Antonio Caldara was an Italian composer and cellist born in the region of Venice presumably in 1671. He is known as a composer of an abundant production of Italian vocal music, and is also acknowledged as the creator of an “amalgam of Italian and German styles”1 during his time in Vienna.
The date of his birth is assumed to be in 1671 thanks to his death certificate. No baptismal certificate was found in Venice and in the Veneto region, however his death certificate tells us that he died in 1736 in Vienna “in his 66th year”.2 Concerning his Venetian origins, Ursula Kirkendale thinks that the mention of his father being “de Venetiis”, is a sufficient evidence of Caldara’s birth in Venice.3
Antonio was the son of Giuseppe Caldara, violinist in Venice, who may have been his first teacher. It is believed that from 1681 Antonio studied with Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690) who was named Maestro di Capella at San Marco the same year. There is no evidence of Caldara being Legrenzi’s pupil, but Ursula Kirkendale argues that it is more than likely that Antonio was able to benefit from the instruction of this renowned master of stile antico counterpoint.4 Musicologists also think that he possibly studied with Domenico Gabrielli (1659-1690) who was one of the only virtuoso cellist of his time in Venice, and a former student of Legrenzi.5 Between 1681 and 1695, Antonio became first cellist at San Marco, and after 1695, he became a permanent member of the Capella. It is also known that Antonio was a singer of the Capella and that he sang alto until 1698.
At the age of 16, in 1687, he became a member of the guild of the Signori musici di Santa Cecilia. This membership could show us, according to Pritchard, that he decided quite early in his life to pursue a career in music.6 And indeed, before the 18th century began, Caldara had “established himself in all the principal genres of the late Baroque”: operas, oratorios, trio sonatas and cantatas for solo voice.7
On the 31st of May 1699, Caldara became Maestro di Capella da Chiesa et del Teatro in Mantua for Ferdinando Carlo, the last Gonzaga Duke of Mantua. What is interesting to notice is that he succeeded Marc’Antonio Ziani, who was also his predecessor in Vienna until 1715.
Unfortunately, the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714) started and didn’t allow Caldara to benefit a lot from the patronage of the Duke in Mantua. The Duke of Mantua was indeed a supporter of the Bourbon Family cause and the ducal court, including Antonio, finally chose to run away from the city in 1702 as the Habsburg forces were advancing on the city. Three years followed between Casale, Genoa and Venice before returning to Mantua at the end of 1705. In 1707, Antonio Caldara decided to leave the service of the Duke and moved to Rome at the beginning of 1708. Maybe already thinking about his future, he would not want to risk his reputation with the Habsburg family by staying at the Duke’s service.
The whole year 1708 was spent moving from Rome to Barcelona and then to Venice. In Rome, Caldara came under the patronage of the cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, known for his numerous libretti for oratorios. He also met and worked with several famous composers of his time such as Arcangello Corelli, Bernardo Pasquini, Carlo Francesco Cesarini, Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti and Georg Friedrich Handel. Lent of 1708 was particularly rich in oratorio performances. Caldara certainly heard Alessandro Scarlatti’s Passione del Nostro Signor Giesù Cristo, Giardino di Rose, and Oratorio per la Santissima Annunziata. He also may have heard Handel’s Resurrezione, and Cesarini’s Figlio prodigo.8 Unfortunately, the atmosphere of emulation that Antonio found in Rome could not last very long because of the War of Spanish Succession that was still ongoing in Italy. During the summer of 1708, the Habsburg troops besieged Rome, and many of these composers were scattered through Italy and Europe.
Antonio Caldara decided to move to Barcelona. This was quite ironic because he even composed in August 1708 for the wedding of Charles III, the Habsburg claimant to the throne, one of the characters behind the War of Spanish Succession. At the end of the year 1708, Caldara finally went back to Italy, to Venice and Rome where he became Maestro di Cappella of the Prince Francesco Maria Ruspoli (1672-1731) in March 1709. As Handel right before him, through the Prince he had the patronage of “perhaps the most lavish of many notable Roman patrons of the arts”.9 From this date and until his departure for Vienna in 1716, Antonio Caldara had a flourishing career as composer. He composed about 180 cantatas with various settings: 100 for solo voice and strings, 50 for solo voice and basso continuo and about 30 for voices and strings. In Roma, Caldara had met a different practice than in Venice or Mantua ; there was a strong prevalence of strings over woodwinds instruments as obbligato instruments.10 He was also asked by Prince Ruspoli to write music for the Sunday morning conversazioni that took place in the Palazzo Bonelli. The conversazioni were gatherings that included religious or spiritual musical works that were held not in church, but in palaces of noblemen. It is possible that some of the works performed for these occasions were spiritual cantatas or even oratorios. But instead of a sermon between the two parts of the oratorio, some drinks and food were proposed to the wealthy and influential audience. Caldara’s work also consisted of composing oratorios for the Lent period. As theaters were closed and opera performances were forbidden during Lent, it is possible that oratorios became more and more important during this religious period and were used as sacred substitutes to operas. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends approximately six weeks later, before Easter Sunday, containing six sundays including Palm Sunday. There are therefore seven occasions for the performance of important musical works such as oratorios during the Lent period.
In Lent 1710, Antonio Caldara composed the oratorio Santa Francesca Romana, which was performed in Palazzo Bonelli on the 16th of March 1710, and revived La castita al cimento, an oratorio composed in 1705, and performed again in Palazzo Bonelli on the 23rd of March 1710.
In 1711, he revived four oratorios composed between 1698 and 1700, before his arrival in Rome. These six oratorios were repeated in 1712 and in 1713, with in addition the Oratorio di San Stefano, Primo Re dell’Ungheria, composed in 1712 and performed on the 5th of March 1713 in Palazzo Bonelli.
During Lent of 1713, Caldara also composed Santa Flavia Domitilla for the Chiesa Nuova in Rome. This church is one of the places of origin of the creation of the oratorio genre during the first half of the 17th century. Knowing that Caldara composed an oratorio for this specific church can show us his perfect understanding of the genre, the acknowledgement as an oratorio composer by the Congregazzione dell’Oratorio, the active part he has played in the evolution of the genre during his life and the direct lineage that exists between him and the first oratorio composers in this place in the 17th century.
In 1715, on the occasion of the completion of the renovation of his Palazzo Gaetani, Prince Ruspoli asked Caldara six new oratorios for Lent that would be performed in the renovated palace. In the year 1715, Lent began on the 6th of March. For the 1st Sunday of Lent on the 10th of March, Caldara proposed Santa Ferma, an oratorio composed in 1713. On the second Sunday of Lent, no oratorio by Caldara was performed and I do not know if a work from another composer was performed on the 17th of March. The Oratorio per la Santissima Annunziata, composed also in 1713, had its first performance on the 3rd Sunday of Lent (24th of March). For the 4th Sunday, on the 31st of March, Caldara’s Abisai was performed. Then Caldara’s Jephte, on the 7th of April, and for Palm Sunday on the 14th of April, Caldara composed La conversione di Clodoveo rè di Francia. The last of the six oratorios asked by Ruspoli was performed on Easter Sunday on the 21st of April and was Caldara’s La ribellione d'Assalonne.
From 1709 to 1715, Caldara was not fixed in Rome and continued to travel through Italy and Europe to pursue his goal to find a better work situation. In 1711, after his wedding with the contralto Caterina Petrolli in May, they both left Rome to return to Barcelona. The unexpected death of the Emperor Joseph I in Vienna made Antonio hope that Charles III, for whom he composed his wedding music in 1708, could choose him as Kapellmeister when he became the new emperor (as brother of Joseph I). The death of Antonio Pancotti in 1709 had indeed left a vacancy at the imperial chapel of Vienna.
Caldara, expecting a lot from his meeting with the new Emperor Charles VI, went to Milano in August 1711 in order to see him on his way to his coronation in Frankfurt. We don’t know if the Italian composer continued all the way until Frankfurt. What we know is that Caldara was in Vienna at the beginning of 1712, but he arrived too late and Ziani and Fux had already been promoted Kapellmeister and promised Vice-kapellmeister, respectively. Caldara remained until June 1712 in Vienna and then finally went back to Rome travelling through Salzburg. In this Austrian city, he met the Prince-Archbishop von Harrach with whom he stayed in contact until Caldara’s arrival in Vienna in 1716.
In 1715, Caldara had new hopes in Vienna after he learned about Ziani’s death. He wrote to the imperial court, but when his demand arrived, Fux had already been promoted Kapellmeister of the Hofmusikkapelle. Since his first visit to Vienna in 1712, Caldara remained connected to the imperial court, to which he sent two oratorios: Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo in 1713 and Santa Flavia Domitilla in 1714. In 1717, Caldara’s efforts and patience were finally rewarded when he was named vice-kapellmeister. He may have known about his nomination before this year, because he left Rome and Prince Ruspoli’s patronage in May 1716.
As vice-kapellmeister at the Hofmusikkapelle in Vienna, Caldara had numerous duties and his way of composing changed. The composition of vocal music increased considerably. He was responsible for one of the theaters of the city, and was asked to compose operas for several occasions each year: nameday, birthday of the emperor and empress, carnival of the court. He also had to make music for the Habsburg family members’ weddings or feasts from time to time, he was expected to compose one or two oratorios each Lent and to propose new sacred music for the religious services of Sunday and during the week. The result of this last demand are several hundreds of masses and motets.
1. One grand festival opera annually for the emperor’s name day (4 November).
2. One opera or serenata for the empress’ birthday (28 August) every other year and each year from 1732 onward.
3. One serenata or festa for the birthday of the emperor (1 October) or name day of the empress (19 November).
4. One carnival opera annually from 1726 onward.
5. Many small cantatas or serenatas for family celebrations at the emperor’s home, royal receptions, etc., on a yearly basis.
6. Three large wedding celebrations of the archduchesses.
7. One or two great oratorios each year, regularly performed during Holy Week or for the preceding Lenten devotions.
8. Works for foreign princes, especially for the archbishop of Salzburg and Count Questenberg.
9. Three additional operas in some years (five in 1724 and four in 1727).
10. Hundreds of church works including Masses, Propers, Vespers, Te Deums, Magnificats, and a cycle of 34 Offertoria for the entire liturgical year (1718/19)11
Vienna was a prolific city for musical creation and the Emperor Charles VI really took care of the composers and musicians that were at his service. Caldara was no exception and had apparently “access to lavish instrumental and vocal resources and the abilities of famed performers, as well as the constant admiration of a monarch who prized him above all other composers”.12 According to Warren Kirkendale, in the preface of the English translation of Ursula Kirkendale “Antonio Caldara: sein Leben und seine venezianisch-römischen Oratorien“, Caldara “was the highest paid and most privileged composer of the eighteenth century, enjoying unprecedented favour of a musically knowledgeable emperor”.13
Because of the imperial family’s high regard for him and his hard work to complete all that was asked, Caldara was a really well paid musician. He was even better paid than Fux who was kapellmeister when Antonio was only vice-kapellmeister. Maybe this difference of salary between the two composers is due to their different roles at the imperial chapel. It is possible that Fux was mostly responsible for conducting the music while Caldara was rather more responsible for composing it.14 Caldara started with 1600 florins in 1716, then 2500 the year right after, reaching 3900 florins from 1729 until his death in 1736.
Next to the Hofmusikkapelle, Antonio Caldara was a founding member of the Cäcilien-Bündnis. It was an organisation created in 1725 in Vienna to promote sacred music. Fux was also a member, and the Emperor Charles VI even recognized and protected the organisation.15 Antonio Caldara also had another important patron in Salzburg, the Count von Harrach, Archbishop of Salzburg, whom he knew from his return trip from Vienna to Rome in 1712. The Italian composer managed to keep contact with the Archbishop until his arrival in Vienna in 1716 and the latter asked him several compositions after Caldara’s appointment at the imperial chapel.16
It is possible that Caldara died on 1736 because of intense pressure to produce works in a short time. Contrary to composers of his time, he “made no recourse to the music of other composers” to complete his composition work.17 According to Pritchard, his death could possibly have been due to mental and physical exhaustion. Caldara had to finish five psalms and a Magnificat for the feast of St Peter and St Paul on the 30th of June 1736. Then, he needed to compose and stage two operas seria between June and the Emperor’s name day on the 4th November of the same year.
1) Marchese Francesco Maria Ruspoli (1672-1731)
2) Palazzo Bonelli
3) Memorial plate of Handel and Corelli's "Resurezzione" in Palazzo Bonelli (1708)
4) Palazzo Bonelli in Roma (today Valentini)
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