Vienna and the Italians

In the history of the success Italian music had during the '600 and '700 throughout Europe, an important chapter was written by the enlightened patronage of the Habsburg family of Austria. Madly in love with Italian opera and his vocal style (there's a famous aphorism attributed to Leopold I: "it is better an Italian aria sung by a horse than a German aria sung by the best and most beautiful singer" – sic!), the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, from Ferdinand IV, promulgated the production with great amount of economical resources, making it fully absorb the taste of the Viennese society and, above all, spreading the Italian canon throughout the entire Empire. This can also be seen in the light of a certain Viennese anti-French ideology which influenced that environment, a deeply felt sense of rivalry against the court of Versailles, which among '600 and '700 experienced its greatest period of splendor and creativity. Of course the source of this feeling must be researched in the political views, since French army grew during the '600 and of course in the contrasts for the Spanish Succession (1700 - 1713), after which Austria saw accentuated its influence on Italy.
But it is curious to see that, though with very different artistic goals and outcomes, even in Paris the musician who drew most attention by King Sun was a Florentine, Giovan Battista Lulli, who, however, passed to the honor of musical history with his French name, Jean Baptiste Lully .

This operation, because of its geographical position and political effects, had been the main reason why an ideal bridge was thrown through Europe, between the fragmented Italian country and the countries of the German area, which could therefore no longer escape to keep a period of peace, and then welcome the Italian theater.

The music at the Habsburg court summed up two kinds of interest: the more purely hedonistic course, dictated by artistic and intellectual needs of a refined in tastes court, and that of representation.

Plays and shows set up to represent the strength of the ruling power, were held as instrumentum regni, and the surprising effect they caused to the audience was considered as a princely buisness card to be presented to the European cultural and political world. This is the reason why the responsibility of these shows was given to the best designers in Europe as Antonio Beduzzi and the Galli Bibienas among others.

No doubt music had for its dual aspect a strong influence on the society, especially for the Western Europe.
The benefit of this historical and cultural contingency, since the first half of '600, attracted to this court Italian musicians, which were assigned key responsibilities for both court music and theater.

These composed music for Italian texts (which were often played by Italian first), whose authors were mostly poets and librettists also emigrated to the Habsburg's' court and here welcomed as "poet laureate" as for example, in the case of Pietro Pariati , Apostolo Zeno, Metastasio.

Francesco Bartolomeo Conti (Florence, January 20, 1681 or 1682 - Vienna, July 1732) can be included into this stream of emigrants. He arrived in Vienna in 1701, where he could find a “musical ground”, so to speak, already prepared by musicians like Antonio Cesti (1623 - 1669), Giovanni Felice Sances (1600 ca. - 1679), Antonio Draghi (1634 - 1700) in the middle of the previous century, and later Marco Antonio Ziani (1653 - 1715) and Giovanni Battista Bononcini (1670 - 1747), this last one, ex – prodigy child and cello virtuoso, considered the most eminent musical personality after the death of Draghi.

Florence of the last Medici

Conti had already played in many courts of central and northern Italy as lutenist and theorbist, where he had always been held in high esteem and acclaimed virtuoso; we can find evidences of this in the correspondence of Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici, who talks about his performances in Milan and Ferrara. Ferdinando de’ Medici was a personage of great interest in the Florence of the end of seventeenth century: he was a harpsichordist himself, in close contact with Alessandro Scarlatti, and promoted the musical life in Florence, with reviews of opera (in autumn and Carnival at his villa in Pratolino) and sacred music in Lent (in the church of Santa Felicita, crossed by the Vasari's Corridor). Often he directed on his own these performances.

Around his outstanding figure, musicians who were also working outside the homeland, found their much success and resonance as well, like the violinist Antonio Veracini, the lutenist and harpsichordist Pietro Sammartini, the contralto and composer Francesco Antonio Pistocchi.

Also significant was the fact that also the Paduan harpsichord maker Bartolomeo Cristofori was part of his artistic entourage, who is celebrated by historians as the inventor of the piano. And it was right in the last Florentine period of Conti that Cristofori built the first innovative example of that instrument.
From this city, so vibrant and dynamic, which since the Renaissance had been crossed by musicians who came from Northern Europe heading to Rome, and where often they were gave temporary positions of prestige, or who remain longer (as for instance G.F. Haendel in 1706), Conti was directed to the most central and powerful Viennese court.

It must be kept in mind that the relationship between the two courts was already pretty tight since the last of the Medici (1737) Duke Francis Stephen of Lorraine, was the husband of Maria Theresa of Austria.

Innovative aspects, success and personality.
At the Habsburgs his fame grew and spread throughout Europe (as an evidence from London in 1707, which tells of the success he had achieved during a concert in honor of Queen Anne, where he presented a program a solo for theorbo, lute and mandolin). But in Vienna he had the chance to give a strong impulse to the repertoire of his instrument as a solo instrument.

If in fact around the lute and other instruments of the family (as theorbo, arciliuto and guitar) had developed a major solo repertoire, which developed in much part of Europe since the Renaissance, its use in ensembles was more dedicated to functions of basso continuo, the practice of unwritten accompaniment between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

Conti, in 1708 became at first lutenist of the court, then devoted himself to the writing of chamber music in which the lute covered a primary character, often establishing a dialogue, more than having a supporting function, with other instruments and voices.

This of course gave another role to the lutenist during the performance, and for this reason many of his plays have some extensively written parts, in which instruments achieve a more colorful and iridescent accent as in Cantate con Istromenti, in which the soloist function is always present. Another fine example of this usage can be found in the parts for concertato lute in the Johannespassion by J.S. Bach, who knew for sure Conti's work, maybe through the friendship that bounded him to S.L. Weiss, a great German lutenist, who had played for sure with Conti in 1723's Costanza e Fortezza by the composer and theorist J.J. Fux. But Bach certainly knew also the sacred repertoire by Conti, who also wrote a number of Oratoria as well as several Masses made in a concertato style. Among these, for example Missa Sancti Pauli, which remained in the repertory of the Schottenkirche in Vienna for 150 years.

But it is still more interesting that Bach used a manuscript dating 1716 of the Conti's cantata Languet Anima Mea, for a work of his (BWV deest I 006) where there are some instrumental additions, that was performed in both Coethen and Leipzig.
But it was mainly due to the retakes throughout the German world of his works (the first was not always held in Vienna), which have achieved notoriety and fame even among composers such as Telemann and Mattheson, who were in possession of his scores and were affected by them. Very large indeed was his theater production, opera seria e buffo genre (field in which he excelled), for which he was called as a first choice to celebrate in specific great occasions such as the imperial birthdays or other celebrations with political interests. He built a work relationship with Pariati, allowing him to stage tragicomedies (like Don Quixote in Sierra Morena, 1719) which were subsequently required in major theaters in cities like Dresden, Hamburg, Breslau, and Brunswick.
Described as having a brilliant personality and great spirit, Conti was able to rely on these qualities also in the economic field. We succeed in ensuring that his role as a virtuoso and composer were to pay separately and as a result he became the highest paid musician of Vienna at the time. Married in three times, the last two wives were his prime donne, or singers who had major roles in his compositions. But the story of this brilliant Florentine ended with a long illness, of which the first record is of 1726. In 1729 he managed to return home to handle some of its properties, and remained there until 1732. Death surprised him in Vienna, where he had just presented new work, a few months later.