Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1752-1814)
- Sonata (F-Dur) per il Pianoforte e Violino
Performers: Massimo Spadano (violin); Arthur Schoonderwoerd (pianoforte)
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German composer, political writer and writer on music. Son of a
lutenist, Johann Reichardt (c.1720-1780), he received his early musical
education from his father. His early teachers also included J.F.
Hartknoch (a young musician from Riga then learning the publishing trade
in Königsberg), a local musician named Krüger, the organist C.G.
Richter, who introduced Reichardt to the music of C.P.E. and J.S. Bach,
and the violinist F.A. Veichtner, a pupil of Franz Benda. He attended
Königsberg university, where he became acquainted with the philosophy of
Emanuel Kant. Like other young artists in the 18th century, he began
his career with years of travel. The first of his journeys began in
spring 1771 with a performing tour of north German musical and literary
centres; he met J.A.P. Schulz, Ramler, Friedrich Nicolai, Franz Benda,
J.A. Hiller, J.G. Naumann, C.P.E. Bach, Lessing, Klopstock and Claudius.
During this journey he spent two long periods in Berlin, where he
attended performances of Graun and Hasse operas at the declining royal
opera and oratorios at public concerts, studied briefly with Kirnberger
and was deeply impressed by his first substantial hearing of Handel’s
music. In 1775 he applied for and won the post of Kapellmeister to
Frederick II though he had little experience in musical composition. He
married Juliane Benda, Franz Benda’s daughter, in 1776, and remarried
soon after she died in 1783. Tours to Italy and Vienna in 1783 (where he
became friends with Joseph Martin Kraus) as well as France and England
in 1785 both broadened his education and served to implement a Concert
spirituel in Berlin.
He was close friends with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich von
Schiller, working with the former in 1789 on the Singspiel Claudine von
Villa Bella. From the end of 1794 until the accession of Friedrich
Wilhelm III in 1797, Reichardt lived in Hamburg and Giebichenstein,
active as a political journalist, and editing the journals Frankreich
and Deutschland. In 1796 he was appointed director of the Halle salt
mines, a position which gave him leisure to pursue his own interests. In
1806 Napoleon’s troops occupied parts of Prussia, and also Halle and
Giebichenstein. Reichardt and his family fled to north Germany, and
returned in October 1807 to find the estate in Giebichenstein in ruins.
With barely enough money to support his family, he had to depend on
income from writing and composing until 1811, when he was given a small
pension. He made several more journeys, to Berlin, Leipzig and Breslau,
but his brilliant reputation had gone. He died largely forgotten. As a
composer, his musical style is often dramatic, with orchestration that
foreshadows the Romantic period, and he can be considered both an
adherent of the Sturm und Drang style and one of the principal composers
of Lieder of the Berlin School. His compositions include 1500 Lieder,
29 operas (mostly Singspiels), 11 sets of incidental music to plays, two
ballets, two oratorios, 13 German cantatas, a Requiem, two Te Deums,
eight Psalms, nine symphonies, 11 concertos (nine for keyboard), three
quintets, a quartet, 15 trios, 26 keyboard sonatas, 16 violin sonatas,
and over 100 horn duets. Reichardt can be seen as one of the most
intellectual composers of the period.
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