Heinrich Christoph Koch

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Heinrich Christoph Koch (born October 10, 1749 in Rudolstadt ; † March 19, 1816 there ) was a German music theorist and lexicographer. His music lexicon found widespread use in Germany and Denmark; Today one uses his theory of form and syntax to analyze music of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Life

In his youth, Koch worked as a violinist in the Rudolstädter Hofkapelle, and from 1772 as a chamber musician. He received violin and composition lessons from Christian Gotthelf Scheinpflug and studied temporarily in Weimar, Dresden, Berlin and Hamburg. Then he spent the rest of his life in Rudolstadt. In 1792 he was appointed Kapellmeister, but after a year returned voluntarily to the first violin. After that he was still active as a composer and music writer. In 1818 he was elected a member of the Swedish Music Academy, which was not informed of his death. His music lexicon (1802) was the most influential after that of Johann Gottfried Walther (1732) and before the encyclopedias by Schilling (1835–38) and Mendel / Reissmann (1870–83); it summarizes the knowledge of the baroque and early classical periods. His “Attempt at a Guide to Composition” deals for the first time in detail and systematically with the structure of harmony, melody and sentence structure, making it the most important forerunner of Hugo Riemann's (albeit different) theories in this regard .

Works

Fonts

  • An attempt at a guide to composition , 3 volumes. Rudolstadt and Leipzig 1782, 1787, 1793, by Adam Friedrich Böhme. Reprint Olms, Hildesheim, 1969; Study edition in one volume, ed. by Jo Wilhelm Siebert. Siebert, Hannover, 2007. Neusatz and facsimile digital in: Musiktheoretische Quellen 1750–1800 , ed. by Ulrich Kaiser . Directmedia, Berlin, 2007, ISBN 978-3-89853-615-8 .
    • Vol. 1, 1782, On the way in which tones in and of themselves are harmoniously connected and From the contrapuncte . University of Strasbourg
    • Vol. 2, 1787, On the way in which the melody is connected with regard to mechanical rules. University of Strasbourg
    • Vol. 3, 1793, continued On the mechanical rules of melody : On the connection of the melodic parts, or on the structure of the periods . University of Strasbourg .
  • (Ed.) Journal der Tonkunst . Erfurt 1795.
  • Musical lexicon, which contains the theoretical and practical art of music, edited encyclopaedically, explains all old and new artificial words, and describes the old and new instruments . Frankfurt 1802 pdf, 46Mb ( online version )
  • Concise concise dictionary of music for practical musicians and for amateurs . Leipzig 1807.
  • About the technical term: Tempo rubato . In: Allgemeine Musical Zeitung 10, 1808, Sp. 513-519.
  • Handbook in the Study of Harmony . Leipzig 1811.
  • Attempt to avoid the hard and soft key of each pitch of the diatonic-chromatic ladder by means of the enharmonic pitch change into the major and minor keys of the other degrees . Rudolstadt 1812.

Compositions

Apart from the sheet music examples in his theoretical works, Koch's compositional works have been lost, including cantatas, a Singspiel The Voice of Joy in Hygeen's Haine (1790), instrumental and sacred music. In the holdings of the court orchestra (in the Thuringian State Archives in Rudolstadt ) there are seven symphonies by “Koch”. Although these are not listed in contemporary lists of works, Koch uses the exposition of the first movement of one of these symphonies as a musical example without an author's name ( attempt , third and final part, p. 386ff.), Which can be taken as an indication of his authorship.

literature

  • Bernhard Anemüller :  Koch, Heinrich Christoph . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, p. 383.
  • Hugo Riemann: H. Chr. Koch as an explanation of irregular topic structure . In: Preludes and Studies , Vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1900), pp. 56–70.
  • Nancy Kovaleff Baker: From “Part” to “Tonstück”: the Significance of the “Attempt at a Guide to Composition” by Heinrich Christoph Koch . (Diss., Yale U., 1975); Excerpts in: Journal of Music Theory 20, 1976, pp. 1-48, IRASM 8, 1977, pp. 183-209 and Studi musicali 9, 1980, pp. 303-316.
  • Carl Dahlhaus: The rhetorical concept of form H.Chr. Kochs and the theory of the sonata form. In: Archives for Musicology . 35, 1978, pp. 155-177.
  • Gerhard Schuhmacher:  Koch, Heinrich Christoph. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 263 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Elaine Sisman: Small and Expanded Forms: Koch's Model and Haydn's Music . In: Musical Quarterly 68, 1982, pp. 444-475.
  • Wolfgang Budday: Fundamentals of musical forms of the Viennese Classic: based on the contemporary theory of Joseph Riepel and Heinrich Christoph Koch presented in minuets and sonatas (1750–1790) . Basel 1983.
  • Shelly Davis: HC Koch, the Classic Concerto, and the Sonata-Form Retransition . In: Journal of Musicology 2, 1983, pp. 45-61.
  • Ian M. Bent: The "Compositional Process" in Music Theory 1713-1850 . In: Music Analysis 3, 1984, pp. 29-55.
  • Günther Wagner: Notes on Heinrich Christoph Koch's theory of form . In: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 41, No. 2, 1984, pp. 86–112.
  • Nancy Kovaleff Baker: Der Urstoff der Musik: Implications for Harmony and Melody in the Theory of Heinrich Koch . In: Music Analysis 7, 1988, pp. 3-30.
  • Carl Dahlhaus: Logic, grammar and syntax of music with Heinrich Christoph Koch . In: J. Fricke [u. a.] (Ed.): The language of music: Festschrift Klaus Wolfgang Niemöller . Regensburg 1989, pp. 99-109.
  • Ivan F. Waldbauer: Riemann's Periodization Revisited and Revised . In: Journal of Music Theory 33, 1989, pp. 333-391.
  • Joel Lester: Compositional Theory in the Eighteenth Century . Cambridge (MA) 1992.
  • Walther Dürr: Music as an Analogue of Speech: Musical Syntax in the Writings of Heinrich Christoph Koch and in the Works of Schubert . In: M. Parker (Ed.): Eighteenth-Century Music in Theory and Practice: Essays in Honor of Alfred Mann . Stuyvesant (NY) 1994, pp. 227-240.
  • Nancy Kovaleff Baker, Thomas Christensen (Eds.): Aesthetics and the Art of Musical Composition in the German Enlightenment: Selected Writings of Johann G. Sulzer and Heinrich C. Koch . London 1995.
  • Music theory sources 1750-1800. Printed writings by J. Riepel, H. Chr. Koch, JF Daube and JA Scheibe , ed. by Ulrich Kaiser, with a foreword and a bibliography by Stefan Eckert and Ulrich Kaiser, Berlin 2007.
  • Felix Diergarten: "At times even Homer nodds off". Heinrich Christoph Koch's polemic against Joseph Haydn . In: Music Theory Online 14.1 (2008) [1]
  • Felix Steiner: Heinrich Christoph Koch's attempt at a guide to composition in the mirror of contemporary composition teachings . Mainz 2016. DNB German National Library

Remarks

  1. ↑ Table of contents and PDF evidence

Web links

Wikisource: Heinrich Christoph Koch  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Koch, Heinrich Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German music theorist and lexicographer
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1749
PLACE OF BIRTH Rudolstadt , Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt , Holy Roman Empire
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1816
Place of death Rudolstadt , Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt