Johann Adam Hiller (1728-1804) - Jauchzet Dem Herrn, Alle Welt (c.1781)
Performers: Veronika Winter (soprano); Stuttgart Hymnus Boys Choir &
Handel's Company
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German composer and writer on music. His father, a schoolmaster and
magistrate’s clerk, died when Hiller was six; he was taught the
rudiments of music by his father’s successor, and in 1740 went to the
Gymnasium in Görlitz. He had to leave in 1745 owing to lack of funds,
and earned his living as a clerk until in 1746 he won a scholarship to
the Kreuzschule in Dresden. There he took a keen part in the flourishing
musical life of the city. He studied keyboard playing and thoroughbass
with Gottfried August Homilius, and came to know and admire the works of
Johann Adolf Hasse and C.H. Graun, whose galantmanner became his
musical ideal. Apart from his musical activities he already had
wide-ranging intellectual interests. In 1751 he matriculated at Leipzig
University to read law, and music temporarily became ‘a companion in his
leisure hours and a breadwinner’ (Rochlitz). Hiller was at home on
almost every instrument without excelling on any, and laid more
importance on being an all-round ensemble player and a good singer. He
played the flute and sang bass in Leipzig’s principal concert
undertaking, the Grosses Concert, and also wrote what were, apart from
occasional youthful attempts at composition, his first works: half a
dozen symphonies, church cantatas and German arias, according to his
autobiography; a setting of C.F. Gellert’s Singspiel Das Orackel, begun
in 1754, was never completed. At the same time his literary bent showed
itself with the publication in 1754 of his essay Abhandlung über die
Nachahmung der Natur in der Musik. Also in that year, through the
intervention of Gellert, he obtained a position in Dresden as a steward
to the young Count Brühl, with whom he returned to Leipzig four years
later. During this period he became subject to bouts of depression
(diagnosed, typically for the time, as hypochondria) accompanied by
severe physical discomfort, which forced him to give up his post in
1760.
From 1762 he played an increasingly active role in the musical life of
Leipzig. First he was persuaded to mount a series of subscription
concerts, which were so successful that the following year he was
entrusted with the direction of the Grosse Concert-Gesellschaft. He
remained in this position until 1771, and set about raising the standard
of the orchestra and providing more varied programmes, principally by
introducing vocal music. In 1766 he began an enduring partnership with
the poet Christian Felix Weisse which resulted in the establishment of a
German national opera. In the 1760s Hiller also made a name for himself
as editor of the Wöchentliche Nachrichten, for which he wrote most of
the reports and essays. In 1775 Hiller founded the musical association
called the ‘Musikübende Gesellschaft’, in which pupils of the school,
professional musicians and amateurs worked together; these concerts
gradually took the place of the Grosses Concert, which was dissolved in
1778. In addition he put on concerts spirituelsduring Lent, comprising
performances of sacred music. In 1778 he also became musical director of
the university church (the Paulinerkirche) and in 1783 of the Neukirche
as well. But more important was his appointment in 1781 as conductor of
the Gewandhaus concerts, which now assumed the central position in
Leipzig’s concert life. With his many duties, and the high esteem in
which he was held as a man and a musician, Hiller was now the most
prominent personality in Leipzig’s music. On the invitation of the Duke
of Courland, he paid a visit to Mitau in 1781 and had a brilliant
reception at the court. He resigned all his posts in Leipzig to accept
the appointment of Kapellmeister to the duke in 1785. But he returned to
Leipzig after only a year because of the insecure political situation
at the Courland court. In 1787 took up the post of municipal
Musikdirektor in Breslau. Two years later he was recalled to Leipzig as
Kantor of the Thomaskirche. As a composer too his main attention was now
turned to church music. In 1800, on the grounds of declining powers, he
at first asked for a deputy, and shortly afterwards he resigned his
post.
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