Andrea Luchesi

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Andrea Luca Luchesi (May 23, 1741, Motta di Livenza - March 21, 1801, Bonn), was an Italian composer.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Works 3 The Luchesi authorship controversy 4 References

[edit] Biography

Andrea Luchesi was the eleventh child of Pietro Luchese and Caterina Gottardi. The rather wealthy family descended from groups of noble families, who moved from Lucca to Venice in the 14th century (hence the name Luchese. From 1764/65 Andrea began to use the name Luchesi, which we can find written by his contemporaries also as Lucchesi, Lughesi, Luckesi, Lucchezzy, etc.). He grew up in his native town, receiving musical and general education from his elder brother Matteo, a priest, public tutor and organist.

At the age of 15 he moved to Venice. The protection of nobleman Jseppo Morosini enabled him to study with eminent musicians (Gioacchino Cocchi, Padre Paolucci, Giuseppe Saratelli, Domenico Gallo, Ferdinando Bertoni and the best-known of them Baldassare Galuppi). His career in Venice developed quickly: examiner of the organists commission in 1761, then organist at San Salvatore's (1764), composer of works for "organ or cembalo", instrumental, sacred and theatre music. He composed for official celebrations, the last one (1771) being the solemn funeral of the Duke of Montealegre, Spanish ambassador to Venice. As a famous virtuoso he was invited to play organ in and outside Venice, e.g. was in charge of inaugurating the new organ of the basilica of Saint Anthony in Padua.

His knowledge of musical theory was enhanced by the didactic and artistic relationship he had (until his departure from Venice) with two of the most advanced theorists of that time, Padre Francesco Antonio Vallotti (a Franciscan, encoder of the Theory of dissonance) and count Giordano Riccati (a mathematician, acoustics physicist, architect, author of an essay on the laws of counterpoint).^[1]

In the spring of 1765 his opera L'isola della fortuna was performed at the Hoftheater in Vienna.

While on tour in Italy in 1771, Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart met Andrea Luchesi and received one of his concertos for cembalo (Wolfgang was still playing the concerto in 1777, while Leopold and Nannerl used often the concerto for teaching and practising purposes). ^[2]

At the end of 1771, he traveled to Bonn on a three-year contract, invited by the Prince Elector Archbishop of Cologne Maximilian Friederich who wished to raise the quality level of his court chapel. After the death of the previous Kapellmeister (Ludwig van Beethoven senior, i.e. the grandfather of Beethoven), Andrea Luchesi was nominated official court Kapellmeister in 1774.

He acquired the principality's citizenship and in 1775 married Anthonetta Josepha d'Anthoin, daughter of Maximilian Friederich's senior counselor. With the exception of a visit to Venice in 1783-84, he lived in Bonn until his death in 1801, although his role as Kapellmeister ended in 1794, when the French invasion troops suppressed the court.

The young Beethoven, at the court chapel from 1781 to 1792 as assistant organist, cembalo and viola player, was Luchesi's most talented (and famous) pupil, although Beethoven himself never acknowledged Luchesi as his teacher. When the court organist Christian Gottlob Neefe temporarily replaced the Kapellmeister as conductor and teacher during his 1783-84 absence, Luchesi assigned the organ service to the very young Beethoven. Antonin Reicha, Bernhard and Andreas Romberg, and Ferdinand Ries are other pupils who achieved minor renown.

Luchesi had one daughter, who lived in Bonn till her death, and four sons. According to Neefe the first two sons (Maximilian Friederich, b. 11.12.1775, and M. Jakob Ferdinand, b. 18.12.1777) were gifted musicians.^[3]

[edit] Works

• L’isola della fortuna, opera buffa with libretto by Giovanni Bertati, performed at the Hoftheater, Vienna, in 1765; also in Venice (1765) and at the Royal Theater in Lisbon (1767).
• Ademira, opera seria, for the Ascension Day in Venice (1784), to honour the visit of king Gustavus III of Sweden
• Other operas: Il marito geloso (1766), Le donne sempre donne (1767), Il giocatore amoroso (1769), Il matrimonio per astuzia (1771), Il Natal di Giove, L’inganno scoperto ovvero il conte Caramella (1773, with libretto from Carlo Goldoni), L’amore e la misericordia guadagnano il gioco (1794).
• Oratorio Sacer trialogus (1768)
• Stabat Mater (about 1770)
• Requiem (1771) in F, for the state funeral of the duke of Montealegre in San Geremia’s.
• Various masses and sacred works, including: Mass for San Lorenzo in Venice, Mass for the "Festa della concezione di Maria" in Verona, Te Deum for the Incurabili conservatory in Venice
• Passione di N.S. Gesù Cristo (1776), on a text from Metastasio
• Many organ works, including:
  • 12 sonatas known as Donelli Collection (completed by 1764), now at the Naples Conservatory
  • 6 sonatine and 8 divertimenti, now at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
  • 2 sonates pour l’orgue in the 'Menus plaisirs du Roi', Paris
• Celebration music for the feast of San Rocco in Venice (1769)
• Serenata for the duke of Brunswick (1764)
• Cantata for the duke of Wurttemberg (1767)
• 2 Symphonies (by 1768)
• 6 Sonatas 'per il cembalo con l’accompagnamento di un violino' Op.1 (Bonn, 1772)
• Sonata in fa ‘per il cimbalo’ (1771-73?), now at the University of Münster
• 3 Symphonies op. 2 (Bonn,1773) - lost
• Concerto for harpsichord (Bonn,1773) – four more concertos/trios are lost
• Cantata for the election to Bishop of Archiduke Max Franz (1785 – attributed to Luchesi in the Bonn Stadtarchiv)
• Sonate facile for cembalo and violin (Leipzig, 1796)

[edit] The Luchesi authorship controversy

Recent work by the Italian scholar Giorgio Taboga has claimed that many of the best known works by two famous composers of the Classical era, Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, were actually written by Andrea Luchesi. For discussion and references to Taboga's work see Luchesi authorship controversy.

[edit] References

1. ^ G. Taboga, A case of damnatio personae - Andrea Luchesi, and his role in the birth of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven myths, Episteme No. 4, September 2001. (Previously published in: Quaderni del Dipartimento di Matematica Statistica, Informatica ed Applicazioni, Serie Miscellanea, Anno 2000 No. 4 – University of Bergamo, under the title: Andrea Luchesi, misunderstood genius between Riccati and Beethoven)
2. ^ G. Prod’homme, Mozart raconté par ceux qui l’ont connu, Paris 1928, page 15 See also : Leopold’s letter dated 11th June 1778
3. ^ C.G. Neefe, Letter dated 8.4.1787 to the Cramer's Magazine

• J.B. de La Borde, Essai sur la musique, Paris 1780
• G.Taboga, Andrea Luchesi – L’ora della verità, Ponzano Veneto 1994 (in Italian)
• Claudia Valder-Knechtges, Die weltliche Werke A.Luchesis, Bonner Geschichtsblätter, xxxvi, 1984 (in German)
• G.Taboga, E se non tutto Mozart fosse di Mozart, Storiainrete, No.3, 2006, pages 10-17
• G. Taboga, A. Luchesi, Maestro di cappella del principato di Colonia a Bonn, Restauri di Marca n.3 (special issue), Villorba/Treviso April 1993 [I]
• G. Taboga, L'assassinio di Mozart, Lucca 1997 [I]
• C. Valder-Knechtges: Die Kirchenmusik Andrea Luchesis (1741-1801): Studien zu Leben und Werk des letzten kurkölnischen Hofkapellmeisters (Berlin, 1983) [G], with first catalogue of Luchesi’s sacred works.
• C. Valder-Knechtges: Andrea Luchesi: Verzeichnis der Instrumentalwerke, Mitteilungen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für rheinische Musikgeschichte, lxxvi (1989) [G]
• C. Valder-Knechtges: Ein Jahrhundert der Musik in Bonn, Bonn als kurkölnische Haupt- und Residenzstadt: 1597-1794, Geschichte der Stadt Bonn, iii (Bonn, 1989), pages 471-515 [G]
• C. Valder-Knechtges: Andrea Luchesi: ein Italiener im Umkreis des jungen Beethoven, Bonner Geschichtsblätter, xl (1990), pages 29-56 [G]
• L.della Croce: (Italian translation of the paper Der junge Beethoven und “sein" Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi at the 1999 Beethoven congress at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin), Rassegna Musicale Italiana, anno IV No.15 July/September 1999 pages 13-16.
• Fausto Torrefranca: Le origini italiane del romanticismo musicale, Torino 1930, pages 557-558 [I]
• Amedeo Aroma: "Settecento organistico Trevigiano" ed. Ateneo di Treviso, 1997.
• Amedeo Aroma: "Civiltà Organistica Trevigiana fra Settecento e Ottocento", Treviso 2000.
• T.A.Henseler: Andrea Luchesi, der letzte bonner Kapellmeister zur Zeit des jungen Beethovens, Bonner Geschichtsblätter, Bonn 1937, pages 225-364 [G]