Ep 25. Giovanni Battista Rogeri Part 2

In this second episode on Giovanni Battista Rogeri we look at his family and children. Living in Brescia also meant that Rogeri was in the heart of an Opera loving people close to Venice and an exciting time musically and instrumentally.

Transcript

 Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting, violin makers of history.  I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French Violin Making School some years ago now, and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband, Antoine, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de Luthierie in Mircourt. As well as being a luthier, I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with, and in particular, the lives of those who made them.  So often when we look back at history, I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect. But here my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture. So join me as I wade through tales not only of fame, famine and war, but also of love, artistic genius, revolutionary craftsmanship, determination, cunning and bravery that all have their part to play in the history of the violin.

Welcome back to part two of The Life of Giovanni Battista Rogeri. In the last episode of the Violin Chronicles, we looked at Rogeri's early life. His apprenticeship with the master Niccolo Amati himself in Cremona. He's moved to Brescia seeking out greener pastures. And now he is in Brescia where we will see his style really come into its own and take a look at this thing Opera, that was really changing the musical landscape for musicians and instrument makers alike.

So stay with me as we take a dive into the life and career of Giovanni Battista Ruggieri. Not Ruggeri, Rogeri. Before we move on, I would like to say that I am an independent podcaster and really appreciate the support people have been showing in helping this show happen. If you would like to be one of those people helping me make more content for you to enjoy, consider going to patreon.com forward slash the violin chronicles, where you can have access to extra episode and help make things happen. 

We now find ourselves in the home of Laura and Giovanni Rugeri. The year after this young couple married in 1665, they had their first child called Pietro Giacomo and would go on to have at least six more children. Two years after Pietro's birth, they had another son called Gio Paolo. These two sons would be the only surviving boys of the Rogeri's five sons and would go on to become violin makers as well. In these early years, there is not much we know about Giovanni Battista Rogeri's work, but five years on, into the 1670s, we see an active workshop Giovanni definitely had his own style. When working for Niccolò Amati, his hand can be seen in that cremonese workshop as his instruments differed to those of Niccolò.  His bolder style even influenced the young Girolamo II Amati in the development of his own characteristic instruments.

Now, if you can cast your minds back to the first few episodes of the Violin Chronicles, where we spoke about the city of Brescia, we looked at its close connection with Venice. And now that Venice is embracing this exciting new art form called opera, it's no surprise that Brescia is not far behind. And the year before Rogeri married, in 1664, Brescia opened its very own commercial opera house. And this first theatre was called the Teatro degli Erranti.  Cremona would never embrace opera to the extent that the Venetian state did. And here we find Giovanni Battista Rogeri setting up his workshop in the midst of this exciting time for the city of Brescia.  Here I talk to Stephen Mould about how opera was so different to anything people had ever seen how it was pulling on human emotion and the impact music would have had on people at this time in this part of Italy.

Linda Lespets

And, and also I've, the, with the history of opera, we're sort of going from this Renaissance style. And we sort of move through to the Baroque, which is more, so we're going from the, you know, the Pythagorean theory of music was sort of God's omnipotence and to music being this source of bringing out human emotion. It's sort of the, the idea of music and the sort of thinking behind music was changing during this time of opera developing as well. Yeah. And can we see that in the operas? 

Stephen Mould

Look, what you're talking about is absolutely valid. I tend to think of all of those kinds of ideas, they were sort of in the air.

Linda Lespets

Yeah. In the same way that Yeah, because I feel like opera really was, it's all about drama. It is. And human emotion. Like love and jealousy and revenge.

Stephen Mould

Yes. And so the interesting thing