Jakob Friedrich Kleinknecht

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Jakob Friedrich Kleinknecht, pastel by Alexander Roslin , ca.1747

Jakob Friedrich Kleinknecht (baptized April 8, 1722 in Ulm ; † August 11, 1794 in Ansbach ) was a German composer , flautist , violinist and conductor .

Life

Jakob Friedrich Kleinknecht - only the date of his baptism is known - came from a family from which several generations of musicians emerged. His father Johann Kleinknecht (1676–1751) had been vice organist at Ulm Minster from 1712 and the brothers Johann Wolfgang (1715–1786) and Johann Stephan (1731 to after 1806) worked, like Jakob Friedrich himself, as musicians at the courts of Bayreuth and Ansbach . A son of Jakob Friedrich Kleinknecht, Christian Ludwig Kleinknecht (1765–1794), continued the musician tradition.

In 1737 he got a job as court musician in the orchestra of the Prince-Bishop of Eichstätt (for which he temporarily converted to Catholicism ) and in 1743 (now again Protestant ) became a flautist in the Bayreuth court orchestra, where his brother Johann Wolfgang was already concertmaster. In 1747 he switched to the violin. In 1748 Jakob Friedrich's first compositions (6 flute sonatas) appeared in print, even if he was only mentioned in 1763 as the “court composer”. In 1764 he was promoted to music director of the court orchestra. In 1769 he moved with the relocation of the court orchestra to Ansbach, where he was buried in 1794 as the "Royal Prussian Capellmeister".

plant

Kleinknecht wrote mainly chamber music (solo sonatas and trio sonatas ) as well as concert works and several symphonies. More than 100 chamber music works are known. Stylistically, Kleinknecht's music moves in the transition area between baroque and classical .

Parts of Kleinknecht's musical legacy, of which no autograph has survived , must be considered lost. Transcripts of the voice are among others. a. in the Bavarian State Library , the Germanic National Museum , the Badische Landesbibliothek and the Bayreuth City Archives . Original prints of some works from the 18th and early 19th centuries are also available. Approx. 60 flute trios and sonatas were widely distributed through prints by publishers in Paris , London and Nuremberg . Sporadic new editions only appeared from the last third of the 20th century.

literature

  • Adelheid Krause-Pichler: Jakob Friedrich Kleinknecht, 1722-1794 . Anton H. Konrad Verlag, Weißenhorn, 1991. ISBN 3-87437-309-6
  • Friedrich Blume (Ed.): Music in the past and present , 1st edition, 1949–1986
  • Michael Schneider, Foreword to Bärenreiter BA 6825 (Jakob Friedrich Kleinknecht, Two Sonatas for Flute and Basso continuo); published in 1987.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kleinknecht, Jakob Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer, flautist, violinist and Kapellmeister
DATE OF BIRTH baptized April 8, 1722
PLACE OF BIRTH Ulm
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 1794
Place of death Ansbach