Pugnarti, (Giulio) Gaetano (Gerolamo)
Pugnarti, (Giulio) Gaetano (Gerolamo)
Pugnarti, (Giulio) Gaetano (Gerolamo) , celebrated Italian violinist and composer; b. Turin, Nov. 27, 1731; d. there, July 15, 1798. He studied violin with G.B. Somis. When he was 10, he was allowed to play in the last chair of the 2nd violins in the orch. of Turin’s Teatro Regio; he officially became a member of the orch. on April 19, 1748. In 1749, on a royal stipend, he went to Rome to study with Ciampi, and later toured in Europe as a concert violinist. Pugnarti was particularly successfui in London, where he played concerts with J.C. Bach; from 1767 to 1769 he also served as conductor at the King’s Theatre, where he brought out his successful opera Nanetta e Lubino (April 8, 1769). He then returned to Turin, where he was appointed concertmaster of the King’s Music and of the orch. of the Teatro Regio in 1770. He was named general director of instrumental music in 1776; in 1786 he served as supervisor of military music. He made, from 1780 to 1782, a concert tour of Europe, which included a visit to Russia. He was also active as a teacher of the violin. His students included Viotti, Conforti, Bruni, and Poliedro. His style of composition approximated that of Tartini. Fritz Kre-isler publ. an arrangement for violin and piano of a piece, purportedly by Pugnani, titled Preludio e Allegro e Tempo di Minuetto, but this proved to be by Kreisler himself.
Works
DRAMATIC: Nanetta e Lubino, opera buffa (London, April 8, 1769); Issea, favola pastorale (Turin, 1771); lamas Kouli-Kan nell’India, dramma per musica (Turin, Feb. 1, 1772; not extant); Aurora, festa per musica (Turin, 1775; not extant); Adone e Venere, opera seria (Naples, Nov. 1784); Achille in Sciro, dramma per musica (Turin, Jan. 15, 1785); Demofoonte, dramma per musica (Turin, Dec. 26, 1787); Demetrio a Rodi, festa per musica (Turin, 1789); also Correso e Calliroe, balleto eroico (1792; not extant), ballet music to Gluck’s Orfeo (not extant), and an oratorio, Betulla liberata. OTHER: Violin Concerto; sinfonias; overtures; 40 trio sonatas; 6 string quartets; Violin Sonatas; duets for 2 Violins; about 20 sonatas for Violin and Basso Continuo.
Bibliography
G. Rangoni, Essai sur le goût de la musique… Saggio sul gusto della musica col carattere de’ tre celebri sonatori di violino i signori Nardini, Lolli, e P. (Livorno, 1790); F. Fayolle, Notices sur Corelli, Tartini, Gaviniès, P. et Viotti (Paris, 1810); A. Bertolotti, G. P. e altri musici alla corte di Torino nel secolo XVIII (Milan, 1892); A. Della Corte, Notizie di G. P. (Turin, 1931); E. von Zschinsky-Troxler, G. P. (Berlin, 1939).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire