HAEFFNER, Johann Christian Friedrich (1759-1833) - Ouverture in Es-Dur

Johann Christian Friedrich Haeffner (1759-1833) - Ouverture in Es-Dur (1822)

Performers: Orchestra of the Royal Swedish Opera; Philip Brunelle (conductor)

Painting: Johan Way (1792-1873) - Karl XIV Johan vid Uppsala högar

Further info: Royal Swedish Court: Music from the 18th Century

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Johann Christian Friedrich Haeffner [Hæffner, Häffner]

(Oberschönau, 2 March 1759 - Uppsala, 28 May 1833)

German organist and composer, active in Sweden. The son of a schoolmaster and church organist in Klein-Schmalkalden, he received his first musical education with the Schmalkalden organist Johann Gottfried Vierling. He studied in Leipzig from 1776, and then worked as a music conductor in theatres in Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg (1778-80). In 1781, he moved to Stockholm at the invitation of the German congregation there (Tyska kyrkan) to assume the position of organist, which he held until 1793. The same year, he was employed at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm as well as conductor of the orchestra for the Stenborg theatres. In 1786 he was appointed assistant conductor of the Royal Orchestra (hovkapellet) and from 1795 to 1807 he held the post of hovkapellmästare. He was also an instructor at Dramatens elevskola. He was married twice, first to the Swedish actress and singer Elisabeth Forsselius. Since king Gustaf IV Adolf closed the Royal Opera and its orchestra in 1807, he moved to Uppsala, where he 1808 was appointed Director musices of the university and simultaneously was employed as organist of the cathedral. In Uppsala he organized the studentsång (four-voice male choir singing). This practice rapidly spread to the other Nordic universities and is still today a coveted tradition, not only among university students, but for the last century also in many male choirs all over Sweden. Hæffner's passion and work for this has rendered him the name Studentsångens fader. As a composer, he wrote three operas, among them the well-known 'Electra', theatre music, a mass, one symphony (1795), three Overtures (c.1798-1823), keyboard and chamber works, songs with piano accompaniment, and was responsible for the new Swedish chorale book in 1819. Noteworthy is his oratorio 'Försonaren på Golgatha'. His music is heavily influenced by the German Sturm und Drang.

CAZZATI, Maurizio (1616-1678) - Messa per li defonti (1663)

Maurizio Cazzati (1616-1678) - Messa per li defonti A Cinque Voci ... Op.31 (1663)

Performers: Maria Cristina Kiеhr (soprano); Dominique Vissе (countertenor); Bruno Botеrf (tenor);

François Fauchе (bass); Marc Busnеl (bass); Ensemble La Fenice; Jean Tսbéry (conductor)

Painting: Unknown artist after Hieronymus Francken (1578-1623) - Le roi David jouant de la harpe

Further info: Maurizio Cazzati - Sonates, Antiennes & Requiem

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Maurizio (Mauritio) Cazzati [Cacciati, Casati, Cassati, Cazzatti]

(Luzzara (now Lucera), 1 March 1616 - Mantua, 1678)

Italian composer and organist. Nothing is known about his early years. He may have been appointed to his first musical position at the age of 17, at San Pietro, Guastalla, serving Ferrante III, Duke of Guastalla. After his ordination to the priesthood he became maestro di cappella and organist of San Andrea, Mantua, in 1641. In 1648 he was appointed the same post at the Accademia della Morte in Ferrara and at the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo in 1653. He returned to his old job in Ferrara in April 1657 and then was elected to the post where he would make his reputation, maestro di cappella at San Petronio, Bologna, in late 1657. He instituted a regular choir of 35 singers and a group of well-paid instrumentalists for the liturgy at San Petronio, but despite the audible improvements he made and the reputation he built, his tenure there was marked by politically motivated controversies over the syntax in his sacred compositions. The vestry supported him, but he was finally forced out in June 1671. He went to Mantua to serve the Gonzaga family as maestro di cappella di camera and the cathedral as maestro di cappella in a post he held the rest of his life. As a composer, he reformed the 'cappella musicale' at the church of San Petronio in Bologna and established its reputation as a center of excellent music in general and as the origin of the sonata for trumpet and strings in particular with his Opus 35 (1665). He published 10 volumes of instrumental music, including the first violin sonatas published by a San Petronio composer, his Opus 55 (1670). There are also 10 volumes of secular vocal music, 4 lost operas, 11 lost oratorios, and 46 volumes of sacred music. 

CIMADOR, Giovanni Battista (1761-1805) - Concerto Per Contrabasso

Giovanni Battista Cimador (1761-1805) - Concerto (Sol maggiore) Per Contrabasso A tre Corde

Performers: Gerd Rеinkе (doublebass); Symphonieorchester Cairo; Ahmеd El-Saеdi (conductor)

Drawing: Anonymous - Les marionnettes du jour (1815)

Further info: Kompositionen Für Kontrabass & Orchester

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Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) Cimador [Cimadoro, Cimator, Cimidoro]

(Venice, 1761 - Bath, 27 February 1805)

Italian composer, singer, violinist and music publisher. Of noble birth, he had his debut as a composer in Venice in 1789 with 'Aci e Cibele'. While still in Venice he wrote a double bass concerto for the young virtuoso Domenico Dragonetti; the manuscript survives, together with Dragonetti's additional variations on the final Rondo, which he evidently considered too short. In 1791 he moved to London, where he became well known as a singer. In 1794 he had a position in Bath as a violinist and editor of the journal The Open Music Warehouse. In about 1800 he entered into partnership with the Italian music publisher Tebaldo Monzani. Together they issued periodical collections of Italian and English vocal music, and, as The Opera Music Warehouse, they published Mozart's great operas, advertising that ‘any of the songs, Duetts, Trios, Overtures … may be had Single & the whole of Mozart's Pianoforte Compositions, published in Numbers’. Many of these were arranged or provided with piano accompaniments by Cimador. As a composer, his music reflects late 18th-century styles. This includes three operas, two canzonetts, a contrabass concerto, a hornpipe for keyboard, and numerous arrangements of the works of others.

KRIEGER, Johann Philipp (1649-1725) - Magnificat à 15

Johann Philipp Krieger (1649-1725) - Magnificat | à 15 | 17. | 2 Clarin. | Tamburi. | 2 Violin. |

3 Viol. | Fagott. | S.A.T.B. | 4 in Rip. | con | Continuo

Performers: Collegium Vocale Lеipzig; Chursächsіsche Capelle; Michael Schönhеіt (conductor)

Painting: Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier (1695-1750) - Chariot of Apollo, Ceiling Design for Count Bielinski's Cabinet

Further info: Der Mitteldeutschen Barockmusik

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Johann Philipp (Giovanni Filippo) Krieger [Kriger, Krüger, Krugl et al.]

(Nuremberg, bap. 27 February 1649 - Weissenfels, 6 February 1725)

German composer and organist. Elder brother of Johann Krieger (1652-1735), Johann Mattheson told the following about his early musical training in Nuremberg: ‘In his eighth year [he] began clavier lessons with Johann Drechsel [Johannes Dretzel], a pupil of Froberger; he also received instruction on various other instruments from the famous Gabriel Schütz’. According to Doppelmayr ‘he progressed so rapidly in this [clavier lessons] that already at the age of nine he amazed large audiences with his playing; moreover, he was able to play any melody that was sung to him and to perform well-made arias that he himself had written’. At the age of 14 or 16 he went to Copenhagen to study organ playing with the royal Danish organist Johannes Schröder and composition with Kaspar Förster. Declining a position as organist at Christiania (Oslo) he returned to Nuremberg after a stay of four or five years in Copenhagen. He cannot have remained long in Nuremberg, for Mattheson reported, confusingly, that he was both at Zeitz in 1670-71 and organist and later Kapellmeister at the court at Bayreuth between 1670 and 1672. When Margrave Christian Ernst left the Bayreuth court in 1673 to join the war against France, he was given permission to travel to Italy without loss of salary. He probably stayed there for about two years. Mattheson stated that in Venice he studied composition with Johann Rosenmüller and the clavier with G.B. Volpe, and that in Rome he studied composition with A.M. Abbatini and the clavier and composition with Bernardo Pasquini. Immediately after his visit to Italy he played for the Emperor Leopold I in Vienna, in return for which, in a letter dated 10 October 1675, the emperor ennobled him and all his brothers and sisters. He soon left Bayreuth for Frankfurt and Kassel and was offered positions in both cities. He apparently refused them or held them for only a short time, for on 2 November 1677 he accepted a position as organist at the court at Halle. When Duke August died in 1680 his successor, Johann Adolph I, moved the court to Weissenfels. He went with him as Kapellmeister, a position he held until his death. After his death his son Johann Gotthilf Krieger (who succeeded his father as Kapellmeister until 1736) continued the catalogue until 1732. Johann Philipp Krieger was one of the outstanding German composers of his time, especially of church cantatas, of which he wrote over 2000 (nearly all lost); under his direction the cultivation of music at the small court at Weissenfels rose to the highest level of German court music.

FORKEL, Johann Nikolaus (1749-1818) - Sinfonia in Es-Dur (1780)

Johann Nikolaus Forkel (1749-1818) - Sinfonia (Es-Dur) | per | II Corni, II Clarinetti,

Fagotto obl. II Violini, | Braccio è Violoncello (1780)

Performers: Gοttingеr Barockorchester, Antonius Adаmskе (conductor)

Painting: Wilhelm von Kobell (1766-1853) - Viehmarkt am Rande einer Stadt (c.1802)

Further info: Gottingen Christmas Cantatas

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Johann (Iogann) Nikolaus (Nicolaus) Forkel

(Meeder, 22 February 1749 - Göttingen, 20 March 1818)

German composer, professor, and historian. His earliest education was in Coburg, with local Kantor Johann Heinrich Schulthesius, following which in 1766 he attended the Johannischule in Lüneberg. Shortly thereafter he moved to Schwerin to become assistant conductor of the cathedral choir. Noticed by Duke Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, he was given a stipend to study at Göttingen University beginning in 1769. A year later he was awarded the post of university organist, receiving his doctorate in 1787. The following year he published his 'Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik' followed in 1792 by the 'Allgemeine Litteratur der Musik', both of which established him as a major historian-bibliographer of the period. His correspondence with the sons of Johann Sebastian Bach led him to create over a period of several decades one of the first biographical studies, published in 1802 as 'Über Johann Sebastian Bach: Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke' as part of an attempt to bring out Bach’s complete works. His scholarly studies often overshadowed his work as a composer. Surviving works include 22 Lieder, five keyboard concertos, seven trio sonatas, four large cantatas or odes, and several sets of variations and smaller keyboard works. His musical style tends to follow the norms of the period, with particular influence of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. He is generally regarded as one of the founders of modern musicology.