Geminiani
This month [November 2000] we offer an insight into the life of Francesco Geminiani (1687–1762), whose lively concerto grosso ‘La Follia’ is one of the highlights of our USA tour programmes and is featured as the finale of our St John’s, Smith Square concert on 29 November 2000. It is also, of course, one of the gems on our recently-released CD for Harmonia Mundi USA of the complete Geminiani concerti grossi of 1726 based on the Op.5 sonatas of Corelli; 1726 being an important date because it is thought to be the year in which the original 18th-century Academy of Ancient Music – of which Geminiani was a member – was founded. Geminiani had studied violin with Corelli in Rome before coming to London in 1714, and these concerti were a form of homage to his teacher.
The following extracts are from A General History of the Science and Practice of Music (1776) by Sir John Hawkins, who six years previously had written An account of the institution and progress of the Academy of Ancient Music, a facsimile copy of which is included in the packaging of the aforementioned Harmonia Mundi CD.
I found him in a room at the top of the house half filled with pictures, and in his waistcoat. Upon my telling him that I wanted the score and parts of both operas of his concertos, he asked me if I loved pictures; and upon my answering in the affirmative, he said that he loved painting better than music, and with great labour drew from among the many that stood upon the floor round the room, two, the one the story of Tobit cured of his blindness, by Michael Angelo Caravaggio; the other a Venus, by Correggio. These pictures, said Geminiani, I bought at Paris, the latter was in the collection of the duke of Orleans; they are inestimable, and I mean to leave them to my relations: many men are able to bequeath to their relations great sums of money. I shall leave to mine what is more valuable than money, two pictures that are scarcely to be matched in the world. After some farther conversation, in which it was very difficult to get him to say anything on the subject of music, the visitor withdrew, leaving Geminiani to enjoy that pleasure which seemed to be the result of frenzy.Geminiani had spent many years in compiling an elaborate treatise on music, which he intended for publication; but, soon after his arrival at Dublin, by the treachery of a female servant, who it is said was recommended to him for no other purpose than that she might steal it, it was conveyed out of his chamber, and could never after be recovered. The greatness of this loss, and his inability to repair it, made a deep impression on his mind, and, as it is conjectured, precipitated his end; at least he survived it but a short time.