# Inter-communication between Baroque composers?



## PabloElFlamenco (Jun 5, 2014)

Good day. I'm new to the forum and have in fact just introduced myself in the appropriate section.
So, my favourite classical music is "baroque", some of the ones I've heard work of are, i.a., J.S. Bach, Rameau, Lully, Campré, Purcell, Händel, Soler, F. Couperin, d'Anglebert and a few more.

I recently went to a concert of "La Petite Bande" (the small version...) performing chamber music of J.S. Bach, and some of the ...er... movements were in the "French style" and others in the "Italian style". I thought I could perceive the difference, but frankly I'm not sure. Any case, all this music is clearly "baroque", whether it be from England, France, "Germany" or Italy, even Spain.

My question is: to which extent did these composers know of each other? To what extent was their music distributed? Sheet music? Traveling road shows? Did any (famous) musicians work in "splendid" isolation? 

I realize no concise reply is possible...but what would be the general consensus?

Greetings,
Paul


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Welcome to the Forum. 
I've heard something to the effect that Bach used to text Handel and Telemann and ask them not to "steal" his music, especially the stuff he had already stolen from Vivaldi. Apparently Handel listened better than Telemann who couldn't wait to rip off a chorale here and there (say, from the Bach _Matthew Passion_) and incorporate it into his own _Markus Passion_ which prevented Bach from writing his own Markus Passion since he didn't have to. Telemann had already written it. But Telemann wrote so much he couldn't have waited to think it all up by himself! In fact, I've heard that Bach wouldn't complain about Telemann's thefts because Telemann was sort of like "the Godfather" who could issue "offers one couldn't refuse", especially about Bach's kids (which equalled in number the number of Cantatas Bach composed -- yeah, you got it! One for each kid!).
As for Lully and Rameau .... Again, I've heard (or maybe read this in the _National EnChoirer_) that Lully was so upset that Rameau chose to be "original" in his music, that he tried to steal away Rameau's wife as retribution (since he couldn't steal the music). But when Rameau found out, he shot Lully in the foot (only because he was a bad aim with his Russian made Kalashnikov -- he _had _aimed at the heart), an act which was covered up by the French monarchy which would absolutely, positively have nothing to do with scandal of any sort. And the French are still like that! Anyhow, in the end it all got blamed on Lully himself as being super clumsy or something.
Meanwhile, Purcell was so upset about all of this that he wrote "Lully's Lament" (which some Dodo later retitled after his own name -- but, in perfect "poetic justice", the Dodo's name got misspelled during publication and thus so remains "Dido" in Purcell's work to this day).
I _heard_ all this.
Of course ... I may have heard wrong. (And if so, other posters, I'm sure, will correct me where I'm in error.)
Best wishes to you. You gotta love them B'roke guys. I know I do.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

PabloElFlamenco said:


> Good day. I'm new to the forum and have in fact just introduced myself in the appropriate section.
> So, my favourite classical music is "baroque", some of the ones I've heard work of are, i.a., J.S. Bach, Rameau, Lully, Campré, Purcell, Händel, Soler, F. Couperin, d'Anglebert and a few more.
> 
> I recently went to a concert of "La Petite Bande" (the small version...) performing chamber music of J.S. Bach, and some of the ...er... movements were in the "French style" and others in the "Italian style". I thought I could perceive the difference, but frankly I'm not sure. Any case, all this music is clearly "baroque", whether it be from England, France, "Germany" or Italy, even Spain.
> ...


It's a great question, and my sense of it is that the world of western European musicians was always a bit smaller than the world of Western Europe in general. They were a fairly mobile and cosmopolitan subsection of the population, their aristocratic patrons were the most mobile and cosmopolitan people in Europe; so especially after the printing press had been invented, compositional ideas could spread fairly quickly.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

It gets a little intricate. Have a look at Carolan - he knew the music of Corelli and Vivaldi. He more than likely met the violinist and composer Geminiani in Dublin. Geminiani played fiddle with Handel at the keyboard at the court of George I. As Science says, it was a small and closely inter-connected world. Geminiani (again) was taught by both Alessandro Scarlatti and Corelli. Musicians moved to get the best tuition. Goldberg - the virtuoso harpsichordist - was reported to have studied with both J.S. Bach and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, J.S. Bach's eldest son. Bach himself travelled widely in Germany testing organs. Bach knew Vivaldi's works and wrote variations on them. Handel moved from Germany to Italy to write operas and then to England with George I. These are only a few examples.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

An example, from early-music.com:



> In 1732, the citizens of Hamburg could read in one of their newspapers: "Music lovers can expect in the following year a great instrumental work called Musique de table, penned by Telemann. (…) Subscriptions are accepted every quarter. An annex will list the names of all subscribers."
> Telemann's Musique de table, supported by strong publicity and the composer's contacts with booksellers and distributors from Berlin, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, London and Amsterdam, was immediately and immensely successful: nearly 250 subscribers responded, people from the bourgeoisie, magistrates, ministers, clergymen, kapellmeisters, professional and amateur musicians. Among the German subscribers were Georg Pisendel and Joachim Quantz-the latter ordering six copies. More than twenty subscribers came from Denmark, Norway, Spain, Holland and Switzerland (Italy was the sole absentee). From England, it listed "Mr Hendel, Doctor of music." It was in France, however, that the greatest interest for the collection was shown: 33 names (among them that of flautist Michel Blavet) were listed in the first edition.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Corelli (1653-1713) was of course one of the most famous musicians and composers of his time and as such very influential 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcangelo_Corelli
http://wiki.ccarh.org/mediawiki/images/e/e6/Arcangelo_Corelli.pdf

http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/corelli.php
"_Corelli was the most widely published and reprinted composer before the Franz Joseph Haydn, he was also the first composer to gain an international reputation solely on the basis of his instrumental music. Many elements of his style became commonplace in the 18th Century_"

Detailed investigation of his influence in Spain
http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=mus_fac 
"_Of the extant musical sources, relatively few copy Corelli's compositions in an unaltered state; keyboard and baroque guitar arrangements abound whereas relatively few sources preserve the original instrumentation. Yet it is apparent that Corelli commanded the respect of both conservative and progressive theorists (...) in the series of polemics that consumed eighteenth-century Spanish theoretical writings, Corelli was elevated above the bickering. Arcangelo Carelli, in the eyes of the Spanish, was one of the great masters of the age_."

A bit of interesting, often colourful summaries on the distribution of his music here etc "globally", from a conference (15MB): http://www.music.anu.edu.au/sites/m...ents/pdf/Global Corelli PROGRAMME BOOKLET.pdf
"_Arcangelo Corelli is celebrated as the first European composer to have secured an international reputation based solely on instrumental music, through the circulation of his publications and the work of his disciples and devotees. Corelli's fame spread far beyond Western Europe: by 1800, his music had been played in India, China, the Middle East, North America, the jungles of South America, and the Islamic Sultanate of Aceh, Sumatra_" (!).


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

By the 1700s everything in western Europe was fairly well connected. 

But the close musical ties go back to the Renaissance, when the Franco-Flemish guys spread all over Europe, traveling with the courts.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

PabloElFlamenco said:


> Good day. I'm new to the forum and have in fact just introduced myself in the appropriate section.
> So, my favourite classical music is "baroque", some of the ones I've heard work of are, i.a., J.S. Bach, Rameau, Lully, Campré, Purcell, Händel, Soler, F. Couperin, d'Anglebert and a few more.
> 
> I recently went to a concert of "La Petite Bande" (the small version...) performing chamber music of J.S. Bach, and some of the ...er... movements were in the "French style" and others in the "Italian style". I thought I could perceive the difference, but frankly I'm not sure. Any case, all this music is clearly "baroque", whether it be from England, France, "Germany" or Italy, even Spain.
> ...


Yes they were well connected, often international. J S Bach knew about Lully, Francois Couperin and Domenico Scarlatti for example, aswell as other composers from Northern Europe. When Bach used French and Italian and old German styles in the same piece of he may well have been making a political statement.


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## PabloElFlamenco (Jun 5, 2014)

Ufff.... ¡hombre! How could any one NOT like these replies! I'll study each and every one of them within short. Sonnet CLV obviously puts his ears to good use; it's good of you to share inside information, all and all I'm mightly happy Rameau didn't shoot HIMSELF into the foot. 
Which would you think was the bigger market? Music or paintings? I know paintings travelled extensively, much from Italy to Spain, after all that gold and silver was floated to Sevilla. Rubens made a fortune in that manner, and the Escorial and Prado Museum are absolutely full of "northern" artwork. Others will tell you it was the "Camino de Santiago" that spread culture accross Europe. I suppose it was a mix of it all: after all, wool was shorn off Castilian sheep and woven into cloth in Flanders, only to be re-exported back to Spain (guess who earned the flouze?). 
Perhaps we tend to underestimate the degree to which (some) people -businessmen, armies, artists, religious fugitives- did travel during the Renaissance and thereafter.
Still, the general "overall" similarity of "baroque music", a clear link of the times pervading Europe, remains remarkable. 
Cheers,
Paul


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

PabloElFlamenco said:


> Good day. I'm new to the forum and have in fact just introduced myself in the appropriate section.
> So, my favourite classical music is "baroque", some of the ones I've heard work of are, i.a., J.S. Bach, Rameau, Lully, Campré, Purcell, Händel, Soler, F. Couperin, d'Anglebert and a few more.
> 
> I recently went to a concert of "La Petite Bande" (the small version...) performing chamber music of J.S. Bach, and some of the ...er... movements were in the "French style" and others in the "Italian style". I thought I could perceive the difference, but frankly I'm not sure. Any case, all this music is clearly "baroque", whether it be from England, France, "Germany" or Italy, even Spain.
> ...


Don't forget about Telemann - his music was the most widespread baroque music in the 18th century. Handel himself was one of those subscribed to receive copies of Telemann's Tafelmusik upon their release, and scholars have found, if I'm not mistaken, 18 citations of these works in Handel's oeuvre. One of the more famous ones is the main melody of the 'Arrival of the Queen of Sheeba'.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

SONNET CLV said:


> Welcome to the Forum.
> I've heard something to the effect that Bach used to text Handel and Telemann and ask them not to "steal" his music, especially the stuff he had already stolen from Vivaldi. Apparently Handel listened better than Telemann who couldn't wait to rip off a chorale here and there (say, from the Bach _Matthew Passion_) and incorporate it into his own _Markus Passion_ which prevented Bach from writing his own Markus Passion since he didn't have to. Telemann had already written it. But Telemann wrote so much he couldn't have waited to think it all up by himself! In fact, I've heard that Bach wouldn't complain about Telemann's thefts because Telemann was sort of like "the Godfather" who could issue "offers one couldn't refuse", especially about Bach's kids (which equalled in number the number of Cantatas Bach composed -- yeah, you got it! One for each kid!).
> As for Lully and Rameau .... Again, I've heard (or maybe read this in the _National EnChoirer_) that Lully was so upset that Rameau chose to be "original" in his music, that he tried to steal away Rameau's wife as retribution (since he couldn't steal the music). But when Rameau found out, he shot Lully in the foot (only because he was a bad aim with his Russian made Kalashnikov -- he _had _aimed at the heart), an act which was covered up by the French monarchy which would absolutely, positively have nothing to do with scandal of any sort. And the French are still like that! Anyhow, in the end it all got blamed on Lully himself as being super clumsy or something.
> Meanwhile, Purcell was so upset about all of this that he wrote "Lully's Lament" (which some Dodo later retitled after his own name -- but, in perfect "poetic justice", the Dodo's name got misspelled during publication and thus so remains "Dido" in Purcell's work to this day).
> ...


Do you actually have proof that Telemann ripped off Bach? Even if, 'ripping off' was not looked down upon in the baroque days - Handel used a plethora of material from other composers in his Israel in Egypt oratorio, for example.


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