Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (born January 13, jul. / 23. January  1690 greg. In Grunstadtel ; † 27. November 1749 in Gotha ) was a German conductor , composer and music theorist.

Life

Stölzel was born as the second of nine children in Grünstädtel in the Ore Mountains. His father Heinrich took over the office of schoolmaster and organist from his father Christian in 1687 and married the judge's daughter Katharina Lange that same year. The family lived together in the village schoolhouse.

Gottfried Heinrich learned to play the piano from his father and sang in the community's children's choir. At the age of 13 he learned at the lyceum in Schneeberg , where he received music lessons from Christian Umblaufft, a student of the Thomaskantor Johann Schelle . In 1705 he switched to the grammar school in Gera , where he received music lessons from the Count's Kapelldirektor Emanuel Kegel . He then began studying theology in Leipzig in 1707 . One of his teachers there was Melchior Hoffmann , who supported him through compositional guidance and performance of his works. During this time, personal acquaintances with Johann Friedrich Fasch and Johann Georg Pisendel arose . After a short study trip to Italy, he stayed in Prague . In 1710 he gave music lessons in aristocratic families in Breslau and began working on several compositions. During the time in Breslau, in 1711, he wrote his first opera, Narcissus , based on his own text . In 1713 he returned to Italy, where he maintained contacts with Francesco Gasparini , Antonio Vivaldi and Giovanni Bononcini and thus found his way into the international music world.

In 1717, for the bicentenary of the Reformation , he followed a call to Bayreuth to produce church music. From January 1, 1718 to September 30, 1719 he took over the position of Kapellmeister at the court of Count Heinrich XXV. in Gera, with which extensive obligations were connected. This included working as a music teacher at the grammar school. In 1719 he took Christiane Dorothea (1694–1750), the daughter of court deacon Magister Johann Knauer, as his wife. The marriage had ten children. In 1719 the couple moved to Gotha, where Gottfried Heinrich was appointed court conductor by Duke Friedrich II . He was also active as a music teacher, wrote several music theory writings and was also active as a writer. Stölzel cultivated all musical genres of his time and led the court orchestra to a new bloom. He created works for the courts in Gera, Sondershausen and Zerbst . In 1739 he became a member of the Corresponding Society of Musical Sciences .

Works

Since the 1830s, Stölzel took on numerous commissions for compositions for the court in Sondershausen. In addition to works on the occasion of solemn events by the royal family, it was mainly sacred vocal works.

Stölzel was an extraordinarily productive composer. His outstanding reputation temporarily exceeded that of his contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach . His compositional work includes numerous orchestral works, chamber music works, oratorios and masses , motets and passions as well as secular cantatas . However, a large part of his works has been lost.

In 1725 he created a version of the Passion Oratorio Jesus Martyred and Dying for the Sin of the World by Barthold Heinrich Brockes ( Brockes Passion ), which was performed on Good Friday in the castle church of Schloss Friedenstein . Around 1735 Stölzel sent a copy of the Passion to Sondershausen, where it was performed several times, was by chance preserved and was heard for the first time in 1997. He wrote a German Mass , a Lutheran Mass (Kyrie and Gloria) in German, for four-part choir, strings and basso continuo. The Christmas Oratorio is considered to be Stölzel's most important work . This is a ten-part cantata cycle that was first performed between Christmas 1736 and Epiphany 1737.

Stölzel's Passion Oratorio A Little Lamb Goes and Bears the Guilt , which was written in Gotha in 1720, was heard on April 23, 1734 (Good Friday) under the direction of Johann Sebastian Bach in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. The aria “Your cross, o bridegroom of my souls” from this oratorio was transformed by Bach around 1740 into the aria “I want to confess his name” (BWV 200) in a profound editing process.

Stölzel's year of cantatas based on Benjamin Schmolck's Das Saiten-Spiel des Herzens was performed by Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig in 1735/1736.

Probably the best-known work of Stölzel is the aria “Are you with me”, which was long ascribed to Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 508), as it is included in the 1725 sheet music for Anna Magdalena Bach without the composer's name . The aria comes from Stölzel's opera Diomedes or Triumphant Innocence , which was performed in Bayreuth on November 16, 1718 and the score of which is lost. A copy of the aria existed in the archive of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin and was considered a war loss until it was rediscovered in the Kiev Conservatory in 2000 . The continuo part of BWV 508 has been changed in the parts compared to the Stölzel aria. Who wrote it is uncertain, as the entry is in the handwriting of Anna Magdalena Bach.

literature

  • Robert Eitner:  Stölzel, Gottfried Heinrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 36, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1893, p. 429 f.
  • Fritz Hennenberg : The cantatas of Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. German Verl. Für Musik, Leipzig 1976 (= contributions to musicological research in the GDR . 8) (Leipzig, Phil. F., Diss. Of February 9, 1965).
  • Manfred Bachmann (ed.): Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel - composer of the baroque. In: Small chronicle of great masters - Erzgebirge we are proud of. Part 1, printer and publisher Mike Rockstroh, Aue 2000, pp. 69–71.
  • Florian Vogt: The “Instructions for the Art of Musical Typesetting” by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (1690–1749). Edition and commentary. By Bockel, Neumünster 2018, ISBN 978-3-95675-019-9 .

Web links

Wikisource: Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ludger Rémy in the program booklet of the cpo recording 1998.
  2. ↑ The score has come down to us in two manuscripts: Berliner Staatsbibliothek, Mus. ms. 21412 III, fol. 69-95; Sondershausen Castle Museum, Mus. A 15: 2. Cf. Tajana Schabalina: "Texts on Music" in Saint Petersburg. In: Bach-Jahrbuch , vol. 94 (2008), ISBN 978-3-374-02668-5 , pp. 33-99, here 79.
  3. ^ Tajana Schabalina: "Texts on Music" in Saint Petersburg . In: Bach-Jahrbuch , vol. 94 (2008), pp. 33–99, here 77–84.
  4. ↑ Peter Wollny : "I want to confess his name". Authenticity, determination and context of the aria BWV 200. Comments on Johann Sebastian Bach's reception of works by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. In: Bach-Jahrbuch , vol. 94 (2008), pp. 123–158.
  5. ↑ Marc-Roderich Pfau: An unknown Leipzig cantata booklet from 1735. In: Bach-Jahrbuch , vol. 94 (2008), pp. 99-122.
  6. ↑ On the other hand, a text booklet has been preserved in an anthology, which is now kept in the Bayreuth University Library as part of the library of the "Historisches Verein für Oberfranken". ( Catalog entry )
  7. ↑ Andreas Glöckner in: Bach Yearbook 2002, pp. 172–174. All the details mentioned are from this article.
personal data
SURNAME Stölzel, Gottfried Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer and music theorist of the baroque era
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1690
PLACE OF BIRTH Grünstädtel
DATE OF DEATH November 27, 1749
Place of death Gotha