Giovanni Benedetto Platti

Giovanni Benedetto Platti
(b Padua or Venice, ?before 1692; d Würzburg, 11 Jan 1763). Italian composer.

His death certificate gives his age as 64, which would indicate that he was born in about 1698, but information in a letter of 7 October 1764 from Domenico Palafuti to G.B. Martini suggests that the real date of birth could be 9 July 1697; however, Michael Talbot's discovery in Venice (I-Vas Milizia da Mar, Bosta 626, Sonardori) of a document mentioning Platti as belonging to the arte dei sonadori at the beginning of 1711 means that he cannot have been born later than 1692. Little is known about him before 1722, but in Venice his teachers might have included Francesco Gasparini, Albinoni, Vivaldi, Lotti, Alessandro Marcello or Benedetto Marcello. His father Carlo (b c1661; d after 1727), a violetta player in the orchestra of the basilica of S Marco, may also have taught him. According to Palafuti in his letter to Martini, Platti travelled to Siena before 1722 and encountered Cristofori's recent invention, the ‘cembalo a martelletti’, but this is not backed up by any other evidence. It would, however, explain the harmony, style and technique of some of his harpsichord sonatas. In 1722 he went to Würzburg with a group of musicians under the direction of Fortunato Chelleri. There he entered the service of the court of the Prince-Archbishop of Bamberg and Würzburg, Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn. On 4 February 1723 he married Maria Theresia Lambrucker, a soprano serving at the court. They had eight children, some of whom were musicians, but no music attributable to them has survived. Platti's position at the Würzburg court was as a kind of factotum: he was a singer, he played various instruments, including the violin, the cello, the oboe, the flute and the harpsichord, he performed and he composed. Three letters, only one of which is in Platti's hand, have survived at Würzburg, but they add nothing to our knowledge of his time in Germany. He met the artist Giambattista Tiepolo, who was in Würzburg between 12 December 1750 and 8 November 1753 to decorate the Residenz with frescoes, one of which includes the only known portrait of Platti. Platti continued to work at the Würzburg court until his death.