Mozart's attempts to secure a permanent position in Italy failed, despite his father Leopold's reluctance to leave the country and Empress Maria Theresia's dissuasion of her son, Archduke Ferdinand Karl, from hiring Mozart in Milan.
Composer Biography
Carlo Lenzi, born in 1735, served as Maestro di Cappella at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo for 40 years until his death in 1805.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Mozart, in a 1776 letter to Padre Martini, expressed his view that "Our church music is very different from that in Italy," highlighting a contrast in musical practices.
Compositional Technique
Lenzi's Suonate fatte per la fonzione del Venerdì S.to demonstrate imaginative symphonic thinking and a keen interest in orchestral colors, with each of the six sonatas requiring a different instrumentation, and one even calling for two orchestras.
Composition History
In 1771, the Consiglio della Misericordia Maggiore commissioned Lenzi to compose twelve pieces annually, including a mass, motets, psalms, hymns, and a Marian antiphon, to replace obsolete church music.
Composer Biography
Lenzi received his musical education in Naples, a city renowned for its four conservatories that also produced composers like Pergolesi, Paisiello, and Cimarosa.
Composition History
Lenzi's collection of six sonatas, Suonate fatte per la fonzione del Venerdì S.to, was commissioned in 1771 by the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Rosario in Cádiz for a Good Friday service.
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