Traetta, Filippo
Traetta, Filippo
Traetta, Filippo, Italian-American teacher and composer, son of Tommaso (Michele Francesco Saverio) Traetta; b. Venice, Jan. 8, 1777; d. Philadelphia, Jan. 9, 1854. He was a pupil of Fenaroli and Perillo at Venice, later of Piccinni at Naples. Becoming a soldier in the patriot ranks, he was captured and cast into prison; he escaped 6 months afterward, and sailed to Boston, arriving there in 1799. With Mallet and Graupner, he founded Boston’s American Conservatorio in 1801. Shortly after he went to Charleston, S.C., where he was active in N.Y as a performer and teacher (1808-17). He settled in Philadelphia in 1822 and founded the American Cons. Among his compositions were an opera, The Venetian Maskers (n.d.), and 3 oratorios, Peace (N.Y, Feb. 21, 1815), Jerusalem in Affliction (1828), and The Daughters of Zion (1829); also cantatas, piano pieces, and songs.
Writings
(all publ. in Philadelphia): An Introduction to the Art and Science of Music (n.d.); Rudiments of the Art of Singing, written and composed... A. D. 1800 (1841-43); Trajetta’s Preludes for the Piano Forte... Introductory to His System of Thorough Bass (1857).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire