Ars Antiqua Austria Gunar Letzbor
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Chalumeaux CHRISTOPH GRAUPNER Concertos, Ouvertures & Sonatas Ars Antiqua Austria Gunar Letzbor 1 Chalumeaux CHRISTOPH GRAUPNER Concertos, Ouvertures & Sonatas Ars Antiqua Austria Ensemble for new baroque music Gunar Letzbor Ernst Schlader, Markus Springer, Christian Leitherer chalumeaux Gunar Letzbor, Barbara Konrad violin Markus Miesenberger viola Jan Krigovsky violone Norbert Zeilberger organ, cembalo Hubert Hoffmann lute Karin Gemeinhardt bassoon Albert Heitzinger, Michael Söllner horns Alex Georgiev timpani CHRISTOPH GRAUPNER (1683-1760) Concerto a 2 Chalumeaux, 2 Violis. Viola e Cembalo C-Dur GWV 303 Sonata per Cembalo e Violino g-Moll GWV 711 [1] Vivace 4:20 [16] Largo 3:02 [2] Andante 3:33 [17] Presto 1:31 [3] Allegro 3:48 [18] Largo 3:28 [19] Menuet 2:42 Sonata per Cembalo obligato e Violino g-Moll GWV 709 [4] Largo 2:34 Ouverture a 2 Corn: Tym: 2 Chalum: 2 Violin. Viola, Fagott e Cembalo [5] Allegro 1:45 F-Dur GWV 452 [6] Andante 1:58 [20] ( ) – Largo – da capo 7:07 [7] Vivace 2:35 [21] Menuet 2:08 [22] Air 2:41 Ouverture a 3 Chalum. 2 Violis. Viola e Cembalo F-Dur GWV 449 [23] Tempo di Sarabande 2:22 [8] ( ) 2:43 [24] Air – da capo 0:41 [9] Allegro 5:55 [10] Bergerie 2:36 [11] Air 1:53 total time 74:41 [12] Le Desire 2:49 [13] Rejourissance 2:12 [14] La Speranza amorosa 6:50 [15] Menuet 3:11 4 5 Vienna and Darmstadt - House, Ernst Ludwig appointed him life could no longer actively direct the far more impressive if he had been less tracing their musical connections Kapellmeister in Darmstadt in 1709. fortunes of the orchestra. conscientious and had worked more in the eighteenth century The court household there was that fleetly. He sat at his desk sometimes of a comparatively small landgrave, While recent musicological literature day and night and his enormous If people are innocent of the name Protestant in inclination – one of the researching the eighteenth century has industry probably contributed much of Christoph Graupner in Vienna or numerous German principalities in the been able in general to demonstrate to the loss of his sight. He went so far anywhere else in Austria this should German Lands. But in his ambition diverse contacts and reciprocal in this that he not only produced the be neither a surprise nor anything to for prestige and luxurious pastimes – relations between the courts, the scores for his compositions but wrote be ashamed of, because the sphere particularly hunting – the Darmstadt Darmstadt court seems not to have much of them in his own hand” (Hoch- of influence of this contemporary of regent by no means took second played a role in such historical Fürstlich Hessen-Darmstädtischer Johann Sebastian Bach and Johann place even to the pre-eminent courts. networks. A lack of documents Staats- und Adress-Kalender 1781). Joseph Fux was in faraway Darmstadt, Thus in 1723, he secured Graupner’s revealing interconnections with other a small residence capital of the presence in Darmstadt for life by a musical centres and also statements by The picture of a quasi hermetically landgrave in Hesse about twenty generous rise in salary, which made Graupner and in addition the praises sealed-off musical court household is miles south of Frankfurt. What is the court Kapellmeister the best paid of his contemporaries convey the made plausible not least by the fact more, Graupner never visited Vienna orchestra director of his time and picture of an extremely conscientious that Graupner’s oeuvre has been pre- in his life. Graupner’s employer Ernst simultaneously stopped Graupner musician, whose life’s work was served in compact form and well-nigh Ludwig was an opera enthusiast; from taking off to Leipzig, where essentially the fulfilment of his tasks as exclusively through the Hofbibliothek, after becoming acquainted with he had been offered the post of a composer to the court where he was the Court Library (today: Universitäts- the young harpsichordist and Thomaskantor, the choirmaster of St at home. We may quote a biographical und Landesbibliothek - Library of the composer Graupner – who had Thomas’s. Another thirty-seven years sketch from 1781: “His diligence has University and Land) in Darmstadt received his musical education in were to pass in the service of the made him stand out perhaps from – and more than 1700 of his composi- Leipzig – some time in the period Darmstadt landgrave before Graupner all other composers of his time and tions have come down to us. In con- from autumn 1706 and 1708 at eventually died in 1760; he had gone measured against them the quantity trast, music manuscripts by Graupn- the Hamburg Gänsemarkt Opera blind, thus in the last six years of his of his music would certainly have been er’s contemporaries circulated in cop- 6 7 ies, and works landed in this way in closeness and of alienation, as has a child. Politically, however, Ernst employer from there about its talented miscellaneous libraries all over Europe. been demonstrated by the historian Ludwig showed a certain reserve as a musicians, among them the trumpeter Not so in the case of the Darmstadt Rouven Pons in an impressive whole towards the Imperial Court and “Scottschofsky, Hongrois de nation, court composer; detached, occasional monograph (Die Kunst der Loyalität. primarily oriented his strategic outlook encore Garcon […] jouant en meme copies from the opulent inventory of Marburg – the Art of Loyalty – 2009). on France, geographically much closer tems du Violon, et qui en un mot manuscripts can be counted on one Accordingly, the relations between to Darmstadt. l’emporte de fort loin sur les autres hand (they are either the result of Darmstadt and Vienna cooled down Trompetes à Darmstadt.” (letter dated personal connections between the significantly after the mid-seventeenth However, Ernst Ludwig was also de- 7 November 1710). The landgrave evi- ruling houses or are related to the new century, yet attained a new quality voted to the arts and especially music; dently relied on Hesse’s judgement; emerging interest in collecting in the some decades later through family his mother was the musically inclined Scottschofsky immediately moved to nineteenth century); one might even connections: in 1676 Emperor Leopold Elisabeth Dorothea, Princess of Saxe- Darmstadt and became a member suppose that Ernst Ludwig acquired I married Eleonore von Pfalz-Neuburg, Coburg, and he had taken lessons in of the court band. A short time later the exclusive rights to Graupner’s his third marriage; she was the cousin playing instruments and in composi- Graupner – at first appointed only compositions through the composer’s of the Darmstadt Landgrave Ernst tion; he himself often composed and as deputy Kapellmeister – officially continued presence in Darmstadt. Ludwig. Ernst Ludwig’s younger wrote orchestral overtures and arias. assumed the post of Hofkapellmeister, brother Georg, too, was sent to As far back as 1692, the landgrave had court music director, after his pred- And yet of course there were political Vienna with the hope of giving him noticed the viol player Ernst Christian ecessor Wolfgang Briegel, which and dynastic connections between the opportunity at the Imperial Hesse and engaged him two years marked the start of the unprecedented Darmstadt and the outside world, Court of leading a life suited to his later in Darmstadt as a member of the upswing in the history of the Hofka- one of the foremost being to the station, but in 1705 he fell in battle as Hofkapelle, the court band; neverthe- pelle. Additional musicians were en- Imperial Court in Vienna. The relations commander-in-chief of the Habsburg less, Hesse was repeatedly allowed gaged, renowned singers from Leipzig between the Hesse residence capital troops at the Siege of Barcelona. to go on concert tours. And he took and the Hamburg Opera were enticed and the Habsburg’s were by no The landgrave himself stayed in Vienna over the role of musical adviser to to Darmstadt – the landgrave invested means constant. but marked far more several times and evidently had a the landgrave. When Hesse stayed everything to promote the arts and by fluctuations between phases of private liaison there which produced in Vienna in 1710, he reported to his above all music in his residence capi- 8 9 tal. But the plan to build a permanent to help us occasionally in historically composition for the works presented two horns and string ensemble opera house turned out to be some- classifying compositions, and this here with two chalumeaux, the were not always availed of for every what over-ambitious and overtaxed is seen in their orchestral settings. Concerto in C Major (GWV 303) and occasion for princely diversion – even Darmstadt’s possibilities; this is dem- Graupner did not always have at his the Overture in F Major (GWV 452). with regard to the cantatas, such onstrated in the fact that Ernst Ludwig. disposal special instruments like The parts were no doubt performed opulent settings were restricted to who was building one hunting lodge the chalumeau, a wind instrument by Klotsch and one of his pupils. On special days, such as the landgrave’s after another in the periphery, shelved related to the clarinet, which was just the other hand, the overture for three birthday. In contrast, everyday musical this prestige project in 1719. being developed at the time. A letter chalumeaux and string ensemble in diversions could be organised on of June 1738 found quite recently F Major (GWV 449) cannot have been a quite modest scale – performed Besides the Sunday cantatas, in the holdings of the Hesse State produced before summer 1738; but by one or two melody instruments Graupner continued to be in charge Archive in Darmstadt informs that a a date in the early seventeen-forties and harpsichord.