Reinhard Keiser

CPO’s rediscovery of Church Music from Hamburg (1600-1800) continues with a concert, broadcast live on Deutschlandradio Kultur, featuring rediscovered works by Reinhard Keiser. Only three oratorios by Reinhard Keiser exist in full. Many shorter pieces, fragments, and works of uncertain authorship still lie unpublished in archives and libraries.

Reinhard Keiser’s Der blutige und sterbende Jesus is not only the very first German Passion oratorio but also a highly suspenseful contribution to the Passion season. Lost for many years, it is now available for listening on CD in the revised version of 1729. The dramatic and musical design of Keiser’s work is astonishing. As in the Italian oratorio type that gained currency after 1700, there is no Evangelist or other narrator, which means that the work has a purely dramatic structure. Even though Keiser’s librettist Christian Friedrich Hunold, whose pseudonym was »Menantes,« did not cite any one of the four Evangelists word for word in his adaptation of the Passion narrative, it is quite evident that the poetic elaboration is (primarily) modelled on Luther’s translation of the Gospel of Matthew.

Reinhard Keiser’s Kleine theatralische Musik contains arrangements of instrumental versions of opera numbers composed for Hamburg and performed there. With the greatest probability this work involves a collection of »theater music« compiled by the composer from his operas written prior to 1718. This work is complemented by further instrumental music as well as cantatas and arias by Keiser. The program covers a spectrum including Keiser’s initial years in Hamburg, the period of his greatest success in the second decade of the eighteenth century, and his difficult traveling years following 1719.

Reinhard Keiser war eine schillernde Musikerpersönlichkeit. Zahlreiche Anekdoten wurden über sein ausschweifendes Liebesleben und seine finanziellen Experimente überliefert, wenngleich die meisten davon in das Reich der Legenden zu zählen sind. Heute steht sein umfangreiches Opernschaffen im Zentrum der wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung, galt er doch als der herausragendste Vertreter der Barockoper in Deutschland. Opernhaft erklingt auch seine ausladende Markus-Passion mit hochdramatischer Textausdeutung, mannigfaltigen Arien in italienischer Manier und einem farbigen Orchesterapparat.

Keiser dominated the Hamburg opera scene between 1697, when Adonis was first performed, and 1717, resuming activities there some six years later. Christian Postel’s plot centres around Ovid’s celebrated account of the love affair between Adonis and Venus, who, in this version of the story is jealously watched over by Mars. Postel’s libretto is very long-winded and not well-sustained; but it offered Keiser the opportunity to provide over three-and-a-half hours of music, much of which, especially in Act III, is of enormous charm and variety.

Regarded in his day as equal to Handel and Telemann, Reinhard Keiser composed more than one hundred operas, of which Fredegund , set partly in German and partly in Italian, was one of the most popular. It explores the politically volatile relationships between the sixth century Frankish king, Chilperich, whose ambitious mistress Fredegunda is prepared to use magic to become his queen, although Chilperich is betrothed to Princess Galsuinde and Fredegunda also has a secret relationship with Langerich. This important and entertaining German Baroque opera abounds in melodious, often ravishingly orchestrated, music.

Reinhard Keiser - Der blutige und sterbende Jesus - Cantus Thuringia, Capella Thuringia, Bernhard Klapprott (2019) {CPO5552592}
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Classical / Baroque

Reinhard Keiser’s Der blutige und sterbende Jesus is not only the very first German Passion oratorio but also a highly suspenseful contribution to the Passion season. Lost for many years, it is now available for listening on CD in the revised version of 1729. The dramatic and musical design of Keiser’s work is astonishing. As in the Italian oratorio type that gained currency after 1700, there is no Evangelist or other narrator, which means that the work has a purely dramatic structure.

His colleague Georg Philipp Telemann, who was only a few years older, described him as “the greatest spirit of his time”. Reinhard Keiser is a striking example of a musician who was held in the highest esteem in his time, but is hardly present today. He wrote numerous stage works for the Hamburg Opera at the Gänsemarkt.

Recent musicological research tends to suggest that the 'Markuspassion' is not the work of Reinhard Keiser, essentially for stylistic reasons. However, it has not yet proved possible to attribute it positively to any other contemporary composer, such as Nicolaus Bruhns, or to Gottfried Keiser, Reinhard’s father, and so its paternity is currently uncertain.