Faà di Bruno, Giovanni Matteo [Horatio, Orazio] 83

Ferrazzi, Giovanni Battista

(fl 1652). Italian lawyer, composer and poet. He was a musical amateur and was possibly resident in Mantua. His sole surviving publication, Arie, et parole … libro primo op.1 (Venice, 1652), comprises settings for solo voice and continuo of his own texts. The book consists largely of attractive strophic arias, though it also contains two madrigals, Note che in neri and Muse che fatte. (EitnerQ; SchmitzG)

JOHN WHENHAM

Ferreira, Manuel

(b Madrid; d ?Madrid, 1797). Spanish composer. From 1737 he was a guitar accompanist with several Madrid theatre companies; by 1745 he was first musician in the company directed by José Parra, where he apparently remained until his retirement in 1780. Ferreira’s theatre works may be regarded as among the precursors of the tonadilla; in the latter part of his life he was one of the first to write in that genre. His extant works include the opera seria, El mayor triunfo de la mayor guerra (E-Mn), and music for numerous plays and comic interludes (Mm).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LaborD

J. Subirá: La tonadilla escénica: sus obras y autores (Barcelona, 1933), 102ff

E. Cotarelo y Mori: Historia de la zarzuela (Madrid, 1934), 81

J. Subirá: ‘Músicos al servicio de Calderón y de Comella’, AnM, xxii (1967), 197–208

C. Caballero: ‘El manuscrito Gayangos-Barbieri’, RdMc, xii (1989), 199–268

JOSÉ LÓPEZ-CALO

Ferreira Veiga, José Augusto da, Visconde do Arneiro.

See Veiga, josé augusto ferreira.

Ferrer (i Bargalló), Dom Anselm [Josep]

(b Capellades, Barcelona, 16 April 1882; d Montserrat, 26 April 1969). Spanish teacher and composer. He was a member of the Escolanía of Montserrat under Guzmán (1892–8) and had composition lessons with Boezzi and Letaccioli in Rome (1907) and with de Nardis in Naples (1910). In 1911 he returned to the Escolanía as director, in which post he remained until 1933. He enlarged the institution, reformed its teaching, created an extensive library, broadened the repertory to include 16th-century polyphony, increased the choir and instituted composition competitions. His compositions, almost all sacred, include a Missa abbatialis and a Missa solemnis ‘cum jubilo’, a set of Lamentations, a Te Deum, hymns, motets and other works. Following Pope Pius X’s precepts regarding music for the church, his compositions are majestic, polyphonic settings for choir and organ in which the music stresses the meaning of the text. Ferrer was also a prolific writer on philosophy, theology, liturgy and music, most of his essays being published in Revista montserratina and Vida cristiana.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LaborD

A.M. Caralt: L’escolania de Montserrat (Montserrat, 1955)

E. Busquests i Molas: Història de Capellades (Capellades, 1972)

D. Codina: ‘El P. Anslem Ferrer i el seu temps’, Montserrat Butléti del Santuari, new ser., no.6 (1983), 40–47

A. MENÉNDEZ ALEYXANDRE/ANTONI PIZÀ

Ferrer, Guillermo

(fl Madrid, c1776–91). Spanish composer. In 1783, while organist at the Descalzas Reales convent in Madrid, he was commissioned by the ninth Duque de Hijar to compose seven adagios. These were to be played in the darkened Madrid church of the S Spiritu on Good Friday, between noon and 3 p.m., after each pulpit commentary on the Seven Last Words of Christ. A history of the Seven Last Words devotion, citing the powerful effect of Ferrer's adagios, was published in Madrid in January 1786. Haydn's orchestral Seven Last Words followed suit, and was probably first performed in Vienna on 26 March 1787.

In 1787 Ferrer was harpsichordist for an Italian opera troupe playing at Madrid in the Teatro de los Caños del Peral. On 10 March 1790 a sinfonia by him was played at the Teatro del Príncipe. In 1791 he was maestro for Jacobo Fitzjames Stuart, sixth Conde de Liria, to whom he dedicated that year an Aria d'Acheronte con vvs., oboe, viole, fagotti, corni è basso. His surviving works at the Madrid Municipal Library consist of incidental music for two plays (Incendio y tempestad, La ventura con el sueño), a sainete (La oposición de los tres sacristanes) and two tonadillas (Ay corazón mio, El petimetre embustero y la petimetra burlada). His piquant sainete depicts three rival composers of villancicos, each differently accompanied. His stylistic flexibility permitted his turning at will from a languishing Italian aria to a brisk tonadilla in which an actress imitates a cat's mewing (El remedo del gato, c1776).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

‘Noticia de origen, progressos y antiguedad del Santo Exercicio de las Tres Horas en la América y España’, Memorial literario, instructivo y curioso de la Corte de Madrid, no.28 (1786)

F. Pedrell: Teatro lírico español anterior al siglo XIX (La Coruña, 1897–8), ii, 21ff

F. Pedrell: Cancionero musical popular español, iv (Valls, 1922, 3/1958), 97–104

J. Subirá: ‘Un villancico teatral: “Los Tres Sacristanes”’, Revista de la Biblioteca, Archivo y Museo del Ayuntamiento de Madrid, iii (1926), 246–9

R. Stevenson: ‘Haydn's Iberian World Connections’, Inter-American Music Review, iv/2 (1982), 3–30, esp. 8–11

ROBERT STEVENSON

Ferrer [Mateuet], Mateo

(b Barcelona, 25 Feb 1788; d Barcelona, 4 Jan 1864). Spanish organist, conductor and composer. He studied music under Francisco Queralt and Carlos Baguer and was appointed organist of Barcelona Cathedral in 1808, also becoming maestro de capilla there in 1830. In 1827 he replaced Ramón Carnicer as orchestra leader at the Teatro de la S Cruz, and thus held for over 30 years three of the most important musical positions in Barcelona. He was considered by his contemporaries the most notable organist in Spain, especially for the boldness and inventiveness of his improvising and the clarity and imagination of his registrations. He was a man of profound musical learning and one of the best contrapuntists in his time. He turned his house into a sort of conservatory, where the young musicians of Barcelona, including Saldoni and Vilanova, came for free instruction in piano, organ and composition. His death was marked by a period of official mourning, and he was given a magnificent funeral, at which a Requiem Mass, composed by Saldoni, Manent, Rovira and others, was performed by more than 300 singers and instrumentalists in the church of S María del Mar.

He composed many works for both church and theatre, of which a Salve regina for four voices and instruments (1806, in E-Bc) survives. He also wrote a cantata for soloists, chorus and orchestra, Crece, crece arbolillo (MS, Bc), and a piano sonata (1814) which was published in the first volume of J. Nin's Seize sonates anciennes d'auteurs espagnols (Paris, 1925). Some of his manuscripts are preserved in the archive of the Marian Sanctuary of Aránzazu.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

B. Saldoni: Diccionario biográfico-bibliográfico de efemérides de músicos españoles, i (Madrid, 1868)

A. Elías de Molins: Diccionario biográfico y bibliográfico de escritores y artistas catalanes del siglo XIX (Barcelona, 1889)

J. Subirá: Variadas versiones de libretos operísticos (Madrid, 1973)

J. Bagüés: ‘Compositors catalans a l'antic arxiu musical d'Aránzazu’, Recerca musicològica, i (1981), 213–20 [incl. Eng. summary]

GUY BOURLIGUEUX