JUST, Johann August (c.1750-1791) - Sonata III, Op.13 (1781)

Johann August Just (c.1750-1791) - Sonata (III) for the Piano Forte with Accompanyment, Op.13 (1781)

Performers: Camerata Classica ensemble

Painting: Hendrik Pothoven (1725-1807) - View of the Binnenhof in The Hague with the Ridderzaal (1787)

Further info: Johann August Just (c.1750-1791) - Klaviertrios Op. 2 (c.1770)

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Johann August Just

(Gröningen, c.1750 - The Hague, December 1791)

German keyboard player, composer and violinist. According to early chroniclers, he studied with Kirnberger in Berlin and subsequently with Schwindl at The Hague. By 1767 he was at the court of William V, Prince of Orange and Nassau, where he served as music master to Princess Wilhelmine; he remained connected with the court throughout his career. Early in his life he may have visited London; by 1772 his publications there had reached op.3, and most works published on the Continent were promptly reprinted in London. Fétis’s statement that Just followed the court into exile in England (January 1795) must be false, as royal archives imply an earlier death. As Burney wrote only on deceased composers for Rees’s Cyclopaedia, Just must have died before Burney’s brief article on him was written (c.1804). Just was described by Gerber as being among ‘the best keyboard players in the new manner’. His compositions are largely for keyboard, but he also wrote at least three Singspiele, of which De Koopman van Smyrna was performed in German translation in Bonn and Frankfurt in 1783. The style of the Singspiele resembles the popular works of J.A. Hiller, but they also share characteristics with current Parisian comedies. The keyboard works are marked by their frankly pedagogic orientation and include many sonatinas and divertimentos; use of the latter title, two-part writing and other points of style suggest the possible influence of the widely circulated keyboard music of Wagenseil. Keyboard publications include variations on popular songs; one set (1773) used ‘Lison dormait dans un bocage’ from Dezède’s Julie. (It was later similarly used by Mozart in his nine variations k264.) Just’s simple pieces generally possess refinement and charm and are still attractive teaching material. At a time when the piano was coming into vogue his teaching collections continued to specify the harpsichord. Many sets include fashionable violin accompaniments, but in op.6 the violin is obbligato and a true concertante equality between the instruments often results. Fétis’s attribution to Just of the keyboard method New and Compleat Instructions for the Harpsichord, Piano-Forte or Organ (London, c.1798) has not been verified but is reinforced by Just’s lifelong concern with didactic materials and by selections in it entitled ‘The Prince’s Favourite’ and ‘Stadtholder’s Minuet’. (A possible alternative compiler is the court pianist J.A. Colizzi.)

IVANSCHIZ, Amandus (1727-1758) - Missa (ex C) à 4 voci (c.1755)

Amandus Ivanschiz (1727-1758) - Missa (ex C) à 4 voci (c.1755)

Performers: Cаtеrina Prеstеlе (soprano); Kаtаrzyna Holysz (alto); Piotr Szеwczyk (tenor); Miroslаw Bοrczynski (bass); Accаdеmia dеll'Arcаdiа; Vox humаnа; Bаrtlomiеj Stаnkowiak (conductor)

Painting: Theodoor van Thulden (1606-1669) - Allegory of the Farewell of William III from Amalia van Solms following the transfer of Regency to the States General (1661)

Further info: Amando Ivanschiz (1727-1758) - Missa in C

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Amandus (Matthias Leopold) Ivanschiz [Ivanschitz, Ivanschütz, Ivanscics, Ivančić, Ivančič]

(Wien, bap. 24 December 1727 - Ort?, 1758)

Austrian composer of south Slav extraction. Only fragmentary information about his life is available. He entered the Pauline order in his hometown and choose the name of Amandus likely by the end of 1742. After his novitiate in the Ranna monastery at the age of 16 (Dec. 25, 1743) he took his monastic vows. He then studied in Maria Trost and Wiener Neustadt, where he was ordained a priest on November 15, 1750. Between 1751 and 1754 he stayed in Rome as an assistant to the Procurator General of the order, from where he returned to Wiener Neustadt. In 1755 he was sent again to the Maria Trost monastery, where he died in 1758, at the young age of 31. He was evidently a prolific and popular composer: there survive about 100 works by him in manuscripts, dating mostly from 1762 to 1772 and scattered throughout the Habsburg Empire and in south Germany. His music is characteristic of the transition from late Baroque to early Classical style, and his best works are his masses and symphonies. The masses are mostly scored for four soloists, four-part choir, two violins and bass and a pair of trumpets; some are of considerable dimensions, and they show distinct Neapolitan traits. The symphonies, many of which have four movements, are scored for strings, sometimes with a pair of trumpets or horns. The trios, entitled variously ‘Divertimento’, ‘Nocturno’, ‘Sinfonia’, ‘Sonata’ and ‘Parthia’, are mostly in three movements in the same key; Ivanschiz’s frequent use of the viola as the second solo instrument is a forward-looking trait. 

TARTINI, Giuseppe (1692-1770) - Concerto a Violoncello principale obligato

Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) - Concerto a Violoncello principale obligato (c.1740)

Performers: Mstislav Rostropovitch (1927-2007, violoncelle); Collegіum Musіcum de Zurіch;

Paul Sacher (1906-1999, conductor)

Painting: Dominicus Gottfried Waerdigh (1700-1789) - A family playing music in an interior (1734)

Further info: Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) - I concerti per flauto

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Giuseppe Tartini

(Pirano, [now Piran, Slovenia], 8 April 1692 - Padua, 26 February 1770)

Italian composer, violinist, teacher and theorist. Tartini's father Giovanni Antonio, of Florentine origin, was general manager of the salt mills in Pirano. Giuseppe, destined for the church by his pious parents, was to have been first a minore conventuale, a branch of the Franciscan order, and subsequently a full priest. To this end he was educated in his native town and then in nearby Capodistria (now Koper, Slovenia) at the scuole pie; as well as the humanities and rhetoric, he studied the rudiments of music. In 1708 he left his native region, never to live there again, but carrying in his memory the peculiarities of the local musical folklore. He enrolled as a law student at Padua University, where he devoted most of his time, always dressed as a priest, to improving his fencing, a practice in which, according to contemporary accounts, few could compete with him. A few months after his father's death, Tartini openly rebelled against his parents' intentions, and on 29 July 1710 he married Elisabetta Premazore, a girl of lower social standing and two years his elder. He was then compelled to leave Padua and took refuge in the convent of S Francesco in Assisi, where he was sheltered by the superior, Padre G.B. Torre, from Pirano. There Tartini remained for at least three years, devoting himself determinedly to practising the violin, always without tuition. Although direct evidence is lacking, he probably studied composition during this period with Padre Bohuslav Černohorský, then organist of the basilica in Assisi. 

By 1714, he was a violinist in the Ancona opera and spent the next years playing at various theaters in northeastern Italy. On 16 April 1721, he was appointed primo violino e capo di concerto at San Antonio of Padua. From 1723 to 1726, he was in Prague, in service to the Kinsky family, where he met Johann Joseph Fux, Antonio Caldara, and Sylvius Weiss, among others. Then he returned to Padua, started his school, and about 1730, brought out his first published volume of violin works. In an age when composing for the church or the theater was the sure path to success, Tartini refused to do either and embarked upon an idiosyncratic career establishing an international reputation as violinist and philosopher of music, writing five treatises contesting the ideas of Giovanni Battista Martini, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, among others, and leaving an oeuvre concentrated on the violin: about 135 solo violin concertos, about 135 violin sonatas with continuo, 30 unaccompanied sonatas, and about 40 trio sonatas. He also composed 2 flute concertos, 2 concertos for viola da gamba, 4 motets, and 20 Italian sacred songs. Most of his living was made as a freelance violinist. In the late 1720s, he founded his own school of violin playing, the first of its type, known as “school of the nations” because it attracted students from all over Europe. About 1740, he suffered a stroke that adversely affected his playing, and he devoted more and more time to music theory in his last years.

HANDEL, Georg Friederich (1685-1759) - Horn Concerto in F (1715)

Georg Friederich Händel (1685-1759) - Horn Concerto in F (1715)

Performers: Mеir Rіmon (1946-1991, horn); Isrаеl Philarmonic Orchestra

Painting: Thomas Hudson (1701-1779) - George Frederick Handel (1756)

Further info: Georg Frederich Händel (1685-1759) - Dixit Dominus

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George Frideric (Georg Friederich) Handel [Händel, Hendel]

(Halle, 23 February 1685 - London, 14 April 1759)

English composer of German birth. Handel’s father, Georg Händel (1622-1697), wanted his son to study law but Herr Händel was also the barber-surgeon to the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, who once happened to hear the boy play. The duke changed Georg Händel’s mind. Then he studied harpsichord, organ and composition with Friedrich Zachow. Handel’s future career may have been stimulated by a visit to Berlin in 1702, where he met opera composer Giovanni Bononcini and heard his Cefalo and Polifemo. In summer 1703, he left Halle for Hamburg and joined the opera orchestra there as second violinist and continuo harpsichordist. During the fortuitous absence of Reinhard Keiser, the Hamburg Theater’s principal composer, Handel composed his first operas in 1705, Almira and Nero. In the latter half of 1706, Handel traveled to Italy, probably visiting Florence but certainly Rome by early 1707, where he quickly earned the patronage of Carlo Cardinal Colonna and Benedetto Cardinal Pamphili. Handel composed a number of motets, two Italian-style oratorios and a dramatic cantata. Working in these genres, derived from opera, honed Handel’s musical-dramatic skills. Finally, in Venice, his full-length opera Agrippina opened the Carnival season on 26 December 1709, to great acclaim. In 1710, Handel returned to Germany. The elector of Hanover, future King George I, began his family’s long association with Handel by appointing him court Kapellmeister. But Handel, allowed to travel by the terms of his appointment, went on to London ahead of the elector in the autumn of 1710. Though later than most cities on the continent, London was falling under the spell of imported Italian opera. Arrangements and excerpts had been heard since 1705, but Handel’s Rinaldo of 1711 was the first original full-length Italian opera for London with an Italian cast. In May 1719, Handel was commissioned by the lord chamberlain to go to the continent and engage opera singers to establish the Royal Academy of Music, a joint stock company supported by King George I and financed by subscribers who hoped to profit. The Royal Academy, with operatic contributions from Giovanni Porta, Bononcini, and Attilio Ariosti, provided all Handel’s operatic activity until it closed in 1728. 

On 29 January 1728, John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera opened at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theater. Its popular success, with its simple English songs and satire of the Royal Academy, is sometimes regarded as the beginning of the end of Handel’s opera career in England. But Handel went back to Europe from February until July in 1729 and engaged new singers to sing in a reconstituted Royal Academy. Over the next 12 years, he persevered under various auspices and venues with 17 more Italian operas despite political opposition, operatic competition fueled by a feud between King George II and Frederick Prince of Wales, and a debilitating illness in April 1737. Many of these operas were not successful and had to close after a few performances, despite the excellence of the music. But in 1741 he composed his most famous work, Messiah, an English-language oratorio, premiered in Dublin on April 1742. After an initially modest public reception, the oratorio gained in popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music. On 21 January 1751, Handel began to compose an oratorio on the same story as the Giacomo Carissimi work that he knew well, Jephtha. But the work was interrupted by rapidly deteriorating eyesight, and he did not complete the score until 30 August. He composed no large new pieces after that, although, through the aid of his assistant, John Christopher Smith, he managed to effect revisions and contribute some new songs and arias to revivals. William Blomfield, royal surgeon, operated unsuccessfully on Handel’s eye in November 1752, as did John Taylor in August 1758. Handel continued to participate in performances and to revise and revive his work throughout the 1750s, finishing in 1759 with a revision of his 1749 oratorio Solomon. On 6 April, he attended a last performance of Messiah and died on 14 April. At his own request, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, and it is reported that 3,000 people attended the burial service.

CZERNY, Carl (1791-1857) - Variations on 'Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser' (1824)

Carl Czerny (1791-1857) - Variations on 'Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser', Op. 73 (1824)

Performers: Felicja Blumental (1908-1991, piano); Vienna Chamber Orchestra;

Hellmuth Froschauer (1933-2019, conductor)

Painting: Josef Danhauser (1805-1845) - Wein, Weib und Gesang

Further info: Carl Czerny (1791-1857) - Lieder

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Carl Czerny

(Vienna, 21 February 1791 - Vienna, 15 July 1857)

Austrian piano teacher, composer, pianist, theorist and historian.The primary source of information about Czerny is his autobiographical sketch entitled Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben (1842). Czerny, an only child, was born in Vienna. He and his parents resided together until his mother's death in 1827, and his father's in 1832. He never married, and lived alone for the remainder of his life. Czerny describes his childhood as ‘under my parents’ constant supervision… carefully isolated from other children’. He began to study the piano with his father at an early age, and by ten was ‘able to play cleanly and fluently nearly everything of Mozart [and] Clementi’. His first efforts at composition began around the age of seven. In 1799, he began to study Beethoven's compositions, coached by Wenzel Krumpholz, a violinist in the Court Opera orchestra, who introduced him to Beethoven when he was ten. Beethoven indicated that he wanted to teach Czerny several times a week, and told his father to procure C.P.E. Bach's Versuch. Czerny describes the lessons as consisting of scales and technique at first, then progressing through the Versuch, with the stress on legato technique throughout. The lessons stopped around 1802, because Beethoven needed to concentrate for longer periods of time on composition, and because Czerny's father was unable to sacrifice his own lessons in order to take his son to Beethoven. Czerny neverthless remained on close terms with the composer, who asked him to proofread all his newly published works, and entrusted him with the piano reduction of the score of Fidelio in 1805. In 1800, Czerny made his public début in the Vienna Augarten hall, performing Mozart's C minor Concerto k491. He was renowned for his interpretation of Beethoven's work, performing the First Concerto in C major in 1806, and the ‘Emperor’ in 1812. Beginning in 1816 he gave weekly programmes at his home devoted exclusively to Beethoven's piano music, many of which were attended by the composer. Apparently he could perform all of Beethoven's piano music from memory.

Although his playing was praised by many critics (‘uncommonly fiery’, according to Schilling), he did not pursue a career as a performer. Instead, he decided to concentrate on teaching and composition. He spent a good deal of time with Clementi when the latter was in Vienna in 1810, becoming familiar with his method of teaching, which Czerny greatly admired and incorporated into his own pedagogy. In his early teens Czerny began to teach some of his father's students. By the age of 15, he was commanding a good price for his lessons, and had many pupils. In 1815, Beethoven asked him to teach his nephew, Carl. As his reputation continued to grow, he was able to command a lucrative fee, and for the next 21 years he claims to have given 12 lessons a day, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., until he gave up teaching entirely in 1836. In 1821, the nine-year-old Liszt began a two-year period of study with Czerny. The teacher noted that ‘never before had I had so eager, talented, or industrious a student’, but lamented that Liszt had begun his performing career too early, without proper training in composition. Czerny also taught, among others, Döhler, Kullak, Alfred Jaëll, Thalberg, Heller, Ninette von Bellevile-Oury and Blahetka. Around 1802, Czerny began to copy out many J.S. Bach fugues, Scarlatti sonatas and other works by ‘ancient’ composers. He describes learning orchestration by copying the parts from the first two Beethoven symphonies, and several Haydn and Mozart symphonies as well. He published his first composition in 1806 at the age of 15: a set of 20 Variations concertantes for piano and violin op.1 on a theme by Krumpholz. Until he gave up teaching, composition occupied ‘every free moment I had’, usually the evenings. Czerny was a central figure in the transmission of Beethoven's legacy. Many of his technical exercises remain an essential part of nearly every pianist's training, but most of his compositions – in nearly every genre, sacred and secular, with opus numbers totalling 861, and an even greater number of works published without opus – are largely forgotten. A large number of theoretical works are of great importance for the insight they offer into contemporary musical genres and performance practice.