Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) was a Czech baroque composer, whose music wa… Read Full Bio ↴Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) was a Czech baroque composer, whose music was adventurous and noted for its great harmonic invention and mastery of counterpoint.
Zelenka was born in 1679 in Louňovice pod Blaníkem, Czechia, and received his early musical training from his father who was a schoolmaster and organist in Louňovice pod Blaníkem. It is thought that his early formal training was at a Jesuit college. After working in the service of Baron Hartig, imperial governor of Prague, Zelenka moved in 1710 to Dresden where he played the violone (double-bass viol) in the court orchestra. His musical studies continued in Vienna and Venice between 1715 and 1716. He returned to Dresden around 1719 as assistant to Kappelmeister Johann David Heinichen. Despite taking on many of the Kappelmeister's duties during Heinichen's years of ill health and eventual death, Zelenka was denied the prestigious post he aspired to. He spent his last ten years in the lesser post of "church music composer" at the court, dying in Dresden in 1745. Many of his surviving manuscripts are for sacred works.
Zelenka was born in 1679 in Louňovice pod Blaníkem, Czechia, and received his early musical training from his father who was a schoolmaster and organist in Louňovice pod Blaníkem. It is thought that his early formal training was at a Jesuit college. After working in the service of Baron Hartig, imperial governor of Prague, Zelenka moved in 1710 to Dresden where he played the violone (double-bass viol) in the court orchestra. His musical studies continued in Vienna and Venice between 1715 and 1716. He returned to Dresden around 1719 as assistant to Kappelmeister Johann David Heinichen. Despite taking on many of the Kappelmeister's duties during Heinichen's years of ill health and eventual death, Zelenka was denied the prestigious post he aspired to. He spent his last ten years in the lesser post of "church music composer" at the court, dying in Dresden in 1745. Many of his surviving manuscripts are for sacred works.
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32. Aria. Allegro
Jan Dismas Zelenka Lyrics
No lyrics text found for this track.
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
@mikearnold3236
This is without doubt one of the great Baroque compositions and deserves to be up there with Bach and Handel and Vivaldi!
@GUMMETJE20045
If I am correctly Bach was a friend of Zelenka
@claudiomenesesc
@@GUMMETJE20045 And sometime in history he was referred as the catholic Bach.
@mikearnold3236
Totally magnificent, grand and AM-AZ-ING!! Up there with the great trio of Bach, Handel and Vivaldi; I feel a quartet being established!
@oldionus
Handel and Vivaldi, of course were great opera composers, and Bach perhaps would have been as well, had there been an opera in Leipzig. But, frankly, I cannot but feel that Bach is a separate category; an unapproachable ultimate the likes of whom rarely occur in an entire age. This is an opera in all but name (sacred subject), and worthy of comparison to Handel and Vivaldi indeed.
@shadbolt4687
Amazing that this great musician gets no mention in the Pan book of great composers, the classic FM guide or the Penguin Dictionary of music. 24.56 sounds like Bach's oratorio style
@13jamesjoyce
A striking original and significant Baroque muical voice who is slowly being recognised. Extraordinary to think we had to wait until the 1950's for this composer to gradually emerge from an unjustified obscurity! Somehow he seems to avoid every Baroque compositional cliche in the book with music of real distiction.
@GoldenHairAngel
Beautiful. Such an underrated composer. He's almost never played.
@oldionus
Finally, I think, this is less true than it was even 20 years ago.
@GoldenHairAngel
@David Studhalter Seems like he's being played and recorded a little more. But still not much. I'm from the same country and he's not famous even here.