Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Nanna.

See Ninna.

Nantermi [Nanterni].

Italian family of musicians.

(1) Filiberto Nantermi

(2) Orazio Nantermi

(3) Michel'Angelo Nantermi

JOHN WHENHAM

Nantermi

(1) Filiberto Nantermi

(d Milan, March 1605). Composer. He was maestro di cappella at S Maria presso S Celso, Milan, probably from 1568, and held the post for 35 years. As a composer he is known only by a madrigal for five voices and continuo in (3) Michel'Angelo Nantermi's Primo libro de madrigali (RISM 1609²⁶).

Nantermi

(2) Orazio Nantermi

(b Milan, c1550; d probably Milan, early 17th century). Composer, singer and organist, son of (1) Filiberto Nantermi. He began to work at S Maria presso S Celso, Milan, around 1570. Towards the end of his father's life he shared (unofficially) the work of maestro di cappella and succeeded his father in the post, which he held until the end of 1607, leaving because of unspecified disagreements. In a letter of 1605 he mentioned that he acted not only as maestro, but also as singer and organist when double-choir music was performed. Morigi described him as a ‘sensitive and intelligent musician’ whose work was praised by his contemporaries.

WORKS

Partito del primo libro delli motetti … nuovamente ristampato, 5vv (?1601, Milan, 2/1606) [first edn lost; dedication to 1606 edn dated 3 Jan 1601]

7 motets in 1608^13, 1615^13, 1620^2; 2 madrigals, 5vv, bc, in 1609^26

Motet ‘Domine Jesu’, 5vv, in MS dated Rome, 1613, I-Bc

Nantermi

(3) Michel'Angelo Nantermi

(fl 1593–1619). Composer, organist and chitarrone virtuoso, son of (2) Orazio Nantermi. He was a singer at S Maria presso S Celso, Milan, from 1593 to the end of 1607. In 1609 he was organist of the collegiate church of S Lorenzo Maggiore in Milan. His one published volume of music, Il primo libro de madrigali for five voices and continuo (Venice, 1609²⁶), also includes pieces by (1) Filiberto and (2) Orazio Nantermi. Borsieri described him as one of the finest musicians of Milan, and called him a follower of Monteverdi; Einstein, too, suggested that there is evidence that he knew Monteverdi's work. The continuo line in his madrigal book is, in effect, a basso seguente.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

EitnerQ

EinsteinIM

FétisB

WaltherML

P. Morigi: Nobilità di Milano (Milan, 1595), 186

G. Borsieri: Il supplemento della Nobiltà di Milano (Milan, 1619), 36–7

F. Picinelli: Ateneo dei letterati milanesi (Milan, 1670), 435

R. and R. Frigerio: ‘Giovan Paolo Cima, organista nella Madonna di S. Celso in Milano: documenti inediti dell'Archivio Diocesano di Milano’, Il flauto dolce, xvi (1987), 32–7

G. Dixon: ‘Giovanni Amigone, un cantore lombardo del Seicento e il suo metodo didattico’, Seicento inesplorato: Lenno, nr Como 1989, 319–38, esp. 333

Nantes.

City in France, on the Loire estuary. The cathedral was founded in 570, and from the 10th century until 1532 Nantes and Rennes were the main centres of the Duchy of Brittany. The accounts and chronicles of the dukes show that they patronized music: Jean IV engaged minstrels with tambourines, nakers, shawms and hunting horns for festivities in 1341, and in 1407 Jean V employed four instrumentalists and four singers. Choirs were maintained at the Cathedral of St Pierre and St Paul, and at the collegiate church of Notre Dame. During the Middle Ages laity and clergy collaborated in the performance of Passion plays with music. The city’s musical life reached its height at the end of the 15th century during the reign of Anne, who sang and played the mandora and whose accounts include payments to singers, organists and municipal trumpeters. Her funeral in 1514 was commemorated with motets by Mouton, Moulu and Festa.

During the 17th century the municipal guilds organized a band of ‘symphonistes’ comprising six ‘violons ordinaires’, oboes and fifes, which played for both official and private celebrations and dances. The bass viol, serpent, cornett and crumhorn were among instruments played by clergy and laity attached to the cathedral about 1700. The serpent player was paid about the same as the singers, and half as much as the organist. Louis XIV’s taste for instrumental participation in sacred music influenced cathedral music, despite the chapter’s resistance to interludes for the violins in a Te Deum performed in August 1708. The performance of a mass and another Te Deum for Louis XV’s convalescence in 1721 included the municipal band.

In 1727 the mayor Gérard Mellier founded an Académie de Musique which organized weekly concerts for its 200 members: it engaged professional musicians (including one or two directors to arrange parts and conduct) but also provided opportunities for ‘académiciens exécutants’ to join in some concerts. Meeting first at the Hôtel Rosmadec and later in the Bourse, the Académie invited visiting virtuosos including Guignon and Mascitti. Its repertory (in manuscripts in F-Nm) included cantatas by Clérambault, Montéclair, Boismortier, Campra, Bernier and Mouret, and parts of operas by Lully and Blavet. The Académie was expelled from the Bourse after organizing a ball in 1743, but a similar group resumed regular concerts in 1751 and continued its activities until 1767. Concerts continued during the late 18th century and the 19th; the Société Philharmonique was founded in 1826 and a Société des Beaux-Arts in 1830.

Opera was introduced to Nantes in 1687–8 when the visiting troupe of the Sieur d’Aumont presented Perrin and Cambert’s Ariane; their Pomone and Les peines et les plaisirs de l’amour were performed about the same time at the Jeu de Paume in the rue St Leonard. The first permanent opera company was established in 1770 and a new theatre, designed in neo-classical style by Matturin Crucy and endowed by the banker Graslin, was completed in 1788. Destroyed by fire during a performance of Grétry's Zémire et Azor in 1796, the Théâtre Graslin was rebuilt by Crucy in 1813 and thereafter turned from opéra comique and vaudeville to a truly international repertory. Restored with new technical installations in the late 1970s, it offers a season of six to eight productions between October and May. In 1995 a new opera house and concert hall (seating 2000) were built in the Cite des Congrès.

In 1971 the Orchestre Philharmonique des Pays de la Loire was founded. The 114 players were divided into two groups, one based in Angers, the other in Nantes under the baton of Jean-Claude Casadesus. The two groups were frequently combined under the musical directorship of Pierre Dervaux, who was succeeded by Marc Soustrot in 1978, and Hubert Soudant in 1993.

A private music conservatory was founded by Bressler in 1844, and the Ecole César Franck, specializing in organ and church music, in 1930. Composers born at Nantes include Bourgault-Ducoudray, whose compositions reflect the influence of Breton and other folk music, which he collected avidly; and Ladmirault, whose opera Gilles de Retz was performed in Nantes when he was only 16 (1893). In 1920 Ladmirault became director of the conservatoire at Nantes, and most of his work is influenced by Breton subjects and folksong.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

C. Mellinet: De la musique à Nantes depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’à nos jours (Nantes, 1837)

E. Garnier: Le Conservatoire de musique à Nantes, (Nantes, 1870)

L. de La Laurencie: L’Académie de musique et le Concert de Nantes à l'Hôtel de Bourse (1727–67) (Paris, 1906/R)

L. de La Laurencie: ‘La musique à la cour des ducs de Bretagne aux XIVe et XVe siècles’, RdM, xiv (1933), 1–15

M. Courtonne: Un siècle de musique à Nantes et dans la région nantaise, 1850–1950 (Nantes, 1953)

D. Rabreau: ‘Le théâtre de Nantes, ou l’urbanisme mis en scène’, Les monuments historiques de la France: Bulletin, no.108 (1980), 33–48

F. Lesure: ‘Nantes’, Dictionnaire musicale des villes de province (Paris, 1999), 220–26

FRANK DOBBINS