Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/A/Andre, John Antony
Andr�, John Antony, son of the preceding, was born at Offenbach in 1775. At two years of age he is said to have shown a musical tendency. He received his first lessons on the violin and piano-forte in Berlin, when his father directed the orchestra at the opera there. Marschba�m, the tenor, taught him singing, and at the age of nine he sang difficult airs with taste and accuracy. Returning with his father to Offenbach, he devoted himself with ardor to his instruments, besides lessons in harmony and accompaniment, and in the art of reading a score. A couple of years, under the tuition of Ferd. Fr�nzel, made him a finished violinist.
His first compositions (before he was thirteen had been symphonies for amateur concerts; but his first avowed work was a sonata for piano and violin, composed on a journey to Manheim and Strasburg, with his father, in 1788. In 1790, aged only sixteen, he was conductor of an orchestra at Offenbach, where the business of hie father had recalled him. He composed much and with great facility. From 1793 to 1796, his time was divided between the music publishing establishment and the practice of his art. At the age of twenty, he went to the University of Jena. In 1793, he made a second musical tour in the Rhine cities. The death of his father threw the music warehouse upon his hands in 1799, which did not prevent, however, a third and larger musical tour through Nuremburg, Augsburg, Munich, Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Jena, Weimar, &c., during which he made the acquaintance of all the great German composers. While at Vienna, he purchased the Mozart manuscripts of the widow ; and those priceless treasures are yet in the hands of the Andre house, which has a branch, conducted by a son, in Philadelphia. In 1800, Andre visited England.
The list of his compositions, printed since 1738, includes twenty-one symphonies for orchestra, three concertos for violin, seven concertos for wind instruments, several collections of military music, two masses, an opera, (" Rinaldo and Alcina," 1799 ;) seven opera of stringed quartets ; six of piano-forte sonatas ; serenades, dances, fantasias, &c., for orchestra ; cantatas, romances, and songs. His music, it is said, lacks invention, but is agreeable and pure in harmony. In 1832, Andre announced a general treatise on music, in six large octavo volumes. The first volume appeared the same year, and treats of the science of harmony, modulation, the ancient modes, the harmonizing of chorales, &c. Volume two contains single and double counterpoint, fugue, and canon. Volume three is destined to melodies and rhythmics ; four, to instrumentation ; five, to song writing ; and six to style, form, the use of' voices and instruments.