Johann Friedrich Agricola (1720-1774)
- Kündlich groß ist das gottselige Geheimnis (1768)
Performers: Berit Norbakken Solsеt (soprano); Myriam Arbouz (alto); Nicholas Mulroy (tenor); Matthias Viеwеg (bass);
Kölnеr Akademie; Michael Alеxander Willеns (conductor)
---
German musicographer, composer, organist, singing master and conductor.
His father occupied an important post as government agent and jurist in
Dobitschen. Burney, who visited the Agricolas in 1772, reported that
Johann Friedrich’s mother, born Maria Magdalena Manke, ‘was a near
relation of the late Mr Handel, and in correspondence with him till the
time of his death’; but later Handel research has failed to substantiate
this claim. Agricola began his study of music as a young child. In 1738
he entered the University of Leipzig, where he studied law; during this
time he was a pupil of J.S. Bach and visited Dresden, where he heard
performances of Passion oratorios and Easter music by Hasse. In 1741 he
moved to Berlin, became a pupil of Quantz, made the acquaintance of
C.P.E. Bach, C.H. Graun and other musicians, and embarked on a career
that touched many aspects of Berlin’s musical life. In 1749 and 1751 he
published, under the pseudonym ‘Flavio Anicio Olibrio’, pamphlets on
French and Italian taste, taking the part of Italian music against F.W.
Marpurg’s advocacy of French music. As a former pupil of J.S. Bach, he
collaborated with C.P.E. Bach in writing the obituary of J.S. Bach that
appeared in Mizler’s Musikalische Bibliothek in 1754 and became a
central source for subsequent biographies. He published Tosi’s Opinioni
de’ cantori antichi e moderni in German translation in 1757, adding
notes and comments which caused the translation to be regarded as a
landmark in the teaching of singing. He arbitrated the debate that began
in 1760 between Marpurg and G.A. Sorge. He also corresponded with Padre
Martini and the dramatist G.E. Lessing and assisted in the preparation
for publication of Jakob Adlung’s Musica mechanica organoedi (1768),
drawing particularly on what he had learnt about the construction of
organs and other keyboard instruments from J.S. Bach. From 1765 to 1774
he was a principal contributor of articles about music in C.F. Nicolai’s
Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek.
Most of these reflect a conservatism that might be considered typical of
north German music critics. Agricola’s study of melody (1771) remains
one of the important writings about a neglected subject; and his
biographical sketch of C.H. Graun (1773), like his participation in the
Bach obituary, served as a point of departure for later writers on the
subject. Agricola’s career as a thoroughly italianized composer of opera
was fostered and then blighted by the patronage of Frederick the Great.
His first intermezzo, Il filosofo convinto in amore, was performed with
much success at Potsdam in 1750, and Frederick appointed him a court
composer in 1751. In the same year, however, he married Benedetta Emilia
Molteni, one of the singers of the Opera, disregarding the king’s rule
that singers in his employ must remain single. Frederick punished the
pair by reducing their joint salary to 1000 thalers. When Graun,
Frederick’s chief opera composer, died in 1759, Agricola was appointed
musical director of the Opera without the title of Kapellmeister.
Frederick, who had always been critical of his composers – including
Graun himself – was particularly harsh in his censure of Agricola’s
operas. In October 1767, after hearing the rehearsals of Amor e Psiche,
he wrote to his attendant Pöllnitz: ‘You will tell Agricola that he must
change all of Coli’s arias – they are worthless – as well as those of
Romani, along with the recitatives, which are deplorable from one end to
the other’. An effort of 1772 entitled Oreste e Pilade, ordered by
Frederick as entertainment for a visit by the Queen of Sweden and the
Duchess of Brunswick, proved to be so far from what Frederick wanted
that the entire opera had to be rewritten and retitled I greci in
Tauride. Agricola was respected by his colleagues as a composer of
considerable ability. His sacred works were in demand during his
lifetime; copies of many of them survive in European libraries and
archives.
