Friedrich Witt (composer)

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Score from Friedrich Witt's Turque Symphony , around 1809

Jeremias Friedrich Witt (born November 8, 1770 in Niederstetten , † January 3, 1836 in Würzburg ) was a German conductor and composer .

Live and act

Friedrich Witt was born the sixth of eight children of the school clerk, cantor and clerk Johann Caspar Witt. When Friedrich was six years old, his father died. After his death, his mother married Heinrich Vollrath Düring, his successor in office, and had four other children with him. One of them was Johann Georg Heinrich Düring , who was also a composer. Witt probably received his first music lessons and, at the same time, lessons on various instruments from both his father and his stepfather.

In October 1789 Witt was accepted as a cellist in the court orchestra of the Prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein in the Nördlinger Ries . A lesson with Antonio Rosetti is suspected, but so far it cannot be clearly proven, especially since Rosetti left Wallerstein in June 1789 . Witt would then have to have come to Wallerstein before he was accepted into the court orchestra.

In 1793 and 1794 he undertook concert tours with the clarinetist Joseph Beer (1770–1819), also a member of the Oettinger Hofkapelle, among others to Coburg , Weimar , Potsdam and Ludwigslust . Around 1796 he left Wallerstein with Beer and went on a concert tour of several years, including to Vienna and Frankfurt am Main . In Vienna, the two gave a concert in the Augarten , at which the audience included Joseph Haydn and other leading personalities of Viennese musical life. A clarinet concerto by Witt and one of his symphonies were performed. The concert was a great success and brought Witt several inquiries for further concerts, as he writes in a letter to a friend.

In the spring of 1802, after the premiere of his oratorio The Suffering Savior , Witt was appointed court conductor in Würzburg . There he married the daughter of one of the richest citizens of the city in 1803 and stayed there until the end of his life. From 1814 Witt was Kapellmeister at the theater in Würzburg. In the summer of 1824 he was dismissed from his position as Kapellmeister - probably due to illness. During the last years of his life he worked for some time as the court composer of Prince Carl Friedrich zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg .

Witt died on January 3, 1836 in his apartment on Neubauergasse in Würzburg at the age of 65 of " paralysis ". When he died, Witt's church music was still praised, but his oeuvre was soon completely forgotten due to the changing taste in music, although his compositions were very popular and valued during his lifetime.

Witt's musical role models include Joseph Haydn and Antonio Rosetti . He often found the slow movements of his works very atmospheric, in which he often shows himself to be a real romantic. Witt's works are often characterized by colorful instrumentation with woodwinds and horns.

At the heart of his work are 23 symphonies , but he also created instrumental concerts , chamber music , masses and other sacred vocal works. His best-known work is the Jena Symphony , which was discovered in the Jena University Library in 1909 and was initially attributed to the young Beethoven by its discoverer, the musicologist and theologian Fritz Stein , as it can be read on the part of the second violin ' by Louis van Beethoven' was. The assumption was supported by a statement by Beethoven who, according to his own words, had once attempted a symphony in C major based on the model of Symphony No. 97 by Joseph Haydn - the symphony found in Jena actually showed similarities with this London work by Haydn. For half a century it was subsequently played under Beethoven's name. Max Reger arranged this symphony for piano four hands and the music scholars critically examined the work: Although there was a dispute about Beethoven's authorship, the work was generally acknowledged to be of high quality. It was only proven in 1968 that the symphony was a work of Witt.

Gerhard Götz, music teacher and choirmaster at Ganerbe-Gymnasium Künzelsau , discovered three previously unknown masses by Witt in the Hohenlohe central archive in Neuenstein in 2007 . The handwritten sheet music contained individual parts and were "written in old clefs ", which Götz and the church musician Matthias Ankenbrand translated into modern scores .

The B flat major ( Missa solenne ) and C major masses were “re-performed” on February 1, 2009 in the St. Paulus Church in Künzelsau after two hundred years. The complete C major mass was performed on June 12, 2016 at the same location.

Works

Symphonies

Witt wrote a total of 23 symphonies, including:

  • Symphony No. 1 in E flat major (1803, published by Johann André )
  • Symphony No. 2 in D major (1804, published by André)
  • Symphony No. 3 in F major (1807, published by André)
  • Symphony No. 4 in E flat major (1807, published by André)
  • Symphony No. 5 (1809, published by André)
  • Symphony No. 6 in A minor ("Sinfonie turque") (1809, published by André)
  • Symphony No. 7 in C major (1811, published by André)
  • Symphony No. 8 in F major (1811, published by André)
  • Symphony No. 9 in D minor (1818, published by André)
  • Symphony No. 14 in C major (" Jena Symphony ") (composed between 1792 and 1796, published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1911) (previously attributed to Ludwig van Beethoven )
  • Symphony No. 16 in A major (composed around 1790)

Solo concerts

  • Horn Concerto in E major (1795)
  • 3 concerts in F major for 2 horns and orchestra (1797)
  • Flute Concerto in G major op.8 (1807, published by Breitkopf & Härtel)
  • Concertino for 2 horns in E flat major (1818)
  • Concerto for violoncello
  • Various concerts for cello, bassoon, flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and two horns (lost)

Harmony music

  • Parthia for winds in E flat major (1790)
  • Parthia for winds in F major (1790)
  • Parthia for winds in F major (1791)
  • Parthia (nonet) for wind instruments in E flat major (1792)
  • Parthia Grande d'armonia (after 1800)
  • Concertante for 2 clarinets, bassoon, 2 horns and bass trombone (after 1800)
  • Pièce d'Harmonie for wind instruments (1825, published by Schott 1826)
  • Concertino for oboe and harmony music (was for a long time attributed to Carl Maria von Weber )

Chamber music

  • Trio in F major for violin, violoncello and piano
  • Two further piano trios (cannot be performed due to the lack of string parts)
  • String quartet in C major
  • Bassoon Quartet in F major (1797)
  • Two more bassoon quartets (lost)
  • Quartet in E flat major for horn, violin, viola and violoncello (composed between 1802 and 1814)
  • Quatuor I / Quintetto concertanto (created between 1825 and 1835)
  • Quatuor II / Quintetto concertanto (created between 1825 and 1835)
  • Quatuor III / Quintetto concertanto (created between 1825 and 1835)
  • Various clarinet quartets (lost)
  • Grand Quintetto in E flat major op.6 for piano and wind instruments (also in a version for piano and string quartet) (1807, published by Breitkopf & Härtel)
  • Quintet in F major for piano and wind instruments (arrangement of the piano trio in F major)
  • Septet in F major for string quartet, clarinet, horn and bassoon (1797, published by Schott in 1817)
  • 3 piano sonatas
  • Three Allemand for piano
  • Adagio and Allegro for wind instruments
  • Minuet for winds (variations on Mozart's minuet from Don Giovanni)

Church music

  • 6–7 fairs, including:
    • Mass No. 2 in B flat major ("Missa solenne B flat major")
    • Mass No. 3 in C major
    • Missa solemnis in F major (lost)
    • Pentecost miss with offertory (lost?)
  • A requiem
  • Pange Lingua (1793)
  • Te Deum (double choir) (lost)
  • Litania de B. Maria V. (missing)
  • Small cantata for mixed voices and piano four hands (lost)
  • Five major cantatas and oratorios, including:
    • The Suffering Savior (1802; lost)
    • The resurrection of Jesus
    • Sing praises to Jehovah our God

Secular choral works

  • Cantata on the resolution of the 18th century (only textbooks preserved)
  • Man (only textbooks received)

Operas and stage works

  • Berissa. Heroic-comic opera
  • Palma. Singspiel in two acts (first performed in Frankfurt in 1804) (lost)
  • The fisher woman. Rural-comic opera in two acts (premiered on March 29, 1807 in Würzburg) (lost)
  • Lenardo and Blandine. Incidental music for the tragedy of the same name by Wilhelm Friedrich Ziegler (first performed on August 6, 1813 in Würzburg)

Quotes

" That Mr. Witt will not have delivered anything bad or mean in this manner either, can be expected in advance from such an intelligent composer, and this expectation is by no means deceived in the present work. "( ETA Hoffmann in his review of the Sinfonie turque by Friedrich Witt )

“ In the whole symphony in general […] Mr. W. shown as a thorough, intelligent composer, and the visible effort not to give the whole thing so much depth, but only the highest possible degree of courtesy, shows that it is written for a large audience, which they are sure to find is, if it is performed only somehow well, very effective and is therefore rightly recommended to every orchestra. “( E. T. A. Hoffmann in his review of the 5th Symphony by Friedrich Witt )

literature

  • Iris Ajdnik-Berner: F. Witt (1770–1836) and H. Düring (1778–1858). In: Walter Krüger (Red.): 650 years of the city of Niederstetten (= publications on local history and local history in Württembergisch Franconia ). City of Niederstetten, Niederstetten 1991.
  • Ernst Häußinger: The composer Friedrich Witt from Niederstetten. In: Württembergisch Franken (yearbook of the historical association for Württembergisch Franken). Vol. 57, Schwäbisch Hall 1973, pp. 137-142 ( online ).
  • Günther Grünsteudel: Friedrich Witt: Stations of his life and work. ( Digitized version ).
  • Günther Grünsteudel: Text in the booklet for the CD Friedrich Witt: Orchestral Works (Susanne Barner, Hamburger Symphoniker, Johannes Moesus ), MDG 329 1299-2.
  • Keith Anderson: Text in the booklet for the CD Friedrich Witt: Symphony in C 'Jena' (Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväskylä, Patrick Gallois), Naxos 8.572089.

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Witt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. At that time ↑ was still called Haltbergstetten after the Hohenlohe Castle
  2. ↑ Johann Georg Heinrich Düring (LAGIS)
  3. ↑ Excerpt from the death register of the Protestant parish of Würzburg and the Friedrich Witt corpse certificate in the Würzburg city archive
  4. ↑ Hans Renner: Reclam's concert guide. Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart 1961, p. 141. Renner gives 1910 as the year of discovery.
  5. ↑ Gold rush mood in the central archive on Stimme.de
  6. ↑ Peter Schiffer: "Gloria in excelsis Deo". The performance of two masses by Friedrich Witt from the Hohenlohe central archive. In: Archivnachrichten No. 39 (September 2009), p. 15 ( digitized version )
  7. ↑ Rediscovered composition will soon be performed in Künzelsau on swp.de.
  8. ↑ Awakened to musical life on swp.de.
  9. ↑ cf. Discography of the compositions by Carl Maria von Weber on webergesellschaft.de (PDF; 601 kB) and concert flyer on uibk.ac.at (PDF; 1.6 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Witt, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Witt, Friederich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Kapellmeister and composer
DATE OF BIRTH November 8, 1770
PLACE OF BIRTH Niederstetten
DATE OF DEATH January 3, 1836
Place of death Wurzburg