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

Frolov, Markian Petrovich

(b Bobruysk, 24 Nov/6 Dec 1892; d Sverdlovsk, 30 Oct 1944). Russian composer and teacher. He studied at the St Petersburg Conservatory in the piano class of N.N. Poznyakovskaya and in the theory class of S.S. Bogatïryov (1913–18), after which he attended the Kiev Conservatory studying piano with Blumenfeld and composition with Glière (1918–21) before returning to Petrograd to continue his piano studies with I.S. Miklashevskaya (1921–4). He taught the piano at the Kiev Conservatory and the Lysenko Institute (1924–8) and in 1928 moved to the Ural region where he taught the piano and theory at the Sverdlovsk Music School. Frolov was a founder and the first director of the Sverdlovsk Conservatory (1934–7 and 1943–4) where he taught the piano and composition. He was appointed professor in 1939 and in 1944 set up departments for Buryat-Mongol, Yakut and Bashkir music. Frolov is one of the initiators of the Ural school of composition – rooted in both the Russian tradition and in the folklore of the peoples of the Urals and Siberia – and is the composer of the first Buryat opera, Ėnkhe – Bulat-bator, based on Buryat folk epics.

WORKS

(selective list)

Op: Ėnkhe – Bulat-bator (N. Boldano, after motifs from Buryat-Mongol epic literature), 1940

Inst: Malen'kaya syuita [Little Suite], str qt, 1920; Pf Conc., 1924; Klassicheskaya syuita [Classical Suite], pf, 1930; Sedoy Ural [Grey Urals], sym. picture, orch, 1936; Pf Sonata, 1941; Uvertyura na tri Buryat-Mongol'skiye temï [Overture on Three Buryat-Mongol Themes], orch, 1943

Vocal: Poėma ob Urale [Poem of the Urals] (orat), solo vv, chorus, orch, 1932; Poėma-kantata, chorus, 1942; arr. of 3 Ukr. songs, vocal trio; many unacc. choruses, songs and folksong arrs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

M. Grinberg: ‘Ėnkhe – Bulat-bator: dekada buryat-mongol'skogo iskusstva v Moskve’ [Ėnkhe – Bulat-bator: a decade of Buryat-Mongol art in Moscow], Pravda (22 Oct 1940)

I. Bėlza: ‘Markian Frolov: soch. 20 – Sonata dlya fortepiano: notograficheskiye zametki’ [Frolov: op.20 – Sonata for piano: some annotations], SovM (1946), nos.5–6, pp.103–4

I. Bėlza: ‘Vïdayushchiysya muzïkant Urala: pamyati Markiana Frolova’ [A prominent musician of the Urals: memories of Frolov], SovM (1950), no.4, pp.72–5

R. Glièr: ‘Uvertyura Markiana Frolova: notografiya i bibliografiya’ [Frolov's overture: annotations and bibliography], SovM (1951), no.11, p.100 only

Yu. Marchenko: ‘U istokov ural'skoy kompozitorskoy shkolï’ [At the sources of the Ural school of composition], Istoriya muzïkal'noy kul'turï Sibiri (Moscow, 1978), 29–47

IOSIF GENRIKHOVICH RAYSKIN

Fromentin, Philippe.

French singer, possibly identifiable with Fourmentin.

Fromm, Andreas

(b Plänitz, nr Wusterhausen, 1621; d Prague, 16 Oct 1683). German composer and theologian. He came from a family of Protestant clergymen, studied theology and became Kantor at Altdamm. In 1641 he went to Stettin (now Szczecin), where in 1649 he was Kantor at the Marienkirche and Marienstiftsgymnasium, as well as instructor in music at the Pädagogium. From 1651 he probably devoted himself exclusively to theology. On 23 October that year he became a licentiate of the University of Rostock and then went as pastor to Kölln an der Spree. He failed to carry out an order from the Elector of Brandenburg to promote the tendencies towards union between the Lutheran and the Reformed Church; on the contrary, he reacted vehemently against the latter. He next went to Wittenberg as a lecturer. In 1668 he was converted to Catholicism at Prague and justified this step in a work called Compendium metaphysicum. From 1668 to 1671 Fromm was a dean at Kamnitz (now Kamenice) in northern Bohemia, then he became a canon at Leitmeritz (Litoměřice). The last two years of his life he spent in the Strahov monastery at Prague, while his wife and five children were maintained in a convent.

Fromm published Actus musicus de divite et Lazaro, das ist Musicalische Abbildung der Parabel vom Reichen Manne und Lazaro, Lucae 16. Mit gewissen Persohnen … und allerley Instrumenten … in 14. Stimmen auff 2. Chore: wie auch Dialogus Pentecostalis … mit gewissen Vocalstimmen und … Instrumenten in 10. Stimmen auff 2. Chore zum Generalbass zu musiciren (Stettin, 1649; now inc.). The first of the two works here, the Actus musicus (ed. in Denkmäler der Musik in Pommern, v, 1936), is a setting of Luke xvi.19–21 and 24–5, with free interpolations such as the Rich Man's drinking song and the dramatization of verse 22, which depicts in biblical language his death and curse. The prologue or Evangelist and the parts of the Rich Man, Lazarus and the Angel show the influence of the Italian monodic style, though the declamatory writing tends to be rhythmically more regular. Fromm himself named Lassus and Marenzio as models for the expressive underlining of character. The frequent use of semitones to denote grief is notable, but the most remarkable feature – and a novel one, not found in, for example, Carissimi – is the employment of three-part instrumental sinfonias to represent affections, for example no.1 (with strings), ‘sad’, and no.3 (with flutes), ‘happy and sad’, underlining the contrast of rich and poor. Another innovation is the use of Protestant chorales; in nos.3 and 5 these have ornamented bass viol solos, while nos.13 and 15 are larger-scale chorale fantasias for soloists, chorus and orchestra. The work demands a staged performance in church: the participants include a ‘chorus profanus’, ‘down in the church near the congregation’ and serving partly as a symbol of Hell, and a ‘chorus sacer’ up in the gallery, symbolizing Heaven. The Actus musicus was once thought of as ‘the first German oratorio’, but the Representatio harmonica conceptionis et nativitatis S Joannis Baptistae by Bollius dates from some 30 years earlier, and Schütz had probably written all of his oratorio dialogues before Fromm wrote his work (the date of Schütz's Vater Abraham, whose subject matter is very similar to Fromm's, is unknown; but it probably dates from the 1620s). Fromm's work is nevertheless significant in the early history of the oratorio. The Dialogus Pentecostalis published alongside it provides further evidence of his dramatic leanings. The only other music he is known to have composed is a Grabe-Lied for the funeral on 7 October 1650 of a Pomeranian court official; it was formerly in the Stadtbibliothek, Stettin.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ADB

EitnerQ

NDB

ScheringGO

SmitherHO, ii

WaltherML

R. Schwartz: ‘Das erste deutsche Oratorium’, JbMP 1898, 59–65

H. Engel: Drei Werke pommerscher Komponisten (Greifswald, 1931)

H. Engel: Introduction to Denkmäler der Musik in Pommern, v (Kassel, 1936)

P. Steinitz: ‘German Church Music, (f) Oratorios: the Earliest German Oratorios’, NOHM, v (1975), 612–20

FRITZ FELDMANN/DOROTHEA SCHRÖDER