Graun

This disc presents a programme of Concerti by the brothers Johann Gottlieb and Carl Heinrich Graun. Unfortunately the brief attributions ‘del Sig re Graun’ or simply ‘di Graun’ on the manuscripts mean the Concerti cannot always be assigned with certainty to one or the other. Nevertheless these Concerti, performed by Cappella Academica Frankfurt, are full of colour and contain all the stylistic idioms of the transitional period between the Baroque and Classical periods.

Johann Gottlieb Graun and his slightly younger brother Carl Heinrich Graun both worked in the Berlin-based court of Frederick the Great, whose musical cabinet also included Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Superficially, the music of the Grauns can seem similar enough that in terms of attribution, their works are often confused, particularly when "Graun" is the only name provided on a given manuscript. Curiously, at least concerning the track listing, Accent does not try to identify which of the four concerti on their Graun: Concerti belong to Johann Gottlieb and which to Carl Heinrich. When one gets a little deeper into the notes, the truth is known – the first concerto, in A major for viola da gamba is by Johann Gottlieb, and the other three are the work of Carl Heinrich.

The present richly enjoyable CD contains five trios by Johann Gottlieb and Carl Heinrich. In some areas of the brothers’ work it is near enough impossible to know who wrote what with any certainty – as Grove puts it “problems of attribution, chronology and biographical detail remain”. Manuscript attributions usually refer simply to ‘Graun’.

Carl Heinrich Graun was court composer to Frederick the Great of Prussia, and this opera was chosen to open the new opera house in Berlin in 1742. It was a great success, but Handel's opera on the same subject had appeared less than two decades before, and had anyone been familiar with that one, Graun's might have come as a disappointment. Handel gets under his characters' skins–Cleopatra's eight arias tell us everything we have to know about her, for instance–while Graun (merely) offers some beautiful, well-orchestrated, at-times exciting music. Any composer would have been proud to compose Cesare's heart-stoppingly vengeful last-act aria "Voglio strage", and any Read more mezzo (or castrato or countertenor) would be happy to sing it. Here, Iris Vermillion is spectacular, and elsewhere in the opera she's as heroic, romantic, and colorful as our hero ought to be.

Johann Gottlieb Graun (1702/3-1771) began his musical studies at the famous Kreuzschule in Dresden. Subsequently he acquired his legendary prowess on the violin from two of the most excellent teachers of the time: the Vivaldi disciple, Johann Georg Pisendel in Dresden and Giuseppe Tartini in Padova. Very early in his career, during his service as concertmaster in Merseburg, Graun got acquainted with Johann Christian Hertel (1697-1754), an outstanding viola da gamba virtuoso; they remained friends throughout their lives, corresponding frequently. This may be the reason for Graun's apparent knowledge of the technical possibilities of the viol: his compositions for this instrument - not less than 22 large-scale works are extant - bear witness to this.

Graun was in his mid-twenties when he composed this Grand Passion . It is a surprisingly mature work, full of subtle gems. When first listening to this two-CD album, I wrote: “The music is very pleasant. Although it is quite tuneful, little of it is memorable and at two hours tends to wear out its welcome. There is almost a monotonous similarity of one number to the next. It needs something rousing like the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus.” Repeated hearings of this album have increased my appreciation considerably. Even Handel liked this Passion , and quoted some of its music in his own works.

Together with Johann Adolf Hasse, Carl Heinrich Graun was the chief representative of Italian Opera in Germany in the 18th century. The story of »Montezuma« accords with the historical fate of the last ruler of the Aztecs. The text is by King Frederick II, Graun had a close friendship to him and became chief of the circle of Berlin composers. »Montezuma« can be seen as Frederick’s countersignature to his own fate, which made him into a martial war-prince. »Montezuma« shows him in a field of tension: thus the artistically-minded idealistic prince became the royal practical politician: if justice is to be seen to be done to life’s reality, Montezuma must die. Montezuma is mor than just a Baroque opera. This opera can allude to the history of its own nation. It directs our ear to the destiny of America and the destiny of Prussia, to the German’s view, 200 years ago, of America, and American history as the mirror of its own.

Der Tod Jesu of Carl Heinrich Graun (1704–59), completed in 1755, was for decades the musical mainstay of Passiontide services (a position now held by Bach’s and St. John Passions), being performed by the Berlin Singakademie virtually every Good Friday until 1884. Unlike the passions of Bach, Schütz, and other predecessors, Graun’s work does not set any texts of Scripture. Instead, in line with burgeoning Enlightenment sensibilities, the entire libretto by Carl Wilhelm Ramler (1725–98) is written in the exalted style of impassioned poetic declamation common to opera libretti of the era, in supposed imitation of Greek tragedy. At less than half the length of the Bach passions, and musically far less complex, with dignified and attractive arias composed in a style somewhat akin to those of Handel’s Messiah , it remains winsome even today, and its enduring popularity is readily comprehended.

Brothers Johann Gottlieb and Carl Heinrich Graun were highly influential and popular figures in 18th Century Berlin. As musicians of the court of Frederick the Great, Carl Heinrich became an important figure at the new Berlin Court Opera, while Johann Gottlieb strongly influenced early classicism in general as a violinist and composer. The name Graun was like a seal of approval in those days for zestful music rich in ideas, displayed perfectly by this collection of concertos. Oboist Xenia Löffler, a member of the Akademie fu"r Alte Musik Berlin, has distinguished herself as a specialist for the North German repertoire of this period.

Today, the five-string cello is treated as an exotic and rarely-played cousin of the standard cello. However, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was simply one of the many instruments used in the family of bass violins, and was particularly important for virtuosic sonatas and solos.