Ignaz Vitzthumb

Ignaz Vitzthumb (also: Ignace Vitzthumb or Witzthumb ; born September 14, 1724 in Baden near Vienna , † March 23, 1816 in Brussels ) was an Austrian composer and conductor.

biography

Ignaz Vitzthumb

Vizthumb came to Brussels at the age of ten and joined the general governor of the Austrian Netherlands , Archduchess Maria Elisabeth of Austria , as a choirboy . He received his musical training from Jean-Joseph Fiocco (1686–1746) (brother of Joseph-Hector Fiocco ), who at that time led the choir of the court orchestra. Vitzthumb became a timpani at court at the age of sixteen, a position he held for more than forty years in addition to his other activities.

During the Austrian War of Succession (1740-1748), he joined a Hungarian hussar regiment. Thereafter, returned to Brussels and joined several rhetorical and civic theater groups that performed in both French and Dutch. Here he was able to use his talents as a violinist, conductor and theater director. He was also a member of the concert society Concerts bourgeois .

His first scenic works were performed in 1761. In 1770 he was appointed composer and musical director at the Monnaie Theater , the Brussels Opera. From 1774 to 1777 he was the sole director there. This period belonged to the heyday of the Monnaie , as the English composer and music biographer Charles Burney mentioned the outstanding qualities of the artists, the entire troupe and the orchestra. He regularly went to Paris to experience the latest productions of the works of Gluck and Grétry. After a costly trip through the Netherlands, despite his artistic successes, he ran into financial difficulties. As an opera entrepreneur, Vitzthumb had to file for bankruptcy, and the theater was then closed.

From 1779 to 1781 he was director of the theater in Ghent before being reappointed orchestra director of the new Brussels Opera in 1785. In the spirit of the Enlightenment, Vitzthumb regularly organized opera performances in the cities of Mechelen and Antwerp, in the Dutch translation. After the death of Henri-Jacques de Croes , he became conductor of the court orchestra in December 1786. In 1791 Vitzthumbs was arrested, the occasion was the participation in protests against Emperor Joseph II , as part of his participation in the Brabant Revolution, in which he participated as a member of a Masonic lodge . He then received the post of Kapellmeister at the «Collège dramatique et lyrique» in Amsterdam . Seriously ill, he returned to his son in Brussels a year later and died there in 1816, at the age of 92.

Works

• Lamentations de Jérémie pour la Semaine Sainte (manuscript) (Lamento des Jeremias for Holy Week)
• Symphonies (manuscripts)
• Sinfonia a più stromenti
• Recueils d'ariettes de 12 airs d'harmonie for 2 clarinets, 2 horns and bassoon (1776)
• Numerous masses and motets.
• La Fausse esclave (1761)
• L'Éloge de la vertu ou le Tribut des cœurs , libretto by Louis Compain (1761)
• Le Soldat par amour , together with Pieter van Maldere , libretto by Jean-François de Bastide (1766)
• Céphalide ou les Autres mariages samnites , libretto by Prince Charles-Joseph de Ligne (1777)
• La Foire de village , libretto by François-Xavier Pagès (1786)
• La Cohorte d'amour ou Le Siège de Cythère (1813)
• Masonic songs in collections such as the Lyre maçonne or the Recueil des chansons des francs-maçons published in The Hague.

literature

• Sheet music and audio files by Ignaz Vitzthumb in the International Music Score Library Project
• Constantin von Wurzbach : Witzthumb, Ignaz . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 57th part. Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1889, p. 180 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Entry on Ignaz Vitzthumb (Fitzthumb, Witzthumb) in the database of the state's memory of the history of Lower Austria ( Museum Niederösterreich )