Background
Philip Trajetta was born on January 8, 1777 in Venice, Italy. He was the son of Tommaso Michele Francesco Traetta, an eighteenth-century Italian composer who wrote thirty-four operas and was successively maestro di capella to the princesses on appointment of Don Filippo, Infante of Spain and Duke of Parma; principal of the Conservatorio dell' Ospedaletto in Venice; and maestro di corte by appointment of Catherine II of Russia. Trajetta's mother was a Swedish lady whom his father met in St. Petersburg.
Education
After his father's death in 1779 Philip's mother placed him in charge of the Jesuits at the Public Studies of Venice, and the boy's education was directed by this group until he was thirteen.
Later he was instructed in music by Fedele Fenaroli and a certain Perillo, who gave him a thorough training in counterpoint and fugue. His inherited talents were looked upon at that time purely as a cultural accomplishment, and the boy expected to follow a military career as a profession. His teachers, however, felt that he should continue his musical studies in Naples with Niccolo Piccinni, the prolific opera composer whose followers and admirers waged the historic controversy with the admirers of Gluck.
Career
His friendship with Piccinni, who was suspected of republicanism, led him into political difficulties and cost him the influence he needed to have his works produced.
He subsequently joined the patriot army that fought against King Ferdinand IV. When this army was defeated, he was captured, charged with being an enemy and with writing the patriot hymns, and thrown into a dungeon from which he found no escape for eight months. His release was accomplished at last through secret influence, and, provided with a German passport, he sailed for America.
In the winter of 1799 he settled in Boston and immediately became occupied as a musician. There he is believed to have written and published Vocal Exercises and a "Washington's Dead March. "
In 1816-18 he appears in New York city directories as "Philip Tragetta, professor of music. " He is said to have composed two cantatas, The Christian's Joy and The Prophecy, and an opera, The Venetian Maskers, in New York.
After this he became a theatrical manager in Southern cities, introducing to the public a young singer and actress announced as his daughter, Eliza Trajetta, but according to a contemporary account not related to him . It is said that Lorenzo Da Ponte, opera promoter and former librettist to Mozart, brought Trajetta to New York to become a composer for the Manuel García company which in 1825 gave that city its first hearing of Italian grand opera, but that the plan never materialized because the company had disbanded before Trajetta reached New York.
Trajetta is said then to have returned to the South and to have lived in comparative seclusion in the mountains of Virginia, enjoying frequent visits from ex-presidents Madison and Monroe, "who held him in high esteem" . He was later persuaded by a friend and former pupil, U. K. Hill, who appears in Philadelphia city directories as a professor of music, to settle in Philadelphia, probably about 1828, and to establish in the following year the American Conservatorio.
Others of his works are said to be the oratorios, Jerusalem in Affliction (1828), Daughter of Zion (1829), both produced in Philadelphia, and the cantatas, The Nativity and The Day of Rest (1845). He also wrote An Introduction to the Art and Science of Music (1829) and Rudiments of the Art of Singing (2 vols. , 1841 - 43).
He presumably remained in Philadelphia until his death in 1854.
