Johann Paul Kunzen

Johann Paul Kunzen (also Kuntzen , born August 31, 1696 in Leisnig , † March 20, 1757 in Lübeck ) was a German organist and composer .

Life

After school in Torgau and Freiberg , Kunzen studied at the University of Leipzig from 1716 and was a student of Johann Kuhnau , among other things . Concert tours and positions in Zerbst and Wittenberg followed . His son Adolf Karl Kunzen was born here. In 1723 Johann Paul Kunzen was appointed to the Hamburg Opera , where he wrote several operas and began a friendship with Johann Mattheson . With his son, who was considered a musical child prodigy, he went on a concert tour to Holland and England in 1728 . There they also met Georg Friedrich Handel . In September 1732 Kunzen sen. appointed as the successor to Johann Christian Schieferdecker as organist and foreman at the Marienkirche in Lübeck . He took up this office at Easter 1733 and kept it until the end of his life.

In Lübeck Kunzen continued the evening music founded by Franz Tunder and Dietrich Buxtehude . The main rehearsals, which took place not in the church but in the stock exchange , he opened to paying listeners. He also introduced concerts on a subscription basis , which took place in the opera house from 1734. In 1747 Lorenz Christoph Mizler accepted him into the Corresponding Society of Musical Sciences . After his death, his son Adolf Karl Kunzen, who was in London at the time, was his successor.

plant

Kunzen left behind a varied work of opera , church music and instrumental music , but very little of it has survived. Like his predecessors, he composed a five-part cycle of cantatas on biblical stories for the evening music . Of this, however, only the score for The Prodigal Son has been preserved (no year, new edition Lübeck City Library 2004) and the textbooks from 1734–1756. The libretto for 1739 ( Belsazer ) came from Michael Christoph Brandenburg .

literature

• Arndt Schnoor, Volker Scherliess : "Theater Music in the Church". On the history of Lübeck evening music. Lübeck 2003. ISBN 3-933652-15-4
• J. Mattheson: Basis of an honor gate (Hamburg, 1740), ed. v. M. Schneider, Berlin 1910 / reprint 1969
• OGT Sonneck: Library of Congress - Catalog of Opera Librettos, Printed before 1800 Washington, DC, 1914 / Reprint 1967
• HC Wolff: The Baroque Opera in Hamburg (1678-1738) , Wolfenbüttel 1957
• Susanne Schurr:  Kunzen, Johann Paul. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 4, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-038-7 , Sp. 830-832.

Web links

• Works by and about Johann Paul Kunzen in the catalog of the German National Library

predecessor	Office	successor
Johann Christian Schieferdecker	Organist at St. Marien zu Lübeck 1733–1757	Adolf Karl Kunzen