Johann Baptist Moralt

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Johann Baptist Moralt (born March 10, 1777 in Mannheim , † October 7, 1825 in Munich ) was a German violinist and composer .

Life

When he was barely two years old, the family moved with the electoral orchestra to Munich, where he received violin lessons from the court musician Johann Baptist Geiger as a boy. Johann Baptist must have developed a special talent on the violin, because none other than the then court music instrument director Karl Christian Cannabich , probably the most important personality as a conductor and composer who came to the electoral court in Munich with the Mannheim native , took on his further training . The success of these years of learning was also a corresponding one, in 1792 Johann Baptist Moralt was admitted as an "accessist" to the electoral court music at the age of 15, where his two years older brother Joseph already participated in the violin and his father Adam Moralt served as a Kalkant did to honestly see his good dozen children through.

After just another two years, this extraordinary talent was accepted into the electoral orchestra and now experienced the great days of Munich court music under Christian Cannabich , J. Ferandini and Karl Joseph Toeschi and later under Friedrich Eck and Ignaz Fränzl . Playing in the orchestra was not enough for the young Moralt. In addition to his service in court music, he took lessons in harmony and counterpoint from the most famous teacher at the time, the electoral court piano master Josef Grätz , and continued his theoretical education with the aim of becoming a well-known composer himself.

At the age of 21 he was already an electoral court musician and was one of the best performers in the court orchestra. Of course, he was a member of the Moralt Four Brothers Quartet from the start, in which he played the second violin and with whom he made major international tours to Switzerland and France. Apart from many concert tours that introduced him to a number of cities in Germany and allowed him to take part in the enthusiastic jubilation that the quartet earned everywhere, especially because of his Haydn interpretations.

In fact, Johann Baptist Moralt had a good name as a composer in his day, whose compositions, mostly symphonies , concert performers and quartets, appear on the programs of major events alongside those of his contemporaries. In 1811 the “Musical Academy”, which had just been founded, performed his festival overture with great success, and a year later his great symphony, which was then performed four more times by the Academy in subscription concerts. In the series of these academy concerts, compositions by Johann Baptist Moralt are repeatedly on the program, for example his cello concert in 1813 and 1817, which his brother Philipp played. The music biographer François-Joseph Fétis lists a whole series of compositions by Johann Baptist Moralt, including two symphonies for large orchestra, one (S major) with Simrock in Bonn, the other (G major) in Leipzig with Breitkopf & Härtel, a concertante for two violins and Lecons Méthodiques for two violins, both works published by the Schott brothers in Mainz (with a French title), and some quartets that have been published by Falter and Stidler in Munich. In addition, a German Mass for four voices with organ is known from him, as were a number of church music compositions in his estate. The song was probably also published in "Musikalischen Jugendfreund, I. Heft Nr. 51" by Stidler in Munich in 1814, by Johann Baptist Moralt.

As early as 1811, Lipowsky wrote about him that he “distinguished himself through several pieces of music he had made. Several symphonies show his fortunate musical talent, and his German Mass, too, proves that he is able to work in church music with marvelous success. In general, his music shows dexterity in imitations and in fugue sentences ... “When this assessment appeared, Moralt was barely 34 years old, so was only at the beginning of his composing career, and was already considered worthy in the Bavarian Music Lexicon, the only dictionary of its kind to be mentioned. If you subtract a bit of envy and resentment from the successes, then Johann Baptist Moralt must have already done his part and demonstrated outstanding ability to receive such an award.

Incidentally, Johann Baptist Moralt also had a good name as a conductor. When the first performance of Handel's “Messiah” was given in St. Anne's Church on Holy Saturday in 1810, the magazine “Eos” wrote, “ By the way , we thank the brave performer who despite all the difficulties, nevertheless with a wonderfully successful performance this masterpiece have truly given us a delicious hour. But we cannot give enough praise to Johann Baptist Moralt, under whose direction this oratorio was performed so successfully ” .

After all that, Johann Baptist Moralt was a real thoroughbred musician; it is a pity that so little has been passed on about him. All of the major domestic and foreign music lexicons list him, but there are no files on his work with the court orchestra. On June 12, 1808, at 7 a.m., Johann Baptist Moralt was married to Ottilie Gschray, daughter of Johann Georg Gschray, parish clerk in Seefeld, in the Peterskirche in Munich, after the royal Bavarian court chief judge's office had issued the marriage license according to the custom at the time . The witnesses were the court musician Franz Xaver Pater and the parishioner Balthasar Danzer.

The bride was born on December 17, 1776 in Seefeld, apparently an honest girl and with some fortune who, together with the income of the court musician, “secured the food level”, as was the rule and requirement for marriage at that time. From this marriage there were four children. The parents lived in house no.1066 at the Hofstatt at that time and luck could have been complete, but in the late autumn of 1821 the eldest son died and a few years later, they had just moved to Brunnenstrasse no.1190, on October 7th, 1825 The royal court musician and composer Johann Baptist Moralt also died.

Towards the end of May 1826, a few months after the death of her husband, they found Ottilie Moralt, née. Gschray “drowned at the Prater Bridge in the Isar”, as the pastor of St. Peter noted in the Book of the Dead. Whether a disaster or a confusing fate, (comma) nobody knows. The three orphans were looked at and their mother was buried for eternal rest on May 26, 1826, with the permission of the pastor of St. Peter.

The royal music director Joseph Moralt took care of the three children as uncle and guardian.

In memory of the violinist and composer Johann Baptist Moralt and his nephew the history painter Ludwig Moralt, the city of Munich named a street in Munich- Solln in 1947 .

family

His parents were the musician Adam Moralt (1748–1811) and Maria Anna Kramer. He had at least eight siblings:

His brother-in-law was the opera singer Julius Pellegrini (1806-1858).

literature

  • Albert Aschl , "The moral. Life pictures of a family". (Private doctor 1960)
  • Robert Eitner, Biographical-Bibliographical Sources-Lexicon of Musicians and Music Scholars, 7 Volume, Leipzig 1902
  • Alfred Baumgartner: Propylaea World of Music - The Composers - A lexicon in five volumes . Propylaen Verlag, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-549-07830-7 , pp. 83, volume 4 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Moralt, Johann Baptist
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German violinist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1777
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH October 7, 1825
Place of death Munich