Franz Benda
Franz Benda (also: František Benda , baptized November 22, 1709 in Benatek an der Iser ; † March 7, 1786 near Potsdam ) was a Bohemian violinist , composer and conductor .
Life
Franz Benda was the oldest of the six surviving children of the line weaver Hans Georg Benda and his wife Dorothea (1686–1762), daughter of the village cantor Heinrich Brixi in Skalsko . He learned the first musical basics from his father, who mastered the oboe , the shawm and the dulcimer , and from the cantor Alexius in Neu-Benatek, who was an organist , composer and singer. In his early childhood Benda attended a Jesuit school in Prague , but at the age of ten he went to Dresden , where he served as the chapel boy of the Catholic Court Church . During this time he began to learn to play the violin and viola .
After losing his boy soprano at the age of 12 , he went back to his Bohemian homeland. At the age of 14 he began to compose his own pieces. Around the age of 18, at the behest of Count Kleinau, whose serf he was, Benda involuntarily came to Vienna , where he was employed as a valet from 1726 to 1730. He evaded the lackey service by fling to Warsaw with his colleague, the violinist Georg Czarth in 1730 .
Shortly after his arrival there, he became a member of the starost Suchaquewsky's chapel, in which he soon advanced from first violinist to conductor . A little later he switched to the Polish chapel of the Saxon Elector and Polish King August II , known as "the Strong", in Warsaw as a royal musician . It was probably here that he became acquainted with his later colleagues, the piano player and composer Christoph Schaffrath and the composer and flutist Johann Joachim Quantz .
Benda owed some artistic inspiration to the Dresden concertmaster Johann Georg Pisendel . After he converted to Protestantism , he had to endure numerous hostilities. Therefore, in 1733, after the death of Augustus the Strong, he followed a recommendation from Quantz to the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich , who built his own chapel in Ruppin . Franz Benda was one of his first band musicians, his first colleagues here were the brothers Johann Gottlieb Graun and Carl Heinrich Graun .
On the day of his arrival in Ruppin, Benda gave a concert with the Crown Prince, who had mastered the flute . In Friedrich's chapel he took the position of first violinist. In Ruppin and later in Rheinsberg it was possible for Benda, not least thanks to the support of Quantz and the Graun brothers, to further develop his compositional skills. On May 31, 1740, Friedrich became King of Prussia and his entire chapel moved to Berlin and Potsdam.
In 1739 Benda married Eleonora Stephein, a daughter of the customs inspector in Kolberg and chambermaid of the Bayreuth Margravine Wilhelmine . When she died in 1758, he married his wife's sister, Carolina Stephein, three years later. He had eight children with both wives.
In 1742 the King Bendas family made it possible to come to Berlin as well. Benda gave his youngest brothers Joseph and Georg violin lessons, and his brothers Johann, Georg and Joseph were soon accepted into the Berlin court orchestra. His sister Anna Franziska Benda , who married the violinist and composer of the Gotha court Dismas Hataš and became a chamber singer there, he trained in singing. A progressive gout disease meant that from 1767 he could no longer perform as a soloist. After the death of Johann Gottlieb Graun in 1771, Benda was appointed his successor as concertmaster . After Quantz's death in 1773, he became Frederick II's first adviser in musical matters. Benda held both posts until his death on March 7, 1786.
plant
Benda wrote mainly works for the violin, especially "Soli" (sonatas with continuo accompaniment) and concerts. In his compositions there are elements of the baroque and the gallant and sensitive style . In terms of time and content, it stands between the Baroque and the Viennese Classic .
Benda also had a very good reputation as a violin teacher. Many of his students (such as his brothers Joseph Benda and Georg Anton Benda as well as Friedrich Wilhelm Rust , Johann Friedrich Reichardt and Christian Friedrich Georg Berwald ) later achieved remarkable fame.
progeny
His son was the chamber musician Friedrich Benda . His daughter, the singer Maria Carolina , married the Weimar composer Ernst Wilhelm Wolf and became chamber singer for the Weimar Duchess Anna Amalia. His youngest daughter Juliane , a composer, singer and pianist, married the Berlin bandmaster and songwriter Johann Friedrich Reichardt in 1776 . The Benda family is still active in music today.
See also
literature
- Johann Adam Hiller : Life descriptions of famous music scholars and musicians of recent times. Photomechanical reprint of the original edition Leipzig, Dyk, 1784. With afterword and register of persons, edited by Bernd Baselt. Ed. Peters, Leipzig 1979, ( Peters-Reprints ), ( Musicological Study Library Peters ), at Google Books
- Constantin von Wurzbach : Benda, Franz . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 01. part. University printing house L. C. Zamarski (formerly JP Sollinger), Vienna 1856, p. 260 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Werner Bollert: Benda, Franz. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 35 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Rudolf Pečman: František Benda's art of violin playing in relation to his compositional work . In: Violin schools, violin playing and violin music in the past and present on the development of the violin . University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz, 1972, pp. 27–40, (exhibition catalog, congress of the same name: Graz, Palais Saurau, June 26–30, 1972).
- Zdeňka Pilková: František Benda. Úvaha k 200. výročí umrtí . In: Hudební rozhledy 39, 1986, ZDB -ID 1382073-4 , pp. 470-74.
- Daniel Heartz : Coming of Age in Bohemia. The Musical Apprenticeships of Benda and Gluck . In: Journal of Musicology 6, 1988, ISSN 0277-9269 , pp. 510-27.
- Jeanette Toussaint: Maria Carolina and Juliane Bernhardine Benda, in: Between tradition and obstinacy. Life paths of Potsdam women from the 18th to the 20th century. Edited by the Autonomous Women's Center Potsdam 2009 ( ISBN 978-3-00-027038-3 ) pp. 29-38.
- The music in past and present (MGG), second, revised edition, edited by Ludwig Finscher, person part 2, Bag-Bi, Bärenreiter Kassel, 1999, columns 1059-1062 and 1073.
- Franz Lorenz: The Benda family of musicians. Volume 1: Franz Benda . Wilhelm de Gruyter, Berlin 1967.
- Carl Friedrich Heinrich Wilhelm Philipp Justus Ledebur (Freiherr von :) Tonkünstler-Lexicon Berlin's from the oldest times to the present , Verlag L. Rauh Berlin 1861, p. 38 at Google Books
- Carles Burney's diary of his musical journeys Volume 3 , on Google Books
- Hermann Mendel: Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon Volume I , Verlag L. Heimann Berlin, 1870, at Google Books
Web links
- Franz-Benda-Gesellschaft Online output project of his compositions, concrete presentation of his works and his life.
- Works by and about Franz Benda in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about Franz Benda in the German Digital Library
- Sheet music and audio files by Franz Benda in the International Music Score Library Project
- FemBiography of daughter Maria Carolina Benda
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lorenz 'biography, page 3
- ↑ Her cousin Simon Brixi was the choirmaster of the Prague parish church of St. Martin, whose son was the composer, organist and cathedral music director in Prague, Franz Xaver Brixi
- ↑ see her portrait on page 17 in Lorenz's biography about Franz Benda
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Benda, Franz |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Benda, František |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German violinist and pre-classical composer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 22, 1709 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Old Benatek |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 7, 1786 |
| Place of death | Potsdam |