MUSIC LESSON PLAN: SPONTINI FROM MAIOLATI TO LONDON: JOURNEY IN MUSIC!
Gaspare Spontini was born in 1774 in Maiolati, a small town in the Marche region in the province of Ancona, and returned there just a few months before his death in 1851.
From an early age he refused to be a priest, a profession of convenience and tranquility at the time, in order to study music: first with a priest and then in Jesi at his priest uncle's, who was an organ enthusiast.
With the help of some nobles from Jesi, he went to study at the Naples Conservatory, which at the time specialized in operatic music of the buffo genre. Spontini, however, did not stop for a long time and, being ambitious and of good will, he set off by ship and reached France, up to Paris. Here he knocked at the Napoleonic Court where Giuseppina Bonaparte, wife of the leader of France, very passionate about Italian classical music, opened to him.
Therefore Gaspare became a musician of the Napoleonic Court, thought for several years, where he composed famous operas such as: La Vestale, Fernando Cortez, Olimpia. These productions are in Neoclassical style, that is, with powerful sounds and dark timbres, typical of the art of this period.
During this sojourn Spontini went away for a few months in his horse carriage first and then by ship to England, specifically to London, where there was a different and more modern music for that period.
Think, dear guys, what his wife Celeste Erard wrote in a letter she sent to her friends from Maiolati in Italy: " The immense city of London is...marvelous...now if I had the choice, I would more gladly take my little house in Maiolati than a palace in this first capital of the world!". This phrase still remains today on the plaque in front of the Spontini Museum in Maiolati.
Words that underscore the Spontini couple's attachment to Maiolati, a village still immersed today in the beautiful countryside of the Vallesina.
Therefore guys, Gaspare Spontini ended his artistic career immediatly after in Berlin, at the Prussian Court. Here he composed his masterpiece, the opera Agnes Von Hohenstaufen, which inspired the young Richard Wagner a few years later.
Now old and tired, Spontini then returned to Maiolati where he died at the age of 77.
Today Maiolati is called Maiolati Spontini, to honor this great composer!!!
