Fortunato Chelleri

Fortunato Chelleri (also: Keller or Kelleri) (* May / June (?) 1690 in Parma , Italy ; † December 11, 1757 in Kassel ) was the conductor and composer of classical music .

Life

Chelleri's father was a music lover who had emigrated from Germany, his mother came from the Italian family of musicians Bazzani (Bassani; see also Giovanni Battista Bassani ). After the early death of his parents, he came into the household of his uncle Francesco Maria Bazzani (around 1650 to around 1700) in Piacenza . He trained Fortunato, who had already been a choirboy in his hometown, further to become a musician and composer. From 1708 Chelleri composed opera music for various northern Italian theaters and stood u. a. in Barcelona , Florence and Venice in the service of changing nobles.

In 1722, music lovers and especially the new keyboard instruments brought him (fortepiano, fortepiano ) fascinated Bamberg and Würzburg Prince Bishop Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn (archbishop from 1719 to 1724) as Kapellmeister to Würzburg , coinciding with a native of Venice musician and composer Giovanni Benedetto Platti . After the Prince-Bishop's death in 1725, Chelleri became court conductor of Landgrave Karl von Hessen-Kassel in Kassel . Between 1732 and 1734 he followed his son and successor Frederick I , who was also King of Sweden , to the court in Stockholm . He returned to Germany with the title and economic security of a court counselor and until his death in 1757 led the private chapel for Frederick's brother Wilhelm VIII in Kassel, who initially administered the landgraviate in Kassel and later became landgrave himself.

Works

In his German and Swedish time after 1722 Chelleri composed only instrumental and church music, including a number of oratorios in Italian. Chelleri's only cello concerto dates from 1742, composed for Count Rudolf Franz Erwein von Schönborn and preserved as a manuscript in Schönborn's musical collection in Wiesentheid. Among other things, compositions for keyboard instruments and six string symphonies have been published separately.

Vocal music

Operas

• La Griselda ( Apostolo Zeno , Piacenza, 1707/1708)
• Il gran Alessandro or Alessandro il grande (Cremona)
• Zenobia in Palmira (Milan, 1710 or 1711)
• L'Innocenza giustificata (Venice, 1711)
• Atalanta (Apostolo Zeno, Ferrara, 1713)
• Alessandro fra le Amazzoni ( Grazio Braccioli , Venice, 1715)
• La Caccia in Etolia (Belisario Valeriani, Ferrara, 1715) (The libretto was arranged by Georg Friedrich Handel for his opera Atalanta .)
• Penelope la casta ( Matteo Noris , Venice, 1716)
• Alessandro Severo (Apostolo Zeno, Brescia, 1718)
• Amalasunta regina dei Goti (G. Gabrieli, Venice, 1719)
• La Pace per Amore ( Angelo Schietti , Venice, 1719)
• Temistocle (Apostolo Zeno, Padua, 1720)
• Tamerlano ( Agostino Piovene , Treviso, 1720)
• Arsacide ( Antonio Zaniboni , Venice, 1721)
• L'Amor tirannico ( Domenico Lalli , Venice, 1722) (third act by Giovanni Porta )
• L'Innocenza difesa dai Numi ( Francesco Silvani , Venice, 1722)
• Ircano innamorato (Belisario Valeriani, Venice, 1729)
• Amalasunta

Oratorios

• Il Cuore umano (Mannheim, 1722)
• Annuntiatio Mariae (Würzburg, 1723)
• Allegory (Würzburg, 1724)
• Oratorio per il Venerdì Santo (Würzburg, 1730)
• Dio sul Sinai (Dresden, 1731)
• David umiliato (Würzburg, 1732)

Church music

• 2 masses for 4 voices and instruments
• 1 motet with orchestra

Other works

• 3 Cantate e 8 Aria con Stromenti (London, 1727)
• 6 arias with basso continuo
• 6 cantatas with basso continuo
• 1 duetto with orchestra

Instrumental music

• 6 Fug [h] e per l ' Organo e 6 Sonata per il harpsichord (Kassel, 1729)
• Sonate di Galanteria per il harpsichord (Kassel, ca.1730)
• Trio in D (ca.1735)
• Sonata da Camera for 2 violins , 2 transverse flutes and B. c. in D (approx. 1740)
• Concerto con Violoncello obbligato (Würzburg, 1742)
• 2 Sonata in A Collection of Lessons for the Harpsichord compos'd by Sig.r Kunzen, Kellery, Agrell & Hoppe (London, 1750 or 1756)
• Rondeau for 2 transverse flutes, oboe and B. c.
• 12 overtures
• several symphony

Discography (selection)

• Sinfonia in B flat major for strings and basso continuo
• 6 Sonate di galanteria (Kassel, 1729)
• Beatæ Mariæ Virginis, oratorio in 2 parts (Würzburg, 1723) [reprint ed. v. Alejandro Garri, Garri Editions, Mühlheim 2003]
• Cello Concerto in G major (1742), WD 531 ( Sol Gabetta , Capella Gabetta, "Il Progetto Vivaldi 3", 2013)

literature

• Arrey von Dommer:  Chellery, Fortunato . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, p. 114.
• Wilhelm Eckert:  Chellery, Fortunato. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 197 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• List of stage works by Fortunato Chelleri based on the MGG at Operone
• Sheet music and audio files by Fortunato Chelleri in the International Music Score Library Project