Joseph Küffner (1776-1856)
- Serenade (C-Dur) des 'Sérénade pour Flûte ou Violon & Guitarre', Op.44 (1817)
Performers: Dimitri Ashkenazy (clarinet); Jean-Paul Greub (guitar)
Painting: Reinhold Braun (1821-1884) - Bivouac des 2ten württembergischen Reit-Regiments in Frankfurt (1849)
Further info: Ottocento
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German teacher and composer. Born as the fifth child of the Franconian
musician family Küffner, his father Wilhelm Küffner (1727-1797) was a
court musician and composer and his mother Katharina Wassmuth was the
daughter of the court conductor Johann Franz Georg Wassmuth in Würzburg.
After the early death of his parents, he had to look after himself and
his two younger siblings. He earned his living as an auxiliary musician,
violinist and guitarist in the prince-bishop's court orchestra and also
appeared as a soloist. Self-taught, he learned to play the flute,
clarinet, trombone and French horn. In 1798, Prince-Bishop Georg Karl
von Fechenbach engaged him with the reform of the Würzburg military
music. With the secularization of the Duchy of Würzburg in 1803 and its
incorporation into the Kingdom of Bavaria, he temporarily lost his post
as court musician. Küffner successfully applied for a position as a
music teacher at the Electoral Bavarian Light Infantry Battalion "La
Motte" and trained the military musicians. A year later he got the same
job with the Electoral Bavarian 12th Line Infantry Regiment
"Löwenstein". For both associations he composed two-part military
marches in slow and fast pace. By 1825 he had written 36 compositions
for military music, including three overtures and 20 potpourris on
themes from operas by Daniel-François Esprit Auber, Gioachino Rossini
and Carl Maria von Weber, which were popular at the time. This made
Küffner the first German arranger for wind orchestras. As early as 1805,
the Würzburg chronicler Carl Gottfried Scharold reported: "When the
guard is relieved at noon around 12 o'clock, a well-cast band of
musicians usually plays some pleasant pieces and delights the audience."
The most demanding military music composition is likely to be his
"Symphony for Military Music" Opus 165. A gout ailment caused Küffner to
terminate his contract as "military music director" with the Bavarian
Army in 1825. Küffner was never a soldier and never wore a uniform. In
all documents in the Bavarian State Archives he is referred to as a
“court and chamber musician”. He was an employee of the army and had no
authority. The military superiors of the military musicians were the
Regimentstambours until 1811, and from 1811 to 1818 the music masters
with the rank of sergeants, whose musical training Küffner also took
over. As a member of the royal court orchestra from 1806 to 1814 of
Grand Duke Ferdinand III von Toscana composed Küffner mainly for string
instruments, but also for wind instruments. He often used the guitar as
an accompanying instrument. As a composer, he wrote over than 360 works,
36 of them for military music.
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