Beiträge zur Wiener Gluck-Überlieferung (Gluck-Studien 3), 2001

transcript Verlag eBooks, 2021

Eighteenth-century Music, 2004

2012

Journal of The American Musicological Society, 1994

Opera at the court of Elector Palatine Carl Theodor in Mannheim during the period 1742-78 attained a level of prestige fully equivalent to that of other leading courts of the day. Yet the loss of most of the performance materials in use at Mannheim has constantly hindered basic research in this area. The present article reports the existence of twenty-eight manuscripts (mainly full scores) of twenty separate operas and related secular dramatic works that were either copied at Mannheim or prepared for use there. Eight of these are revealed to have belonged to the personal collection of Count Carl Heinrich Joseph von Sickingen (1737-91), privy councillor to Carl Theodor and his envoy in Paris from 1768 until his death. Discovery of a thematic catalogue of Sickingen's collection allows the partial reconstruction of its contents; this has special relevance in that Mozart was a frequent guest of the count during his sojourn in Paris in 1777/78 and can be shown to have known and made use of his collection of opera scores.

In recent studies of the 19th-century reception of Christoph Gluck, Alexander Rehding and William Gibbons focus on Wagner’s writings about the composer, his adaptation of Iphigénie en Aulide, and critics’ attempts to bring Gluck’s operatic reforms into a teleological process that culminated in Wagner’s music dramas. What has not received scholarly attention is that other 19th-century critics believed that Meyerbeer was the heir of Gluck’s operatic legacy. In his Künstlernovelle “Gluck in Paris,” printed in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (1836), Johann Peter Burmeister-Lyser fictionalized Gluck’s tenure in Paris in order to draw parallels between Gluck’s and Meyerbeer’s career. Lyser also printed a pamphlet in defense of Meyerbeer’s career and musical style in which he points out the inherent contradiction in attacks against Meyerbeer’s cosmopolitanism, in that the career and musical style of Gluck, a composer greatly admired by Meyerbeer’s critics, reveal the same cosmopolitanism. When Meyerbeer conducted Gluck’s Armide at the Berlin royal opera for his first official appearance as the General Music Director in 1843, local critics used this event to draw comparisons between the two composers. While the Berlin press gave Meyerbeer’s operas mixed reviews, critics praised his 1843 production of Armide, saying that it displayed a profound understanding of Gluck’s opera. By focusing on Lyser’s writings and reviews of the 1843 production of Armide, this paper demonstrates that, prior to Wagner taking his place, Meyerbeer was deemed as the inheritor of Gluck’s legacy of operatic reform, a fact that was obscured by the later-inthe-century pro-Wagner crowd.

Eighteenth Century Music, 2004

Writing a history of an important and complex operatic repertory spanning three dynamic centuries is a daunting task, one that is perhaps better suited to several specialists than a single author. While an individual rarely possesses the scholarly breadth to write with expertise and authority on so much music, he or she can impart a unifying perspective and a consistent set of goals. But this advantage can also prove to be a limitation. John Warrack, a skilled critic and able scholar of German romantic opera, has written the first comprehensive history of German opera. His ambitious book is divided into eighteen chapters, the last ten treating the nineteenth century to Wagner. This division reflects the author's own scholarly interests, and it is understandable that the strongest chapters would be devoted to later repertory while the material in the first eight chapters, treating the development of German opera through the eighteenth century, is mostly derived from secondary sources. Thus the strength of this book resides in its discussion of nineteenth-century German opera and its influences. The author has accomplished this in an impressive manner. Most of the chapters also include useful discussions of the ideas that informed the aesthetic issues of the repertory in question. One might have expected a discussion of method, approach or goals, but all that appears in this regard is a statement opposite the flyleaf giving an idea of the scope of the work: the trajectory of German opera from its 'primitive origins up to Wagner'. This most grandiose of composers would be pleased with the locution; indeed, he himself advanced a similar view, as if music history logically led to him. But the drawbacks of this approach extend beyond the unfortunate characterization of earlier repertory as 'primitive'. An overriding teleological theme permeates the narrative, interpreting phenomena by final causes and making aesthetic judgments accordingly. Early works are said to 'anticipate' later works (180); Mozart is praised for his 'developing Romantic awareness' and 'chromatically advanced harmony' (160). This is perhaps understandable given the book's emphasis on the romantic era, but the pitfalls of this approach require that it should have been discussed and defended. In treating the eighteenth century the author provides a competent rendition of the 'received wisdom' on this repertory, that is to say, traditional scholarly opinion. This is also understandable, given Warrack's expertise in nineteenth-century music. But the secondary literature cannot offer an accurate picture of the repertory. With a few exceptions, such as Thomas Bauman's North German Opera in the Age of Goethe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), the state of research on German eighteenth-century opera remains preliminary at best. For example, scholars have left the important Viennese repertory largely unexplored and new insights will come only after basic research on primary sources. (This is also true for opera in Germany in the late eighteenth century.) Because the secondary literature cannot yet provide a comprehensive account of eighteenth-century German opera, the conventional approach has been to select a few exemplary 'masterpieces' (and perhaps a 'non-masterpiece' to affirm that we do not need to study the work of hacks) that illustrate the trajectory of music history. So it is not surprising that the examples in this book are the usual suspects, reflecting modern taste in repertory (particularly Mozart) more than that of the eras in question. The short statement at the beginning of the book also notes that the author 'traces the growth of the humble Singspiel into a vehicle for the genius of Mozart and Beethoven'. The unexamined notion of 'genius' enters the discussion of music in several chapters. Eighteenth-century composers other than Mozart are mentioned briefly and their music is often left unexplored. I would have hoped for more on skilled composers such as Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Johann Baptist Henneberg, Franz Anton Hoffmeister,

Musicologica brunensia, 2018

This article focuses on newly identified librettos of operas set to original German texts and produced at the Kärntnertortheater in the 1740s. The opera Die glückliche Vorbedeutung premiered in the spring of 1741 as part of the grandious celebrations of the birth of Archduke Joseph, the first son of Maria Theresa. The next German-language opera, Aristheus, was produced during the same year both in Vienna and Graz. Finally, the third opera, Hypsipile, was produced sometime before 1747. All three works should be understood in the social and political context of the Wars of the Austrian Succession.