Franz Asplmayr (1728-1786)
- Quartetto concertante Ex D, Op.2 (1769)
Performers: Quatuor à cordes Oistersek de Cologne
Further info: 4 Quatuors Rococos
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Austrian composer and violinist. He probably received his first musical
instruction from his father, a dancing-master. After his father's death
he found employment by 1759 as secretarius and violinist to Count Morzin
during Haydn's tenure as music director. He was by then an established
composer, with works published in Paris perhaps as early as 1757. He
married in 1760, and after the disbanding of Morzin's musical
establishment in 1761 he worked as ballet composer for the
Kärntnertortheater in Vienna, succeeding Gluck. There is no primary
evidence that he was an imperial court composer and member of the
Hofkapelle, as often reported. When Gassmann replaced him as ballet
composer Asplmayr continued as a professional violinist, meanwhile
composing substantial quantities of instrumental music. His activities
as a composer of dance music led to a collaboration with the
choreographer J.-G. Noverre (from 1768) and Noverre's successor Gaspero
Angiolini, resulting in his writing music during the 1770s for at least
ten major dramatic ballets, nine of which survive; also extant are
scenebooks of Iphigénie en Tauride and Alexandre et Campaspe de Larisse
(A-Ws) and a scene synopsis of Acis et Galathée (Wn). The most famous of
these ballets, Agamemnon vengé, achieved international acclaim.
Asplmayr also composed the music for the first German-language melodrama
in 1772 (on a translation of Rousseau's Pygmalion) and a Singspiel, Die
Kinder der Natur, for the first season of the German Nationaltheater at
the Burgtheater.
He was a founding member of the Tonkünstler-Societät, serving as an
elected officer, and was a member of the quartet, also including Alois
Luigi Tomasini, Pancrazio Huber and Joseph Weigl, that first performed
Haydn's op.33 in 1781. His career then began to decline, and after an
illness he died in poverty. Asplmayr was an innovative composer, even an
experimental one. His principal fame came as the result of his
collaboration with Noverre. Agamemnon vengé, based on characters from
Greek antiquity, contains 39 numbers as well as symphonies before each
act. In addition to the usual set pieces there are passages of highly
programmatic music to accompany mimed episodes. Asplmayr's Die Kinder
der Natur was the most substantial of the earliest Viennese Singspiele.
Although the music is excellent, the work suffered from an exceptionally
bad libretto and disappeared from the repertory. Asplmayr's
instrumental music is equally interesting. He composed more than 40
string quartets and over 40 symphonies. Several of the string quartets
look forward to the style of Haydn's op.9. The symphonies, two of which
appeared under Haydn's name, represent the Viennese mainstream styles of
the 1760s and 70s. They are particularly advanced with respect to
harmony and developmental techniques. Asplmayr also composed string
trios, of which two were attributed by Hoboken to Haydn, as well as a
great many divertimentos for strings, wind partitas, sonatas,
concertinos and pieces of dance music. He has yet to find his place in
the history of the Viennese Classical period.
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