Harp Concertos
Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1715-
1777)
Concerto in G Major for Harp, Two Violins and Cello
Iean-Baptiste Krumpholtz (1742-
1790)
Concerto No.6 in F Major for Harp and Orchestra, Op. 9
Ian Ladislav Dussek (1760- 1812)
Sonata No.2 for Harp in E Flat Major, Op. 34 Concerto in E Flat
Major for Harp and Orchestra, Op. 15
Georg
Christoph Wagenseil was born in Vienna in 1715 and studied composition with Johann Joseph Fux,
the hnperial Court Kapel1meister, before, on his teacher's recommendation,
being appointed in 1735 as Court Composer. His first opera, Ariodante, was
staged in Venice at S Giovanni Grisostomo
in 1745 under his own direction and his many compositions found favour widely
abroad, in Paris as elsewhere. He was
an able keyboard-player and was employed as teacher to the daughters of the
imperial family, as Hojklaviermeister, his own playing being much
admired for its expressive power and inventiveness in improvisation. Towards
the end of his life illness prevented his performance, but he continued to
teach and to compose until his death in 1777.
fu style Wagenseil began with a mastery of
current Baroque techniques, proceeding, as time went on, to the stile galant
of the mid-century .Earlier in his career a number of sacred works, some
ninety before 1755, were followed by operas, several to libretti by the Court
Poet Metastasio, an admirer of his ability as a performer. He was prolific in
keyboard music, contributed significantly to the development of the classical
symphony and composed a number of concertos, primarily for harpsichord,
although the alternative of organ or harp is suggested. These concertos alone
number as many as 75, with others at least mentioned in other sources.
The present Harp Concerto in G major opens
with a lightly orchestrated introduction of thematic material, before the solo
entry, proceeding with all the clarity of the pre-classical style. The slow
movement turns to the minor key, with the touch of poignancy that found its
true master later with Mozart, who as a child had played one of Wagenseil's
concertos before the Empress Maria Theresia. The concerto ends with a cheerful
finale, its mood at once established, and continued through a series of lightly
contrasted episodes.
The
Bohemian composer Jean-Baptiste Krumpholtz was himself a harpist as well as an
innovator in the form that instrument took towards the end of the eighteenth
century. Born in Bohemia, the son of a bandmaster in the service of Count Kinsky, he was
taught by his father, an oboist, to play the horn and to this end was
despatched to Vienna to perfect his
technique. This he failed to do, preferring to devote his attention to the
harp, the instrument played by his mother. After a period in France and in Flanders, he
returned to Prague, where he had
encouragement from Wagenseil's former pupil Frantisek Xaver Dusek, who
recommended him to Haydn. After success in Vienna, he was engaged by the latter
as harpist at Esterhaza, where he also had composition lessons from Haydn. His
first appearance there had been at the end ofJuly1773, when he was well
rewarded. His contract for two years was made on 1st August. fu 1776 he is
recorded as having played the harp part in a performance at Esterhaza of Gluck's
Orjeo ed Euridice and in the same year he left to embark on a concert
tour of Europe, making a particular
impression with the improved form of instrument he developed. After the death
of his first wife, daughter of a harp-maker in Paris, he married Anne-Marie steckler,
his pupil and daughter of an instrument-makerin Metz with whom he himself had
worked. She won an even higher reputation than her husband as a performer,
appearing in London at the salomon
concerts, but this after her elopement with Jan Ladislav Dussek. Krumpholtz
himself committed suicide, drowning himself in the Seine in 1790, presumably as a result
of his wife's desertion.
The compositions of Krumpholtz for the harp are
among the most important of the later eighteenth century. They include six
concertos and two symphonies with solo harp, as well as a quantity of sonatas
and shorter pieces. Classical in style, with all the expected clarity of
texture, theConcerto No.6 in F major, written about 1785, opens
with an orchestral introduction that offers a statement of the thematic material
that is to be developed with the entry of the soloist. The novelty of his work
for the instrument lies in part in his use of the possibilities of modulation
provided by the pedal instrument, and perhaps by the form of swell-pedal he
introduced, an eighth pedal that could control the volume of sound by opening
and closing a shutter, the harpe ii renjorcements. The first movement of
the concerto proceeds in the expected form, the solo instrument always in the
forefront in a lightly orchestrated work. The slow movement begins with the
solo instrument, offering the principal theme, now in the minor, to be taken up
by the orchestra, material that dominates until the major central section,
after which the principal theme returns. There is a final movement of great
charm, with the necessary variety between episodes that contrast with a
principal theme worthy of comic opera in the idiom of the time.
Anne-Marie
Krumpholtz's paramour, Ian Ladislav Dussek, was Bohemian by birth, the son a
well known organist and composer, a friend of Haydn, and his wife, a harpist. Dussek's
early career as a pianist took him, largely as a teacher, to the Low Countries, where he taught the
children of the Dutch Stadtholder. In the 1780she travelled further afield,
meeting C.P.E. Bach in Hamburg, playing before Catherine II in St Petersburg and later entering
the service of Prince Karl Radziwill, father of Chopin's later patron. A tour
of Germany, performing on the
piano and on the glass harmonica, was followed by concerts in Paris, where he remained
until the early signs of revolution in 1789. The next eleven years were spent
in London, distinguishing
himself as a performer and as a teacher. In the first capacity he played at the
Salomon concerts and took part in Haydn's concerts in the 1790s, eliciting from
the latter praise both for his musicianship and his moral probity. Whatever his
relationship with Anne-Marie Krumpholtz, in 1792 he married Sophia Corri, a
singer, pianist and harpist, who also appeared in the Haydn concerts. With her
father Dussek entered into a music publishing venture which, by 1799, had
failed. Domenico Coni was imprisoned for debt, but Dussek took refuge from debt
and from his wife and her family in Hamburg. The new century found him
again in his native Bohemia, followed, from 1804 to 1806, by service as
Kapellmeister to Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia and then, after the latter's
death, to Prince Isenburg, before moving to Paris in the employment of
Talleyrand. He died in France, possibly in Paris, in 1812.
With a mother, a mistress and then a wife who
were harpists, it was natural that Dussek should write music for the
instrument. This included, notably in the 1790s, a number of sonatinas and
sonatas, as well as a number of concertos, some offering the alternative of
solo piano instead of solo harp. His chamber music also finds a place for the
harp. His two-movement Sonata No. 2 in E flat major, Opus 34,
written in 1797, is characteristic enough of his work, using figuration that is
now a familiar element of harp technique. The attractive three- movement Concerto
in E flat major, Opus 15, with its idiomatic writing for the instrument,
starts its extended first movement with the expected orchestral exposition. It
proceeds in the now usual pattern, with its dramatic cadenza, in due classical
form and it is not difficult to detect similarities of style with a number of Dussek's
contemporaries. The slow movement provides attractive material, before a final
movement with a particularly cheerful principal theme that has something of a
contemporary popular song about it, a reminder that Dussek was to write at the
turn of the century, a harp sonata on The Lass of Richmond Hill. His principal
compositions for the instrument, however, come at the time of his liaison with
Anne-Marie Krumpholtz and his subsequent marriage with Sophia Corri. The Concerto
in E flat major, Opus 15, was written in London in 1789, intended for Mme Krumpholtz,
who performed a number of works by Dussek in the salomon concerts that brought
Haydn to London, appearing in the
first of the concerts with a Concerto for pianoforte and pedal harp by Dussek,
with the composer as the other soloist.
Roberta Alessandrini
Roberta Allessandrini graduated with distinction
at the Venice Benedetto Marcello Conservatory and her competition
awards include the first prize d'hanneur a l'unanimite in the Paris
International Harp Competition of 1985 and in the 1984 Genoa Rjetman
Competition. Her distinguished career has brought a busy series of concert
engagements and broadcasts and the publication of a number of harp
transcriptions, notably of earlier keyboard music. She is principal professor
of the harp at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan.