Friedrich Ludwig Æmilius Kunzen

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FLÆ. Kunzen

Friedrich Ludwig Æmilius Kunzen (born September 24, 1761 in Lübeck , † January 28, 1817 in Copenhagen ) was a German composer and conductor who was mainly active in Denmark .

Live and act

Kunzen came from a family of musicians; his grandfather Johann Paul Kunzen as well as his father Adolf Karl Kunzen were organists at the Marienkirche in Lübeck . In 1781 he began studying law at the University of Kiel . However, his inclination was music, and encouraged by Johann Abraham Peter Schulz and Carl Friedrich Cramer , he moved to Copenhagen in 1785 to devote himself entirely to a musical career.

He first appeared as a harpsichordist and pianist at the Danish court. His first successes as a composer came with a memorial cantata for Count Otto Thott and the wedding music for Princess Louise Auguste with Duke Friedrich Christian II (Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg) as well as compositions for the theater. In 1788 he met the young poet Jens Immanuel Baggesen and they both created the opera Holger Danske together . The premiere of this opera, which was written in Denmark in 1789, led to the so-called Holgerfehde , a literary-social theater feud , as a result of which Kunzen temporarily left Denmark.

Kunzen lived for the next two years in Berlin , where Johann Friedrich Reichardt took care of him , with whom he published the magazine Musikalisches Wochenblatt in 1791 , and then from 1792 to 1794 in Frankfurt am Main as music director of the new National Theater , where he among other things Mozart Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute . Here, in 1793, with a libretto by Johann Jakob Ihlée, the opera Die Weinlese (also Das Fest der Vinzer , or Who leads the bride home ) was written, Kunzen's greatest success. Wine in particular , wine is worth gold, had the character of a folk song in the 19th century. On February 24, 1793, in Frankfurt, he married Johanna Margaretha Antonetta Zuccarini (1766–1842), one of the most famous opera singers of her time. In 1794 they moved to Prague , where he worked as the opera director. In the following year he was appointed music director of the Royal Orchestra in Copenhagen as the successor to his mentor Johann Abraham Peter Schulz, which he immediately accepted, so that from 1795 he lived in Copenhagen again.

He also composed occasional music for the court, the oratorio Opstandelsen ( Die Auferstehung , 1796), the opera Erik Ejegod about Erik I (Denmark) (1798) and various "hymns" such as the hymn to God by Konrad von Schmidt-Phiseldeck , the Funerary song of the secluded century by Friederike Brun and Singspiele . In 1809 he was appointed professor and in 1811 knight of the Dannebrog Order and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music .

He died of a stroke on January 28, 1817 . When he died, he was involved in a bitter argument with Jens Baggesen over allegations of plagiarism regarding the opera Trylleharpen ( magic harp ). The opera from 1806 had also been performed in German in Vienna and Hamburg under the title Ossian's Harp , but without success.

Kunzen's Hallelujah of Creation , which he composed two years before Haydn's creation in 1796 and which was first performed in Lübeck in 1799 and published in 1802, was “one of the most widespread works of choral literature at the beginning of the 19th century”. However, soon after his death he was largely forgotten. A recording of his symphony in G minor, released in 2005 by cpo (a German classical label specializing in first recordings) made him well known in musicology and among friends of classical music. In November 2011 the Lübeck University of Music dedicated a symposium to him.

Fonts

  • with Carl Friedrich Cramer (Ed.): Compositions of the odes and songs contained in the first part of my father's poems , Breitkopf, Leipzig 1784.

literature

  • Robert Eitner :  Kunzen, Friedrich Ludwig Aemilius . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, p. 403 f.
  • Klaus Hortschansky :  Kunzen, Friedrich Ludwig Aemilius. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 311 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Hans-Peter Kellner: From the Prince of Denmark in the Sultan's Harem to Don Juan in the Royal Danish Chambers: The Forgotten Composer Friedrich Ludwig Aemilius Kunzen. In: Michael Hüttler, Hans Ernst Weidinger (eds.): Ottoman Empire and European Theater I: The Age of Mozart and Selim III (1756–1808). Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-9901206-5-1 , pp. 903-926.
  • Heinrich W. Schwab (Ed.): Friedrich Ludwig Aemilius Kunzen (1761-1817). Stations of his life and work. [Catalog for the] exhibition on the occasion of the anniversary of the appointment as music director of the Royal Danish Court Orchestra in 1795. (= writings of the Schleswig-Holstein State Library, edited by Dieter Lohmeier, vol. 21), Heide in Holstein: Boyens 1995. ISBN 3 -8042-0767-7
  • Heinrich W. Schwab: FL Æ. Kunzen the Hofkapellmeister and the Royal Library , in: Fund og Forskning 34 (1995) full text
  • Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann, Christiane Wiesenfeldt (ed.): The composer Friedrich Ludwig Aemilius Kunzen (1761-1817). Genres, works, contexts. Böhlau 2015. ISBN 978-3-412-21693-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holgerfejden in the Danish Wikipedia
  2. ↑ August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben : Our folk songs. 4th edition, Leipzig: Engelmann 1900, p. 49 (No. 227)
  3. ↑ See Heinrich W. Schwab: The genre Hymne um 1800. A devotional music for church, concert hall and open-air stage , in: Helmut Loos and Klaus-Peter Koch (ed.): Music history between East and West Europe. Church music - sacred music - religious music. Report of the Chemnitz Conference 28.-30. Oct. 1999. (= History of Music between Eastern and Western Europe, Vol. 7), Sinzig 2002, pp. 509-527.
  4. ↑ Hymn to God, set to music by FLÆ. Kunzen. Zurich: Hans Georg Nägeli [after 1804] doi : 10.3931 / e-rara-25578
  5. ↑ NDB (lit.)
  6. ↑ jpc.de: audio samples, reviews
  7. ^ "Nordic Cherubini" between the chairs , Die Welt, November 29, 2011, accessed November 30, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Kunzen, Friedrich Ludwig Æmilius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1761
PLACE OF BIRTH Lübeck
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1817
Place of death Copenhagen