John Christopher Smith

John Christopher Smith, painting by Johann Zoffany

John Christopher Smith (* 1712 in Ansbach , † 1795 in London ) was an English composer of German descent and, like his father, a student and confidante of Georg Friedrich Handel .

To distinguish him from his father of the same name (1683–1763), he is sometimes called John Christopher Smith the Younger. Father and son should not be confused with Johann Christoph Schmidt of the same name .

Life

Smith's father was a wool merchant in Ansbach . He had a passion for music and therefore followed his college friend Georg Friedrich Handel with his family to London in 1716, where they anglicized their name to Smith. He became Handel's copyist, financial administrator and secretary, but fell out with Handel in the 1750s. His son was enthusiastic about music from his youth and left school at the age of thirteen to become a student of Handel. In 1727 he was a violist in Handel's orchestra. He also received music lessons from Johann Christoph Pepusch and Thomas Roseingrave , who also hired him as a cook. In 1730 he started his own business as a music teacher. In the same year he became seriously ill with tuberculosis and was cared for in the house of court doctor John Arbuthnot . Many writers and intellectuals stayed there, such as Jonathan Swift , Alexander Pope and John Gay ; Smith gained access to these circles and developed an interest in literature and science. In 1733 he tried his hand at an opera Ulysses (libretto by Samuel Humphreys), but it was unsuccessful when it was performed at Lincoln's Inn, whereupon he decided not to undertake similar projects for the time being. From 1740 to 1749, like Handel (and at his encouragement), he organized subscription concerts with his own opera compositions - Rosalinda (libretto John Lockman, first performed January 4, 1740 in Hickford's Rooms in London), Issipile (1743, libretto Pietro Metastasio ), Il Ciro riconosciuto ( 1744, Libretto Metastasio), Dario (1746, lost), Demofoonte (1747, Libretto Metastasio, lost), Artaserse (1749, Libretto Metastasio, lost) - but thus came into competition with his teacher, who, despite their friendship, did not listen to him Be considerate when poaching singers.

Through his acquaintance with the librettists Benjamin Stillingfleet and Robert Price, he gained access to higher social circles. The friendship with the famous actor David Garrick led to two operas after William Shakespeare , for which Garrick wrote the libretti: The Fairies after Shakespeare's Midsummer Night 's Dream , successfully performed at the Drury Lane Theater in 1755 , and The Tempest after Shakespeare's Storm , performed at the Drury Lane Theater in 1756 . He had his breakthrough as a composer in London with his oratorio Paradise Lost (based on John Milton Paradise Lost , libretto Benjamin Stillingfleet), which premiered in 1760 at the Royal Theater in Covent Garden . He was then artistic director of the Royal Theater in Covent Garden until 1772. He became music master of the Princess Augusta of Wales and oversaw the construction of a house organ for the Earl of Bute , which could also play automatically with the help of rollers, on which Smith and John Langshaw transferred the music of Handel. Some of the reels for a Handel organ concert have been preserved and provide information about how they were played at the time. In 1760 he was successful with the opera The Enchanter of Love and Magic (libretto David Garrick) at the Drury Lane Theater. His last opera was Medea (1763, libretto Benjamin Stillingfleet).

In the last years of his life, when he was becoming increasingly blind, he supported Handel with scores and performances. Handel became completely blind in 1752 and Smith conducted his oratorios from 1753 until Handel's death in 1759. Handel bequeathed him his scores, his large harpsichord, his small house organ, his music books and £ 500. Smith bequeathed the scores to King George III. and thus the English state. Smith took over the annual performances of the Messiah in the Erratic Hospital after Handel's death from 1759 to 1768 and was the organist in the Erratic Hospital. He also wrote other oratorios, such as Rebecca , Nabal , Tobit and Gideon , all arrangements of Handel's music with new libretti and performed in the Royal Theater in Covent Garden in the 1760s. In 1998 an oratorio Redemption (libretto William Coxe ) was discovered in the Paris National Library.

In 1772 he withdrew for health reasons. He received a royal pension of £ 200 a year and moved to Bath in 1774. He died in London.

There is also instrumental music by him, including music for harpsichord , hymns (1765), cantatas ( Winter, or Daphne 1746 after Alexander Pope, Thamesi, Isi e Proteo in honor of Friedrich Ludwig von Hannover , Prince of Wales) and funeral music (1772) on the occasion of the death of Augusta von Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg , Princess of Wales, whom he had taught on the harpsichord.

A plaque in Bath commemorates him.

Trivia

Ernst Flessa wrote "Ombra mai fu", a fictional Handel biography in the form of a novel with John Christopher Smith as the first-person narrator.

literature

• William Coxe: Anecdotes of George Frederick Handel and John Christopher Smith. London 1799, Archives
• Michael Burden: Smith, John Christopher (1712-1795). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004
• Ernst Flessa: Ombra mai fu ...: The Handel Chronicle d. Johann Christopher Smith , Koehler, Biberach ad Riss, 1958
• Barbara Small:  Smith, John Christopher. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).

Web links

• Michael Kämmle: A learned and educated person. From the life of John Christopher Smith (1712–1795) (pdf)
• Works by and about John Christopher Smith  in the German Digital Library
• Sheet music and audio files by John Christopher Smith in the International Music Score Library Project
• List of stage works by John Christopher Smith based on the MGG at Operone

References and comments

1. ↑ He turned down an offer from Friedrich II of Prussia, probably because he had an aversion to Prussia conveyed by his teacher Pepusch. Pepusch left the Prussian court in 1698 after attending an execution of an officer without trial.
2. ^ Bath Heritage