Philip Trajetta (Filippo Traetta) (January 8, 1777 – January 9, 1854) was aRepublic of Venice-bornAmerican composer and music teacher. The son of Italian composerTommaso Traetta, in 1800 he moved as a political refugee to the United States, where he had a successful musical career as a composer and one of the founders of music conservatories in Boston (1801), New York (1812), and Philadelphia (1828).

Filippo Traetta was born inVenice,Republic of Venice, on January 8, 1777. He was the son of opera composerTommaso Traetta and Elizabeth Sund from Russian Finland. The couple met atSt. Petersburg when Tommaso was serving at the invitation ofCatherine II of Russia as singing instructor and musical director of the opera there. Upon the death of his father, Filippo was about three years of age, placing Elizabeth in charge of his education in Venice. He attended a Jesuit school until the age of 13 and then studied with music teachersFedele Fenaroli andSalvatore Perillo, from whom he learned counterpoint, the art of the fugue and composition. He was next sent toNaples to study with composerNiccolò Piccinni.^[1]

In 1799, Traetta was involved in a failed revolution against KingFerdinand IV of Naples. He was arrested for authoring several patriotic, anti-monarchy hymns. He served eight months in prison before he was given a German passport and smuggled into the United States, arriving aboardMount Vernon, a vessel that belonged to the Derby family ofSalem, Massachusetts, on July 3, 1800.

Now known asPhilip Trajetta, he settled in Boston, Massachusetts. There he and two partners, François Delochaire Mallet of France andGottlieb Graupner of Germany, announced in an advertisement in theBoston Gazette on November 24, 1800, the founding of a music academy called the American Conservatorio of Boston. It was the first such institution in the United States and lasted just two years.^[2][3] Two of his orchestral works were performed in Boston in that year, a sinfonia and a violin concerto.^[4] There he also wrote some of his early works, including "Washington's Dead March", a patriotic work marking the death ofGeorge Washington in December 1799, which remained popular for decades.^[a] In the same year he moved to New York, where he completedThe Venetian Maskers, which can be described as the first operacomposed in the United States, though it was never staged. In the following two decades he divided his time between New York and Charleston.

He relocated to New York City about 1809 and by 1812 founded the American Conservatorio of New York.^[9] Advertisements for the Conservatorio's concerts at its home onFulton Street appeared in local newspapers until 1817.^[10] He composed a cantata,Jubilate, Peace, to celebrate theTreaty of Ghent, signed on December 24, 1814, that concluded theWar of 1812. He conducted its premiere in New York on February 21, 1815.^[11]

In the first half of the 1820s, Trajetta settled inPhiladelphia, which became his permanent home. By 1828, he founded the American Conservatory in Philadelphia.^[12] There he composed two oratorios,Jerusalem in Affliction andDaughter of Zion, which had their premieres in Philadelphia in 1828 and 1829 respectively. A comprehensive history of the oratorio form describes them as "[p]resumably the earliest oratorios composed in America".^[13] Trajetta continued to give music lessons at the conservatory and to direct musical performances until his death.

Trajetta died in Philadelphia on January 9, 1854, and was buried in theOdd Fellows Burial Ground.^[14]

• The Christian's Joy: Prophecy
• The Nativity
• The Day of Rest
• Jubilate, Peace

• The Venetian Maskers

• Jerusalem in Affliction (Philadelphia, 1828; thenGermantown, 1854)^[1]
• Daughter of Zion (Philadelphia, 1829; then Germantown, 1854)^[1]

• Washington's Dead March
• "The Sailor, An Elegy", for piano and voice (February 1801)^[15]
• "Lovely Maid the Fields Invite You", piano and voice(s)^[16]

• An Introduction to the Art and Science of Music (Philadelphia, 1829)
• Rudiments of the Art of Singing, Written and Composed for the American Conservatorio (Philadelphia, 1841-3)^[17]
• A Primer of Music (Philadelphia, 1843)
• Traetta's Preludes for the Piano Forte...Introductory to his System of Thorough Bass (Philadelphia, 1857)

Sources

• Sciannameo, Franco, and Michael J. Budds (2010).Phil Trajetta (1777-1854), Patriot, Musician, Immigrant: Commentary on His Life and Work in Context. Hillsdale, N.Y: Pendragon Press.
• Cantrell, Byron (2001). "Trajetta, Filippo."The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 25, 2nd ed. Ed. Stanley Sadie. New York: Grove.
• Slonimsky, Nicolas, Laura Kuhn, and Dennis McIntire (2001). "Traetta, Filippo".Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. 6 vols. Eds. Nicolas Slonimsky and Laura Kuhn. New York: Schirmer Books.
• Richard J. Wolfe, ed. (1964) "Traetta, Philip".Secular Music in America, 1801-1825: A Bibliography. 3 vols. New York: New York Public Library.

• "Traetta, Filippo", The Pennsylvania Center for the Book

• 1777 births
• 1854 deaths
• 18th-century classical composers
• 19th-century American composers
• 19th-century classical composers
• 19th-century Italian male musicians
• American Romantic composers
• American opera composers
• American male opera composers
• United States military musicians
• Oratorio composers
• Composers from Venice
• Classical musicians from Pennsylvania
• Musicians from Philadelphia
• Immigrants to the United States
• Musicians from the Republic of Venice

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