Johann David Heinichen (1683-1729)
- Concerto (F-Dur) con Corni da Caccia, SeiH 231
Performers: Pеtеr Arnοld (horn); SWR Rundfunkorchester Kаisеrlаutеrn
Further info: Johann David Heinichen (1683-1729) - Te Deum
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German composer and theorist. He was the son of David Heinichen who,
after an education at Leipzig's Thomasschule and the university, moved
to Krössuln for a lifelong career as pastor. Like his father, Heinichen
studied at the Thomasschule, having displayed considerable musical gifts
as a child. (According to his own testimony in Der General-Bass in der
Composition, these involved composing and conducting sacred music in
local churches.) He enrolled at the Thomasschule on 30 March 1695 and
his education included harpsichord and organ lessons with Johann Kuhnau.
Heinichen's talent impressed Kuhnau, who employed the young student as
his assistant, with responsibility for copying and correcting Kuhnau's
own manuscripts. In 1702 Heinichen entered Leipzig University as a law
student, completing the degree in 1706 and immediately moving to
Weissenfels to begin a practice as an advocate. Here the musical life of
the court, under the patronage of Duke Johann Georg, seems soon to have
attracted Heinichen away from his career in law. Johann Philipp
Krieger, the Kapellmeister, apparently encouraged Heinichen to write
music for court occasions. In addition, Heinichen came into contact with
other composers including Gottfried Grünewald, Krieger's assistant, the
court organist Christian Schieferdecker, and for a while Reinhard
Keiser, Hamburg's leading opera composer. In 1709 Heinichen returned to
Leipzig at the request of the manager of the opera house, for which he
composed several operas. He also became the director of the collegium
musicum that met at Lehmann's coffee house. During this period Heinichen
was appointed composer to the court of Zeitz and opera composer to the
court of Naumburg. During this year, if not earlier, he found time to
write the first version of his thoroughbass treatise, published in 1711.
In 1710 Heinichen gave up his successful career in Leipzig to travel to
Venice, the centre of Italian operatic music, the style of which
Heinichen was determined to learn at first hand.
In Venice he was commissioned to write two operas for the Teatro S
Angelo, Mario and Le passioni per troppo amore, both successfully
produced in 1713. In Venice Heinichen came into personal contact with
numerous important Italian musicians and composers, including Gasparini,
Pollaroli, Lotti and Vivaldi. In 1712 he went to Rome, where he gave
music lessons to the young Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, later J.S.
Bach's patron. No further details of Heinichen's travels in Italy have
been found. He remained in Italy, mainly in Venice, until 1716. His
growing fame as a composer attracted the attention of the Prince-Elector
of Saxony, who engaged him as Kapellmeister to the court at Dresden, a
post Heinichen assumed in 1717 and retained all his life. In Dresden
Heinichen shared the duties as Kapellmeister with Johann Christoph
Schmidt. The court of August the Strong maintained one of the most
important musical establishments in Europe. In the court orchestra
Heinichen found such outstanding musicians as the violinists Veracini,
Volumier and Pisendel (one of Heinichen's pupils), the flautists
Buffardin, Hebenstreit and Quantz, and the lutenist S.L. Weiss. For the
court theatre he wrote only one opera, Flavio Crispo, which was never
performed. For reasons which remain obscure, the Italian opera company
at court was dissolved by order of the king when quarrels broke out
between the composer and the singers Senesino and Berselli. The score of
Flavio Crispo breaks off without explanation near the end of the final
act, as if the composer gave it up at the time of these disagreements.
Although opera no longer had any significance in Heinichen's career, he
wrote a large amount of music, both secular (in the form of cantatas,
serenades and instrumental works) and sacred, in numerous scores largely
performed in the royal chapel. During Heinichen's final years he
revised and rewrote his earlier thoroughbass manual, publishing it in
1728 at his own expense. He died from tuberculosis, and was buried on 19
July 1729 in the cemetery of the Johanniskirche.
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