"Johann Friedrich Fasch und sein Wirkin für Zerbst," International Scholarly Conference on the Occasion of the Fifth International Fasch Festival, Zerbst, Germany, 18 and 19 April 1997

Abstract

Friedrich und sein Wirkin fur International Scholarly Conference on the Occasion of the Fifth International Festival, Zerbst, 18 and 19 April 1997. Twenty scholars from Canada, the United States of America, Great Britain, Russia, and South Africa met on the occasion of the Fifth International Festival in Zerbst to present their research results on the life and works of Zerbst Court Kapellmeister Johann Friedrich (1688-1758). In contrast to two previous international conferences in 1993 and 1995 which have done little to advance our knowledge regarding Fasch's musical environment and his compositional process,1 the International Society headed by president Konstanze Musketa had lined up a number of specialists and paired them with experts on music of his contemporaries. Wolfgang Ruf (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg) opened the conference with the provoking Friedrich - Meister zwischen den Epochen. His thesis is that Fasch's position is determined not by the technical innovations that are anticipated in his oeuvre, but by the crafted quality of his instrumental works and by the perfect fulfillment of his stylistic and generic norms of his time, i.e., by the late Baroque, provided a kind of leitmotif which resurfaced several times throughout the conference, particularly in the - at times animated - discussions after papers. Michael Saffle (Virginia Tech) examined Kapellmeisters and Musical Life in EighteenthCentury Germany, giving special attention to J.F. Fasch, G. P. Telemann, and J. S. Bach. Daniel G. Geldenhuys (University of South Africa) considered Friedrich and Catharine: A Russian-French and German Relationship and drew parallels between the courtly musical activities in St. Petersburg and Zerbst. Die hofische Musik am Zerbster Hof vor Johann Friedrich Fasch was the main focus of the presentation by Hans-George Hofmann (Halle); he reconstructed a chronological overview of the various types of musical performances which were offered at the Zerbst court prior to the year 1722 when assumed the position of Court Kapellmeister. Barbara Reul (University of Victoria) had examined a relatively unknown primary source held at the Landesarchiv Oranienbaum, the Konsistorium Zerbst 15a IXa chronicle which enabled her to provide dates for Fasch's largest collection of sacred cantatas at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preuβischer Kulturbesitz: the majority dates from 1735-36. Moreover, she pointed out that had repeated both his own cantata cycles and those written by other composers such as Telemann, G. H. Stolzel, and F. W. Zachau up to six times throughout his tenure. Ute Poetzsch (Zentrum fur Telemann-Pflege und -Forschung, Magdeburg) attempted to identify works by Telemann which had listed in a Zerbst music inventory in 1743, the Concert-Stude des Zerbster Schloβes; in addition, she determined the extent to which provided a modern and appealing repertoire for his audience. Elena Sawtschenko (Irkutsk, University of Leipzig) reflected on Das Schaffen von J. S. im Lichte der pietistischen Frommigkeit - Pietismus und Musik, comparing the theological structure of cantata texts authored by with those of contemporary poets and identified a connection to pietist devoutness in Fasch's cantata libretti. Nigel Springthorpe (University of Surrey) examined Zerbst Passion Tradition, specifically the Passion works performed by Court Chapel between 1720 and 1767, making provisional suggestions as to their composers. The chorale settings of J.F. Fasch's Passio Jesu Christi - their placement within the overall structure, the poetic choices and harmonic language compressed to some of the other settings of the well-known text by Brockes - were discussed in detail by Mary Terey-Smith (University of Western Washington). Brian Clark (Dundee, Scotland), the recipient of the 1997 Award of the City of Zerbst, focused on Fasch's reworking of masses for Zerbst (When brevis just isn't short enough) and discerned a number of time-saving compositional devices that employed to shorten the available time for special music during the service as requested by the Zerbst court authorities. …