Unlike today, where composers can receive or pitch for commissions from individuals, companies, or foundations, the options for funding during the Baroque Era were considerably narrower. It’s worth contextualizing the role of the composer in the 17th Century, as it often seems to be overlooked.
The Role of Patronage in Baroque Era Music
Antonio Vivaldi’s Career and Challenges
For many composers, working for the Church was as lucrative as it got. Whilst salaries varied and were commonly modest, the posts did at least offer regular employment.
If we take a small glance at the jobs of our most celebrated Baroque composers, you will come to see that there is a distinct similarity. Antonio Vivaldi, for example, devoted most of his life to the Ospedale Della Pietà in Venice.
Here, his duties included composing significant quantities of music for the young ladies under his tutelage. He would have given composition and violin lessons to the students as well as directing ensembles.
Vivaldi, towards the end of his life, was hoping to acquire the patronage of Emperor Charles VI, but the Emperor died shortly after Vivaldi moved to Vienna, leaving the composer virtually penniless.
JS Bach’s Early Career and Patronage
JS Bach is another example of his time. Trained by his elder brother (Johann Christian Bach) following the death of both of his parents, JS Bach was thoroughly schooled in several instruments as well as composition.
This education was essential for any aspiring musician as you needed to be a highly competent instrumentalist as well as a composer. In this way, your chances of becoming permanently employed were noticeably better.
Following his successful graduation from the prestigious St Michael’s School in Luneburg, JS Bach was able to get a job as a Court Musician to Duke Ernest III in Weimar.
This may not have been the most illustrious post for the young JS Bach, but it set him on a pathway that would determine most of the rest of his life.
For JS Bach, this would mean working for the Church as an organist and composer. JS Bach’s time in Weimar also assured him a formidable reputation as a keyboard master, opening many employment doors.
Even though neither of these well-known Baroque composers ever achieved the kind of salary a film composer like Carter Burrell or Hans Zimmer would command, it funded them sufficiently to allow them to compose some of the most celebrated music from their time.
The patronage of both nobility and The Church effectively meant that JS Bach and Vivaldi could create many famous and celebrated compositions that we still enjoy today.
George Friderick Handel: Patronage and Success
Throughout this Era of music, and indeed into the next two Eras of music, patronage from the wealthy continued to be essential for a composer’s success. George Frederick Handel was no exception to the practice of patronage.
Handel’s life is a fascinating and, in some ways, tragic one. He was not a composer who readily sold himself short. Far from it, Handel, it seems, from an early stage of his career, knew his worth. After a brief period of Law study, he tried to make a living as a violinist at the opera house in Hamburg, but this was not what Handel aspired to.
Around 1706, Handel embarked on a period of travel, mostly in Italy, where he networked rather successfully. He secured the patronage of many eminent Italian figures, from members of the church to Venetian aristocracy.
What Handel achieved in addition was to meet many of the highest profile Italian composers of his time. These included Arcangelo Corelli, Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti, and Bernardo Pasquini. There were others, and their influence permanently altered Handel’s style, as well as ensuring he got noticed.
Handel eventually settled in Britain and became a naturalized British citizen. Here, Handel wrote operas for the Queen’s Theatre in London, and soon after became the Musical Director of the newly founded Royal Academy of Music.
Handel’s royal connections stretch back to 1710 with Prince George, Elector of Hannover, and continue with King George II in England, for whom he composed Water Music. Other notable and influential patrons were the Fourth Earl of Cork and the 3rd Earl of Burlington, who supported Handel’s operatic ambitions.
One of the most important commissions was to compose four anthems for the Coronation of King George II. Zadok The Priest (1727) has endured and has been played at every coronation since then.
Whilst Handel was fortunate to circulate in such high strata of society, he had to work hard, fast, and brilliantly respond to commissions that he may not have chosen himself. Without this immense career success, maybe these compositions would never have come into being.
Georg Philipp Telemann’s Career and Influence
Georg Philipp Telemann, friend to both JS Bach and GF Handel, was a self-taught musician. (His first opera was supposedly composed when only twelve years of age.) Against his family’s wishes, as was so often the case with numerous Baroque composers, Telemann chose to pursue a career as a composer.
His pathway was not quite as prestigious as GF Handel’s, but he trod a familiar pathway through various posts as Director of the Opera House auf dem Brühl, Kapellmeister for Count Erdmann II, and into the service of Duke Johann Wilhelm in Eisenach.
Telemann’s move to Frankfurt secured his position as Kapellmeister at St Catherine’s Church, where his musical style matured and flourished. From Frankfurt to Hamburg as Kantor of the Johanneum Lateinschule.
Throughout Telemann’s life, he composed a phenomenal quantity of music, his total thought to be in the region of three thousand works. These include a large number of sacred works composed whilst in post, as well as a vast collection of concertos and overtures. Telemann’s influence and legacy should not be underestimated.
For all the composers here mentioned, there were countless others whose career journeys, if successful, would have traced similar pathways. Their compositions would have directly resulted from their jobs and/or connections with nobility.
The tastes of both patrons would influence the compositions, although the style would have been the subtle domain of the composer. Amongst the vast collection of Baroque compositions have come some of the most treasured pieces known to human beings.
Patronage in this sense not only gave an opportunity for genius to flourish but nurtured it and in so doing, created the music of the Baroque Era.