Antonín Stamic - Sinfonia in Es

Antonín Stamic

 (Německý Brod [now Havlíčkův Brod], 27 Nov 1750 - Paris, 1809)

Composer, violinist andviola player, son of Johann Stamitz.

 Sinfonia in Es  

Intèrprets: Pardubice State Chamber Orchestra; Libor Hlaváček

Pintura: Jean Jacques de Boissieu (1736-1810) - Les petits Charlatans

He should not be confused with a brother, Johann Baptist. Anton was born during a family visit to Německý Brod. Johann Stamitz had returned to Mannheim in late March 1750, and his wife and new son presumably joined him there in 1751. Anton grew up at the electoral court and as a youth received violin instruction from his brother Carl and from Christian Cannabich. He is listed in court almanacs as a violinist in the Mannheim orchestra in 1764–6 and again in 1770. The latter listing states that he was a supernumerary (Accessist), and it is probable that this was his status during the entire period 1764–70. In 1770 he moved to Paris with Carl. There, in addition to performing during the next 20 years, Anton composed the main body of his works – principally concertos (many for his own use), quartets, trios and duos. The first specific mention of Anton in Paris occurs in a report in the Mercure de France of the Concert Spirituel on 25 March 1772, when he played a violin and viola duo with Carl. Anton may also have appeared at other concerts between 1772 and March 1777 for which the Mercure de France gives only the surname ‘Stamitz’. As a composer he is first explicitly mentioned in May 1777, when a symphonie concertante by him for oboe and bassoon was performed at the Concert Spirituel. With Carl’s departure for England in 1777, Anton figured more prominently in Parisian musical circles, appearing twice at the Concert Spirituel in 1778 as soloist in his own viola concertos. Between 24 December 1779 and 24 December 1787 five more concertos, one definitely by Anton and several of the others probably so, were played at these concerts. Mozart, who was in Paris in 1778, was evidently not favourably impressed with either Anton or Carl, for he wrote to his father from there (9 July):

Of the two Stamitz brothers only the younger one is here, the elder (the real composer à la Hafeneder) is in London. They indeed are two wretched scribblers, gamblers, swillers and adulterers – not the kind of people for me. The one who is here has scarcely a decent coat to his back.

Mozart’s statements of this sort cannot always be taken at face value, but there is evidence that Anton had numerous debts, at least during the 1780s. Between September 1778 and 31 January 1780 Stamitz was violin instructor to Rodolphe Kreutzer at Versailles, receiving 18 livres monthly for 12 lessons. Many of his duos for string instruments were no doubt written in conjunction with his teaching, and as an instructor he gained fame when Kreutzer, aged 13, made a successful début playing a violin concerto of Anton’s at the Concert Spirituel on 25 May 1780.

In 1782 the Almanach musical provided an address in Paris for Stamitz, but in the same year he probably moved to Versailles, for court records list him as a violinist with the musique du roi there from 1782 to 1789. At the same time various publications give Anton the title ordinaire de la musique du roi. With the Revolution in 1789 Stamitz dropped from sight. A news item from 1796 states that he was at that time in an asylum for the insane, having gone mad in 1789 (Lebermann). He must have died at some point between 1796 and 1809, for two letters from his widow, N. Bouchet de Grandpré, written in Paris in June and November 1809, explain that she is no longer receiving the pension of 800 livres granted at the death of her husband.