Franz Christoph Neubauer

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Franz Christoph Neubauer (* around 1760 possibly in Hořín near Mělník ; † October 11, 1795 in Bückeburg ) was a German composer and violinist of Bohemian origin.

Live and act

Neubauer's life has only survived in fragments, possibly of rural origin, he enjoyed a good academic education from a school principal and in a Latin school , so that he was still fluent in Latin at a later time. He must also have already studied music there; because in Prague , later in Vienna , he was already performing as a composer. Abbot Georg Joseph Vogler , who was not so easily satisfied, heard some of his works and could not deny them his admiration. In 1781 he stayed for a few weeks in the Benedictine Abbey of Andechs , where, as contemporaries report, he wrote a stabat mater within a week .

In 1785 three violin quartets were published in Speyer , in 1788 in Zurich a hymn to nature for choir and orchestra and 24 chants for the piano. In the same year he also published his opera Fernando und Yariko , which deals with a subject popular in England at the time about an English shipwrecked man and the Indian girl Yariko and which may have premiered in Munich in 1784 , but was certainly played in Vienna in 1786 .

Around 1785 he was employed as court conductor to Prince Ludwig Carl Franz Leopold zu Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Bartenstein . Numerous works from the period from 1782 to 1790 have been preserved in the Hohenlohe Neuenstein Central Archive .

In 1789 he successfully performed Coburg's victory over the Turks in Heilbronn , in a painting concert , and in 1790 the funeral music for the death of Emperor Joseph II in Koblenz and Speyer, which was also highly praised by contemporaries.

In the same year he entered the service of Prince von Weilburg as Kapellmeister . When the band was dissolved as a result of the coalition wars, he went to Minden in Westphalia; He was also Kapellmeister for a while (1783) with the Prince of Fürstenberg .

After numerous wanderings he came to Bückeburg and performed his compositions here under the protectorate of Countess Juliane von Schaumburg-Lippe , who ruled the country for the underage prince . Since Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach , Johann Sebastian Bach's youngest son , had been Kapellmeister here for over 40 years, a competitive relationship soon developed between the old and young musicians. Bach saw his position at risk, and Neubauer did not show his ambitions towards the almost 60-year-old Kapellmeister in a very gentle way. Perhaps as a result of this insult, Bach died soon afterwards, on January 26th, 1795, and Neubauer succeeded him in his position. However, he was not to enjoy it for long, because he too died after nine months, having recently married a woman from Bückeburg.

Even during his lifetime, Neubauer had a reputation for being a brilliant libertine. Contemporaries said that they often found him composing in hallways and tobacco shops , and in the latter mostly in a drunk state. His death is also linked to excessive alcohol consumption. On the other hand, he apparently knew how to captivate his audience, as the Bückeburg consistorial councilor and court preacher Karl Gottlieb Horstig wrote in his obituary for Franz Neubauer: " A brilliant fire penetrated the orchestra when Neubauer conducted, and his symphonies brought one when his spirit inspired them indescribable effect on his audience ... "

Work (selection)

  • 30 symphonies (13 of which were printed by Johann André in Offenbach)
  • 3 flute concertos op.13
  • Piano concerto op.21
  • Cello Concerto (1803, Schott, Mainz)
  • about 20 string quartets
  • 6 flute quartets
  • 30 trios in different line-ups
  • 80 duos in different line-ups
  • More than 30 mass settings (Missa Solemnis, Missa in contrapunctus)
  • 6 Requiem
  • Stabat Mater
  • Christmas cantata sing praises you people (1787)
  • Cantata on the situation of the German fatherland (1795)
  • 10 litanies, 8 Vespers, 8 Te Deum
  • 13 chants with piano accompaniment
  • Fernando and Yoriko drama with singing (1785)
  • Nobility of Veltheim (1787, Zurich)
  • numerous minuets and allemandes

Gerber's evaluation of Neubauer's work

Ernst Ludwig Gerber lists 32 printed works from all subjects of music in his lexicon, but even then, around 1810, he had only come across a few himself. He judges them: Genius, fire and inventiveness cannot be denied to his works. If, however, claimed in his symphonies its greatest strength should lie, so those judgments that would hardly agree whose ear and heart by Haydn have been nurtured 'rule masterpieces of this kind by Neubauer's symphonies Haydn against the more in Divertissementstone and more of Joli than of Beau seem to have worked. Gerber then admits that he knows only a few of his symphonies and that the other works are completely unknown to him.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. A literary characteristic of Neubauer's time in Weilburg is contained in chapters 3 and 4 of the musician novella "Der Stadtpfeifer" by Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, first published in 1847 . The text is available at https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/riehl/musiker/musiker.html