Francesco Maria Veracini

Francesco Maria Veracini (1 February 1690 – 31 October 1768) was an Italian composer and violinist, perhaps best known for his sets of violin sonatas. As a composer, according to Manfred Bukofzer, "His individual, if not subjective, style has no precedent in baroque music and clearly heralds the end of the entire era" (Bukofzer 1947, 234), while Luigi Torchi maintained that "he rescued the imperiled music of the eighteenth century" (Torchi 1901, 180). His contemporary, Charles Burney, held that "he had certainly a great share of whim and caprice, but he built his freaks on a good foundation, being an excellent contrapuntist" (Burney 1789, 4:569). The asteroid 10875 Veracini was named after him. Plaque commemorating Veracini on via Palazzuolo 30, Florence Francesco Maria Veracini was born at about 8:00 a.m. on 1 February 1690 in the family house on the via Palazzuolo, parish of San Salvatore, Ognissanti, Florence (Hill 1979, 7). The second and only surviving son of Agostino Veracini, a pharmacist and undertaker (and ironically one of the few Veracinis who was not a violinist, even as an amateur) he was taught the violin by his uncle, Antonio Veracini, with whom he later often appeared in concert, as well as by Giovanni Maria Casini and his assistant Francesco Feroci. His grandfather, Francesco (di Niccolò) Veracini, had been one of the first violinists of Florence, and ran a music school in the house until ill health forced him to turn the business over to his eldest son, Antonio, in 1708. In addition, the family managed a painting studio and possessed a large collection of art works, including four Ghirlandaios, a Rubens, a Caracci and a dozen other paintings by the three members of the family from two generations, including Francesco's third son, Benedetto (Hill 1979, 3–4; Hill 1990, 550; Hill 2001). The painter Niccolò Agostino Veracini was Francesco Maria's cousin (Hill 1979, 4). Veracini esteemed Carlo Ambrogio Lonati as a great violinist (Aficionado54 2010). Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari one of the main churches in Venice He is known to have been a soloist in Venice at the Christmas masses at San Marco, on 24 and 25 December 1711 (Hill 2001). On 1 February 1712 he performed a violin concerto of his own composition (the first recorded public performance by Veracini playing one of his own compositions), accompanied by trumpets, oboes, and strings as part of the celebrations in honour of the Austrian ambassador to Venice of the newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI. The celebration, held in Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari included a vocal Te Deum and Mass, as well as motets and concertos performed under the direction of padre Ferdinando Antonio Lazari. The manuscript scores of all the works performed that day, including Veracini's concerto, were bound together in a handsome presentation volume now found in the National Library of Austria (Anon. 2011; Hill 1979, 11; Sadie n.d., 48). According to another opinion, this concerto was Veracini's Violin Concerto in D Major, "a otto strumenti, di Francesco Maria Ueracini Suonato dallo stesso al post comunio", 1711), but was performed in Frankfurt rather than Venice, at Charles VI's coronation on 22 December 1711, just two days before Veracini's appearance as a soloist on Christmas Eve in Venice, some 800 kilometers to the south (Kolneder 1959–61; White 1972, 19). In 1714, Veracini went to London and played instrumental pieces ("symphonies" in contemporary parlance) between the acts of operas at the Queen's Theatre. At the court of Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine and Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici he performed his oratorio Mosè al Mar Rosso. In 1716 he was appointed as the head of a Venetian music school, (Sminthe 2013). There is a legend that, when Giuseppe Tartini heard Veracini playing the violin, he was so impressed by his bowing technique, and so dissatisfied with his own skill, that he retreated the next day to Ancona "in order to study the use of the bow in more tranquility, and with more convenience than at Venice, as he had a place assigned him in the opera orchestra of that city" (Burney 1789, 3:564–65). Veracini wrote a set of violin/recorder sonatas dedicated to Prince Friedrich August, who came to celebrate carnival. The Prince recruited not only singers, as he was told to do by his father, but also musicians for the court in Dresden. He hired an entire opera company under the direction of the Italian composer Antonio Lotti, the librettist Antonio Maria Lucchini, the castrati Senesino and Matteo Berselli, the brothers Mauro architects, two painters, and two carpenters (Charlton 2000). In 1718 the Prince also secured the services of the eccentric Francesco Maria Veracini—at a very high salary— Johann David Heinichen and Giuseppe Maria Boschi (Greene 1985, 263).