Giovanni Punto

Giovanni Punto, actually Johann Wenzel (Jan Václav ) Stitch, ( born September 28, 1746 Žehušice ( German Sehuschitz ) / Caslav in Bohemia, † February 16, 1803 in Prague) was a Bohemian horn player, violinist and composer.

Life

The musically gifted son of the Count at J. J. Thun serf coachman V. Stitch sent the Count to training on the horn to Prague ( with Joseph Matiega - also Matejka ) and horn players of Count Mansfeld January Schindelarz after Dobris. 1763 sent the Count prick still a pupil of Schindelarz, the native of Dobris K. Houdek to Dresden. In Houdek and its players, the horn player Anton Joseph Hampel he learned, developed by this packing technique that he perfected later. In 1764 he returned to the court orchestra of Count Thun back, but not only played horn, but had to do so in livery service as a servant. In 1768 engraving fled from serfdom of the count, probably first to Augsburg. Count Thun made ​​a search with profile down, his scouts discovered engraving at Augsburg under the name " Bomba". The cut-off saw that he was discovered, he fled again. From 1769 he performed under the stage name Giovanni Punto on, this was both his camouflage conducive, as well as the general trend among artists of this time to Italianize his name.

After he was first hired in 1768, Josef Friedrich Wilhelm of Hohenzollern- Hechingen, he moved in 1769 to the service of Emmerich Joseph von Breidbach to Bürresheim of the Elector of Mainz. There he remained until 1774 and was in the years until 1780 when Prince-Bishop of Würzburg Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim active. In 1777 he was invited to England to the bugler of the private orchestra of King George III. Instruction in the new horn techniques to give mainly the plug. One of the companions on his concert tours was the composer Jan Ladislav Dussek.

1781 Punto went to Paris, where he worked for the Count d'Artois ( later King Charles X ). Punto, who was incidentally also a famous violinist, conducted from 1795 to 1797, the orchestra of the Théâtre des Variétés in Paris Amusantes.

In addition to its permanent employments Punto came on tours in many European countries through which he became a famous horn virtuosos of his time. So he met, among others, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1800 and gave concerts in Vienna and Budapest with the young Ludwig van Beethoven, the Horn Sonata, Op 17, composed for it and performed with him.

In memory of Giovanni Punto, the International Horn Society awards each year since 1985 the " IHS Punto Award", one of the renowned international horn prices. In his birthplace Žehušice each year there is a Hornfestival in his memory.

Works

From Puntos compositions are known:

He also revised the horny school Hampel and wrote a collection of daily exercises.