Ignaz Ritter von Seyfried (1776-1841)
- Missa solemnis h-moll (1830)
Performers: Justyna Stępień (soprano); Ewa Mikulska (contralto);
Krzysztof Machowski (tenor); Krzysztof Matuszak (bass); Przemyśl
Archdiocesan Choir Magnificat; Rzeszów University Choir; Artur Malawski
Philharmonic Orchestra; Mieczysław Gniady (conductor)
Further info: SEYFRIED - Missa solemnis h-moll
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Austrian composer, conductor, teacher and writer on music. His brother
Joseph (1780-1849) was a prolific dramatist, librettist and writer.
Ignaz von Seyfried is said to have studied keyboard with Mozart and
Kozeluch, and composition with Albrechtsberger and Winter. He studied
philosophy in Prague in 1792-93, intending to take up law, but he
eventually devoted himself entirely to music. From 1797 he was a
conductor in Schikaneder's Freihaus-Theater auf der Wiedon, furnishing
it and later the Theater an der Wien with innumerable scores: the first,
Der Friede, was given in May 1797, the last in 1827, the year after he
resigned as Kapellmeister – though he continued to supply occasional
works and arrangements for other theatres. It has been estimated that
his music was heard on 1700 evenings in the Theater an der Wien alone.
He was on friendly terms with Beethoven, whose Fidelio he conducted at
its première in 1805, and his versatility won him a unique place in
Vienna's musical life; however, almost none of his music is marked by
real originality or distinction. Four of Seyfried's scores (including
his setting of Schikaneder’s Der Wundermann am Rheinfall, 1799, about
which Haydn wrote him a complimentary letter) were among the 12 most
often performed works in the Freihaus-Theater; many of his operas and
Singspiele for the Theater an der Wien also enjoyed frequent
performance. He was highly regarded not least for his biblical music
dramas, which include Saul (1810), Abraham (1817), Die Makabäer (1818)
and Noah (1819). Among his numerous arrangements were Ahasverus, der nie
Ruhende (1823) and Der hölzerne Säbel (1830), both based on melodies by
Mozart, and Rochus Pumpernickel (1809), a pasticcio by Stegmayer for
which the music was arranged by Seyfried and Jakob Haibel.
He also reorchestrated or composed numbers for many earlier works,
including La clemenza di Tito, Zémire et Azor, and C.P.E. Bach's
oratorio Die Israeliten in der Wüste (1817). Plays for which he wrote
incidental music include Schiller's Die Räuber (1808) and Die Jungfrau
von Orleans (1811), and Grillparzer's Die Ahnfrau (première, 1817).
Himself the author of music for several parodies, his opera Idas und
Marpissa (1807, text by Stegmayer) was parodied by Perinet and Tuczek
under the same title in 1808, both works proving highly popular. He also
wrote ballets, melodramas, cantatas, symphonies, songs, concertos,
marches, pieces for wind instruments and, especially after his
retirement from the post of musical director at the Theater an der Wien,
a quantity of chamber and church music, including nearly 20 masses,
countless smaller works and arrangements of sacred music (Palestrina,
Pergolesi, Handel, Mozart, the Haydns and Cherubini). Among his many
pupils, only the two later masters of the Viennese musical play and
operetta are remembered: Karl Binder (to whom he left his musical
collection) and Franz von Suppé. Connected with Seyfried's pedagogical
activities was his publication of Albrechtsberger's Sämmtliche Schriften
(1826), Preindl's Wiener Tonschule (1827) and Ludwig van Beethoven's
Studien im Generalbasse, Contrapuncte und in der Compositions-Lehre
(1832). A large number of Seyfried's works were published in Vienna, and
some in Germany; he also contributed articles and reports to the Neue
Zeitschrift für Musik, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, Cäcilia, and
Schilling's Encyclopädie. His works, in manuscript and in print, are in
the important libraries in Vienna.
