Florian Leopold Gassmann (1729-1774) - Quartetto in e-moll

⭐ Family, friends, and contemporaries of Johann Michael Haydn ⭐

Composer: Florian Leopold Gassmann (1729-1774)
Work: Quartetto in e-moll aus 'Six quatuors pour deux violons, alto et violoncelle'
Performers: Concentus Musicus Wien

Quartetto in e-moll
1. Poco adagio 0:00
2. Allegro 3:38
3. Menuetto 7:20
4. Allegro 11:10

Painting: Franz Christoph Janneck (1703-1761) - Musical company in the park
HD image: https://flic.kr/p/2rESN5F

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Listen free: No available

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Florian (Floriano) Leopold (Leopoldo) Gassmann [Gaßmann, Chasmann, Gaaßmann, Gasman, Gam et al.]
(Brüx [now Most], 3 May 1729 - Vienna, 20 January 1774)

Bohemian composer. He may have been educated at the Jesuit Gymnasium in Komotau (now Chomutov). The most reliable biographical sources name the regens chori at Brüx, Johann Woborschil (or Jan Vobořil), as his teacher in singing, the violin and the harp. Against his father’s wish he decided to make music his profession and left home as a boy, making his way to Italy where he may have studied with Padre Martini. No details of his service under Count Leonardo Veneri in Venice are known. The first datable musical event of Gassmann’s life was the production of his opera 'Merope' at the Teatro S Moisè, Venice, in Carnival 1757. His operatic success in Italy led to his being called to Vienna as ballet composer and successor to Gluck (1763). During the year of mourning on the death of Franz I (1765-66) the Viennese theatres were closed, and Gassmann again visited Venice, where his opera 'Achille in Sciro' was produced at the Teatro S Giovanni Grisostomo. On this trip he met Salieri and brought him back to Vienna as a pupil. To the end of his life Salieri held Gassmann in high esteem. In 1770 Gassmann wrote 'La contessina', his most popular opera, for a meeting of Joseph II and Frederick the Great in Mährisch-Neustadt; earlier in the same year he had been to Rome for the production of his opera 'Ezio'. He was the founder of the oldest Viennese musical society, the Tonkünstler-Societät, of which he was the first vice-president. His oratorio 'La Betulia liberata' was written for one of the society’s first public performances (29 March 1772).

On 13 March 1772 he succeeded Georg von Reutter as Hofkapellmeister, immediately beginning an important reorganization of the court chapel’s personnel and library. Burney, who already knew some of Gassmann’s operas from productions in Italy, attended a performance of 'I rovinati' in Vienna in 1772, and he published praise of the manuscript string quartets he brought back to England. Gassmann died as a result of a fall from a carriage in 1774. Gassmann’s two daughters, Maria Anna Fux (1771-1852) and (Maria) Therese Rosenbaum (1774-1837), studied music with his protégé, Salieri, and became opera singers of repute. Empress Maria Theresa was godmother to his second daughter, born after his death. Gassmann’s music was generally highly regarded by such 18th-century musicians as Burney, Gerber and Mozart; his operas were quite popular, receiving performances in places as far apart as Naples, Lisbon, Vienna and Copenhagen. Particularly in his two most famous comic operas, 'L’amore artigiano' and 'La contessina', Gassmann’s orchestra carries on the music in a continuous fashion, directing the dramatic action strongly toward the ensemble finale. In Vienna, his name was closely associated with Gluck’s. In his memoirs, Salieri describes his own first attempt at composing an opera, remarking that he followed the procedures he had seen Gassmann employ; in composing the first finale, he claims to have spent three hours sketching the sequence of metres and keys before writing a single note. Besides his operas, Gassmann’s greatest achievements seem to be among his symphonies.