Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (1657-1714)
- Ouverture (IV, d-moll) aus 'VI. Ouvertures, begleitet mit ihren
darzu schicklichen Airs, nach französischer Art und Manier eingerichtet
und gesetzet' (1693)
Performers: Musica antiqua Köln; Reinhard Goеbеl (conductor)
Painting: Adam Frans van der Meulen (1632-1690) - The Crossing of the Rhine at Lobith on the 16th of June 1672
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German composer. He was one of the leading composers of his time in
central Germany, especially of church music and more particularly of
cantatas, of which he wrote several hundred. Erlebach probably received
his earliest musical training at the East Friesian court. Through the
family connections of the ruling house he was sent with a recommendation
to Thuringia, where he was employed from 1678 to 1679, first as
musician and valet and then, from 1681, as Kapellmeister, at the court
of Count Albert Anton von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. At Rudolstadt he
entered a lively musical environment. During his 33 years as
Kapellmeister he not only succeeded in making this small establishment
into a main centre of musical activity in Thuringia but also made a
considerable name for himself in central Germany as a composer. He
enjoyed both musical and personal relations with J.P. Krieger,
Kapellmeister of the court at Weissenfels, and he paid visits to the
ducal court of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and to Nuremberg, where several of
his works were printed. In 1705 he took part, as a member of Albert
Anton's retinue, in a ceremony of homage to the Emperor Joseph I at
Mühlhausen, where, with the Rudolstadt court orchestra, he directed a
large-scale ceremonial work, which he had composed for the occasion and
which is his only music to survive in an autograph copy. He wrote
several pieces for the funerals of Albert Anton (1710) and of his
consort (1707). When Albert Anton's son Ludwig Friedrich came to the
throne in 1711, the event was celebrated with a number of festival
cantatas, all of which Erlebach also composed. In his last years he was
revered and sought out above all as a teacher; Johann Caspar Vogler, who
also studied with Bach, was one of the many musicians who learnt the
rudiments of their craft from him. After his death the Rudolstadt court
bought his collection of music from his widow; it included many sacred
and secular works that were destroyed by fire in 1735 and are known now
only from two extensive catalogues.
Erlebach composed in nearly all the forms common at the time and was
equally successful in instrumental and vocal works. Of his 120 or so
instrumental works there survive only six suites, six trio sonatas and a
march. The suites show the influence of French orchestral suites, and
the trio sonatas that of the Italian sonata da camera; in all these
works Erlebach succeeded in uniting foreign formal elements with German
features, which can be seen above all in the distinctly folklike nature
of some of the melodic material and which also produces sonorities
reminiscent of those of vocal music. Erlebach was most prolific as a
composer of church music, which was the field in which he began his
career as a composer about 1680. His sacred music embraces a cappella
motets for four or more voices, concertato psalms and hymns, masses,
oratorios (the Christmas, Easter, Resurrection and Whitsuntide stories
and pieces for the New Year) and various kinds of cantata. All the
oratorios are lost, and only some of their texts are extant. But his
best works in the other genres bear witness to his mastery as a composer
of church music. His psalm settings, which adhere to the style of the
sacred concerto for large forces, are interesting particularly for their
colourful harmonies, precisely indicated contrasts of tempo and
dynamics and free use of madrigalian motifs: such features, following in
the wake of Schütz's achievements, helped to enhance the importance of
works of this type, at least in central Germany. Erlebach soon began to
specialize as a composer of cantatas. Most of them are lost, but their
texts show a logical development from those closely adhering to Gospel
passages, through those containing arias and concerto-like textures
conceived on soloistic lines, to cantatas based on free texts with
recitative and da capo arias, and to solo cantatas with an obbligato
instrument.
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