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Antonio Cesti

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Antonio Cesti
Baptised
  • Pietro Cesti
  • 5 August 1623
  • Arezzo
Died14 October 1669
Florence
Occupation(s)Composer, singer, organist

Antonio Cesti (Italian pronunciation: [anˈtɔːnjo ˈtʃesti]; baptised Pietro Cesti, 5 August 1623; died 14 October 1669), known today primarily as an Italian composer of the Baroque era, was also a singer (tenor) and organist. He was "the most celebrated Italian musician of his generation".[1]

Biography

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He was baptised Pietro Cesti at Arezzo on 5 August 1623.[1][2] Claims that he studied with Giacomo Carissimi[3][4] "appear to be groundless".[1]

Cesti's house in Innsbruck

In 1637 he joined the Order of Friars Minor, or Franciscans, a Roman Catholic religious group founded by Francis of Assisi, and took the name Antonio. (He has also been referred to as 'Marc' Antonio',[3][4] but this is incorrect.)[1] While he was in Volterra he turned more toward secular music, perhaps due to the patronage and influence of the powerful Medici family. Here he also came in contact with Salvator Rosa, who wrote libretti for a number of Cesti's cantatas. By 1650 Cesti's calling as a Franciscan friar and his success as a singer and composer for operas were coming into conflict, and he was officially reprimanded.

In 1652 he became a member of the court at Innsbruck of Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Austria.[1] One of his Innsbruck residences was the still existing Cesti House in Pfarrgasse 5.[5]

After holding a post somewhere in Florence as maestro di cappella, he entered the papal chapel in 1660. In 1666 he became Vice-Kapellmeister at Vienna, and died at Florence in 1669.[3]

Music

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Cesti is known principally as a composer of operas. The most celebrated of these were La Dori (Innsbruck, 1657), Il pomo d'oro (Vienna, 1668)[3] and Orontea (1656). Il pomo d'oro (The Golden Apple) was written for the wedding in Vienna of Emperor Leopold I in 1666, and first performed in 1668, in a famously lavish production. It was far more elaborate than contemporary Venetian operas, including a large orchestra, numerous choruses, and various mechanical devices used to stage things like gods descending from heaven (deus ex machina), naval battles, and storms.

Scenography for Il pomo d'oro

Orontea was revived seventeen times in the next thirty years, making it one of the most frequently performed operas on the continent in the mid-17th century. Even Samuel Pepys owned a copy of the score.[6] It includes a well-known soprano aria "Intorno all'idol mio" ("Around my idol").

Cesti was also a composer of chamber cantatas, and his operas are notable for the pure and delicate style of their airs, more suited to the chamber than to the stage.[3] He wrote in the bel canto style of the 17th century, and his compositions were heavily influenced by his career as a professional singer. His musical writing owes much to the emerging tonality of the time.

New Court Theater Innsbruck

Cesti composed several of his operas for the new court theatre Neues Komödienhaus at Innsbruck which was commissioned by Archduke Ferdinand Charles based on plans of local architect Christoph Gumpp the Younger. That theatre was – yet unfinished – inaugurated in 1654 with the performance of Cesti's opera La Cleopatra. It was the first detached opera house in the German-speaking area with salaried staff and was later replaced by another theatre.[7][8] In 1655, Cesti's opera L'Argia was premiered in Innsbruck on the visit of the Swedish Queen Christina to celebrate her conversion to Catholicism.[9]

As singer, Cesti performed roles in tenor and later also bass voice.[10]

The yearly competition Internationaler Gesangwettbewerb für Barockoper Pietro Antonio Cesti for singers was named after him. It was established in 2010 by the conductor Alessandro De Marchi.[11][12]

Works

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Title Libretto Première date Place, theatre Notes
Alessandro vincitor di se stesso Francesco Sbarra 1651 Venice, Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo  
Il Cesare amante Dario Varotari 1651 Venice, Teatro Grimano  
Cleopatra Dario Varotari 1654 Innsbruck revised version of Il Cesare amante
L'Argia Giovanni Filippo Apolloni 1655 Innsbruck  
Marte placata Giovanni Filippo Apolloni 1655 Innsbruck  
Orontea Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, revised by Giovanni Filippo Apolloni 19 February 1656 Innsbruck revived in Innsbruck in 1982 (René Jacobs) and recorded for HM; revived in Frankfurt in 2015 (Ivor Bolton)
La Dori Giovanni Filippo Apolloni 1657 Innsbruck  
Venere cacciatrice Francesco Sbarra 1659 Innsbruck lost
La magnanimità d’Alessandro Francesco Sbarra 1662 Innsbruck  
Le nozze in sogno[13][14] Pietro Susini 1665 Florence, Accademia degli Infuocati  
Il Tito Nicolò Beregan 13 February 1666 Venice, Teatro Grimano  
Nettuno e Flora festeggianti Francesco Sbarra 12 July 1666 Vienna  
Le disgrazie d'Amore Francesco Sbarra 19 February 1667 Vienna  
La Semirami Giovanni Andrea Moniglia 9 July 1667 Vienna revised 1674 in Modena as La schiava fortunata
La Germania esultante Francesco Sbarra 1667 Vienna  
Il pomo d'oro Francesco Sbarra 12–14 July 1668 Vienna Acts III and V lost
Genserico Nicolò Beregan 1669 Venice  

Recordings

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  • Pietro Antonio Cesti "Pasticcio", Festwochen der Alten Musik in Innsbruck 1980, excerpts from operas "Il pomo d'oro", "Argia", "Tito", "Orontea", "Dori", "Semirami". Performers: René Jacobs, Judith Nelson, William Christie, Konrad Junghänel. ORF Edition Alte Musik.
  • Le disgrazie d’amore, Auser Musici, Carlo Ipata, director, Hyperion CDA67771 (2010)
  • Alma Mia, Raquel Andueza, soprano with La Galania directed by Fernández Baena: excerpts from operas L'Argia, La Dori, Orontea, Il Tito, and two cantatas: Non si parli più d'Amore and Ò quanto concorso. Anima e Corpo AeC003 (2014)
  • L'Orontea Frankfurter Opern und Museumsorchester, Ivor Bolton (director), OEHMS Classics (2017)
  • La Dori Accademia Bizantina, Ottavio Dantone (director), CPO (2020)

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Burrows, David L.; Schmidt, Carl B.; Brown, Jennifer Williams (2001). "Cesti, Antonio [Pietro]". Grove Music Online (8th ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.05335. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
  2. ^ Herbert Seifert (2016). "Cesti, Antonio, Taufname Pietro", MGG Online.
  3. ^ a b c d e  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cesti, Marc' Antonio". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 768.
  4. ^ a b "Bayerisches Musiker-Lexikon Online: Cesti, Pietro (Marc Antonio, Marc'Antonio, Markus Anton)". bmlo.de (in German). Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  5. ^ "Cesti in Innsbruck – damals und heute: Teil 1 – Das „Cesti – Haus"". innsbruck-erinnert.at (in German). Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  6. ^ Williams Brown, Jennifer (2000). "'Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen': Cesti, Orontea, and the Gelone problem". Cambridge Opera Journal. 12 (3): 179–217. doi:10.1017/s0954586700001798. S2CID 191524563.
  7. ^ "12. Innsbruck Had the First Opera House in a German-Speaking Area". musikland-tirol.at. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  8. ^ "Innsbruck erinnert sich". innsbruck-erinnert.at (in German). Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  9. ^ "The Dogana – from opera house to ruin and event location". innsbruck.info. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  10. ^ Herbert Seifert. "Cesti, Pietro Antonio OFM". musiklexikon.ac.at (in German). Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  11. ^ "Internationaler Gesangwettbewerb für Barockoper Pietro Antonio Cesti". miz.org. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  12. ^ "Cesti in Innsbruck – damals und heute: Teil 3 – Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik und „Internationaler Gesangswettbewerb Pietro Antonio Cesti"". innsbruck-erinnert.at (in German). Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  13. ^ "Antonio Cesti e la partitura delle 'Nozze in sogno' (Firenze 1665)". flore.unifi.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  14. ^ "Innsbruck Festival of Early Music nominated for Opera Award". altemusik.at. Retrieved 2024-08-19.

Other sources

  • Grout, Donald; Claude Palisca. A History of Western Music, 6th edition. W. W. Norton & Company. New York, 2001.
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