Johann Mattheson (1681-1764) - Magnificat (D-Dur) a due cori 'Meine Seele erhebt den Herrn' (1716)
Performers: Nicki Kennedy (soprano); Ursula Eittinger (contralto); Andreas Post (tenor); Stephan MacLeod (bass); Kölner Akademie; Michael Alexander Willens (conductor)
Further info: Magnificat a due cori
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German composer, critic, music journalist, lexicographer and theorist. He was the third and only surviving son of a Hamburg tax collector, Johannes Mattheson, and Margaretha Hölling. Johann the son received a liberal education at the Johanneum in Hamburg and began musical studies at the age of six. By age nine, he was performing on the organ in Hamburg churches and singing with the Hamburg opera, beginning a long association. He befriended George Frideric Handel there in 1703 and apparently helped Handel secure a position with the opera orchestra. Although, he nearly killed Handel in a sudden quarrel during a performance of Mattheson's opera 'Die unglückselige Kleopatra, Königin von Ägypten' in 1704. Handel was saved only by a large button which turned aside Mattheson's sword. The two were afterwards reconciled and remained in correspondence for life: shortly after his friend's death, Mattheson translated John Mainwaring's biography of Handel into German and had it published in Hamburg at his own expense ('auf Kosten des Übersetzers') in 1761. The key moment of Mattheson’s career arrived with the appointment as tutor to the son of Sir John Wich, the English ambassador to Hamburg, in 1704, a job which he performed so impressively that he was made Wich’s private secretary in 1706 with a high salary and important diplomatic responsibilities. Mattheson retained this post when the son succeeded his father as ambassador in 1715, even while taking on other posts as director of music at the Hamburg cathedral (1715) and Kapellmeister to the Duke of Holstein (1719). He married an Englishwoman, Catharina Jennings (?-1753), in 1709. During the extraordinarily productive years between 1715 and 1740 he wrote not only numerous important scores and treatises but also many translations from English of books et al. He also translated several English histories, novels and philosophical works, and produced a steady flow of articles for journals published in Hamburg. In 1741 he received the title of Legation Secretary to the Duke of Holstein, and in 1744 was promoted to ‘Legations-Rat’. On 25 April 1764, after a funeral with music of his own composition conducted by Georg Philipp Telemann, Mattheson’s body was buried in the crypt of St. Michael’s Church in Hamburg, the organ of which he had paid to restore. Possessed of great intelligence and a remarkably broad education in addition to prodigious musical talent, Johann Mattheson is remembered today as one of the most prolific writers on music of the Baroque period. His legacy of treatises, journals, letters, and articles yields a remarkably comprehensive picture of music as it was practiced in the first half of 18th-century Europe. The picture is particularly valuable because Mattheson himself held important positions in the musical world and composed 7 operas, 25 oratorios, 3 passions, 18 Italian cantatas, 24 sonatas, 13 suites for harpsichord, and 12 fugues. Details of his life come chiefly from his own 'Grundlage einer Ehren- Pforte', a biographical dictionary.
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