Johann Ernst Altenburg

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Johann Ernst Altenburg (born June 15, 1734 in Weißenfels , † May 14, 1801 in Bitterfeld ) was a German composer , organist and trumpeter .

Life

His father, Johann Kaspar Altenburg (1688–1761), worked from 1709 as a field trumpeter under Prince Johann Adolf von Sachsen-Weißenfels and from 1711 as court trumpeter for his brother, Duke Christian von Sachsen-Weißenfels , at his residence, Schloss Neu-Augustusburg in Weissenfels. Johann Ernst Altenburg was born here on June 15, 1734. After Duke Christian's death in 1736, and probably also influenced by this event, Kaspar Altenburg formally took his only two-year-old son Johann Ernst into his apprenticeship. At the age of 18, Johann Ernst Altenburg was formally acquitted as a trumpeter. He could never find a job as such. After a maximum of two years of organ studies with Johann Theodor Roemhildt and Johann Christoph Altnikol , he went “nine years abroad”, according to his own statements. For part of these years he may have "attended" the Seven Years' War, which forms the uncertain biographical framework for a possible short-term exercise of the trumpet profession. In 1766 he returned to Weißenfels, where, according to his own statements, he helped Georg Friedrich Lingke with the publication of his work The seats of the musical main movements (Leipzig 1766) "in view of the practical". Via Merseburg and Landsberg near Halle , where he worked briefly as organist, he went to Bitterfeld in 1767 and got his position as organist here, where he remained until his death in 1801, although it was not very adequate. During this time he gained a dubious reputation as the "wild organist", whose inappropriate behavior led to repeated legal disputes and culminated in 1792 in a charge of high treason, which was later dropped.

plant

He is known as a composer for six harpsichord sonatas . Altenburg achieved musical historical importance through his work Attempting a Guide to Heroic-Musical Trumpeter and Timpani Art , Halle 1795. It can be seen as the oldest printed German trumpet school and is primarily the most important testimony to the ancient art of trumpeting. At the time of going to press, large parts of the text were probably over 25 years old. An announcement of the work appeared in Johann Adam Hiller's Musikalische Nachrichten as early as 1770, the earliest known mention of the manuscript can be found in a letter from Altenburg dated February 1767.

Altenburg summarized the entire "knowledge" of his time on the history of the trumpet art - admittedly in an interpretive way that was shaped by his own concern. He used at least 118 works by at least 104 authors known by name and nine other anonymous authors. But the literature cited by him deals primarily with general historical, religious and legal subjects. Altenburg's work is correspondingly far removed from today's ideas of an instrumental school. The presentation of the history of the trumpet occupies a large amount of space, which, upon closer analysis, turns out to be a back projection of Altenburg's ideal of the trumpet stand in society on history. Altenburg constructed an uninterrupted tradition of trumpeter art from Old Testament times (Aaron's sons) to the present day and derived from this the claim to a higher social status of trumpeters.

In this work some small compositions are published, the authorship of which is largely unclear, for example on p. 103 a bicinium (small duet) for 2 clarin trumpets; on p. 105 a Bourrée for 2 clarin trumpets; on p. 105 a tricinium (trio) in the form of a polonaise ; on p. 107 and 108 a quatrizinium (quartet) Allegro moderato and on p. 110 the chorale From my heart for 3 clarin trumpets, 1 principal trumpet and timpani. In the appendix of his work he even publishes a Concerto a VII Clarini con Tympani . A small fugue for 2 clarin trumpets on p. 104 comes from Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's Salzburg print Sonatae, Tam Aris, quam Aulis servientes from 1676, a century before Altenburg.

literature

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proof

  1. ↑ Lars E. Laubhold: Magic of Power. A source-critical study on Johann Ernst Altenburg's attempt at a guide to heroic-musical trumpeter and timpanist art (Halle 1795), Würzburg 2009 ( Salzburger Stier 2), esp. Pp. 23–32.
  2. ↑ Laubhold: Magie der Macht (2009), esp. Pp. 32–47.
  3. ↑ Johann Ernst Altenburg: Attempt at a guide to heroic-musical trumpeter and timpanist art [...], Halle 1795, facsimile edition with an afterword in German and English by Frieder Zschoch, Leipzig 1972.
  4. ↑ Laubhold: Magie der Macht (2009), p. 67.
  5. ^ Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber: Sonatae, Tam Aris, quam Aulis servientes [...], Salzburg 1676, ed. v. Erich Schenk, Graz a. Vienna 1963 ( Monuments of Tonkunst in Österreich 106/107), p. 155.
personal data
SURNAME Altenburg, Johann Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer and organist
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1734
PLACE OF BIRTH Weißenfels , Germany
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1801
Place of death Bitterfeld , Germany