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Audio Tracks Listening
Our site is peppered with audio files, allowing the audition of gregorian or polyphonic work extracts. Read more...Site optimized for Firefox
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L'intégrale
Tout savoir sur l'intégrale de chant grégorien.Garantie
La qualité de nos produits nous permet de vous octroyer une garantie de 60 jours, pendant lesquels vous pouvez nous les renvoyer, au cas improbable où vous seriez déçu par la qualité. Les produits doivent être retournés dans leur emballage d'origine et vous serez remboursé de l'intégralité du montant.| Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745). Short biography |
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Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) is as much of a discovery for today's
audiences as were the great Masters of Baroque music for music-lovers
in the past century.
Born in Louñovice pod Blanikem into the family of a teacher and organist, he studied at one of Prague's Jesuit colleges. After a brief period of service under Count Joseph Ludwig Hartig in Prague, he was engaged in 1710 as a double-bass player by the court orchestra of Dresden. There, he strove to make a name for himself as a composer as early as 1712, with Mass for St. Cecilia (ZWV 1). Between 1716 and 1718, Zelenka travelled in Italy and went to Vienna, where he studied under Johann Joseph Fux. After 1718, he stayed permanently in Dresden, the sole exceptions being two journeys to Prague: in 1722 and 1723, on that latter occasion to present his incidental music for the coronation play, Sub olea pacis (ZWV 175). While in Prague he wrote several instrumental pieces, working at an amazing pace. The bulk of Zelenka's output was destined for Dresden's court church and was produced between 1710 and 1729. During that period he composed about 75 percent of his works. He was prodded into such hectic activity by the constantly deteriorating state of health of kapellmeister Johann David Heinichen, for whom Zelenka would stand in, often at the last moment, as the composer of previously commissioned music. He carried on still after Heinichen's death in 1729, in the hope of winning an official appointment to the post of kapellmeister, whose duties he actually discharged until the year 1734, when the appointment went to Johann Adolf Hasse. From that oint on Zelenka's compositional activity slackened down considerably, to cease definitively a year before his death. |
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