Carlo Zuccari

Carlo Zuccari

Genres: baroque, italian, composer, 18th century, italian composer

Similar artists via Last.fm

Antoine Dauvergne Marc-Antoine Charpentier Jean-Marie Leclair Georg Muffat Riccardo Broschi

About Carlo Zuccari

Carlo Zuccari (1704-1792) was an Italian composer and violinist. Zuccari was born on 10th November 1704 in Casalmaggiore, Cremona. He started learning to play the violin at a very early age; his teacher - a local priest, Gaetano Guadagni - found him to be talented, and he was sent to Parma to study with Veronesi, in Guastalla with Rizzi, and in Bologna. He found his greatest artistic influence in Cremona, however, in the person of the violinist and composer Gasparo Visconti, a rich noble. Visconti allowed Zuccari to stay in his house, and treated him like a son. During this time Zuccari studied composition and counterpoint with the choirmaster at Cremona cathedral, Giuseppe Gonelli, In 1723 he moved to Vienna with his brother; after earning acclaim at the court of the Hapsburgs for his virtuoso violin playing, then he moved to Olmuz, a town in Moravia, where for four years he held the position of Kappelmeister. Following this success he appears too have lived in various other towns in Germany before returning to Cremona and the Viscontis. It was thanks to the latter that he met the Milanese noblewoman Francesca Radaelli, an amateur singer, whom he married in 1733. He then moved to the house of his mother-in-law in Milan. However he soon returned to his travels and, in order to consolidate his fame as a virtuoso, he moved to Paris, where he remained for a year before going to London. On demand all over Europe, where he was given the nickname "Zuccherino", he was about to move to Madrid but his family were violently opposed to this and therefore in 1736 he returned to Milan, where he took up permanent residence. For forty years he had a very active life in music in the regional capital; it was here that he published in 1747, his "Sonate a Violino, e Basso ò Cembalo, Opera Prima", his most important and significant work. He was also director of the Accademia Filarmonica Milanese, from 1748 he was a member of the Orchestra Ducale and in 1750 he was first violinist with the famous orchestra of G.B.Sammartini. In Milan he made important contacts with cultural men of the day. Among his violin pupils was Pietro Verri, a well-known enlightened literary figure, philosopher and economist member of the Accademia dei Pugni (boxing academy) and activist for the magazine "Il Caffe", Teresa Agnesi Pinottini and Count Giorgio Giulini, a well-known historiographer and worthy musician. In 1760 we find him in London, as a member of the Opera Italiana Orchestra. Here he published in 1762 a method for violin and in 1764 the Sonate per due Violini e Basso, but in 1765 he returned once more to Milan. In that same year in appeared in the guise of first violinist with the orchestra of Sammartini, in the concerts which were held in Cremona and Pavia on the occasion of the celebrations honouring Archduke Leopold of Austria; here he met Luigi Boccherini , who was also in the orchestra as first cellist. In 1778 he retired from the musical life of Milan and returned to his native peaceful Casalmaggiore, with his wife and five children; but his indefatigable character meant that he spent his time teaching again and also with his beloved scientific studies into harmony and acoustics. He died in Casalmaggiore on 3 May 1792. The compositions by Carlo Zuccari that have reached us are not very numerous; besides the previously mentioned Sonate a Violino, e Basso ò Cembalo, Opera Prima and the Sonate per due Violini e Basso, there exist manuscripts for four Concerti per Violino Concertato e strumenti and a Solo per Violino e Basso, a sonata per flauto solo e basso and some sonate per violoncello. One of these was for a long time attributed in error to none other than J.S.Bach (BWV Anh. 184). On the other hand his vocal and sacred music has all still to be discovered and examined in depth. However Zuccari was not only a violinist-composer but also a singular figure as a musician-scientist.

Taken from Last.fm

50 listeners  ·  994 plays via Last.fm