Daniel E. Freeman

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Daniel E. Freeman
Born27 April 1959
NationalityAmerican

Daniel Evan Freeman (born 27 April 1959) is an American musicologist who specializes in European art music of the eighteenth century, in particular the musical culture of eighteenth-century Prague and the Bohemian lands. He is also active as a pianist and music editor.

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Biography

He was born in Everett, Washington, but raised in Merrill, Wisconsin, from early childhood. [1] He earned a B.Mus. degree in piano performance at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1981 and also studied piano as a non-degree candidate at Indiana University with James Tocco. He studied musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (M.Mus, 1983, Ph.D., 1987), where his teachers included Bruno Nettl, John Walter Hill, Nicholas Temperley, and Herbert Kellman. His dissertation "The Opera Theater of Count Franz Anton von Sporck in Prague (1724-1735)" was revised and published in 1992 as the first monograph devoted to the musical cultural of eighteenth-century Prague or the Bohemian lands ever written in English. This work has been followed by two other books concerned with music-making in eighteenth-century Prague: Josef Mysliveček, "Il Boemo" (2009) [2] and Mozart in Prague (2013). No other musicologist of any nationality has succeeded in completing three separate monographs on the same subject matter.

Freeman's biography of Josef Mysliveček is partially the basis (along with material from the 2015 documentary film Zpověď zapomenutého) of the screenplay for the film Il Boemo (2022), written by Czech film director Petr Václav. The film was selected by the Czech Republic as its entry for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards.

Freeman has taught music history at the University of Illinois, the University of Southern California, and the University of Minnesota, where he is a lecturer. Since 2002, he has appeared frequently as a resident associate of the Smithsonian Institution. His research has been supported by grants from the International Research & Exchanges Board, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Newberry Library, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. [3] Besides his monographs, Freeman has published essays on Italian opera of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, eighteenth-century keyboard music, and the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, the Bach sons, Antonio Vivaldi, and Josquin des Prez. He has also published editions of the music of Josef Mysliveček and Giovanni Benedetto Platti and was a contributor to the New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992) and the revised New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001).

Freeman's essay "An 18th-Century Singer’s Commission of ‘Baggage’ Arias," originally published in the journal Early Music in 1992, was re-printed as a classic study about baroque opera in Opera Remade, 1700-1750 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010).

In October 2022, Freeman was awarded a silver medal from the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague for his efforts in promoting the music of Czech composers outside of the Czech homelands. [4]

Books

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<i>LOlimpiade</i> (Mysliveček) Opera by Josef Mysliveček

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<i>La Nitteti</i> Opera by Josef Mysliveček

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<i>Il trionfo di Clelia</i> (Mysliveček) Opera by Josef Mysliveček

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ezio (Mysliveček, 1775)</span> Opera by Josef Mysliveček (1775)

Ezio is an eighteenth-century Italian opera in 3 acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček. It was the composer's first setting of a libretto by the Italian poet Metastasio that was first performed with music by Pietro Auletta in 1728, one of the most popular of the Metastasian librettos in Mysliveček's day. The story is based on incidents from the lives of the 5th-century Roman emperor Valentinian III and his general Aetius. For a performance in the 1770s, it would only be expected that a libretto of such age would be abbreviated and altered to suit contemporary operatic taste. The cuts and changes in the text made for the 1775 performance of Mysliveček's opera are not attributable. All of Mysliveček's operas are of the serious type in Italian language referred to as opera seria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ezio (Mysliveček, 1777)</span> Opera by Josef Mysliveček (1777)

Ezio is an eighteenth-century Italian opera in 3 acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček. It was the composer's second setting of a libretto by the Italian poet Metastasio that was first performed in 1728, one of the most popular of the Metastasian librettos in Mysliveček's day. The story is based on incidents from the lives of the 5th-century Roman emperor Valentinian III and his general Aetius. For a performance in the 1770s, it would only be expected that a libretto of such age would be abbreviated and altered to suit contemporary operatic taste. The cuts and changes in the text made for the 1777 performance of Mysliveček's opera are not attributable. All of Mysliveček's operas are of the serious type in Italian language referred to as opera seria.

Collegium 1704 is a Czech early music orchestra and choir founded in 2005 by the Czech conductor, harpsichordist, and horn player Václav Luks. The Collegium Vocale 1704 is the affiliated vocal ensemble. Since 2007, the ensemble has been making regular guest appearances at festivals and concert halls all over Europe: the Salzburger Festspiele, the Berliner Philharmonie, London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Theater an der Wien and Konzerthaus, the Lucerne Festival, BOZAR in Brussels, the Chopin Festival in Warsaw, Wratislavia Cantans, and the Elbphilharmonie, and it is an ensemble-in-residence at the festival Oude Muziek in Utrecht and at the Leipzig Bachfest. In 2008, Music Bridge Prague — Dresden began, bringing together the two cities’ wealth of cultural traditions. In 2012 Collegium 1704 started a concert series at the Rudolfinum in Prague. Since autumn 2015, the two cycles have been merged into a single concert season that continues to take place in parallel in Prague and Dresden. In 2019 Collegium Vocale 1704 launched a series of chamber choir concerts in Prague.

Václav Luks is a Czech harpsichordist, horn player, conductor, musicologist and pedagogue, founder and artistic director of the Prague baroque orchestra Collegium 1704 and of the vocal ensemble Collegium Vocale 1704. He specialises in Baroque music, especially in the works of Jan Dismas Zelenka, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, and others. His activities have played an important role in reviving interest in the works of Czech composers including Zelenka and Josef Mysliveček. In 2022, Luks was awarded the title of Knight of the French Ministry of Culture, Arts and Letters.

<i>Il Boemo</i> 2022 film by Petr Václav

Il Boemo is a 2022 period biographical drama film about the life and career of the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček (1737–1781), written and directed by Petr Václav. Mysliveček was one of the most acclaimed and prolific composers of opera seria in Italy in the second half of the eighteenth century, and mentor and friend to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The film stars Vojtěch Dyk, Elena Radonicich, Barbara Ronchi, and Lana Vlady. The music for the film has been recorded by the Czech ensemble Collegium 1704 led by Václav Luks, featuring international soloists such as Philippe Jaroussky, Emöke Baráth, Raffaella Milanesi, and Simona Šaturová. It was selected as the Czech entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards. It premiered at 70th San Sebastián International Film Festival on 19 September 2022.

References

  1. Biographical information concerning Daniel E. Freeman is collected on the website Alliance Publications, Inc. - F - Freeman, Daniel Archived 2013-09-28 at the Wayback Machine .
  2. The research for Josef Mysliveček was featured in an article in the New York Times of 4 March 2007: see Interview with Daniel E. Freeman.
  3. See NEH Awards Archived 2017-05-04 at the Wayback Machine .
  4. See Newsletter of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University.