Philipp Christoph Kayser

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Philipp Christoph Kayser

Philipp Christoph Kayser (born March 10, 1755 in Frankfurt am Main ; † December 24, 1823 in Zurich ) was a German pianist, composer, orchestral musician, music teacher and poet. He was a close friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .

Life

Philipp Christoph Kayser was born on March 10, 1755 as the son of the organist of the Katharinenkirche in Frankfurt am Main. His father gave him his first music lessons. He studied music theory with Georg Andreas Sorge . Philipp Christoph Kayser made friends with Friedrich Maximilian Klinger , who was three years older and later became the most successful playwright of Sturm und Drang, at high school . Even Johann Wolfgang von Goethe joined later on how well the Strasbourg poet Heinrich Leopold Wagner and living in Strasbourg Livonian Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz , who from time to time in Frankfurt was staying to visit.

In 1774 Kayser became a Freemason in the Zurich Lodge Modestia cum libertate .

In 1775 Philipp Christoph Kayser moved to Zurich. Goethe visited him there in 1775 and 1779. Goethe was so enthusiastic about his songs that he sent him his Singspiel “Jery und Bäteli” to be set to music. At first Kayser refused. Nevertheless, it did not affect Goethe - he nevertheless stuck to him as his chosen composer. “What I value most about things is this chastity, the security that I can produce a lot with little,” he wrote to him.

In 1780 Kayser's Christmas cantata was published by his publisher Füssli in Zurich. Two sonatas for violin, piano and horns appeared shortly afterwards, but without a date.

At Goethe's invitation, Kayser visited him in Weimar from January to May 1781. During this visit, Goethe entrusted him with the setting of his Singspiele. But Kayser was cumbersome and worked slowly. His setting to Goethe's Singspiel “Scherz, List und Rache” in 1785 was only completed years later . After receiving the score, Goethe wrote to Fritz Jacobi in Düsseldorf: "With the opera, a composer will emerge, not many of whom develop in silence."

Goethe, who often supported Kayser financially out of friendship, even had him come to Rome at his own expense in 1787, since he wanted him to compose his Egmont . After 1792 Kayser did not publish anything. Goethe had already recognized the hopelessness of further collaboration and in 1789 found a replacement for Kayser in Johann Friedrich Reichardt .

It can also be assumed that Kayser basically gave up composing in 1792. He made his living teaching. "It was difficult to become friends with Kayser, because his former seriousness grew into darkness," wrote Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee, who had come to Zurich to continue his music studies there. Kayser died in Zurich on Christmas Eve in 1823.

Joke, cunning and revenge

Kayser was probably the only one who set Goethe's libretto, which was later composed quite often, to music in the complete four-act original version, in the form of an opera buffa with seccore quotations, an opera type that Goethe had only really come to appreciate in Italy. The first performance of this opera took place two hundred years late on November 26, 1993 in the Liebhabertheater Schloss Kochberg Thuringia, in a facility designed by the conductor Hermann Dechant (director: Bisser Schinew , set: Hank Irwin Kittel), which was tailored to the needs of the small orchestra room .

A concert performance with a full orchestra took place on November 28, 2019 from the Bayer Erholungshaus, Leverkusen and was recorded for the radio.

Exhibitions

On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of his birthday, the Zurich Central Library honored Philipp Christoph Kayser with an exhibition that was also on view in the Goethe Museum in Düsseldorf.

Works (gradually poems by Goethe)

  • Erwin and Elmire , a play with singing (1777)
  • Jery ​​and Bäteli , Singspiel 1 act (1779)
  • Joke, cunning and vengeance , Singspiel, 4 acts (1787)
  • Incidental music for Egmont (1788), lost

literature

  • Ludwig Finscher: Music in the past and present . Bärenreiter-Verlag Karl Vötterle GmbH Co. KG
  • Hermann Dechant (ed.): Joke, cunning and revenge. Singspiel in four acts. Music by Philipp Christoph Kayser. Class A., first edition based on the original text . Vienna: Apollon Musikoffizin 1999. XXVII, 464 p. M. Faks. U. Illustr.
  • Werner G. Zimmermann (Ed.): Philipp Christoph Kayser, report on the Freemason Convention of Wilhelmsbad 1782 . Series of publications by the research lodge Quatuor Coronati No. 42, Zurich 2003.
  • Genius and Individual: The relationship between Philipp Christoph Kayser and Johann Caspar Lavater , reflected in the thought of the Physiognomic Fragments . In: Anthology for the 250th birthday of Philipp Christoph Kayser (1755–1823) . Edited by Gabriele Busch-Salmen
  • Carl August Hugo Burkhardt :  Kayser, Philipp Christoph . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 51, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, pp. 91-93.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eugen Lennhoff, Oskar Posner, Dieter A. Binder: Internationales Freemaurer Lexikon. 5th edition 2006, Herbig Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7766-2478-6 .
  2. ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Italian journey , letters and reports from November 1787
  3. ^ Joke, cunning and revenge - Singspiel by Philipp Christoph Kayser. May 25, 2020, accessed July 5, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Kayser, Philipp Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Pianist, composer, orchestral musician, music teacher, Freemason and poet
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1755
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 1823
Place of death Zurich