Mannheim School

A unique disc devoted to cello Galant music composed mid-18th Century in the areas of Mannheim and Berlin.

Ignaz Holzbauer - Tod der Dido (2018) {Carus-Verlag 83.280}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 243 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 124 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 12 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2018 Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart | 83.280
Classical / Mannheim Classical School / Opera

A member of the Mannheim school, Ignaz Holzbauer (1711–1783) was a composer of symphonies, concertos, operas and chamber music who wrote in the style of the Sturm and Drang movement. In his penultimate opera "Tod der Dido" [The Death of Dido] (1779), Ignaz Holzbauer presented himself not only as a master of fine musical word interpretation, but also as an imaginative music dramatist. While the original Italian version underlined his position as one of the leading opera composers of the time, the German version which he wrote a year later additionally emphasizes his position as a pioneer of the German National Opera. Frieder Bernius therefore chose this version for a production performed at the Schwetzingen Festival in 1997, which is now being released here for the first time.

Carl Theodor of the Palatinate. Richter joined this renowned ensemble in 1747, serving as a composer, violinist, and bassist. His works combine Baroque stylistic features with elements of the style galant, and he numbered among the masters of the Mannheim school who made very important contributions to the beginnings of the early classical symphony. While Johann Stamitz, Ignaz Holzbauer, and Anton Fils, drawing on ideas of Italian provenance, shaped the new musical language of what came to be known as the Mannheim school, Richter’s own comparatively conservative view of music was an obstacle to his advancement. His collection of Six Symphonies op. 2 dedicated to Prince Elector Carl Theodor was printed by the publisher Johann Julius Hummel in Amsterdam in 1759. All six symphonies have three movements, and in these works Richter generally adhered to the model established by the opera sinfonia.

This extensive series has now reached volume 7 and will test the mettle of even the most fanatical lovers of music in the Czech lands. There is barely a name to cling to in the blizzard of diacriticals, and the like. Obscurity need not breed indifference - indeed it should be a spur to enthusiasm, in my book - and the programme has been thoughtfully compiled around the idea of Christmas and the winter season, so that a proper focus is given to what might otherwise be somewhat disparate.

"… he sat down in an armchair, pored over for the last time the score of the mourning music he himself had composed for his funeral, and - when lightly touched by the angel of death - bowed his head and passed away." C. F. Schubart's description of the death in 1789 of the eighty-year-old F. X. Richter, Kapellmeister of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame in Strasbourg, may be rather romantic (two years later an almost identical story related to the last moments of W. A. Mozart), yet when looking at the clean copy of the autograph score we cannot resist the idea that the Requiem encapsulates the quintessence of his legacy.

Johann Gottlieb Graun - Trio Sonatas
Classical, Baroque | 1 CD | EAC | FLAC, CUE, LOG | Scans | 404 MB | RS
Recorded: 22-24 Oct. 1998, Sendesaal Radio Bremen
Released: 1999 | Label: cpo 999 623 | TT: 67:47
Les Amis de Philippe

During his lifetime, Johann Gottlieb Graun (1702-71), violinist, composer, and leader of the Berlin orchestra assembled by Frederick the Great, was a musician whose reputation and music reached beyond Potsdam and Berlin. But later generations came to regard his music as passé. It […] was overshadowed by the rapid development of the classical idiom in Mannheim and parallel Italian influences that took root in Vienna in the middle decades of the 18th Century. But Graun made his contribution to the emerging style, and his compositions written after 1745 or 1750 evince that. Without divorcing himself from the baroque idiom and deliberately keeping his distance from the emerging Mannheim school–he viewed it as superficial–Graun produced music of an individual nature. (Michael Carter, American Record Guide, 2000)