St. Mark's, augmenting it to 34 performers, thus disposed—8 violins, 11 violette, 2 viole da braccio, 2 viole da gamba, 1 violone, 4 theorbos, 2 cornets, 1 bassoon, and 3 trombones. He composed industriously, and left specimens of his skill in most departments of music—motets, masses, psalms, instrumental music of various kinds, and 17 operas, of which the most remarkable are 'Achille in Scyro,' his first (1664); 'La Divisione del Mondo' (1675); 'I due Cesari' (1683) mentioned in the Paris 'Mercure Galant' (March 1683); and 'Pertinace' (1684), his last. They were nearly all produced in Venice. Like Scarlatti, and other composers of his time, he did not attempt to banish the comic element from his serious operas. One of his orchestral compositions is in 7 real parts, and all are important. His best pupils were Lotti and Gasparini.
Legrenzi's name will be handed down to posterity by Bach and Handel, both of whom have treated subjects from his works, the former in an organ fugue in C minor on a 'Thema Legrenzianum elaboratum cum subjecto pedaliter' (Griepenkerl & Roitsch,[1] iv. No. 6); and the latter in the phrase 'To thy dark servant light and life afford,' in the Chorus 'O first-created beam' from Samson. This is taken from a motet of Legrenzi's—'Intret in conspectu,' of which a copy in Handel's handwriting is to be found among the MSS. at Buckingham Palace (Chrysander, 'Händel ' i. 179).
LEIDESDORF, Max Josef, a musician and music-seller of Vienna, who appears to have lived there from about 1804 to 1827, and then to have left it for Florence, where he died Sept. 26, 1840. He will go down to posterity embalmed in a little note[2] of Beethoven's, apparently written at the earlier of the two dates just given above, sending Ries for some easy 4-hand pieces—'and better still let him have them for nothing'—beginning with a pun on his name, 'Dorf des Leides!' and ending 'Beethoven minimus.' Leidesdorf was one of those who signed the address to Beethoven in 1824, praying him to produce the Ninth Symphony and the Mass in D, and to write a second opera. [See p. 196b.] He was one of Schubert's publishers.
LEIGHTON, Sir William, Knight, one of the band of Gentlemen Pensioners of Elizabeth and James I, published in 1614 'The Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowfvll Soule; Composed with Musicall Ayres and Songs both for Voyces and Divers Instruments.' The work consists of 54 metrical psalms and hymns, 17 of which are for 4 voices, with accompaniments, in tableture, for the lute, bandora and cittern; and 13 for 4 voices and 24 for 5 voices without accompaniment. The first 8 pieces are of Leighton's own composition, and the rest were contributed by the following composers:—Dr. John Bull, William Byrde, John Coperario, John Dowland, Alfonso Ferrabosco, Thomas Ford, Orlando Gibbons, Nathaniel Giles, Edmond Hooper, Robert Johnson, Robert Jones, Robert Kindersley, Thomas Lupo, John Milton, Martin Pearson, Francis Pilkington, Timolphus Thopul (a pseudonym), John Ward, Thomas Weelkes and John Wilbye. From the dedication to Prince Charles we learn that the collection was compiled while the worthy knight was—unjustly, as he alleges—incarcerated for debt. He had in the preceding year published the poetry alone in a duodecimo volume.
LEIPZIG (i.e. the place of Lime-trees), in Saxony, on the junction of the Pleisse and the Elster, 135,000 inhabitants, has for a long time been the most musical place in North Germany. When Rochlitz visited Beethoven[3] at Vienna in 1822, the first thing which the great composer did was to praise Leipzig and its music—'If I had nothing to read but the mere dry lists of what they do, I should read them with pleasure. Such intelligence! such liberality!' The main ostensible causes of this pre-eminence have been (1) the long existence of the St. Thomas school as a musical institution with a first-class musician as its Cantor; (2) the Gewandhaus concerts; (3) the presence of the great music-publishing house of Breitkopfs, almost equal in importance to a public institution; (4) the existence for fifty years of the principal musical periodical of the country—the 'Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung'; (5) in our own times, the long residence there of Mendelssohn, and the foundation by him of the Conservatorium, with its solid and brilliant staff of professors—a centre, for many years, of the musical life not only of Germany, but of other countries; and lastly (6) several very remarkable private musical institutions.
1. The Thomas-schule, or School of St. Thomas, is an ancient public school of the same nature as our cathedral and foundation grammar-schools, but with the special feature that about 60 of the boys are taught music, who are called Alumni, and are under the charge of a Cantor, forming the 'Thomaner-Chor.' This body is divided into 4 choirs, with a Prefect at the head of each, and serve the Churches of St. Thomas, St. Nicholas, St. Peter, and the Neukirche or New-Church. On Sundays the first choir joins the town orchestra for the morning service at St. Thomas or St. Nicholas; and on Saturday afternoons at 1.30 the whole four choirs unite in a performance under the direction of the Cantor. The boys are remarkable for the readiness and correctness with which they sing the most difficult music at sight.
The Cantor, in German towns and villages, corresponds to the Precentor or leader of the choir in English cathedrals and churches, and the Cantor of the St. Thomas School at Leipzig has for long been acknowledged as the head and representative of them all. For more than two centuries the office has been filled by very distinguished musicians, as will be seen
