A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Jommelli, Niccolò
JOMMELLI, Niccolò, is the most conspicuous name in the long list of eminent composers who during the first half of the 18th century were the outcome and ornament of that Neapolitan school which had become famous under Alessandro Scarlatti. It was a period of transition in musical art all over Italy. It witnessed the abandonment of the old Gregorian modes in favour of modern tonality. Counterpoint itself, while pursued as ardently as ever, and still recognised as the orthodox form of expression for musical thought, was assuming to that thought a new and different relation. Ideas were subjected to its conditions, but it no longer constituted their very essence. The distinctive tendency of all modern Art towards individualisation was everywhere making itself felt, and each successive composer strove more and more after dramatic truthfulness as a primary object, while at the same time there was educated in the schools of Italy a race of great singers to whom individual expression was a very condition of existence. Pure contrapuntal Art—strictly impersonal in its nature, in that, while each part is in itself complete, all are equally subordinate to the whole, was being supplanted by a new order of things. In the music destined to convey and to arouse personal emotions one melodious idea predominates, to which all the rest, however important, is more or less subservient and accessory. Nor is harmony, then, the final result of the superimposition of layer on layer of independent parts, but the counterpoint is contrived by the subdivision and varied time-apportionment of the harmony, and partakes of the nature of a decoration rather than a texture—the work is in fresco and not in mosaic.
To the greatest minds alone it belongs to unite with intuition that consummate art which makes scholastic device serve the ends of fancy, and, while imparting form to the inspirations of genius, receives from them the stamp of originality. In the long chain connecting Palestrina, in whose works contrapuntal art found its purest development, with Mozart, who blended imagination with science as no one had done before him, one of the last links was Jommelli. Gifted with a vein of melody tender and elegiac in its character, with great sensibility, fastidious taste, and a sense of effect in advance of any of his Italian contemporaries, he started in the new path of dramatic composition opened up by Scarlatti, Pergolesi, and Leo, at the point where those masters left off, and carried the art of expression to the highest pitch that, in Italy, it attained up to the time of Mozart.
Born at Aversa, near Naples, Sept. 11 [App. p.685 "Sept. 10"], 1714, his first musical teaching was given him by a canon named Mozzillo. At sixteen he entered the Conservatorio of San Onofrio as the pupil of Durante, but was transferred to that of La Pieta de' Turchini, where he learned vocal music from Prato and Mancini, and composition from Feo and Leo. It was the boast of these schools that young musicians on leaving them were adepts in all the processes of counterpoint and every kind of scholastic exercise, but it seems that a special training at Rome was judged necessary to fit Jommelli for writing church music, the chief object he is said at that time to have had in view. However this may have been, his first works were ballets, in which no indication of genius was discernible. He next tried his hand on cantatas, a style of composition far better suited to his especial gifts, and with so much success that Leo, on hearing one of these pieces performed by a lady, a pupil of Jommelli's, exclaimed in rapture, 'A short time, madam, and this young man will be the wonder and the admiration of Europe!' The young composer himself had less faith in his own powers. According to the notice of his life by Piccinni, he so much dreaded the verdict of the public that his first opera, 'L'Errore Amoroso,' was represented (at Naples, in 1737) under the name of an obscure musician called Valentino; the work, however, met with so encouraging a reception that he ventured to give the next, 'Odoardo,' under his own name.
In 1740 he was summoned to Rome, where he was protected by the Cardinal Duke of York, and where his two operas 'Il Ricimero' and 'L'Astianatte' were produced. Thence he proceeded to Bologna, where he wrote 'Ezio.' During his sojourn there he visited that celebrity of musical learning, the Padre Martini, presenting himself as a pupil desirous of instruction. To test his acquirements, a fugue subject was presented to him, and on his proceeding to treat it with the greatest facility, 'Who are you, then?' asked the Padre; 'are you making game of me? It is I, methinks, who should learn of you.' 'My name is Jommelli,' returned the composer, 'and I am the maestro who is to write the next opera for the theatre of this town.' In later years Jommelli was wont to affirm that he had profited not a little by his subsequent intercourse with Martini.
After superintending the production of some important works at Bologna and Rome, Jommelli returned to Naples, where his opera 'Eumene' was given at the San Carlo with immense success. A like triumph awaited him at Venice, where his 'Merope' aroused such enthusiasm that the Council of Ten appointed him director of the Scuola degl' Incurabili, a circumstance which led to his beginning at last to write that sacred music which had been the object of his early ambition, and was to become one chief source of his fame. Among his compositions of the kind at this time was a 'Laudate' for double choir of eight voices, which, though once celebrated, appears never to have been printed. In 1745 we find him at Vienna, where he wrote successively 'Achille in Sciro' and 'Didone.' Here he formed with the poet Metastasio an intimate acquaintance. Metastasio entertained the highest opinion of his genius, and was also able to give him much useful advice on matters of dramatic expression and effect. Sometimes the accomplished friends amused themselves by exchanging róles; Jommelli, who wrote his native language with fluency and elegance, becoming the poet, and his verses being set to music by Metastasio.
From Vienna, in 1748, he went again to Rome, where he produced 'Artaserse.' He found an influential admirer and patron in Cardinal Albani, thanks to whose good offices he was, in 1749, appointed coadjutor of Bencini, chapel-master of St. Peter's. He quitted this post in 1754 to become chapel-master to the Duke of Wurtemberg at Stuttgart, where he remained in the enjoyment of uninterrupted prosperity for more than fifteen years. Through the munificence of his duke he lived in easy circumstances, with all the surroundings most congenial to his cultivated and refined taste, and with every facility for hearing his music performed. Here he produced a number of operas, an oratorio of the Passion, and a requiem for the Duchess of Wurtemberg. In these works German influence becomes apparent in a distinct modification of his style. The harmony is more fully developed, the use of modulation freer and more frequent, while the orchestral part assumes a greater importance, and the instrumentation is weightier and more varied than in his former works. There is no doubt that this union of styles gave strength to his music, which, though never lacking sweetness and refinement, was characterised by dignity rather than force. It added to the estimation in which he was held among the Germans, but was not equally acceptable to Italians when, his fame and fortune being consolidated, he returned to pass his remaining years among his own countrymen. The fickle Neapolitans had forgotten their former favourite, nor did the specimens of his later style reconquer their suffrages. 'The opera here is by Jommelli,' wrote Mozart from Naples in 1770. 'It is beautiful, but the style is too elevated, as well as too antique, for the theatre.' The rapid spread of the taste for light opera had accustomed the public to seek for gratification in mere melody and vocal display, while richness of harmony or orchestral colouring were looked on rather as a blemish by hearers impatient of the slightest thing calculated to divert theit attention from the 'tune.' 'Armida,' written for the San Carlo Theatre in 1771 [App. p.685 "1770"], and one of Jommelli's best operas, was condemned as heavy, ineffective, and deficient in melody. 'Il Demofoonte' (1772) and 'L'Ifigenia in Aulide' (1773) were ill executed, and were failures.
The composer had retired, with his family, to Aversa, where he lived in an opulent semi-retirement, seldom quitting his home except to go in spring to l'Infrascata di Napoli, or in autumn to Pietra bianca, pleasant country resorts near Naples. He received at this time a commission from the King of Portugal to compose two operas and a cantata. But his old susceptibility to public opinion asserted itself now, and the failure of his later works so plunged him in melancholy as to bring on an attack of apoplexy. On his recovery he wrote a cantata to celebrate the birth of an heir to the crown of Naples, and shortly after, the Miserere for two voices (to the Italian version by Mattel) which is, perhaps, his most famous work. This was his 'swan's song'; it was hardly concluded when he died at Naples, aged 60, Aug. 28 [App. p.685 "Aug. 25"], 1774.
Jommelli was of amiable disposition, and had the polished manners of a man of the world. Good looking in his youth, he became corpulent in middle age. Burney, who saw him at Naples in 1770, says he was not unlike Handel, a likeness which cannot be traced in any portraits of him that are extant. The catalogue of his works contains compositions of all kinds, comprising nearly fifty operas and four oratorios, besides masses, cantatas, and a great quantity of church music. As a contrapuntist he was accomplished rather than profound, and his unaccompanied choral music will not bear comparison with the works of some of his predecessors more nearly allied to the Roman school. His Miserere for five voices, in G minor (included in Rochlitz's collection), contains great beauties, the long diminuendo at the close, especially, being a charming effect. But the work is unequal, and the scholarship, though elegant and ingenious, occasionally makes itself too much felt.
His ideas have, for the most part, a tinge of mild gravity, and it is not surprising that he failed in ballets and other works of a light nature. Yet he has left an opera buffa, 'Don Jastullo,' which shows that he was not devoid of a certain sedate humour. This opera is remarkable (as are others of his) for the free employment of accompanied recitative. Jommelli was one of the earliest composers who perceived the great dramatic capabilities of this mode of expression, which has, in recent times, received such wide development. He saw the absurdity, too, of the conventional Da Capo in airs consisting of two strains or movements, by which the sympathy of the hearer, worked up to a pitch during the second (usually Allegro) movement, is speedily cooled by the necessity for recommencing the Andante and going all through it again. He would not comply with this custom except where it happened to suit his purpose, but aimed at sustaining and heightening the interest from the outset of a piece till its close,—anticipating by this innovation one of Gluck's greatest reforms.
His invention seems to have required the stimulus of words, for his purely instrumental compositions, such as overtures, are singularly dry and unsuggestive. Yet he had a more keen appreciation of the orchestra than any contemporary Italian writer, as is evinced in his scores by varied combinations of instruments, by obbligato accompaniments to several airs, and by occasional attempts at such tone-painting as the part written for horns con sordini in the air 'Teneri affetti miei' in 'Attilio Regolo.' In his Stuttgart compositions the orchestra becomes still more prominent, and is dialogued with the vocal parts in a beautiful manner. The Requiem contains much pathetic and exquisite music; but intensity is wanting where words of sublime or terrible import have to be conveyed. In this work and the 'Passion' is to be found a great deal that is closely allied to composition of a similar kind by Mozart, and to the earlier master is due the credit of much which often passes as the sole invention of Mozart, because it is known only through the medium of his works. A comparison between the two is most interesting, showing, as it does, how much of Mozart's musical phraseology was, so to speak, current coin at the time when he lived.—The Miserere which was Jominelli's last production seems in some respects a concession to Italian taste, which possibly accounts for the comparatively great degree of subsequent popularity it enjoyed, and suggests the thought that, had its composer been spared a few more years, his style might once more have been insensibly modified by his surroundings. It possesses, indeed, much of the sympathetic charm that attaches to his other works, but the vocal parts are so florid as to be sometimes unsuitable to the character of the words.
He cannot, however, be said to have courted popularity by writing for the vulgar taste. Among contemporary composers of his own school and country, he is pre-eminent for purity and nobility of thought, and for simple, pathetic expression. His genius was refined and noble, but limited. He expressed himself truthfully while he had anything to express, but where his nature fell short there his art fell short also, and, failing spontaneity, its place had to be supplied by introspection and analysis. His sacred music depicts personal sentiment as much as do his operas, and whereas a mass by Palestrina is a solemn act of public worship, a mass by Jommelli is the expression of the devotion, the repentance or the aspiration of an individual.
The following works of Jommelli's have been republished in modern times, and are now accessible:—
Salmo (Miserere). 4 voices and orchestra (Breitkopf & Härtel).
Victimae paschali. 5 voices, score (Schott).
Lux eterna. 4 voices (Berlin, Schlesinger).
Hosanna filio, and In Monte Olivete. 4 voices (Berlin, Schlesinger).
Requiem, for S.A.T.B. Accompaniment arranged for P.F. by Clasing (Cranz).
Many other pieces of his are, however, included, wholly or in part, in miscellaneous collections, such as Latrobe's Sacred Music, the Fitzwilliam Music, Choron's 'Journal de Chant,' Rochlitz's 'Collection de Morceaux de Chant,' and Gevaert's 'Lies Gloires de l'Italie,' etc.