Biography
Bartolomeo Bernardi (Bologna, 1660 - Copenhagen, 1732) was an Italian composer and violinist.
Bartolomeo Bernardi was born in Bologna around 1660; Very little is known about this composer's childhood and training period; it is believed that he studied under the guidance of Giuseppe Torelli . Starting from 1696 he joined the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna , one of the most prestigious academies of the time. This confirms his talent and his notoriety as a composer, as well as an instrumentalist (violin). This figure also appears in the title page of his twelve " Sonatas for three , two violins , and cello with violone or cymbal ... First work", published in Bologna in 1692 for the types of Pier Maria Monti.
Read full biography ↓
Several dedications of his compositions attest to the musical service provided by Bartolomeo Bernardi for the Church, in particular for the Carmelite Order . Among them, that of the ten Sonatas a tré , two violins , and cello , with the bass for the organ ... Second work , published by CM Fagnani in Bologna in 1696 (and probably in the same year also in Amsterdam by Estienne Roger and IR Delorme), which Bernardi claims to have composed specifically for the "House of God".
He traveled a lot: he was active as a violinist in Bologna and Mantua , before going to the end of the century. XVII, in Copenhagen, where he was hired starting from 1703 as a chapel musician at the court of the King of Denmark and Norway Frederick IV and as Musikdirektor starting from 1711; there he spent the rest of his life.
If, among the Scandinavian countries, the only one who cultivated some interest in the work was Denmark , this is also due in large part to Bartolomeo Bernardi, of whom two works were performed in 1703: Il Gige fortuna on August 26 , for the inauguration of the new theater in Amalienborg Castle , and Diana and Fortune, on 10 October. Also in 1703, his opera Libussa was performed at the National Theater in Prague .
There is currently no news of other melodramas. As for the instrumental and vocal chamber production, certainly abundant in over thirty years of activity, not much remains today, due to the fire that devastated Copenhagen in 1745, in which a large part of its production was destroyed.
In 1700 the Violin Sonatas with basso continuo op . 3. In addition to these, a Sonata in C minor preserved in Dresden and a Sonata in E minor belonging to a miscellaneous collection published in Bologna at the beginning of the 18th century have come down to us.
Today only three Cantatas remain of the vocal production , two of which are conserved in the Danish Royal Library, transcribed in a subsequent period, and one by the hand of a contemporary copyist, "Qual di feroce tromba". A careful study on the texts of these cantatas, aimed at eliminating some transcription errors present in those transcribed in the late epoch, was carried out by the Ambrosian Soloists for the first recording of these compositions in the modern age (see "A Philharmonic Academician between Corelli and Paganini ", T. Pedersoli, Urania Records, 2020).
Bartolomeo Bernardi died in Copenhagen in May 1732.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.