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September 2001 Program Notes
Twin Cities: Dresden & Venice
by Mary Burke
During the first half of the 18th century, Dresden rivaled Paris, Venice, and Vienna as a center of music and art. The Elector of Saxony, Friedrich August I (called Augustus the Strong), and his son of the same name (later King Augustus III of Poland) traveled widely, and enthusiastically embraced the artistic sensibilities of countries they visited. The father favored the French style, but later took up Italian tastes when his son returned to Dresden quite addicted to southern music. From 1717 on, Augustus the Strong hired primarily Italian-trained musicians for the Hofkapelle, and assembled something of a Dream Team orchestra, which included such renowned composer-performers as Veracini, Pisendel, Quantz, Leopold Sylvius Weiss, Zelenka, and Heinichen. Composers from all over Europe eagerly volunteered new works for this stellar ensemble.
Not surprisingly, these composers began adapting the popular Italian forms to the resources at hand. The solo concerto as perfected by Vivaldi evolved into works per molti stromenti, with two, four, even ten soloists—given such a collection of virtuosi, it was only natural to create opportunities for everyone to strut their stuff. In addition to pushing the envelope on instrumentation, composers often tinkered with the concerto form itself, blending its structure with that of the French dance suite, or experimenting with phrase length and harmonic architecture.
Heinichen received his early musical training at the legendary Thomasschule in Leipzig (where J.S. Bach would eventually become Kantor), and stayed on in the city to study law. Like his classmate Telemann, he still managed to participate in many musical projects on the side, such as opera productions in which Telemann, Fasch, Graupner, and other up-and-coming musicians participated. After a brief foray into private legal practice, Heinichen obtained his first musical appointments at Zeitz and Naumburg, and shortly thereafter traveled to Italy to learn "good taste." During his stay, he became acquainted with Friedrich August II (then the crown prince), who was impressed enough to hire him as Dresden's new Kapellmeister in 1717. Heinichen considered himself an avant-garde composer, making the most of modern Italian practice while contributing his own progressive touches in orchestration and texture.
The Czech-born Zelenka seems to have been the Rodney Dangerfield of Dresden. Although his works apparently met with wide approval and were carefully guarded by the royal family, he was paid less, repeatedly passed over for promotion, and generally exploited throughout his thirty years of service to the court. Zelenka may or may not actually have studied in Italy, but he certainly familiarized himself with the works of Italian masters and handled the cantabile style as confidently as he did polyphony, with a certain dark intensity and surprising harmonic twists. His Concerto à 8 concertanti follows the Italian solo concerto tradition in having three movements, but hands the flashy solos around in the concertant mode. His fifth capriccio, on the other hand, is a unique combination of abstract, dance, and character movements; the latter depict a contented person and a wrathful one (Il Contento and Il Furibondo), while the dances touch on the courtly (minuets) and the countrified (villanellas, reminiscent of Czech folk dances). The virtuoso writing in the horn parts indicates the exceptional skill of the Dresden players.
Vivaldi included horns in quite a number of works, but wrote only two concerti for the instrument. These apparently arose from his 1730 visit to Prague, where Count von Sporck employed two superb players.
The Sonata al Santo Sepolcro is a rather curious piece related to a Holy Week tradition: The sepolcro, or sepulchrum oratorio, was a short work sung beside a symbolic tomb of Christ, often with staging and costumes (Zelenka wrote several of these pieces for the Prague Clementinum). This sonata, which is more contrapuntal and severe than Vivaldi's typical melodic work, may have been intended as an introduction to another composer's sepolcro, or perhaps to one of his own.
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