Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Neander, Valentin (ii)

(b ?Treuenbrietzen, nr Berlin, ?1575–80; d after 1619). German composer, son of valentin Neander (i). He matriculated at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder in 1597 and was a pupil of Bartholomäus Gesius in that town. He published Newe christliche Kirchen Gesänge, die man Introitus, Prosas, Responsoria und Hymnos nennet … auff die Melodeyen des Lobwassers Psalmen … gerichtet (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1619; ?lost), which consists of 89 four-part pieces. It provides interesting evidence of the penetration of the Huguenot manner of psalm setting into Lutheran north Germany, a development that may have been encouraged by the decision of the Elector Johann Sigismund of Brandenburg in 1613 to adopt Calvinism as his faith (see Bohn). According to Grimm, Neander had earlier published Neue geistliche Lieder for four to eight voices (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1601), and he also seems to have written Cantio nuptialis sumpta ex psalmo CXII for eight voices (Wittenberg, 1607), for the wedding of the Duke of Saxony; both are lost.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

E. Bohn: Bibliographie der Musik-Druckwerke bis 1700, welche … zu Breslau aufbewahrt werden (Berlin, 1883/R)

H. Grimm: Meister der Renaissancemusik an der Viadrina (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1942)

WALTER BLANKENBURG

Neapolitan school.

A term sometimes used to describe a group of primarily operatic composers active in Naples in the 17th and 18th centuries. See under Naples.

Neapolitan sixth chord.

The first inversion of the major triad built on the flattened second degree of the scale; in C major or minor, F–A–D. It usually precedes a V–I cadence and it functions like a subdominant (in German chord analysis it can be described as the Leittonwechselklang of the minor subdominant). It is associated with the so-called ‘Neapolitan school’, which included Alessandro Scarlatti, Pergolesi, Paisiello, Cimarosa and other important 18th-century composers of Italian opera; but it seems to have been an established if infrequent harmonic practice by the end of the 17th century, being used by Carissimi, Corelli and Purcell. It was also a favourite idiom among composers in the Classical period, especially Beethoven, who extended its use to root-position and second-inversion chords (examples include the opening of the String Quartet op.95 and the second movement of the Hammerklavier Sonata).

WILLIAM DRABKIN

Neary, Martin (Gerard James)

(b London, 28 March 1940). English organist and choirmaster. A chorister at the Chapel Royal and organ scholar of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, he also studied privately with Geraint Jones, André Marchal and Sir Adrian Boult, coming to notice as a prizewinner at the 1963 St Albans International Festival. During his first post, as organist and choirmaster at St Margaret's, Westminster (1965–71), he founded and conducted the Martin Neary Singers. He was appointed organist and master of the music at Winchester Cathedral in 1972, where his fine choir became noted for its championship of the works of Jonathan Harvey and John Tavener, for its many overseas tours and for its broadcasts and recordings. Under Lorin Maazel the choir gave the première of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem in New York in 1986. Neary subsequently conducted the first British performance in Westminster Abbey, where he became organist and master of the choristers in 1988. At Westminster he consolidated the achievements of his Winchester years, contributing two notable broadcast concerts to the Purcell centenary year in 1995 and commissioning new works from such composers as Francis Grier. In 1994 the Westminster choir under Neary became the first foreign ensemble to perform within the Kremlin, and in 1997 he devised and directed the music at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. He left the Abbey in 1999 to pursue a freelance career.

Neary has a considerable reputation as a recitalist in Europe and the USA, where he has given first performances of many contemporary British works. He is also a notable exponent of Messiaen and has made editions of early French organ music. He was president of the Royal College of Organists from 1988 to 1990 and was invited back for a second term in 1996.

STANLEY WEBB/PAUL HALE

Neate, Charles

(b London, 28 March 1784; d Brighton, 30 March 1877). English pianist and cellist. He received his early musical education from James Windsor and afterwards from John Field, with whom he had formed a close friendship. Field also joined him as a student of the cello under William Sharp. He first appeared as a pianist at Covent Garden Theatre at the Lenten Oratorios in 1800, and soon established a reputation as an excellent performer. He studied composition under Woelfl, and in 1808 published his first work, a piano sonata in C minor. In 1813 he was one of the original members of the Philharmonic Society, of which he was for many years a director, and often performed, and occasionally conducted, at its concerts.

Neate is remembered for his friendship with Beethoven, whom he met in Vienna in May 1815, after having studied counterpoint under Winter in Munich for three months. He spent about eight months in almost daily contact with Beethoven, at Baden and Vienna, although Beethoven declined to accept him as a pupil and referred him instead to Förster. Neate also arranged for the purchase by the Philharmonic Society of three overtures and some other pieces which had been offered to George Smart the previous March; he acted as Beethoven’s agent after his return to England, and in December 1824 tendered the Society’s offer of 300 guineas for Beethoven to come to London and conduct his works. Thayer, in 1861, relied on him for information about Beethoven’s English dealings, though Neate’s recollection may have been coloured by his failure ever to sell any of Beethoven’s music to publishers.

Neate was long esteemed as one of the best performers on and teachers of the piano in London. He composed a quintet for piano and wind, two trios for piano and strings, two sonatas and many other works for piano solo and duet, and wrote An Essay on Fingering (London, 1855), which contains a catalogue of his published works to op.40.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DNB (R.F. Sharp)

[F.G. Edwards]: ‘Beethoven: his Portrait, and – its Blot’, MT, xlii (1901), 15–16

E. Anderson: ‘Charles Neate: a Beethoven Friendship’, Festschrift Otto Erich Deutsch, ed. W. Gerstenberg, J. LaRue and S. W. Rehm (Kassel, 1963), 196–202

E. Forbes, ed.: Thayer’s Life of Beethoven (Princeton, NJ, 1964, 2/ 1967), 614ff, 929ff

D.W. Hadley: ‘Beethoven and the Philharmonic Society of London: a Reappraisal’, MQ, lix (1973), 449–61

W.H. HUSK/BRUCE CARR