REUTTER, Johann Georg (1708-1772) - Servizio di tavola (1757)

Johann Georg Reutter (1708-1772) - (Partita) Servizio di tavola (1757)

Performers: Mainz Chamber Orchestra; Günter Kehr (1920-1989, conductor)

Painting: Anonymous - Innenansicht einer Wiener Freimaurerloge (c.1785)

Further info: Johann Georg Reutter (1708-1772) - Portus felicitatis

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Johann (Adam Joseph Karl) Georg (von) Reutter

(Vienna, bap. 6 April 1708 - Vienna, 11 March 1772) 

Austrian composer, son of Georg Reutter (1656-1738). He was the 11th of 14 children born to Georg Reutter and received his early musical training from his father, assisting him as court organist. A period of more formal instruction from Antonio Caldara ensued, leading to the composition of an oratorio and, in 1727, his first opera for the imperial court, Archidamia. On three separate occasions during this period Reutter applied for a position as court organist and was each time rejected by Fux. At his own expense he travelled to Italy in 1730 (possibly in 1729); in February 1730 he was in Venice and in April 1730 in Rome. He returned to Vienna in autumn 1730, and early in the following year he successfully applied for a post as court composer, the formal beginning of a lifetime of service at the Habsburg court. His training with Caldara and his journey to Italy had laid the foundations of a secure understanding of modern operatic style, and over the next decade Reutter established himself as a leading theatre composer in Vienna with over a dozen works, performed in private in various rooms and halls in the Hofburg and at the imperial summer palace in Laxenburg. In 1731 he married one of the court singers, Ursula Theresia Holzhauser. Two children were born in the 1730s, Karl and Elisabeth Christina, named in obvious deference to Emperor Charles and his wife. When his father died, in 1738, Reutter succeeded him as first Kapellmeister at the Stephansdom, initiating a decisive move away from a career as an opera composer to that of a composer and administrator of church music. 

As Kapellmeister he was in charge of the choir school and Joseph Haydn, Michael Haydn and Ignaz Holzbauer were three of his charges during the next few years. He was ennobled in 1740 and in the following year began the diplomatically skilful (but not always financially rewarding) process of accruing ever increasing influence and authority in the imperial court: from 1741, following the death of Fux, he regularly assisted the first Kapellmeister, Luca Antonio Predieri, with church music; in 1747 he was officially named second Kapellmeister; in 1751 he became acting first Kapellmeister; in 1756 he assumed the duties of second as well as first Kapellmeister at the Stephansdom; and in 1769 he formally became court Kapellmeister. For nearly 30 years in the middle of the century, therefore, Reutter was the single most influential church musician in Vienna. His duties at court also included the supervision of instrumental performances. Reutter's influence in court circles was shown again in 1760 when the new director of court and chamber music, Count Giacomo Durazzo, attempted to increase Gluck's role in the musical life of the court. A protracted dispute was resolved largely in Reutter's favour. The last decade of Reutter's service was less eventful, as court, church and musicians alike acclimatized themselves to the changing status of sacred music. Reutter was buried in a tomb in the Stephansdom. His son Karl had become a monk (eventually abbot) at the abbey of Heiligenkreuz outside Vienna, where the largest single collection of Reutter's autographs is to be found, together with a pastel portrait of the composer.