A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Mayer, Johann Simon

MAYER, or MAYR, Johann Simon, esteemed opera composer in the beginning of this century, born June 14, 1763, at Mendorf in Bavaria; early showed talent for music, which he first learned from his father the village schoolmaster and organist. When about 10 he entered the Jesuit seminary at Ingolstadt, but did not neglect his music, either then or when after the banishment of the Jesuits he studied law in Ingolstadt. Having made the acquaintance of a nobleman, Thomas de Bessus of the Grisons, he lived in the house as music master, and was afterwards sent by his patron to Bergamo, to study with Lenzi, maestro di capella there. Mayr found however that his master knew little more than himself, and was on the point of returning to Germany, when Count Pesenti, a canon of Bergamo, provided him with the means of going to F. Bertoni in Venice. Here again his expectations were deceived, but he picked up some practical hints and a few rules from Bertoni, and hard work and the study of good books did the rest. He had already published some songs in Ratisbon; and in Bergamo and Venice he composed masses and vespers. After the success of his oratorio 'Jacob a Labano fugiens,' composed in 1791 for the Conservatorio dei Mendicanti, and performed before a distinguished audience, he was commissioned to compose three more oratorios for Venice ('David,' 'Tobiae matrimonium' and 'Sisara'). For Forli he wrote 'Jephte' and a Passion. Thrown on his own resources by the sudden death of his patron, he was urged by Piccinni to try the stage, and his first opera 'Saffo, ossia i riti d' Apollo Leucadio' was so well received at the Fenice in Venice (1794) that he was immediately overwhelmed with commissions, and between that date and 1814 composed no less than 70 operas. Indeed it was not till Rossini's success that his fame declined. Many of his melodies were sung about the streets, such as the pretty cavatina 'O quanto l'anima' from 'Lauso e Lidia.' In 1802 he became maestro di capella of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, and was so much attached to his work there, that he declined not only invitations to London, Paris, Lisbon, and Dresden, but also the post of Censor to the Conservatorio of Milan, his appointment to which had been signed by the Viceroy of Italy in 1807. As professor of composition in the musical Institute of Bergamo,—founded in 1805, reorganised in 1811—he exercised great and good influence, Donizetti was one of his pupils there. He was the founder of two institutions for decayed musicians and their widows, the 'Scuola caritatevole di Musica,' and the 'Pio Institute di Bergamo.' He had been blind for some years before his ' death, which took place on Dec. 2, 1845. The city of Bergamo erected a monument to him in 1852, and in 1875 his remains and those of Donizetti were removed with much ceremony to the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. The most celebrated of his operas are 'Lodoïska' (1795 [App. p.715 "1800"]), 'Ginevra di Scozia' (1801), 'Medea' (1812 [App. p.715 "1813"]), and 'Rosa bianca e Rosa rossa' (1814). He also set the libretto of Cherubini's 'Deux Journées.' He is said to have been the first to introduce the crescendo of the orchestra to which Rossini owes so much of his fame. He wrote a small book on Haydn (1809), a biography of Capuzzi the violinist, and poems on his death in 1818; also 'La Dottrina degli elementi musicali' still in MS. in Bergamo.

[ F. G. ]