Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SPONTINI
SQUAECIALUPI
him. The Mendelssohn family, at whose house
he at one time often visited, and to whom he
showed many kindnesses, were never on good
terms with him after the appearance of the
'
Hoohzeit des Oamaoho.' ^ He may not have
done justice to that youthful work, but it is a
pity that the noble-minded Mendelssohn should
have permitted himself the angry and contemptuous
expressions to he found in his letters. ^
The painful close of Spontini's career was enough
to atone for all his shortcomings.
Of his last years there is little to relate. On
leaving Berlin he went to Italy, and in Jan.
1843 was in Majolati. He had visited his
native land several times since 1822. In 1835
he was in Naples, at San Pietro in Majella, and
they showed him an exercise he had written
forty years before when a pupil at the ' Turchini.
He looked at it with tears in his eyes, and then
hegged the librarian to tear up ' qiieste meschiue
e sconce note ' (those wretched misshapen notes)
and throw them in the iire.^ In 1 838 he was in
Rome, and wrote (June i) to the King offering
his services as mediator between himself and the
Pope on the subject of the disturbances in
Cologne.* In 1843 he left Italy and settled at
Paris, where he had many pleasant connections
through his wife, an Erard, whom he had
married soon after the production of ' Cortez.'
He had been a member of the Institute since
1838. In 1844 the Pope made him Count of
S. Andrea, and other distinctions followed. But
the hope expressed by King Frederick William
IV. that he would produce other works was not
realised ; Berlin had broken him down physically
and mentally. He revisited Germany two or
three times. In 1844 he was in Dresden, where
Richard Wagner had prepared for him a performance
of the
' Vestale,' which he conducted
with all his old energy.^ He was invited to the
Cologne Musical Festival of May 1847 to conduct
some excerpts from ' Olympia,' and had a
warm reception, but was too iniirm to conduct,
and his place was taken by Doru, then Capellmeister
at Cologne.* In August he visited
Berlin, and was most graciously received by the
King, who gave him an invitation to conduct
some of his own operas at Berlin during the
ensuing winter. He was much delighted, and
thought a great deal about the performances
after his return to Paris, and also of the best
manner in which he could express his gratitude
and devotion to the King ; but the project was
never realised, as he was ill all the winter. In
1848 he became deaf, and his habitual gravity
deepened into depression. He went back to
Italy, and settled at Jesi, where he occupied
1 nevrient's Reoolteotions, p. 23.
2 Among oVbara aee Devrient, p. 74.
3
f Florimo, Oenno Storico, -p. 695.
* Whether anytliing came of this offer Is not known, hut Gregory
XVI. had a hjgh esteem for Spontini, and asked for his views on the
restoration of Catholic ohnrch-mueic.
^ For a clever and amusing account of it aee Wagner's OMammelte
Schriftetk, v. 114.
6 nom's Aua mainem Zeben, vol. iii. p. 21.
himself in founding schools and other works of
public utility. In 1850 he removed to Majolati,
and there died Jan. 14, 1851. Having no
children he left all his property to the poor of
Jesi and Majolati. p. s.
SPONTONE, or SPONTONI, Babtolommbo,
a madrigal composer, of whom nothing appears
to be known beyond the facts that he was a
pupil of Nicola Mantovano, and was maesti-o di
cappella in the cathedral of Verona ; that he
published a first book of Masses, a 5, 6, and 8, in
1588; a book of four-part madrigals in 1558 ; and
three sets of madrigals for five voices at Venice
in 1561 (2nd ed. 1583), 1567, and 1583.
Others are contained in the collections of Waelrant
(1 594) and others. Cipriano de Rore prints
a Dialogo, a 7, by him in 1568. A Mass, a 6, is
in vol. ii of Torchi's LArte ' Musicale in Italia.'
A fine four-part madrigal of Spontone's, 'The
joyous birds, ' is given in Hullah's Part Music, a.
See Vauxhall.
SPRING GARDEN.
SPROCHE—proverbs or sentences—are sung
in the Lutheran service of the Berlin Cathedral
after the reading of the Epistle :
1. On New Year's Day, 'Herr Gott, du hist
unser Zuflucht.'
2. On Good Friday, ' Um unser Siinden
willen.'
3. On Ascension Day, ' Erhaben, o Herr.'
4. On Christmas Day, 'Frohlocket, ihr
Vblker.'
Mendelssohn set these for eight-part chorus;
and in addition two more :
6. For Passion Week, ' Herr, gedenke nicht
unser Ubelthaten.'
6. For Advent, ' Lasset uns frohlocken.'
The six form op. /79 of his works. No. 3 (' Erhaben
') begins wfth the same phrase as his 1 1 4th
Psalm, op. 51, but there the resemblance ceases.
No. 2 is dated Feb. 18, 1844, and No. 5 (in
minims and for 4-part chorus) Feb. 14, 1844, and
each of the two is inscribed vor dem AUeluja
'
—before the Alleluia. They are mostly short,
the longest being only fifty bars in length.
Schumann entitled one of his little PF. pieces
'Spruch.' [The three 'Fest- undGedenkspriiohe'
of Brahms, op. 109, are for eight-part chorus
a cappella: — (i.) 'Unsere Viiter hofl'ten auf
dich,' Ps. X5di. 4 ;
(ii.) Wenu ' ein starker
Gewappneter, ' Luke xi. 21, 17 ; (iii.) 'Woistein
so herrlich Volk,' Deut. iv. 7, 9.] G.
SQUAROIALUPI, Antonio (also caUed
Antonio degl' organi), a famous Florentine
organist who lived in the 1 5th century, and who
was living in Siena in 1450, and at the Florentine
Court in 1467, as organist of Santa Maria.
He died there about 1475. None of his compositions
are extant, and he is only known as
an esteemed contemporary of Dufay. A letter
written by him to Dufay, dated 1467, is given by
Otto Kade in the Monatshefte for 1885, No. 2.
See also Haberl's Dufay ' ' in the Vierteljdh/rsscfi/rift,
i. 436. A volume of music by various