Johann Ernst Galliard

Johann Ernst Galliard , also John Ernest Galliard (* 1687 in Celle , † 1749 in London ) was a German oboist, organist and composer.

Life

Galliard was trained as an oboist and was a member of the court orchestra in Celle from 1698. He also studied composition with Jean Baptiste Farinelli and Agostino Steffani in Hanover. His works are in the footsteps of Handel and identify him as a skilful counterpoint artist. Charles Burney said of him that I never saw more correctness or less originality in any author that I have examined, of the present century (in: A General History of Music IV, London 1789).

At the age of 15 he got his first commission for a composition for Steffani and Farinelli, the music director of the Principality of Hanover . Later he joined the chamber music of Prince George of Denmark and after his marriage to Queen Anne went to London , where in 1706 at the age of 19 he succeeded the singer and composer Antonio Draghi . He also worked as an organist at Somerset House and also worked temporarily as a composer for the London theater (1712 and 1736). His opera Calypso and Telemachus , composed in 1712 , was largely unsuccessful. In 1726 he and others founded the Academy of Ancient Music , which had set itself the goal of maintaining both vocal and instrumental music. In 1713 he joined Handel's Italian opera as an oboist, and it is likely that Handel wrote for him the difficult oboe passages in the aria of Agilea "M'adora l'idol mio" from Teseo . In 1742 he also translated Pier Francesco Tosi's Opinioni de 'Cantori Antichi, e Moderni o sieno Osservazioni sopra il Canto Figurato , an important contemporary treatise on the art of singing, from Italian into English. It is also worth mentioning that he is said to have helped Handel on his first visit to London.

Works

His early compositions include a Te Deum , an Jubilate and three anthems , which were performed at the Chapel Royal and St. Paul's Cathedral on the occasion of military victories. In 1718 he composed the opera "Pan and Syrinx" ("mythological one-act opera" Jed Wentz). He also composed cantatas and songs. In 1745 Galliard composed another piece for 24 bassoons and 4 double basses for a concert in the Lincoln's-Inn-Fields Theater, in which he used the two tragedies “Brutus” and “Julius Caesar” as choruses.

Printed works

Instrumental music

• Op. 1: 6 Sonatas for a Flute & a through Bass (London, 1711)
  • Reprinted in 12 sonates à une Flute & une Basse continue (by Jeanne Roger , Amsterdam), alongside 6 sonates by Ignazio Sieber
• 6 Sonatas for the Bassoon or Violoncello with a thorough Bass for the Harpsichord (with John Walsh , London, 1733)

Vocal music

• Calypso and Telemachus (London, 1712)
• The Hymn of Adam and Eve, out of the fifth Book of Milton ’s Paradise Lost (1728)
• The early horn (London, 1739)
• Oft on the troubled ocean (London, 1739)

Web links

• Sheet music and audio files by Johann Ernst Galliard in the International Music Score Library Project
• Works by and about Johann Ernst Galliard in the catalog of the German National Library