmanuel Tuckwell AC, OBE , is an Australian horn player who has spent most of his professional life in the United Kingdom and the United States.- Early life and education :...
: The French Horn (from the Yehudi MenuhinYehudi MenuhinYehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
instrumental series)
French Bibliography
- Joann Élart, " Circulation des quatre symphonies oeuvre VII de Johann Franz Xaver Sterkel de l'Allemagne à Rouen : un itinéraire singulier du goût musical entre 1770 et 1825 ", Studien zu den deutsch-französischen Musikbeziehungen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, bericht über die erste gemeinsame Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung und der Société française de musicologie Saarbrücken 1999 (Hildesheim : Georg Olms Verlag, 2002), p. 266-281.
- Joann Élart et Patrick Taïeb, " La Complainte du Troubadour de Pierre-Jean Garat (1762-1823) ", Les Orages, n° 2, L'imaginaire du héros (Besançon : Apocope, mai 2003), p. 137-168.
- Joann Élart, " La mobilité des musiciens et des répertoires : Punto, Garat et Rode aux concerts du Musée ", Le Musée de Bordeaux et la musique 1783-1793, éd. Patrick Taïeb, Natalie Morel-Borotra et Jean Gribenski (Rouen : PURH, 2005), p. 157-173.
- Joann Élart, " Les origines du concert public à Rouen à la fin de l'Ancien Régime ", Revue de musicologie, n° 93/1 (2007), p. 53-73.
- Joann Élart, Musiciens et répertoires de concert en France à la fin de l'Ancien Régime, thèse de doctorat dir. Patrick Taïeb, université de Rouen, 2005.
External links
- Biography at the International Horn SocietyInternational Horn SocietyThe International Horn Society is the primary international organization dedicated to players of the horn. It was founded in June 1970.It holds a symposium each year and publishes a journal, The Horn Call.-Formation:...
- Biography at the Mozart Forum
- Biography at Robert Ostermeyer Musikedition