Johann Mattheson
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Johann Mattheson (28 September 1681 – 17 April 1764)<ref name="TatlowTatlow1991">Template:Cite book</ref> was a German composer, critic, lexicographer and music theorist. His writings on the late Baroque and early Classical period were highly influential, specifically, "his biographical and theoretical works were widely disseminated and served as the source for all subsequent lexicographers and historians".<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref>
Early life and career
Johann Mattheson was born on 28 September 1681 in Hamburg.<ref name=Buelow>Template:Cite Grove</ref> The son of a prosperous tax collector, Mattheson received a broad liberal education and, aside from general musical training, took lessons in keyboard instruments, violin, composition and singing.<ref name=Buelow /> By age nine he was singing and playing organ in church and was a member of the chorus of the Hamburg opera. He made his solo debut with the Hamburg opera in 1696 in female roles and, after his voice changed, sang tenor at the opera, conducted rehearsals and composed operas himself. He was cantor at St. Mary's Cathedral, Hamburg from 1718 until increasing deafness led to his retirement from that post in 1728.Template:Citation needed
Mattheson's chief occupation from 1706 was as a professional diplomat. He had studied English in school and spoke it fluently. He became tutor to the son of the English ambassador Sir John Wich and then secretary to the ambassador. He went on diplomatic missions abroad representing the ambassador. In 1709 he married Catharina Jennings, the daughter of an English clergyman; they did not have any children.Template:Citation needed
Friendship with Handel
Mattheson was a close friend of George Frideric Handel, although he nearly killed Handel in a sudden quarrel during a performance of Mattheson's opera Die unglückselige Kleopatra, Königin von Ägypten in 1704. Handel was saved only by a large button which turned aside Mattheson's sword. The two were afterwards reconciled and remained in correspondence for life: shortly after his friend's death, Mattheson translated John Mainwaring's biography of Handel into German and had it published in Hamburg at his own expense ("auf Kosten des Übersetzers") in 1761.<ref>Georg Friderich Händels Lebensbeschreibung, nebst einem Verzeichnisse seiner Ausübungswerke und deren Beurtheilung; übersetzet, auch mit einigen Anmerkungen, absonderlich über den hamburgischen Artikel, versehen vom Legations-Rath Mattheson, Hamburgh, auf Kosten des Übersetzers, 1761 (accessible for free online as a Google ebook).</ref>
Death
After his death in 1764, Johann Mattheson was buried in the vault of Hamburg's St. Michaelis' Church where his grave can be visited.Template:Citation needed
Literary and musical legacy
Mattheson is mainly famous as a music theorist. He was the most abundant writer on performance practice, theatrical style, and harmony of the German Baroque.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He is particularly important for his work on the relationship of the disciplines of rhetoric and music, for example in Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre, Hamburg 1713,<ref>Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre, extracts, koelnklavier.de</ref> and Template:Ill, Hamburg 1739.<ref>Der vollkommene Capellmeister, extracts, koelnklavier.de</ref> However, his books draw attention and because Mattheson was a brilliant polemicist and his theories on music are often full of pedantry and pseudo-erudition.<ref>Agathe Sueur, Le Frein et l'Aiguillon. Eloquence musicale et nombre oratoire (XVIe–XVIIIe siècle), Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2014 Template:ISBNTemplate:Pb——. "Johann Mattheson et le pédantisme: des usages de l'érudition dans la théorie musicale allemande au XVIIIe siècle", Template:Ill, 2014, 100/1, pp. 3–36. Template:OCLC</ref>
The bulk of his compositional output was vocal, including eight operas, and numerous oratorios and cantatas. He also wrote a few sonatas and some keyboard music, including pieces meant for keyboard instruction. All of his music, except for one opera, one oratorio, and a few collections of instrumental music, went missing after World War II, but was given back to Hamburg from Yerevan, Armenia, in 1998. This includes four operas and most of the oratorios. The manuscripts are now located at the Template:Ill.Template:Citation needed
Selected works
Operas
- Die unglückselige Kleopatra, Königin von Ägypten (1704)
- Boris Goudenow (1710)
Oratorios
- Die heilsame Geburt (1715), Christmas oratorium
- Template:Ill (1720), Christmas oratorium
- Der gegen seine Brüder barmherzige Joseph (1727), oratorium
- Der liebreiche und geduldige David
See also
References
Further reading
- Template:Cite book
- Stubbs, Stephen. "Johann Mattheson—the Russian Connection: The Rediscovery of Boris Goudenow and His Other Lost Operas". Early Music 33, no. 2 (May 2005): 283–92.
- Template:Cite Grove
External links
- Pages with broken file links
- Johann Mattheson
- 1681 births
- 1764 deaths
- 18th-century German classical composers
- 18th-century German male musicians
- 18th-century German writers
- 18th-century German male writers
- German Baroque composers
- German opera composers
- German music theorists
- German lexicographers
- German diplomats
- German duellists
- German male non-fiction writers
- German male opera composers
- Musicians from Hamburg
- Writers from Hamburg
- Deaf classical musicians
- German deaf people
- German writers with disabilities
- 18th-century lexicographers