Johann Kuhnau Research Articles

Fake News in der Bach- und Graupner-Forschung: Die Besetzung des Thomaskantorats 1722/1723 als unilaterale Überlieferung

When the Leipzig position of Thomaskantor became available, following the death of Johann Kuhnau in June 1722, it was first offered to Georg Philipp Telemann, then Johann Friedrich Fasch, and fnally to Christoph Graupner. Several other competitors were rejected, before Johann Sebastian Bach was accepted in the end. This story is well known, and has been reported by musicologists for about two and a half centuries, with different consequences and different intentions. This article gives a short overview of selected publications, hereby showing quite a few errors, and even lies and fraud, that have managed to enter the discourse and to survive until our days. In particular, our example focuses on Ernst Pasqué’s openly fictional depiction, which was published in 1853/1854 in a popular journal, and Wilhelm Kleefeld’s apparently scholarly but in fact fictionalised account published in 1897. Especially an invented letter, in which Graupner allegedly praises Bach as an outstanding organist and composer, has found its way into subsequent scholarship. “Truthiness” or a truth-like feel in what is really invention or fiction, is often found in today’s media – but was actually used in former times as well. Comparing old and new contributions not only reveals scientifc or personal motivations of the authors in their time, but also a playful approach that can give us many new ideas about a well-worn topic.

Musicology Without Heroes

For the past two centuries, the culture of Western art music has consisted largely of the consumption of earlier repertories: music surviving its time, heard and reheard as a model of excellence. Already in the late 1780s, an association of Viennese noblemen headed by Gottfried van Swieten had Mozart adapt the score of Handel’s Messiah (composed half a century earlier) to meet contemporary performance needs. Around the same time, Johann Nikolaus Forkel started working on a multi-volume anthology of historically significant Denkmale der musikalischen Kunst before focusing his efforts on a stand-alone, awe-inspiring biography of J. S. Bach. Among the results of this anthologizing, Bach is still celebrated today, but few people know of Johann Kuhnau, his predecessor as Thomaskantor in Leipzig and a highly esteemed composer-scholar. Music by Bach and Beethoven was included in a 1977 LP launched by NASA into space to represent humanity to (potential)...

Bach’s Famous Choir: The Saint Thomas School in Leipzig, 1212–1804 by Michael Maul

Reviewed by: Bach’s Famous Choir: The Saint Thomas School in Leipzig, 1212–1804 by Michael Maul Mark Nabholz Bach’s Famous Choir: The Saint Thomas School in Leipzig, 1212–1804. By Michael Maul. Translated by Richard Howe. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 2018. [xviii, 394 p. ISBN 9781783271696 (hardcover), $95; ISBN 9781787444362 (e-book), $24.99.] Appendixes, endnotes, bibliography, indexes. There is no shortage of well-known sources that delve into Johann Sebastian Bach’s famed tenure as cantor at Leipzig’s St. Thomas School. But we must pass the halfway point in Bach’s Famous Choir before that inescapable name appears as more than a passing reference, because, despite the book’s title, this is the school’s story, and the school was over five centuries old by the time Bach arrived as cantor in 1723. Using previously neglected sources, including many long believed to be lost, Michael Maul’s meticulous research releases an avalanche of detail that sometimes threatens to overwhelm the larger narratives, but from a myriad of data points he skillfully constructs a three-dimensional picture of life at the St. Thomas School over a span of nearly six centuries. His research launched by a question concerning Bach (“Why would any leader of a famous court orchestra want to resign a position working with professional musicians in order to take a job with a municipal boy’s school and the ‘dusty robes’ of a cantor?” [p. 1]), Maul traces the transformation of the school from its local monastic beginnings to its sometimes tenuous perpetuity as the exemplary music school renowned throughout the German-speaking lands, the gradual transfer of the school’s oversight from church to civic authorities, and the impact of the Lutheran reforms on its role in the life of the city. And yet he manages to do so in a way that transforms the dry accounts in many of his sources into an [End Page 62] unmistakably human story with living, breathing personalities. While Maul’s painstaking research convolutes through a tangle of minutia—such as the payment for meals served to boarding students; the salaries of the cantor, junior faculty, and tutors along with the inevitable pay-equity conflicts; the negotiations regarding distribution of income generated from street singing and funeral music; and the recurring debate over who held the final authority on boarding-school admission decisions— he manages to present in Bach’s Famous Choir a coherent and lively chronology of the pre- and post-Bach cantors at a level of detail never before attempted in a single volume. His writing style is engaging and even at times entertaining, as is readily apparent in his account of Cantor Johann Hermann Schein running afoul of the magistrates in Dresden for an unacceptably ostentatious musical display at the wedding of the Leipzig Mayor’s son (pp. 44–46). As a result of this careful chronicling, themes emerge that have immediate currency. The account of the drastic reduction in funding for the school and its music because of the city’s crippling debt, brought on by “extravagant outlays in all directions, rampant nepotism and cronyism, and borrowing to finance many of its undertakings,” reads like the headlines in this morning’s paper (p. 50). It is enlightening and strangely heartening to learn that Johann Kuhnau, who served as cantor from 1701 to 1722, faced funding issues during his tenure, similar to those that church and educational musicians face today, when the town council ended funding of instrumentalists and sought to know how to obtain their services at no cost (p. 115). In retrospect, one of the most significant takeaways from my reading is the number of extraordinary musicians who were contemporaries of the famous names but now are entirely forgotten. It is our loss, for instance, that we know so little of Sebastian Knupfer, who became cantor in 1657 at age twenty-three and whose funeral invitation in 1676 characterized him as a musician “the likes of whom had never before been seen in Leipzig and presumably will never be seen again” (p. 118). Or Johann Rosenmüller (1617– 1684), in whom his patron, Heinrich Schütz, placed such firm confidence that he not only...

The Fundamenta compositionis Jean Kuhnaus 1703. Edition, Translation, and Commentary

Until now, scholars have generally doubted whether Johann Kuhnau, J. S. Bach’s predecessor as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, was indeed the author of the manuscript treatise, Fundamenta Compositionis Jean Kuhnaus 1703. Nevertheless the Fundamenta appears to originate from the Thomasschule around 1700, suggesting that it may stem from Kuhnau’s broader circle. Moreover, recent research has revealed concordances between the Fundamenta and an anonymous manuscript titled Kurtze Verfasung (“Brief Instruction”), in addition to a number of other sources. Thus, regardless of who compiled the Fundamenta, this manuscript is significant because it reveals the pedagogical priorities, or “fundamentals” (according to the title), that often lie buried in more discursive, theoretical treatises. Therefore the ultimate value of the Fundamenta is not its originality, but rather its explication of topics such as consonance and dissonance, modes, clausulae, cadences, invertible counterpoint, and fugue in a highly condensed, practical manner with numerous musical examples. The Fundamenta is thus an excellent resource for historically informed analysis and composition at the turn of the eighteenth century, before thoroughbass accompaniment displaced vocal polyphony as the dominant pedagogical paradigm in compositional instruction. Part one of this article explores the Fundamenta’s provenance in detail; part two provides a transcription and English translation.

Musical interpretation of Hezekiah’s illness in Johann Kuhnau’s Biblical sonata

The article discusses Johann Kuhnau’s fourth keyboard sonata, Der todtkranke und wieder gesunde Hiskias (The Mortally Ill and Then Restored Hezekiah), from his last volume of six keyboard sonatas published in Leipzig in 1700, known popularly as “Biblical Sonatas.” Titled as Musicalische Vorstellung einiger biblischer Historien (Musical Representation of Several Biblical Stories), the set presents a remarkably thorough and detailed musical depiction of selected scenes from the Old Testament. This is also a rare collection of keyboard music to provide a detailed narrative commentary, consisting of verbal synopses of selected stories in German, which preface each sonata, and commentaries in Italian written into notation, which underline portrayed situations, events and affections. To examine the plot-based narrative underlying the storyline of this particular sonata, some authentic discourses have been taken into consideration for analytical purposes. These included the composer’s foreword to the collection of his “Biblical Sonatas,” synopsis of the story depicted in the fourth sonata, and a comprehensive theory of musical rhetoric and the doctrine of the affections found in various 17th and 18th century sources. In this article, the author specifies distinct musical-rhetorical figures that resemble (by analogy) or refer to certain extra-musical objects or phenomena and serve as vehicles for creating different moods and establishing the atmosphere. Depending on which narrative element – action or affections – is brought into focus in each of the six sonatas, the author distinguishes between two types of sonatas, namely ‘action sonatas’ and ‘affective sonatas.’ Affections and shifts in mood experienced by Hezekiah make an important narrative element in the storyline of the fourth sonata. Hence this particular sonata falls under the category of ‘affective sonatas.’ The analysis of this sonata revealed that the narrative is constructed therein in several layers. Firstly, there is a verbal layer: to depict the story in detail and with much consistency, the composer thought it necessary to accompany notation with the synopsis of the story and verbal commentaries. Moreover, quotations from the Protestant chorale Ach Herr mich armen Sünder (Ah Lord, poor sinner that I am) imply verbal connotations of their verses. Secondly, it contains a musical-affective layer: musical devices (such as musical-rhetorical figures, key, rhythm, metre, and the like) are employed there to convey the indicated affections, such as wailing (lamento) or, in other words, sorrow, confidence (confidenza) and joy (allegrezza). The author observes that many compositional choices made by Kuhnau adhere to the standard methods of expressing affects as they were defined in the Baroque treatises. Thirdly, there is an associative layer: certain fragments and elements resemble (by analogy) and refer to extra-musical objects and/or phenomena, such as Belshazzar’s face turning pale and his limbs trembling in terror, the sesquialtera ratio (3:2), which symbolizes the numerical proportion of steps on Ahaz’s sundial and the years of Hezekiah’s life. The alternating musical textures, normally associated with sadness (adagio) and merriment (allegro), can be also mentioned as a characteristic narrative feature in this sonata. Although Kuhnau claimed to have depicted Biblical stories according to his own imagination, the analysis revealed that his writing in this sonata does not veer away from the typical musical vocabulary of the Baroque era, which nowadays requires a more sensitive ear and keener insight into compositional conventions of the period.

Bach-Facetten. Essays, Studien, Miszellen. Mit einem Geleitwort von Peter Wollny by Hans Joachim Schulze

Reviewed by: Bach-Facetten. Essays, Studien, Miszellen. Mit einem Geleitwort von Peter Wollny by Hans Joachim Schulze Markus Rathey (bio) Hans Joachim Schulze. Bach-Facetten. Essays, Studien, Miszellen. Mit einem Geleitwort von Peter Wollny (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2017). 824 pp. A total of 327 items by Hans Joachim Schulze are listed in the catalogue of publications at the end of the fascinating essay collection Bach-Facetten. The items range from books to articles, from reviews to critical editions of music to CD and LP booklets. Schulze is arguably one of the most prolific and influential Bach scholars of the second half of the twentieth century. As director of the Bach-Archiv Leipzig, co-editor of the Bach Jahrbuch, and editor of numerous works by Bach, Schulze has contributed to and shaped Bach scholarship for decades. The sixty-four articles selected for this collection of representative essays, written over a span of more than five decades, are a testament to the enduring quality of Schulze’s work. Most of the articles are still relevant and have not been significantly superseded by more recent scholarship. The articles have been published here without being updated; in cases where newer research has brought forth additional information, this information is included in a short “Nachtrag” (appendix) at the end of each article. The book opens with a selection of articles about Bach’s biography and family. Particularly fascinating is the first text, which was originally written in 1978 as a sample chapter for a planned but never written Bach biography. Here, Schulze explores the years 1722–1723 and the search for a new cantor at the Thomaskirche. Who should follow Johann Kuhnau? The international star composer Georg Philipp Telemann? The experienced court composers Johann Friedrich Fasch or Christoph Graupner? Or a man much lower on the list, Johann Sebastian Bach? Schulze weaves the familiar sources about the selection of the Thomaskantor into a chapter that eschews academic jargon and presents the facts in a way that almost has the narrative drive of a novel. It is regrettable that Schulze never finished his Bach biography. He follows the vestiges of it with two later articles further examining the years 1722 and 1723, primarily by discussing in more detail the sources he had paraphrased in the initial biographical article. Readers will have to [End Page 118] complete all three texts and cope with seeing some details at least three times to get Schulze’s full picture. What would be a problem in most other books is a forgivable flaw in a retrospective collection of essays like this. The repetition shows consistency in Schulze’s methodology and thinking, such that essays from the early 1970s can stand next to articles from the late 1990s. It is remarkable how Schulze can dress biting criticism in an almost charming way. When commenting on Ulrich Siegele’s essays on the cultural politics in Bach’s Leipzig, Schulze writes: A few years later, my own short sketch [about Bach’s election as cantor] was used by Ulrich Siegele as a basis for a broad, panoramic survey, which supplements the surviving sources with a lot of intriguing hypotheses and which has a compelling explanation for every opinion uttered by the burgomasters and members of the town council, and for the selection, assessment, and evaluation of the candidates. Astonishing is the confidence with which the reader is guided through the (real or seemingly) labyrinthian election process; it is remarkable in the way it continues its chosen path to the end, even if [the author] finds himself in a dead end created by himself. (45)1 The passage not only shows Schulze’s biting sarcasm but also reflects his reluctance to speculate about things that are not backed up by sources. This reluctance does not mean that Schulze was limited in his approach. His encyclopedic knowledge of the surviving documents on Bach’s life and works, of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature, and of the history of central Germany allowed him to connect Bach’s life with other developments without resorting to speculation about hidden agendas. In the essay “Von Weimar nach Köthen,” Schulze provides details about Bach’s transition from the Lutheran court...

Popular Music in the Time of J. S. Bach: The Leipzig Mandora Manuscript

Popular Music in the Time of J. S. Bach:The Leipzig Mandora Manuscript Gary Sampsell (bio) Research on music-making in Leipzig in the first part of the eighteenth century has traditionally focused on composers such as Johann Kuhnau, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Johann Sebastian Bach, all of whom were associated with institutions. However, the great majority of music-making in Leipzig and other cities occurred in informal settings and seldom found its way into the historical record. This was particularly true when there was no demonstrable connection to a famous composer; as a result, this area has remained relatively unexplored. The Leipzig Mandora Manuscript is a little-known source from the estate of Carl Ferdinand Becker (1804–1877).1 This anonymous collection features popular songs, dances, and hymns notated in French lute tablature. Becker inscribed the first of its fifty sheets with the title Tonstucke fur die Mandore um das Jahr 1730 [Pieces for the Mandora from around the year 1730]. A study of its contents reveals a trove of information: the innovative use of print editions, arias celebrating leisure pursuits, and evidence of performance practice. Taken together, these pieces form an image of a vibrant musical life with the capacity to strengthen social bonds. [End Page 1] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. The Leipzig Mandora Manuscript, in the hand of C. F. Becker. [End Page 2] The Instrument Although the thirteen-course lute emerged as the principal plucked chordophone in eighteenth-century Germany, other members of the lute family were played by devotees as well. The mandora was apparently developed as a more accessible alternative. Reminiscent of the Renaissance lute, this longer version had a relatively modest number of courses; six was common, but some had seven or eight. The mandora was tuned to either D or E with an interval pattern like that of the modern guitar (4-4-4-3-4). The D tuning (D-G-c-f-a-d´) provides a range equivalent to the viola da gamba and was the more common tuning in the first half of the century.2 There is some evidence that suggests that the mandora was employed in institutional contexts in Leipzig. In memoranda dated 1704, 1709, and 1717, Kuhnau documented the use of similar instruments,3 which were called Colochonen, Coloscionen, and Calichonen, respectively.4 In the first petition, he described them as "a type of lute that, however, projects, and is necessary for all contemporary ensembles."5 These sentiments were echoed by Johann Mattheson, who also reported that the calichon was tuned to D with the same interval pattern mentioned above.6 In his second and third petitions, Kuhnau conspicuously listed these instruments along with [End Page 3] other foundational forces (e.g., violoncellos and basses), alluding to their functional role within the ensemble.7 Extant parts from Leipzig's Neue Kirche provide additional documentation for the use of the mandora in a church setting. These parts belong to two early works by Telemann, who served as organist and music director from 1704 to 1705, and a cantata composed by Melchior Hoffmann in 1708. They are marked Calcedono or Calcedon, presumably the same instrument referenced in Kuhnau's memoranda. The parts contain no figures, suggesting that the calcedon was employed to reinforce the bass line.8 Whether or not the mandora was introduced as a novelty, it appears to have found an institutional role in Leipzig during the first quarter of the century. There are no official records of its use after 1717, but a published account of the instrument appeared the following decade, implying its steady presence.9 In defense of the thirteen-course lute against earlier criticism, Ernst Gottlieb Baron pointed out the limited range of the calichon in his Study of the Lute (1727): He [Mattheson] also says that the calichon is much more useful in accompaniment, but forgets that the bass part of a lute cannot be more than the whole, especially since many strings can do more than three, four, or six courses.10 This description supports earlier evidence and is a tacit acknowledgement of the use of the calichon in the church and opera house. If there...

Popular Music in the Time of J. S. Bach: The Leipzig Mandora Manuscript

Popular Music in the Time of J. S. Bach:The Leipzig Mandora Manuscript Gary Sampsell (bio) Research on music-making in Leipzig in the first part of the eighteenth century has traditionally focused on composers such as Johann Kuhnau, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Johann Sebastian Bach, all of whom were associated with institutions. However, the great majority of music-making in Leipzig and other cities occurred in informal settings and seldom found its way into the historical record. This was particularly true when there was no demonstrable connection to a famous composer; as a result, this area has remained relatively unexplored. The Leipzig Mandora Manuscript is a little-known source from the estate of Carl Ferdinand Becker (1804–1877).1 This anonymous collection features popular songs, dances, and hymns notated in French lute tablature. Becker inscribed the first of its fifty sheets with the title Tonstucke fur die Mandore um das Jahr 1730 [Pieces for the Mandora from around the year 1730]. A study of its contents reveals a trove of information: the innovative use of print editions, arias celebrating leisure pursuits, and evidence of performance practice. Taken together, these pieces form an image of a vibrant musical life with the capacity to strengthen social bonds. [End Page 1] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. The Leipzig Mandora Manuscript, in the hand of C. F. Becker. [End Page 2] The Instrument Although the thirteen-course lute emerged as the principal plucked chordophone in eighteenth-century Germany, other members of the lute family were played by devotees as well. The mandora was apparently developed as a more accessible alternative. Reminiscent of the Renaissance lute, this longer version had a relatively modest number of courses; six was common, but some had seven or eight. The mandora was tuned to either D or E with an interval pattern like that of the modern guitar (4-4-4-3-4). The D tuning (D-G-c-f-a-d´) provides a range equivalent to the viola da gamba and was the more common tuning in the first half of the century.2 There is some evidence that suggests that the mandora was employed in institutional contexts in Leipzig. In memoranda dated 1704, 1709, and 1717, Kuhnau documented the use of similar instruments,3 which were called Colochonen, Coloscionen, and Calichonen, respectively.4 In the first petition, he described them as "a type of lute that, however, projects, and is necessary for all contemporary ensembles."5 These sentiments were echoed by Johann Mattheson, who also reported that the calichon was tuned to D with the same interval pattern mentioned above.6 In his second and third petitions, Kuhnau conspicuously listed these instruments along with [End Page 3] other foundational forces (e.g., violoncellos and basses), alluding to their functional role within the ensemble.7 Extant parts from Leipzig's Neue Kirche provide additional documentation for the use of the mandora in a church setting. These parts belong to two early works by Telemann, who served as organist and music director from 1704 to 1705, and a cantata composed by Melchior Hoffmann in 1708. They are marked Calcedono or Calcedon, presumably the same instrument referenced in Kuhnau's memoranda. The parts contain no figures, suggesting that the calcedon was employed to reinforce the bass line.8 Whether or not the mandora was introduced as a novelty, it appears to have found an institutional role in Leipzig during the first quarter of the century. There are no official records of its use after 1717, but a published account of the instrument appeared the following decade, implying its steady presence.9 In defense of the thirteen-course lute against earlier criticism, Ernst Gottlieb Baron pointed out the limited range of the calichon in his Study of the Lute (1727): He [Mattheson] also says that the calichon is much more useful in accompaniment, but forgets that the bass part of a lute cannot be more than the whole, especially since many strings can do more than three, four, or six courses.10 This description supports earlier evidence and is a tacit acknowledgement of the use of the calichon in the church and opera house. If there...

Leipzig Church Music from the Sherard Collection: Eight Works by Sebastian Knüpfer, Johann Schelle, and Johann Kuhnau ed. by Stephen Rose (review)

CHURCH MUSIC BY LEIPZIG CANTORS Leipzig Church Music from the Sherard Collection: Eight Works by Sebastian Knupfer, Johann Schelle, and Johann Kuhnau. Edited by Stephen Rose. (Collegium Musicum Yale University, second series, volume 20.) Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2014. [Introd., p. ix-xxxi; texts and translations, p. xxxii-xxxvii; plates, p. xxxviii-xliv; score, p. 1-270; crit. report, p. 271-78. 12 parts (for Schelle: Ah! Quam multa sunt peccata; Kuhnau: Laudate pueri; Kuhnau: Muss nicht der Mensch). ISBN 987-0-89579-798-8. $225 (main vol.), $6.00 (parts, Schelle: Ah! Quam multa sunt peccata), $8.00 (parts, Kuhnau: Laudate pueri), $8.00 (parts, Kuhnau: Muss nicht der Mensch).]The material legacy of German church music from the mid-seventeenth through the early eighteenth century is somewhat paradoxical. What remains available to us today does not reflect, in sheer numbers and variety, the musical activity that took place in that time, but certainly demonstrates how different values-market, aesthetic-have shaped our musical inheritance. The economic pressures and limited resources available to churches in the wake of the Thirty Years' War made the use of printed, small-scale pieces financially sound. Civic churches and smaller court chapels could rely on printed chorale harmonizations along with small-scale concerto, dialogue, and motet collections. As a result, the printed music of a small number of composers such as Melchior Franck, Wolfgang Carl Briegel, Andreas Hammerschmidt, Johann Caspar Horn, and Johann Rudolph Ahle survive in numerous copies across central Germany. As economic fortunes rose toward the end of the century, and churches could employ music directors with compositional skills, the role of cantor came to include not only music direction and instruction, but also the composition of new pieces for the liturgy. Now towns and smaller courts could rely on the creative products of their own musicians to augment and eventually replace massproduced music already in circulation. The social prestige that accompanied unique creative works, and the pressures of a rapidly changing musical and devotional fashion contribute to the paradox-what made the works of these cantors locally valuable was not their objective musical or artistic worth, something that one might want to re-create elsewhere, but rather their scarcity itself. These were works composed for a specific time and place, valued by their auditors for their originality within their local social sphere. The work of these composers, which must have amounted to tens of thousands of unique pieces, is largely lost, owing to the very ad hoc nature that lent them social prestige: their successors found little use for them, and the collections were dispersed, sold, and often eventually destroyed.What little remains of this previously vast assortment of music is largely thanks to indifference rather than active curation. Music in the Duben collection, named for the Swedish organist and composer Gustaf Duben (1628-1690), for example, today valued for its assortment of pieces by Dieterich Buxtehude, and nearly the entire Gospel cycle by the Saxe-Lauenburg Kapellmeister Augustin Pfleger (ca. 1635-after 1686), was donated in 1732 to the Uppsala library by the collector's heir, Anders von Duben. The collection remained uncataloged and virtually forgotten in an attic for some 150 years until its virtual rediscovery in 1888. The collection owned by Heinrich Bokemeyer (1679-1751) with music by Joachim Gerstenbuttel (1647-1721) and Johann Philipp Fortsch (1652-1732), was treated somewhat better in the hands of the collector's son-in-law, and then Johann Nicolaus Forkel, before being deposited in the Konigliche Bibliothek, now the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preusischer Kulturbesitz. Even the generation of J. S. Bach fared little better. Only little remains of the once significant body of sacred music by the esteemed Gottfried Heinrich Stolzel (1690-1749), whose twelve annual cantata cycles are almost entirely lost. …

Rehearsal for the opera—remarks on a lost composition by Johann Kuhnau from 1683

Rehearsal for the opera—remarks on a lost composition by Johann Kuhnau from 1683

Musical interpretation of Saul’s sickness in Johann Kuhnau’s biblical sonata

Musical interpretation of Saul’s sickness in Johann Kuhnau’s biblical sonata

How composers viewed performers' additions

Historically informed performances of 18th-century vocal works generally add embellishment to the composer’s notes. While evidence does exist for this practice, certain factors have not been considered in the modern literature. One is the difference between ‘skeletal’ and finished writing. Skeletal works, written mainly by secondary composers, lack any embellishment or figuration; thus pieces in this style, for which performers had to supply the ornamentation, have mostly vanished. Finished compositions, on the other hand, were to be sung as written. Gradually a fashion arose, particularly after the mid-century, for re-embellishing these finished pieces. In an effort to protect their work, composers added more notes to eliminate any opportunity for singers’ improvisations. Or a composer might leave an occasional bar unadorned to give the singer an opportunity to embellish, thereby keeping the peace while preserving his own work. This article will present views about singers’ ornamentation from the composers Johann Kuhnau, Johann Joseph Fux, Georg Frideric Handel, Johann Adolph Hasse, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vincenzo Manfredini, Andre-Ernest-Modeste Gretry and Joseph Haydn.

Daniel Vetter and the domestic keyboard chorale in Bach's Leipzig

The role of modest music in the domestic devotion of Lutherans is still little understood. This article uses Daniel Vetter's collection of keyboard chorales, Musicalische Kirch-und Haub-Ergotzlichkeit (1709-13) to reveal the musical and devotional practices of middle-class Leipzigers in the era of Johann Sebastian Bach and Johann Kuhnau. Whereas other chorale books catered for the church organist (such as Johann Samuel Beyer's Musicalischer Vorrath, 1716-19), Vetter's collection was owned by well-off amateur musicians; and it was in sufficient demand to be printed, at a time when most keyboardists were resigned to their music staying in manuscript.

Music, Print and Presentation in Saxony During the Seventeenth Century

At the start of the seventeenth century composers such as Michael Praetorius, Johann Hermann Schein and Heinrich Schütz saw much of their music into print; at the end of the century, however, musicians such as Johann Kuhnau or Nikolaus Adam Strungk entered print comparatively little, if at all. This article uses the decline in music printing as a way to understand the changing role of music and musicians in society. At the start of the century, the intensity of music printing testified to the Lutheran market for music, but also to the efforts of composers to promote and present themselves in print. After the Thirty Years' War, however, the market for printed music collapsed, as many courts and cities began to expect virtuoso performances and a constant supply of new compositions.

"Clavichord Music of Johann Kuhnau and C. P. E. Bach" Joan Benson, clavichordist.

"Clavichord Music of Johann Kuhnau and C. P. E. Bach" Joan Benson, clavichordist.

PANTALEON'S PANTALON: AN 18th-CENTURY MUSICAL FASHION

FASHION is the way we endow routine matters with social interest. We use the word most often in connection with clothing and habitual activities. For something to be fashionable, it must combine the qualities of being slightly eccentric yet popularly recognized, It seems fitting to speak of the pantalon a fashion, for not only is it associated with a basic item of apparel but it also has a quality of fascination and intrigue which arouses interest. Pantalon, in fact, is another term for pantaloon, a word most commonly used in the plural to mean garments of different styles for the legs, especially in former days a tight-fitting kind of trousers fastened with ribbons below the calf. 1 The history of this word, which in the 18th century also represented a fashionable musical instrument, is curious. In one of its earliest usages (about 1590) the word designated a Venetian stage character, especially in comedy, who was represented as a lean and foolish old man wearing spectacles, pantaloons, and slippers. San Pantalone, a favorite saint of the Venetians, became a nickname for this character. Thus it is that Pantalon exchanged the saintly life for the comic stage, became a pair of trousers, had a career a musical instrument, and is still fashionable today simply pants. What has a pantalon to do with music? While several humorous possibilities might be entertained, we leave them to one's imagination. The pantalon we wish to investigate here is a musical instrument invented by Pantaleon Hebenstreit in the last decade of the 17th century. Although he is relatively little known today, he was very famous in his own time. Discussions of him and his instrument appear in the writings of his German musical contemporaries: Johann Gottfried Walther, Johann Kuhnau, Johann Mattheson, Jacob Adlung, Lorenz Mizler, and Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg.