Faà di Bruno, Giovanni Matteo [Horatio, Orazio] 83
Fisher [Fischer; Breitenbach], Fred
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- Fisher, John Abraham
Fisher [Fischer; Breitenbach], Fred(b Cologne, Germany, 30 Sept 1875; d New York, 14 Jan 1942). American composer, lyricist and publisher. His parents, Max and Theodora Breitenbach, were Americans. He ran away from home at the age of 13, enlisting in the German navy and in the French Foreign Legion before coming to the USA in 1900. Fisher began composing in 1904; he also wrote the words for his first big success, If the Man in the Moon were a Coon (1905). In 1907 he started his own publishing business, in which the lyricist Joseph McCarthy was briefly a partner; this was remarkably successful. Fisher composed music for silent films and in the 1920s moved to Hollywood, where he wrote songs for films such as Hollywood Revue of 1929 and Their Own Desire (1930). He returned to New York in the early 1930s. Early in his career Fisher concentrated on ethnic songs; later he made something of a speciality out of geographical topics, as in Norway (1915), Siam (1915) and Chicago (1922). His music was unusually enduring, and in the 1940s several of his songs were widely popular, including Peg o’ my Heart (1913), Oui, Oui, Marie (1918) and Whispering Grass (1940). The last of these was written with his daughter Doris Fisher Wald, and she and Fisher’s two sons, Marvin and Daniel, pursued successful musical careers. Fisher had an excitable character, eccentric mannerisms and a contentious disposition: his most successful song, Dardanella (1919, to which he supplied only the words), was entangled in a lengthy series of lawsuits which persisted until the 1960s. Although some of his ballads and love songs were popular, his greatest strength was in comedy; he was especially gifted at devising quirky rhythms to highlight novel texts. WORKS(selective list) all 1v. pf; most published in New York; lyrics by Fisher unless otherwise stated
BIBLIOGRAPHYObituary, New York Herald Tribune (15 Jan 1942) J. Burton: ‘The Honor Roll of Popular Songwriters, no. 13: Fred Fisher’, The Billboard (19 March 1949) W. Craig: Sweet and Lowdown (Metuchen, NJ, 1978) WILLIAM BROOKS Fisher, John Abraham(b Dunstable or London, 1744; d Ireland, 1806). English violinist and composer. Under the patronage of Lord Tyrawley he studied violin with Thomas Pinto and made his solo début at the King's Theatre on 25 January 1765, at a benefit concert for the Musicians' Fund. He appeared there again as a soloist on 23 January 1767. Opportunities for composition led Fisher to the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, where his contributions to the score of Love in the City were heard on 21 February 1767. He soon became attached to this theatre, where he served as orchestra leader from about 1768 to 1778. During the summer months, Fisher led the Vauxhall orchestra (1769 according to the journals of John Marsh), and composed instrumental and vocal works for presentation there. Fisher also took part in the musical activities of the Masonic order. He was commissioned to compose an anthem and an ode for the dedication of the New Freemasons' Hall (London) in 1776. Unfortunately, a dispute over the publication rights became so acrimonious that he was subsequently expelled from the order. In 1772 Fisher married Elizabeth Powell (née Branston), widow of William Powell, a former theatre manager. As a result Fisher gained control of a 16th share of the Covent Garden Theatre property. In addition to composing for stage productions he took part in the theatre's administration. Of his contributions to Covent Garden productions those which enjoyed the greatest success were the pantomime Harlequin Jubilee (27 January 1770), the incidental music to the play Zobeide (11 December 1771), the all-sung masques The Druids (19 November 1774) and The Syrens (26 February 1776), and his overture for Kane O'Hara's burlesque, The Golden Pippin (6 February 1773). Fisher's confident and effective writing elicited the admiration of critics. The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser (28 February 1776) praised the music in The Syrens, stating that ‘natural genius, and scientific knowledge, are happily blended in the music, and several of the airs would not disgrace the first Italian masters’. An experiment in light accompaniment which he tried in the 1776 Covent Garden revival of The Beggar's Opera was strongly criticized, however, in the Morning Post (2 October 1776). The years between 1769 and 1778 must have been busy for Fisher, who composed music for numerous stage productions, of which only a few were collaborative efforts. In July 1777 Fisher graduated BMus and DMus from Magdalen College, Oxford. His graduating exercise was the oratorio Providence. This was performed at Oxford on 2 July with Fisher himself leading the orchestra, with subsequent performances in London for the benefit of the Middlesex Hospital (Freemasons' Hall, 28 May 1778), and again in 1780. After 1778 Fisher concentrated upon his performing career and, following the death of his wife on 7 May 1780, he undertook concert tours in France, Germany (attracting the attention of C.G. Neefe) and Russia. Kelly records his arrival in Vienna from Russia (1783) and his unusual courtship of the celebrated English singer, Nancy Storace. A marriage licence was issued on 21 March 1784, and the wedding itself took place shortly thereafter in the presence of Lord Mount Edgcumbe and other dignitaries. Temperamentally unsuited in the extreme, this marriage was ill-considered even in an age when such marriages were undertaken as financial arrangements or to boost career potential. When, by the autumn of 1784, rumours that Fisher beat his wife reached the emperor, it was suggested that the composer leave Austria. No official expulsion order exists; however, Fisher left Vienna and resumed his concert activities. Subsequent details of his career are few, although Lady Morgan records that Fisher ‘was tempted over to Dublin immediately on his return from his tour in France, Italy and Germany, and a long visit to that royal fanatico per la musica, Frederic the Great’. Further meetings between Fisher and Nancy Storace (who remained legally married) were sufficiently acrimonious to attract the attention of the press (The World, 22 March 1787). Thereafter, Fisher settled in Dublin, where he supported himself by teaching and performing occasional concerts at the Rotunda. The Strachie papers record that he was dependent upon the generosity of Sir Owen Wynn during his final years. It is possible that his affected personality, so vividly recorded by Lady Morgan (Owen Wynn's daughter), undermined his popular support in the late years of his life. The Gentleman's Magazine records his death in Ireland in the June issue of 1806. As a performer Fisher played with great temperament and technical facility. His flamboyant manner, however, led some to complain of charlatanism. The virtuoso element is displayed in his three long and difficult violin concertos, the second of which features frequent wide leaps, double stopping, arpeggiation and a variety of virtuoso bowing techniques, including bariolage. Fisher exploits the high range of the instrument and specifies colouristic effects such as harmonics and the use of the G string for some solo passages. The concerto has great rhythmic vigour, though it lacks sufficient harmonic variety. In contrast, his six violin duets, which are in fact charming three-movement sonatas, were clearly designed for amateurs. In them Fisher avoids the extreme upper range of the instrument, though they still contain double stopping and difficult passage work. The elements of sonata form are particularly well handled in Fisher's seven symphonies, and the orchestration is varied by the introduction of solo passages for wind instruments and the use of ‘high’ textures without a bass line. Mannheim techniques (such as indications for dynamic contrasts, including the crescendo) are in evidence. Fisher appears to have been the first English composer to use a ppp marking in a published work. His Music for the Opening of Macbeth (1780), seemingly the last music he composed before undertaking his continental concert tours, was only rediscovered in 1982; the manuscript had been sold at auction in 1839. The score appears to be the first musical setting of the two witches' scenes in the first act of Macbeth to make use of an accurate version of Shakespeare's text. It is unfortunate that Fisher did not continue in the composition of incidental music for the play on a similar scale. The extant score vividly characterizes the three witches, and Fisher's depiction of natural phenomena is handled with skill and imagination. The popularity of Fisher's works later in the century, including his well-loved overture to The Syrens, is demonstrated in the surviving repertory lists for Vauxhall in 1790 and 1791. WORKSprinted works published in London unless otherwise stated stageperformed at London, Covent Garden, unless otherwise stated
other vocal
instrumental
BIBLIOGRAPHYBDA DNB (L. Middleton) EitnerQ FiskeETM GerberNL SainsburyD J. Marsh: Journal of John Marsh, MS, 1783, GB-Cu; selections ed. B. Robins (Stuyvesant, NY, 1998) The Strachie Collection of Mary Middleton's Notes for a Life of John Braham, MS, TAr Obituary, Gentleman's Magazine, lxxvi (1806), 587 M. Kelly: Reminiscences (London, 1826/R1968) W.H. Dixon, ed.: Lady Morgan's Memoirs: Autobiography, Diaries and Correspondence (London, 1862, 2/1863) C.F. Pohl: Mozart und Haydn in London (Vienna, 1867/R) C.L. Cudworth: ‘The Vauxhall Lists’, GSJ, xx (1967), 24–42 J. LaRue: ‘The English Symphony: Some Additions and Annotations to Charles Cudworth's Published Studies’, Music in Eighteenth-Century England: Essays in Memory of Charles Cudworth, ed. C. Hogwood and R. Luckett (Cambridge, 1983), 213–17 P.F. Rice: ‘John Abraham Fisher's Music for the Opening of Macbeth’, College Music Symposium, xxvi (1986), 7–13 S. McVeigh: The Violinist in London's Concert Life, 1750–1784 (New York, 1989) G. Brace: Anna … Susanna, Anna Storace, Mozart's First Susanna: Her Life, Times and Family (London, 1991) P.F. Rice: ‘John Abraham Fisher's A Comparative View of the English, French and Italian Schools: a British Musician Tours Europe’, Sharing the Voices: the Phenomenon of Singing: St John's, Newfoundland, 1997, ed. B.A. Roberts (St. John's, 1998), 184–92 PAUL F. RICE Yüklə 17,54 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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