Christoph Graupner (January 13 1683 in
KirchbergKirchberg is a town in the Zwickau district, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western end of the Ore Mountains, 11 km south of Zwickau....
– March 10 1760 in
DarmstadtDarmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The city of Darmstadt was founded by the Counts of Katzenelnbogen in 1330, though settlement in the area is known to have been present as early as the late 11th century...
) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
harpsichordistA harpsichordist is a person who plays the harpsichord.Many baroque composers played the harpsichord, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau...
and
composerA composer is a person who creates music, usually by musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of...
of high
BaroqueBaroque is an artistic style prevalent from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church, which had decided at the time of the Council of Trent that the arts should communicate religious themes in...
music who lived and worked at the same time as
Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organist whose ecclesiastical and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
,
Georg Philipp TelemannGeorg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque music composer and multi-instrumentalist, born in Magdeburg. Self-taught in music, he studied law at the University of Leipzig...
and
George Frideric HandelGeorge Frideric Handel was a German-English Baroque composer, who is famous for his operas, oratorios, and concerti grossi. His life and music may justly be described as "cosmopolitan": he was born in Germany, trained in Italy, and spent most of his life in England...
.
Born in
HartmannsdorfHartmannsdorf bei Kirchberg is a municipality in the district Zwickau, in Saxony, Germany....
near
KirchbergKirchberg is a town in the Zwickau district, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western end of the Ore Mountains, 11 km south of Zwickau....
in
SaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a federal state of Germany, located in the southeastern part of present-day Germany. It is the tenth-largest German state in area and the sixth largest in population , of Germany's sixteen states.Long in the heart of German-speaking Europe, Saxony became one of the new...
, Graupner received his first musical instruction from his uncle, an
organistAn organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...
named Nicolaus Kuester. Graupner went to the
University of LeipzigThe University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in Europe and the second-oldest university in Germany...
where he studied
lawLaw is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets...
(as did many composers of the time), and then completed his musical studies with
Johann KuhnauJohann Kuhnau was a German composer, organist and harpsichordist.Kuhnau was born in Geising. He preceded Johann Sebastian Bach as cantor of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. There Kuhnau taught Johann David Heinichen and Christoph Graupner, both of whom were to become composers...
, the
cantorA cantor or chanter is the chief singer employed in a church with responsibilities for the ecclesiastical choir; also called the precentor....
of the Thomaskirche (St.
Christoph Graupner (January 13 1683 in
KirchbergKirchberg is a town in the Zwickau district, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western end of the Ore Mountains, 11 km south of Zwickau....
– March 10 1760 in
DarmstadtDarmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The city of Darmstadt was founded by the Counts of Katzenelnbogen in 1330, though settlement in the area is known to have been present as early as the late 11th century...
) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
harpsichordistA harpsichordist is a person who plays the harpsichord.Many baroque composers played the harpsichord, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau...
and
composerA composer is a person who creates music, usually by musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of...
of high
BaroqueBaroque is an artistic style prevalent from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church, which had decided at the time of the Council of Trent that the arts should communicate religious themes in...
music who lived and worked at the same time as
Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organist whose ecclesiastical and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
,
Georg Philipp TelemannGeorg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque music composer and multi-instrumentalist, born in Magdeburg. Self-taught in music, he studied law at the University of Leipzig...
and
George Frideric HandelGeorge Frideric Handel was a German-English Baroque composer, who is famous for his operas, oratorios, and concerti grossi. His life and music may justly be described as "cosmopolitan": he was born in Germany, trained in Italy, and spent most of his life in England...
.
Graupner's life
Born in
HartmannsdorfHartmannsdorf bei Kirchberg is a municipality in the district Zwickau, in Saxony, Germany....
near
KirchbergKirchberg is a town in the Zwickau district, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western end of the Ore Mountains, 11 km south of Zwickau....
in
SaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a federal state of Germany, located in the southeastern part of present-day Germany. It is the tenth-largest German state in area and the sixth largest in population , of Germany's sixteen states.Long in the heart of German-speaking Europe, Saxony became one of the new...
, Graupner received his first musical instruction from his uncle, an
organistAn organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...
named Nicolaus Kuester. Graupner went to the
University of LeipzigThe University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in Europe and the second-oldest university in Germany...
where he studied
lawLaw is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets...
(as did many composers of the time), and then completed his musical studies with
Johann KuhnauJohann Kuhnau was a German composer, organist and harpsichordist.Kuhnau was born in Geising. He preceded Johann Sebastian Bach as cantor of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. There Kuhnau taught Johann David Heinichen and Christoph Graupner, both of whom were to become composers...
, the
cantorA cantor or chanter is the chief singer employed in a church with responsibilities for the ecclesiastical choir; also called the precentor....
of the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church).
In 1705 Graupner left Leipzig to play the
harpsichordA harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
in the orchestra of the
Hamburg OperaThe Hamburg State Opera is one of the leading opera companies in Germany.Opera in Hamburg dates back to 2 January 1678 when the "Opern-Theatrum" was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile...
under the direction of
Reinhard KeiserReinhard Keiser was a popular German opera composer based in Hamburg. He wrote over a hundred operas, and in 1745 Johann Adolph Scheibe considered him an equal to Johann Kuhnau, George Frideric Handel and Georg Philipp Telemann , but his work was largely forgotten for many decades.He was born in...
, alongside a young violinist named Handel. In addition to playing the harpsichord, Graupner composed three operas in Hamburg in collaboration with Keiser, a popular composer of operas in Germany.
In 1709 Graupner accepted a post at the court of
Hesse-DarmstadtThe Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt was a member state of the Holy Roman Empire. It was formed in 1567 following the division of the Landgraviate of Hesse between the four sons of Philip I, the last Landgrave of Hesse....
and in 1711 became the court orchestra’s
Hofkapellmeister (court chapel master). Graupner spent the rest of his career at the court in Hesse-Darmstadt, where his primary responsibilities were to provide music for the court chapel. He wrote music for nearly half a century, from 1709 to 1754, when he became
blindBlindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
. He died six years later.
Graupner and Bach
Graupner inadvertently played a key role in the history of music. Precarious finances in Darmstadt during the 1710s forced a reduction of musical life. The opera house was closed, and many court musicians' salaries were in
arrearsArrears is a legal term for a type of debt which is overdue after missing an expected payment. It is also used for payments that occur at the end of a period....
(including Graupner's). After many attempts to have his salary paid, and having several children and a wife to support, in 1722 Graupner applied for the Kantorship in Leipzig. Telemann had been the first choice for this position, but withdrew after securing a salary increase in Hamburg. Graupner's "audition"
MagnificatThe Magnificat is a canticle frequently sung liturgically in Christian church services. The text of the canticle is taken directly from the Gospel of Luke where it is spoken by the Virgin Mary upon the occasion of her Visitation to her cousin Elizabeth...
, set in the style of his teacher and mentor Kuhnau, secured him the position. However, Graupner's patron (the
LandgraveLandgrave was a title only used in the Holy Roman Empire and later on by its former territories. The title refers to a count who had feudal duty directly to the Holy Roman Emperor...
Ernst Ludwig of Hesse-DarmstadtErnest Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt was Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt from 1678 to 1739. His parents were Landgrave Louis VI of Hesse-Darmstadt and Elisabeth Dorothea of Saxe-Coburg ....
) would not release him from his contract. Graupner's past due salary was paid in full, his salary was increased; and he would be kept on staff even if his
Kapelle was dismissed. With such favorable terms, Graupner remained in Darmstadt, thus clearing the way for Bach to become the cantor in Leipzig.
After hearing that Bach was the choice for Leipzig, on May 4, 1723 Graupner graciously wrote to the city council in Leipzig assuring them that Bach "is a musician just as strong on the organ as he is expert in church works and capelle pieces" and a man who "will honestly and properly perform the functions entrusted to him."
Graupner's opus & modern editions
Graupner was hardworking and prolific. There are about 2,000 surviving works in his catalog, including 113
sinfoniaSinfonia is the Italian word for symphony. In English it most commonly refers to a 17th- or 18th-century orchestral piece used as an introduction, interlude, or postlude to an opera, oratorio, cantata, or suite...
s, 85 ouvertures (suites), 44
concertoThe term Concerto is usually a three-part musical work in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra...
s, 8
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s, 1,418 religious and 24 secular
cantataA cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment and often containing more than one movement.-Historical context:...
s, 66 sonatas and 40
harpsichordA harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
partitaPartita was originally the name for a single instrumental piece of music , but Johann Kuhnau and later German composers used it for collections of musical pieces, as a synonym for suite....
s. Nearly all of Graupner's manuscripts are housed in the ULB (Technical University Library) in Darmstadt, Germany.
Graupner wrote for exotic combinations of instruments, including the
oboe d'amoreThe oboe d'amore , less commonly oboe d'amour, is a double reed woodwind musical instrument in the oboe family. Slightly larger than the oboe, it has a less assertive and more tranquil and serene tone, and is considered the mezzo-soprano or alto of the oboe family...
, flute d'amore, and
viola d'amoreThe viola d'amore is a 7- or 6-stringed musical instrument with sympathetic strings used chiefly in the baroque period. It is played under the chin in the same manner as the violin.- Structure and sound :...
. Over half of his sinfonias require
brassBrass is any alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties. In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin. Despite this distinction, some types of brasses are called bronzes. Brass is a...
and
timpaniTimpani are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper, and more recently, constructed of more lightweight fiberglass. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick...
, with about 25 sinfonias requiring 3 to 4 timpani, and one sinfonia in G Major (GWV 596) was composed for 7 timpani.
Obscurity
After he died, Graupner became an obscure composer for several reasons. His manuscripts became the source of a long legal battle between his heirs and the rulers of Hesse-Darmstadt. A final court decision denied the Graupner estate ownership of the music manuscripts. The heirs were unable to obtain permission to sell or publish his works, which remained inaccessible. Music styles had changed dramatically, reducing any interest in Graupner's music. On the positive side however, the Landgrave's seizure of Graupner's musical estate ensured its survival
in toto. Fate was not so kind to J. S. Bach's musical legacy, for example. Another factor that contributed to Graupner's posthumous obscurity was that, unlike Bach, Graupner had very few pupils other than
Johann Friedrich FaschJohann Friedrich Fasch was a German violinist and composer.Fasch was born in Buttelstedt, was a choirboy in Weissenfels and studied under Johann Kuhnau at the famous St. Thomas School in Leipzig and later founded a Collegium Musicum in that city...
to carry on his musical legacy.
As critic David Vernier has summed up, Graupner is "one of those unfortunate victims of fate and circumstance - a contemporary of Bach, Handel, Telemann, etc., who has remained largely -- and unfairly - neglected."
Rediscovery
Graupner's music is enjoying a revival, due in large part to the research efforts of many musicologists, performers, and conductors.
Beginning in the early 20th century, research began with Willibald Nagel's study of Graupner's sinfonias. In the 1920s, Friedrich Noack published his research on Graupner's cantatas. Baerenreiter published several sinfonias and an ouverture in the 1950s.. In the early 1980s, Myron Rosenblum edited four sinfonias for the massive Barry Brook project
The Symphony, 1720-1840: A Comprehensive Collection of Full Scores (New York: Garland, 1979-85), 60 vols. The year 1988 saw the publication of Oswald Bill's study of Graupner, with several articles by such Graupner experts as Peter Cahn (on the sinfonias), Joanna Cobb Biermann (musicians and salaries in Darmstadt), as well as source documents on court life in Darmstadt. Three wonderful dissertations were very important for Graupner research: H. Cutler Fall's study of the
PassiontidePassiontide is a name for the last two weeks of Lent, beginning on Passion Sunday and ending on Holy Saturday....
cantatas, Rene Schmidt's study of the
ChristmasChristmas , also referred to as Christmas Day, is an annual holiday celebrated on December 25 that commemorates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The day marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days. The nativity of Jesus, which is the basis for the anno Domini...
cantatas, and Vernon Wicker's study of solo bass cantatas. Christoph Grosspietsch published an extensive study of Graupner's ouvertures in 1994.
Despite all this research, there were relatively few recordings available to the general public. This changed in 1998, when Hermann Max conducted a CD of Graupner works on the
CPOClassic Produktion Osnabrück is a record label founded in 1986 by Georg Ortmann and several others. Its declared mission is to fill niches in the recorded classical repertory, with an emphasis on romantic, late romantic and 20th-century music...
label. Montreal harpsichordist Geneviève Soly came across a Graupner manuscript in the Beinecke Library at
Yale UniversityYale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Yale has produced many notable alumni, including five...
in the year 2000 and started performing and recording his works. Graupner was "always on the cutting edge for his time and very innovative in his ideas for harmony, notation, and the use of instruments," as Soly has noted. "You have to take into consideration his various styles in relation to the actual period and the ideas he was interested in developing at that moment. The size of the catalogue imposes added difficulties in this respect, because another composer might have written for just as long, but in one style only. Mozart comes to mind: although he composed over a shorter period, his style was always well defined."
In April 2005, a thematic catalog of Graupner's instrumental music (Oswald Bill and Christoph Grosspietsch, editors) was published by Carus Music. There are plans to catalog Graupner's vocal music.
Works
Selected discography
- Graupner: Orchestral Works. Nova Stravaganza. Siegbert Rampe conductor (MD+G Gold 34111212)
- Graupner: Ouvertures and Cantata. Das kleine Konzert. Hermann Max conductor. (CPO 999592)
- Graupner: Ouverture, Trio, Sinfonia. Nova Stravaganza. Siegbert Rampe conductor. (MD+G Gold 3411252)
- Graupner: Partitas For Harpsichord, Vol 1. Performed by Geneviève Soly (Analekta 23109)
- Graupner: Partitas For Harpsichord, Vol 2. Performed by Geneviève Soly (Analekta 23164)
- Graupner: Partitas For Harpsichord, Vol 3. Performed by Geneviève Soly (Analekta 23181)
- Graupner: Partitas For Harpsichord, Vol 4. Performed by Geneviève Soly (Analekta 29116)
- Graupner: Partitas For Harpsichord, Vol 5. Performed by Geneviève Soly (Analekta 29118)
- Graupner: Partitas For Harpsichord, Vol 6. Performed by Geneviève Soly (Analekta 29119)
- Graupner: Instrumental And Vocal Music. Performed by Ingrid Schmithüsen, Mathieu Lussier, Hélène Plouffe, Geneviève Soly and L'Ensemble des Idées Heureuses conducted by Geneviève Soly (Analekta 23162)
- Graupner: Cantate, Sonate, Ouverture. Performed by Hélène Plouffe, Geneviève Soly, Chantal Rémillard, Isabelle Bozzini, Ingrid Schmithüsen and L'Ensemble des Idées Heureuses conducted by Geneviève Soly (Analekta 23180)
- Virtuoso Timpani Concertos. Dresden Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. Alexander Peter conductor. (Naxos 8557610)
External links