Antonio Caldara (c.1670-1736) – Missa Sanctificationis Sancti Joannis Nepomuceni

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Composer: Antonio Caldara (c.1670-1736)
Work: Missa Sanctificationis Sancti Joannis Nepomuceni
Performers: Anna Pеnаskova (soprano); Vеra Soukupovа (contralto); Zdеnеk Svhelа (tenor);
Dаlibor Jеdlickа (bass); Chorus of the Czech Philharmonia Prague Symphony Orchestra;
Vaclav Smetacek (1906-1986, conductor)

Missa Sanctificationis Sancti Joannis Nepomuceni
1. Kyrie 0:00
2. Gloria 7:08
3. Credo 23:20
4. Sanctus 36:58
5. Benedictus 39:34
6. Agnus Dei 42:11

Painting: Pietro Paolo Girelli (c.1685-c.1750) – Gezicht in het interieur van de Sint-Jan van Lateranen te Rome
HD image: https://flic.kr/p/2nCUuiT
Painting: Pittore del secolo XVIII – Ritratto di Antonio Caldara
HD image: https://flic.kr/p/2nCPyis

Further info: https://www.discogs.com/es/release/12302711-Antonio-Caldara-Missa-Sanctificationis-Sancti-Joannis-Nepomuceni
Listen free: No available

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Antonio Caldara
(Venice, c.1670 – Vienna, 28 December 1736)

Italian composer. The absence of birth and baptismal records leaves the year of Caldara’s birth open to debate but his death certificate, which suggests he died ‘in his 66th year’, points to 1671. He was the son of Giuseppe Caldara (?-c.1711) a rank-and-file violinist from whom he may have received his earliest instruction in music. It is assumed that he studied with Giovanni Legrenzi, maestro di cappella at S Marco from 1681, and possibly with the cello virtuoso Domenico Gabrielli. In 1693 Caldara styled himself ‘musico di violoncello’. He received a permanent appointment to San Marco as cellist and alto singer in 1695. By that time, he had already seen his opera L’Argene produced in 1689 and his trio sonatas da chiesa published as Opus 1 in 1693. Two mass movements date from 1696, and at least two oratorios were performed between 1697 and 1699, the year of publication for 12 cantatas for solo voice. In that year also, Duke Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga of Mantua made Caldara his maestro di cappella da chiesa e del teatro. The composer traveled with his patron to Casale, Genoa, and Venice while composing operas for him during the disruptions caused by the War of the Spanish Succession. Caldara left Mantua in 1707, sojourned in Rome, where he met Arcangelo Corelli, the Scarlattis, and George Frideric Handel, among other luminaries, and then spent time performing operas in Barcelona before returning to Rome in March 1709. On 1 July, he was appointed maestro di cappella to Prince Ruspoli, whose spectacular tastes allowed Caldara’s fluency in composition to flourish: by 1715, he had composed about 180 cantatas, the 12 motets Opus 4, and many oratorios for the Lenten season. Caldara married Caterina Petrolli, a contralto attached to the Ruspoli household, on 7 May 1711.

After much waiting and politicking, Caldara won the position of vice-Kapellmeister at the imperial court in Vienna, over the opposition of Kapellmeister Johann Joseph Fux, and began work probably in May or June 1716. His duties included the composition of at least one opera per year for occasional celebrations, at least one oratorio for Lent, working with librettist Apostolo Zeno for 11 of them, and a great variety of sacred music. In addition, he supplied music for patrons outside Vienna. Caldara, who as a composer of sacred music was as comfortable with the stile antico as with operatic styles, became a founding member of the Cecilian Society, an organization founded in Vienna in 1725 for the revival of the Roman Catholic traditions of sacred music, which spawned influential chapters all over Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. In the last six months of his life, Caldara completed two operas and a complete polyphonic vespers service. The recorded cause of death, Gelbsucht und inner Brand (“jaundice and fever”), may not be unrelated to sheer exhaustion. An immensely prolific composer of remarkable range, Caldara figured prominently in the musical life of both Rome and Vienna during the high Baroque. He composed at least 78 operas, 44 Italian oratorios, 12 other dramatic works, 13 madrigals, 250 Italian cantatas, 110 masses and mass fragments, 12 motets, many other assorted sacred works, 12 trio sonatas da camera, 12 trio sonatas da chiesa, 55 other sonatas for various instruments and combinations, 12 sinfonie, 500 canons, and 44 lezioni (“lessons”) for cello, his own principal instrument. Most of his vocal music is lost, and so despite prominence in his own time, he remains an obscure figure today. Sometimes criticized for formulaic writing, Caldara was nevertheless exceptional among his colleagues because he neither borrowed material from other composers nor parodied his own works.

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