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

Fregni, Mirella.

See Freni, mirella.

Frei, Hans [Franchi, Giovanni Maria]

(b c1500/10; d c1565). Lute maker, possibly of German origin, active in Italy. He was married to Margarita del fu Michele Strazarolo and was in Bologna from at least 1546 until at least 1564. He is sometimes described as ‘Romano’ in Bolognese documents, and may have previously worked in Rome. He has frequently been confused with another Hans Frei, son-in-law of Albrecht Dürer, who may perhaps have been the father of the lute maker; the error originated with Baron in 1727.

Frei's workshops are recorded first in the parish of San Giacomo dei Carbonesi (by 1548), and later in the Via San Mamolo close to that of Luca Maler (from 1554). The San Mamolo workshop was continued after Frei’s death by his sons, Giovanni Giulio (d 1622) and Gasparo (d 1626). In spite of numerous records of real estate purchase and financial transactions, Frei's business seems to have been on a much smaller scale than Maler's, but his lutes were renowned. John Evelyn recorded a visit to Bologna in 1645: ‘This place has likewise been famous for Lutes made by the old Masters Mollen (i.e. Maler), Hans Frey, Nic: Sconvelt, which were of extraordinary price, & were most of them German Workmen’. In 1648 Jacques Gautier mentioned in correspondence with Huygens (see Jonckbloet and Land) that Frei had worked at Bologna a little later than Luca Maler.

There are eight lutes attributed to Frei, in Bologna, Copenhagen, Kremsmünster, Prague, Stockholm, Vienna and Warwick. Those in Vienna (two in the Kunsthistorisches Museum) and Warwick are very alike and are almost certainly genuine. They have long narrow bodies of few ribs, characteristics of the ‘Bologna’ style which they share with the Maler's lutes. Their labels are handwritten in large gothic letters, giving only Frei's name. All three have been converted to 11-course Baroque lutes, though they probably originated as large tenor lutes with only six courses. The Bologna instrument (in the Civico Museo Medievale) is dated 1597 and may be the work of Giovanni (Hans) Giulio Frei. The other instruments exhibit variations in shape and labelling style, and may not be genuine.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

VannesE

J. Evelyn: Kalendarium: de vita propria (MSS, private collection, 1620–1706); ed. E.S. de Beer as The Diary of John Evelyn (Oxford, 1955)

E.G. Baron: Historisch-theoretisch und practische Untersuchung des Instruments der Lauten (Nuremberg, 1727/R; Eng. trans., 1976 as Study of the Lute)

W.J.A. Jonckbloet and J.P.N. Land, eds.: Correspondance et oeuvres musicales de Constantin Huygens (Leiden, 1882)

M.W. Prynne: ‘An Unrecorded Lute by Hans Frei’, GSJ, ii (1949), 47–51; iv (1951), 46–7

M.W. Prynne: ‘The Old Bologna Lute-Makers’, LSJ, v (1963), 18–31

L. Cervelli: ‘Brevi noti sui liutai tedeschi attivi in Italia dal secolo XVIo al XVIIIo’, AnMc, no.5 (1968), 299–337

E. Pohlmann: Laute, Theorbe, Chitarrone (Bremen, 1968, rev., enlarged 5/1982)

R. Bletschacher: Die Lauten- und Geigenmacher des Füssener Landes (Hofheim am Taunus, 1978)

A. Layer: Die Allgäuer Lauten- und Geigenmacher (Augsburg, 1978)

S. Pasqual and R. Regazzi: Le radici del successo della liuteria a Bologna (Bologna, 1998)

LYNDA SAYCE

Freiberg, Gottfried Ritter von

(b Vienna, 11 April 1908; d Vienna, 2 Feb 1962). Austrian horn player. He studied with his uncle, Karl Stiegler, whom he succeeded in 1932 as principal horn of the Vienna PO and professor at the Musik Akademie. For 30 years Freiberg's distinctive tone and generous portamento were inseparably associated with the orchestra's style. He personified the Vienna horn school, in particular through his adherence to the single F horn with twin-piston valves at a time when advances in instrument design, bringing greater technical facility and accuracy at the expense of the Vienna horn's unique tonal qualities, had been generally adopted elsewhere.

In 1943 he gave the first performance of Richard Strauss's Second Horn Concerto. During the war years Freiberg, who was partly Jewish, was able to survive in his post only through a dispensation from the Nazis; after the war, not needing de-Nazification, he was accepted by the occupying powers as president of the orchestra (1946–7). He was twice president of the Wiener Waldhorn Verein, which he sometimes directed, and for which he composed a number of works. Among his pupils were Roland Berger and Wolfgang Tomböck, his successors as Vienna PO principals. The decline in Freiberg's health, which led to his early death, was exacerbated not only by the war and by postwar orchestral politics but also by the constant demand for technical perfection in the early days of LP recording. This he found at variance with his philosophy of taking necessary risks in the cause of expressiveness: ‘Ein Hornist ohne Gickser ist kein Hornist’ (‘A horn player who never cracks is no horn player’).

OLIVER BROCKWAY

Freiburger Orgelbau.

German firm of organ builders. Alois Späth (b Ennetach, nr Mengen, 16 June 1825; d Ennetach, 7 Aug 1876) was apprenticed to, then succeeded Vitus Klingler in Ennetach, building six organs of up to 18 stops each in his region. His son Franz Xaver (1859–1940) set up an independent shop in 1882 following ten years of working as a journeyman with five regional builders. Together with his brother Albert he founded Gebrüder Späth in 1891, a prosperous firm which built some ten organs per year until the mid-1920s, after which Franz’s sons Karl (1899–1971) and August (1908–1979) carried on its work. In 1964 August separated from the firm and reorganized its Freiburg branch under the name of Freiburger Orgelbau; his son Hartwig (b Ennetach, 8 Feb 1942) was trained in the shop and received his Master Organ Builder certificate in 1970. By the late 1990s the firm, headed by Hartwig, had built over 180 organs, of which 25 are in other countries, and undertaken about 30 restorations. Some notable instruments (all of three manuals) include those built for St Anne, Annapolis, Maryland (1975); St Clara, Berlin (1981); St Josef, Rheinfelden (1985); Auferstehungskirche, Fürth (1989); Kalvarienbergkirche, Vienna (1990); St Paul, Dinkelsbühl; and St Georg, Riedlingen, Württemberg (1996). While attentive to the southwest German organ building heritage, the firm has embraced a diversity of styles and has made a speciality of ‘reciprocal sliders’ (Wechselschleifen) allowing each stop of a one-division organ to be drawn on either of two keyboards, thus increasing the number of registration textures available.

KURT LUEDERS