Pietro Locatelli – musician

Violinist astonished his listeners with his ability

Pietro Antonio Locatelli was playing with an orchestra
in Bergamo when he was only 14 years old

Virtuoso violinist and Baroque composer Pietro Antonio Locatelli was born on this day in 1695 in Bergamo.

He showed an astonishing talent for playing the violin while he was still a young boy and began playing with the orchestra at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo when he was 14.

In 1711, when he was 16 years old, he left to go to Rome and although it is not known whether he studied with Arcangelo Corelli before the composer’s death in 1713, he will have absorbed a lot of his influence by studying with the other eminent musicians in the city.

In 1714 Locatelli wrote to his father, telling him that he was a member of the band of household musicians working for Prince Michelangelo I Caetani, a notable political figure and scholar. While in Rome he made his debut as a composer, producing his XII Concerto Grossi Op I in 1721.

The house on Prinsengracht in Amsterdam, where Locatelli
died in 1764, is marked with a commemorative plaque

After 1725 his name crops up in Mantua, Venice, Munich, Berlin and Frankfurt and in every city he received rapturous acclaim for his violin performances. Many of his violin concertos were written at this time.

He was known to be in Kassel in Germany in December 1728 where he was paid generously after his performance by Charles I Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel. Afterwards the resident organist wrote that Locatelli had ‘astonished his listeners with hugely difficult violin passages.’

The musician moved to live in Amsterdam in 1729 where he gave music lessons, performed privately and had his own music published professionally.

Locatelli died in 1764 in his house on the Prinsengracht in the city.

He is perhaps best remembered for his L’Arte del violino, a group of 12 violin concerti for a solo violin.

The beautiful Piazza Vecchia lies at the heart of Bergamo's
medieval city, the Città Alta

Travel tip:

Pietro Locatelli is remembered in his native city of Bergamo by an area named after him in Longuelo, a suburb of the city. Bergamo is in the Lombardy region of northern Italy and is a fascinating, historic city with two distinct centres. The Città Alta, upper town, is a beautiful walled city with buildings that date back to medieval times, while the elegant Città Bassa that grew up on the plain below has some buildings that date back to the 15th century as well as imposing architecture added in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Hotels in Bergamo by Hotels.com

The north portal of the Basilica of Santa Maria
Maggiore, next to the Colleoni Chapel

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where Locatelli played as a teenager, is in Piazza Duomo in the Città Alta, The basilica, which dates back to the 12th century, is considered to be one of the finest buildings in Lombardy and has a beautiful interior, with a richly decorated cupola and fine Flemish and Florentine tapestries and works of art. At the back of the church is an elaborate white marble monument designed by Vincenzo Vela, marking the tomb of the 18th century opera composer Gaetano Donizetti, who was born and also died in Bergamo.

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More reading:

Alessandro Scarlatti - a prolific opera composer who was ahead of his time

Success and sadness in the life of Antonio Vivaldi

Andrea Gabrieli - the father of the Venetian School

Also on this day:

301: The founding of San Marino

1895: The birth of Fascist ‘turncoat’ Giuseppe Bottai

1943: The Armistice of Cassibile

1950: Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina becomes first F1 world champion

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Francesco Maria Veracini – violinist

Virtuoso performer was prolific composer

Francesco Maria Veracini was one of the
18th century's leading violinists

One of the great violinists of the 18th century, Francesco Maria Veracini, was born on this day in 1690 in Florence.

He was to become famous throughout Europe for his performances and for a while he was Handel’s biggest rival as a composer.

Veracini was born into a musical family, although his father was a pharmacist and undertaker. His grandfather, Francesco, had been one of the first violinists in Florence and had a music school business, which he eventually passed on to his son, Antonio, who was Francesco’s teacher. Veracini grew up in Florence but by 1711 he had established himself in Venice where he played in church orchestras.

In 1712 on February 1, his 22nd birthday, he performed a violin concerto of his own composition in the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in honour of the visit to Venice of the Austrian ambassador. This is the first recorded public performance by Veracini playing one of his own compositions. At about that time, one of his performances so impressed the violinist, Giuseppe Tartini, that he decided to take time off to study better use of the bow in Ancona.

The violinist Pietro Locatelli is thought to have studied with Veracini at this time.

Veracini performed in London in 1714 and then went to Germany, where he obtained a court position in Dresden at an impressive salary.

Via Palazzuolo in Florence, where Veracini was born

There was much friction between the court musicians and in 1722 Veracini fell to the ground from a third-floor window, suffering a number of injuries. It was never established whether this was a suicide attempt following a quarrel with another musician or whether, as Veracini claimed later, someone had tried to murder him and he jumped from the window to escape.

He survived the incident but rumours of his madness were circulated subsequently. He seemingly lived something of a charmed life, some years later escaping a shipwreck in which his two treasured Stainer violins - which he called St Peter and St Paul - were lost.

Veracini returned to London in 1733 and performed in many different theatres. His operas were produced at the Opera of the Nobility, who hired the great castrato opera singer, Farinelli, and were the main rivals to Handel’s theatre.

He went back to Italy for good in 1750 and continued to compose, conduct and play the violin until he was well into his 70s.  He was appointed maestro di cappella for the churches of San Pancrazio and San Gaetano in Florence. Although he composed music for operas, he is perhaps best known for his violin sonatas. Veracini died in Florence in 1768.

A plaque marks the house in Via Palazzuolo where the
violinist was born in 1690

Travel tip:

There is a plaque commemorating Veracini at the house where he was born at number 30 Via Palazzuolo in Florence in the parish of San Salvatore, a few minutes from the city centre. Nearby is the church of San Salvatore di Ognissanti, known simply as Chiesa di Ognissanti, which is located in a piazza of the same name.

The Frari church in Venice, where Veracini gave his first
public performance of one of his own compositions

Travel tip:

The church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice, where Veracini first played one of his own compositions, is a huge, plain Gothic church in Campo dei Frari in San Polo and is known simply to Venetians as the Frari. The church houses the tombs of Monteverdi, Rossini, and Titian and has works of art by Titian, Bellini, Sansovino and Donatello. The church is open daily from 9.00am to 5.30pm and on Sundays from 1.00 to 5.30pm.


More reading:

Farinelli, the castrato who became music's first superstar

How Pietro Locatelli's playing left listeners astonished

The brilliance of Andrea Zani, 18th century violinist and composer

Also on this day:

1891: The birth of Corradino d'Ascanio, designer of the Vespa scooter

1922: The birth of opera singer Renata Tebaldi

(Picture credits: Via Palazzuolo and plaque by Sailko)

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