Franghiskos Leontaritis: His biographyThe following biography is based on Prof. N.M. Panayiotakis' book "Franghiskos Leontaritis: Cretan composer of the 16th century. Accounts of his life and work", Library of the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies, No. 12, Venice (1990). Franghiskos
Leontaritis was the offspring of the harmonious interaction of the Greek-Byzantine
tradition with the Latin-Italian one. Greek by origin, but catholic in faith, F.
Leontaritis was the son of a catholic priest and official (thesaurarius) at St.
Titus, cathedral of the archbishopic of Crete, and of an orthodox mother. Born
(~1518) and raised in Chandakas, the capital of Venetian-dominated Crete, he was
apparently gifted with a marvellous voice and had displayed his musical talent
at an early age. The support he received from the environment of Pietro Lando,
who was of the same age and who later became archbishop of Crete, seems to have
helped him achieve his artistic goals in Rome as well as in Venice, where he was
by 1544. While in the ‘‘eternal city’’, he managed to overcome all
obstacles to his ordination as a priest. But it is possible that Leontaritis was
sent at an early age to Italy to study music.
At
the age of 30, after an intervention by the doge of Venice F. Donato (which
shows that Leontaritis had already become a famous musician), he was hired on
June 4, 1549 as cantore, i.e. a singer in the famous choir of the temple of San
Marco in Venice, at a salary of 50 ducats a year. The music life of the city
entered a ‘‘golden era’’ with the appointment of the Flemish Adrian
Willaert as director of the choir of the temple in 1527. Willaert stayed in that
position for thirty-five years, and was Leontaritis’ maestro di capella. Being
a member of the choir of San Marco was something to be envied. Leontaritis’
marvelous voice and musical dexterity made him one of the most famous and sought-after
musicians in the city. In 1557 he gave up the choir, but remained in Venice for
five more years. His life there was rather artistically fruitful. His personal
life, however, was full of bitterness and unpleasant adventures, the most
significant of which was the temporary forfeiture of his priesthood in 1552.
In
1562 he went to Bavaria, where he was hired as a member of the choir of the
Munich court. Before him, two other important musicians of the time, related to
Venice, the Flemish Cipriano de Rore, successor to Willaert, and the Italian
Andrea Gabrieli, had followed the same road to Munich. The choir of the Bavarian
court was at the time one of the most famous throughout Europe, having for many
years as maestro the great musician Orlando di Lasso. There is evidence that the
duke knew Leontaritis personally and held him in high esteem for his ability as
a musician and his intelligence as a person. Leontaritis’ overall service in
the choir of the Bavarian court seems to have been quiet and creative, since
most of his surviving work, his three very melodic masses and an indeterminable
number of motets and secular works, is attributed to that period, which lasted
five years. By
the beginning of 1567 he was away from Munich, in Venice, and for a short time
in Cremona. However, his financial situation in Venice being very bleak, he
tried to go back to Munich, but in vain. Finally, he mortgaged everything he had
in order to meet his needs and debts. He even reached a point when he avoided
being seen in the city. After his failure to return to Munich, and due to the
disadvantageous situation in Venice, he went back to his birthplace. There at
least he was away from the hunt of his creditors, and found the peace and quiet
he had been seeking for so many years. He also found his mother still alive, and
took over his father’s property, which he started to sell in order to pay back
his creditors. With his return to Chandakas, he was restored to his priesthood.
After the intervention of the archbishop Pietro Lando and his other friend
Viviani, bishop of Sitia and Ierapetra, he was appointed canonicate at St. Titus,
and thus finally found his way again into the bosom of the Catholic Church. He
was reinstated as an organist and a teacher of music, this time with the
advantage of his maturity and the priceless experience he had gained from his
service in two of the most important music centers of Europe, Venice and Munich.
Leontaritis
probably died in 1572 or a year later, having experience joys and sorrows in an
era marked by the struggle for recognition of the uniqueness of the individual
and the right for free spiritual and artistic creation.
Although he was a collaborator-if not a student- of some of the greatest musicians of the time (A.Willaert and O.di Lasso), he managed to go his own musical way, marked by the diversity of melodic lines in all parts, harmonie flexibility, imaginative melodies with exquisite climaxes, proof of his great talent, the reformation of the music according to the demands of the text, and the imaginative rhythmic patterns leading the parts, with the help of the harmony, to an unprecedented rhythmic-melodic interwinding. All this, in a restless alternation, compose the ingenious artistic spirit of Franghiskos Leontaritis.
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