Cherubini and Azzopardi

May I share with those of your readers who have not seen it, an interesting detail from the programme that I wrote for the recent Muti concert.

One of the three composers whose music featured was Luigi Cherubini (full name Maria Luigi Carlo Zenobio Salvatore Cherubini), who was born in Florence on September 14, 1760.

Most certainly he is one of the great composers, one who was assured by Ludvig van Beethoven himself that he considered Cherubini the greatest composer of the time.

Cherubini was nothing if not forthright and he repaid this compliment by noting that Beethoven was always brusque and that Beethoven's music made him sneeze.

Cherubini gave further evidence of his outspokenness when he told Napoleon, who preferred Paisiello and certainly never brooked opposition: "Citoyen Général, I remark that you only care for music, which does not prevent you thinking of your politics."

Even in trying to be delicate, he could be the opposite, as when he is reported to have tried to comfort an unsuccessful musical candidate by telling him that his "voice was beautiful and he had vast musical acumen but that he was just too ugly to sing in public".

The whole of this preamble is to put into context a finding by my friend Dr Giovanna Iacovazzi. This rare outspokenness gives particular significance to her discovery.

She discovered that Cherubini makes reference to the Maltese composer, Francesco Azzopardi, in his 'Cours de contrepointe et de fugue', 1835, which he wrote for his pupils in the Paris Conservatoire in 1835. Cherubini quotes Azzopardi in the third part of this treatise, where he writes of the "imitation with three or four voices".

Cherubini immediately specifies that Azzopardi is a Maltese composer, an indication that Azzopardi was not as famous as Sarti, also quoted in the same 'Cours' but without any clarifications. Azzopardi had been a pupil of Cherubini, who must have held him in great esteem to have quoted a musical example from him. Cherubini quotes very few other composers in the 'Cours' and all of them very famous.

I thought this information would be of value to your readers, who should also be aware that we have many outstanding Azzopardi compositions, mainly in the Cathedral Archives, but also in the Archives of the Wignacourt Museum in Rabat.

I want to publicly acknowledge and thank Dr Iacovazzi for her discovery and the Italian Cultural Institute, as it was during one of the lectures they sponsored that I first heard of this.