557679bk Partiturbuch US 21/3/06 6:49 pm Page 4 Ensemble Echo du Danube Martin Jopp, Violin: Tracks 1-11 Jörn Sebastian Kuhlmann, Violin: Tracks 1, 5, 7 & 8 DAS PARTITURBUCH Rainer Johannsen, Dulcian: Track 1, 4 and 8 Christian Zincke,Viola da gamba: Tracks 1-3, 5-7 & 9-11 / Violone: Tracks 4 & 8 Instrumental Music at the Courts of Michael Dücker, Theorbo: Tracks 1-5 & 7-11 Margit Schultheiß, Italian Double Harp: Tracks 5 & 10-11 Alexander Weimann, Harpsichord / Organ: Tracks 1-11 17th Century Germany The ensemble Echo du Danube was founded by the Viennese Ensemble Echo Du Danube gambist Christian Zincke. The name was originally the title of a collection of sonatas by the viola da gamba virtuoso Johann Directed by Christian Zincke Schenck, which were published in 1709. Group members Martin Jopp (violin), Alexander Weimann (harpsichord/organ), Michael Dücker (lute) and Christian Zincke are dedicated to the performance of seventeenth-century chamber music. Repertoire from earlier periods form another area of interest for the ensemble. For programmes with Baroque and Renaissance content, the group expands to include the psalterio (Elisabeth Seitz) and the harp (Johanna Seitz). Echo du Danube has performed for the Hessischen Rundfunk (Frankfurt), the Feste Musicali (Cologne) the Kelkheim Early Music Festival, the Brunnethaler Summer Concerts (Austria) the Crakow Festival (Poland), the Essaouira Festival (Morocco) and formed the continuo for the Frankfurt Opera’s production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo. The ensemble has made numerous radio recordings for German public radio (works by Jakob Richmann, August Kühnel and Ernst Christian Hesse). Extensive research precedes the development of Echo du Danube’s programmes. This painstaking and often tedious work is considered by the group to be a cultural responsibility through which sources of new inspiration can be found. The ensemble publishes newly discovered works for Walhall Edition. 8.557679 4 557679bk Partiturbuch US 21/3/06 6:49 pm Page 2 Das Partiturbuch music for the Emperors Ferdinand II, Ferdinand III, and Vienna, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (ca. 1623–1680) is Instrumental music at the Courts of 17th Century Germany Leopold I, and his music formed the basis for famous for having been the first German to have this compositional taste and style in German-speaking honour bestowed upon him after years of the post going Seventeenth-century German composers of every throughout Middle Germany, Thuringia in particular, regions during his life-time. Born in Verona, Bertali to Italian musicians. He unfortunately enjoyed this professional level, from Capellmeister to simple where Ludwig himself was at home. came to the imperial court in Vienna during the reign of office for less than one year before dying of the plague musician, wrote instrumental music. Jacob Ludwig After the Thirty Years’ War the Thuringian courts Ferdinand II in the early 1620s as a violinist, bringing in Prague in 1680. Although famous for his violin (1623-1698), scribe of the so-called Partiturbuch invested more and more money into those things that with him the virtuosic instrumental writing of Italy. In music, Schmelzer started his musical career as a Ludwig, selections of which make up the repertoire reflected the glory of the ruler, including new palaces 1649 under Ferdinand III he became the imperial cornettist in St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna before heard on this record, is an example of the latter, although and expensive musical establishments at court. Adam Capellmeister, the first new director of music after the becoming an imperial musician. he does not appear to have composed himself. Ludwig Drese (ca. 1620-1701), Capellmeister in Weimar, end of the Thirty Year’s War. During this time of peace At the other end of the Holy Roman Empire of the was a court musician in Wolfenbüttel and then in Gotha. entered his position at court directly after the war, during the musical arts flourished, and Bertali’s music found German Nation, in Lübeck, the wealthy Hanseatic city In 1662, having been in Gotha for several years, he which he had studied in Warsaw with Marco Scacchi. wide distribution throughout Germany and beyond. on the Baltic Sea, another school of violin-playing was presented his Partiturbuch, a collection of contemporary Duke Wilhelm IV of Saxe-Weimar sent him on a Today his music is still preserved in historical developing. Nathanael Schnittelbach (1633-1667) came instrumental music written in score, to his former number of trips to important European courts enabling collections as far away from his personal milieu as to Lübeck from Gdansk in 1655 as a municipal Wolfenbüttel employer, Duke August, as a birthday him to observe the practices of the most eminent music- Sweden, England, and France. Ludwig’s collection, musician. After furthering his art in violin-playing with present. making of his time. Today Drese is best-known as a containing eighteen works attributed to the composer is the Lübeck violinist Nicolaus Bleyer, he married his This codex draws together about a hundred composer of hymn-tunes. He became a Pietist at the end a very important contemporary source of his teacher’s daughter and became himself one of the most instrumental compositions from all parts of Germany, of his life while in Arnstadt, where he even burned all of instrumental music that includes many otherwise important representatives of the Lübeck violin school. providing a snap-shot picture of the pieces being his operas in response to his beliefs. Johann Michael unknown pieces. The Ciaconna for solo violin shows Schnittelbach’s Ciaconna in the Partiturbuch Ludwig is performed in the courts of Middle Germany around Nicolai (1629-1685) started his career in Thuringia at both the compositional and technical virtuosity of this the only surviving work for solo violin from this master. 1660. While primarily a collection of sonatas, Ludwig’s the court of Saxe-Lauenburg. In 1655, he went to the highly influential musician. Another instrumentalist source also contains many works on ground basses, Stuttgart court where he remained until his death. He who became Capellmeister of the imperial court in Michael Fuerst including arias and ciaconnas. Whether newly was particularly well-known for his playing of low composed or from the stockpile of basses used for instruments like the bass violone. Samuel Capricornus improvisation, composition on a ground bass belongs to (1628-1665) also ended his career in Stuttgart, although the earliest forms of written instrumental music. not as a virtuoso or simple musician but as Variations of the bass ciaccona can be heard not only in Capellmeister. A Protestant, Capricornus directed the the works titled as such (Bertali, Anonymous) but also in church music in Preßburg (Bratislava) from 1651 to the Sonata a 2 by Adam Drese. Nathanael 1657 before making his way to Stuttgart. He apparently Schnittelbach’s Ciaconna for violin runs through 66 travelled through Thuringia on his way to his new variations over the descending tetrachord known as position, and it is likely that his Ciaconna found its way passacaglia before ending with a coda, and this same into Ludwig’s collection as a result of this voyage. He bass, while in a different mode, is found in the central studied in Vienna before starting his work in Preßburg, section of Bertali’s Sonata a 4. The Samuel Capricornus and it was precisely his learning experience with such piece is a ground on a newly composed bass just as important Central European figures as Antonio Bertali Johann Heinrich Schmelzer’s Sonata variata. A free that laid the groundwork for his defence of his own treatment of the bergamasca forms the final section of music during a particularly nasty clash with one of Johann Michael Nicolai’s Sonata a 2 for violin and Nicolai’s best friends at the Stuttgart court, the organist bassoon. The selections on this recording reflect the Phillip Friedrich Böddecker. make-up of the entire Partiturbuch with composers from The composer represented by the greatest number of the most important regions of German musical culture: works in Ludwig’s collection is Antonio Bertali (1605- the imperial Viennese court in the south, the Hanseatic 1669), the Capellmeister of the imperial court in Vienna. cities of the north, and the many small ducal courts Bertali wrote operas, church music, and instrumental 8.557679 2 3 8.557679 557679bk Partiturbuch US 21/3/06 6:49 pm Page 2 Das Partiturbuch music for the Emperors Ferdinand II, Ferdinand III, and Vienna, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (ca. 1623–1680) is Instrumental music at the Courts of 17th Century Germany Leopold I, and his music formed the basis for famous for having been the first German to have this compositional taste and style in German-speaking honour bestowed upon him after years of the post going Seventeenth-century German composers of every throughout Middle Germany, Thuringia in particular, regions during his life-time. Born in Verona, Bertali to Italian musicians. He unfortunately enjoyed this professional level, from Capellmeister to simple where Ludwig himself was at home. came to the imperial court in Vienna during the reign of office for less than one year before dying of the plague musician, wrote instrumental music. Jacob Ludwig After the Thirty Years’ War the Thuringian courts Ferdinand II in the early 1620s as a violinist, bringing in Prague in 1680. Although famous for his violin (1623-1698), scribe of the so-called Partiturbuch invested more and more money into those things that with him the virtuosic instrumental writing of Italy. In music, Schmelzer started his musical career as a Ludwig, selections of which make up the repertoire reflected the glory of the ruler, including new palaces 1649 under Ferdinand III he became the imperial cornettist in St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna before heard on this record, is an example of the latter, although and expensive musical establishments at court.