Carl Heinrich Graun
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Carl Heinrich Graun (7 May 1704 – 8 August 1759) was a German composer and tenor. Along with Johann Adolph Hasse, he is considered to be the most important German composer of Italian opera of his time.<ref>Template:Cite Grove Template:Subscription</ref>
Biography
Graun was born in Wahrenbrück in the Electorate of Saxony. In 1714, he followed his brother, Johann Gottlieb Graun, to the school of the Kreuzkirche, Dresden, and sang in the Dresdner Kreuzchor and the chorus of the Opernhaus am Zwinger. He studied singing with Christian Petzold and composition with Template:Ill (1664–1728). In 1724, Graun moved to Braunschweig, singing at the opera house and writing six operas for the company. In 1735, Graun moved to Rheinsberg in Brandenburg, after he had written the opera Lo specchio della fedeltà for the marriage of the then crown prince Frederick (the Great) and Elisabeth Christine in Schloss Salzdahlum in 1733. He was Kapellmeister to Frederick the Great from his ascension to the throne in 1740 until Graun's death nineteen years later in Berlin.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Graun wrote a number of operas. His opera Cesare e Cleopatra inaugurated the opening of the Berlin State Opera (Königliche Hofoper) in 1742. Montezuma (1755) was written to a libretto by King Frederick. His works are rarely played today, though his passion cantata Der Tod Jesu (The Death of Jesus, 1755) was frequently performed in Germany for many years after his death. This work, said Paul Steinitz, "contains a good deal of imaginative music, but it was more of a Cantata based loosely on sentiments engendered by the Passion story than a liturgical Passion. It fails even to give any specific account of the trial and death of Jesus".<ref>Paul Steinitz. Bach's Passions (1978), p. 106</ref>
His other works include concertos and trio sonatas. He was known for particularly good text-setting, probably due to his background as a vocalist.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
He married twice and had a daughter, who became a singer, from his first marriage and four sons from his second. His great-great-great-great-grandson, Vladimir Nabokov,<ref>Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov, Vintage International, 1989, p. 54.</ref> became an eminent 20th-century novelist.
Works
Stage works
- Polydorus (5 acts, 1726–28)
- Iphigenia in Aulis (3 acts 1728)
- Scipio Africanus (3 acts, 1732)
- Lo specchio della fedeltà (3 acts, 1733)
- Pharao Tubaetes (5 acts, 1735)
- Rodelinda, regina de' langobardi (3 acts, 1741)
- Cesare e Cleopatra (3 acts, 1742)
- Artaserse, libretto by Metastasio (3 acts, 1743)
- Catone in Utica, libretto by Metastasio (3 acts, 1743)
- Alessandro e Poro, libretto by Metastasio (3 acts, 1744)
- Lucio Papirio (3 acts, 1744)
- Adriano in Siria, libretto by Metastasio (3 acts, 1746)
- Demofoonte, libretto by Metastasio (3 acts, 1746)
- Cajo Fabricio (3 acts, 1746)
- Le feste galanti (1747)
- Cinna (3 acts, 1748)
- L'Europa galante (1748)
- Ifigenia in Aulide (3 acts, 1748)
- Angelica e Medoro (3 acts, 1749)
- Coriolano (3 acts, 1749)
- Fetonte (3 acts, 1750)
- Il Mithridate (3 acts, 1751)
- L’Armida (3 acts, 1751)
- Britannico (3 acts, 1751)
- L'Orfeo (3 acts, 1752)
- Il giudizio di Paride (1 act, 1752)
- Silla (3 acts, 1753)
- Semiramide (3 acts, 1754)
- Montezuma (3 acts, 1755)
- Ezio, libretto by Metastasio (1755)
- I fratelli nemici (3 acts, 1756)
- La Merope (3 acts, 1756)
Other works
- Te Deum
- Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld, Passion cantata (ca. 1730)
- Kommt her und schaut (Große Passion) (1730)
- Der Tod Jesu, Passion cantata (1755)
- Oratorium in Festum Nativitatis Christi, Christmas oratorio
- Easter Oratorium
- Six Italian Cantatas
- Concerto for Horn, Strings and Cembalo in D major
- Lieder (1743)
- Sinfonia in C major
- Concerto for Viola da gamba
- Harpsichord Concerto in C minor
- Gigue in B-flat minor
Notes
Further reading
- John W. Grubbs (1972): The Sacred Choral Music of the Graun Brothers, 1972
- "Graun, Carl Heinrich" by E. Eugene Helm, in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) Template:ISBN
External links
Template:Carl Heinrich Graun Template:Berlin State Opera intendants Template:Portal bar Template:Authority control
- 1704 births
- 1759 deaths
- German classical composers of church music
- People from Uebigau-Wahrenbrück
- Musicians from the Electorate of Saxony
- German Baroque composers
- German opera composers
- German Classical-period composers
- German male classical composers
- 18th-century German classical composers
- 18th-century German male musicians
- People educated at the Kreuzschule
- General directors of the Berlin State Opera
- Prussian courtiers