Jiri Antonin Benda (1722 -1795) Sinfonias Vol. 2 Sinfonia No. 7 in D Major Sinfonia No. 8 in D Major Sinfonia No. 9 in A Major Sinfonia No. 10 in G Major...
Jiri Antonin Benda (1722
-1795)
Sinfonias Vol. 2
Sinfonia No. 7 in D Major
Sinfonia No. 8 in D Major
Sinfonia No. 9 in A Major
Sinfonia No. 10 in G Major
Sinfonia No. 11 in F Major
Sinfonia No. 12 in A Major
The Benda family has occupied an important and continuing place
in music in Germany
for some 250 years. The founder of the musical dynasty, Jan Jiri
Benda, was born in 1686 in a village in Bohemia and combined the
trades of weaver and musician. He married Dorota Brixi, a member of the Skalsko
branch of a distinguished family of Czech musicians, and five of their six
children became musicians, working in Germany. There the eldest son of
the family, Frantisek, composer of some eighty violin sonatas and fifteen
concertos, entered the service of the Prussian Crown Prince, continuing as Konzertmeister after the latter's accession to the throne
as Frederick the Great. Frantisek Benda was a
colleague of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in Potsdam, where both showed
a certain originality in an otherwise musically conservative court, the former
more notably in his violin concertos. In 1742, two years after Frederick's
accession, the Benda family joined Frantisek in Potsdam. The second son,
Jan Jiri Benda, had also
entered the service of the Crown Prince as a viola-player, continuing his
service at Potsdam
as a violinist, while the fourth, Joseph Benda,
joined the Prussian royal orchestra in 1742 and later succeeded his eldest
brother as Konzertmeister. A daughter of the family,
Anna, found a career for herself as Kamrnersangerin
in the service of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, on the
recommendation of her brother Jiri Antonin. In Gotha she married the court
violinist and composer Dismas Hatas.
Jiri Antonin Benda, known in German as
Georg Benda, was born in
1722 at Stare Benatky and
had his schooling in Bohemia before moving in
1742 with the rest of his family to join his brother Frantisek at Potsdam, where he became
a violinist in the court orchestra. In 1750 he became Kapellmeister to Duke Friederich III of Saxe-Gotha. Gotha
had long and distinguished musical traditions, to which Benda
contributed, breaking new ground there with his Italian opera seria Xindo riconnosciuto, written for the Duchess Luise Dorothea. There followed a period in Italy for
further study which resulted in the composition of two Intermezzi, Il buon marito and Il nuovo maestro di capella, performed in Gotha in 1766 and 1767. More significantly he was largely
responsible for giving wide popularity to the form of melodrama. His early and
very successful attempts at the genre were written after the arrival in Gotha in 1774 of the theatrical
troupe directed by the Swiss actor Abel Seyler, a
company which had been active in Hanover and Weimar. For the Seyler troupe Benda wrote his
melodramas Ariadne auf Naxos, Medea and Pygmalion, the first two of which aroused the admiration of Mozart,
who heard performances in Mannheim
and planned something of the same kind on the subject of Semiramide. Benda
also wrote a series of Singspiel for the Gotha theatre.
Benda had
been given the title of Kapelldirektor in 1770, but
resigned in 1778, moving to Hamburg and to Vienna. Finding no
position there, he returned in 1779 to Gotha, living in retirement at
first at the nearby Georgenthal before moving to Ohrdruf. He spent his final years at Kostritz,
where he died in 1795. His compositions include some half dozen other stage
works, Singspiel, melodramas and a children's operetta, a quantity of church
music and vocal compositions, keyboard sonatas and sonatinas
and some thirty symphonies, ten harpsichord concertos and eleven violin
concertos.
The twelve
symphonies, not published as a set, are all in three movements, developed from
the Potsdam
style of the Graun brothers. The Sinfonia No. 7 in D major starts with a lively Allegro assai, followed by a minor key Larghetto with two flutes providing a contrast of timbre. The sinfonia ends with a final Presto, interrupting the gentle mood of the preceding movement, but
bringing its own distinct contrasts. Sinfonia No. 8 in D major
starts with a crescendo worthy of Mannheim.
There is a moving minor key slow movement and a brisk final Spirituoso. Sinfonia No. 9 in A major opens boldly with a texture in which the horns
assume importance. The following minor key Andante,
an oboe aria, leads to a robustly cheerful final movement. Sinfonia No. 10 in G major starts with the customary call on the listener's
attention and goes on to make playful use of a recurrent octave figure, with an
active rôle for bassoon and other wind instruments, which
have a prominent place in the movement that follows the very brief Andante. Sinfonia No. 11 in F major, after a first movement that has its own light
and shade, moves forward to a central Larghetto,
again lyrically poignant in its minor key. The sinfonia
ends with expected triple metre Allegro. Sinfonia No. 12 in A major opens with an Allegro that provides brief moments of
contrast in mode. The second movement is marked, with a momentary lapse into
Latin, as Andantino semper
piano, follows without a break. Here the flute has a leading part to play;
briefly interrupted by the horns before the movement comes to an end. The sinfonia finishes with an Allegro in a work that, together with Benda's
other symphonies, was once claimed to have rivalled
those of Haydn and Mozart in contemporary popularity.
Prague Chamber Orchestra
The Prague
Chamber Orchestra was established in 1951 and during the forty years of its
existence has won a distinguished international reputation, with appearances at
major European festivals and tours abroad to the Americas
and throughout Europe, as well as to Japan. The orchestra has
collaborated with soloists of the greatest distinction, including Accardo, Badura-Skoda, the Beaux
Arts Trio, Gilels, Gulda,
Hendricks, Holliger, Michelangeli
and others of similar eminence. There have been more than a hundred recordings,
with a Golden Record award after selling a million discs and on three occasions
the Grand Prix du Dsique de
l' Academie Charles Cros as
well as the Austrian Wiener Flotenuhr.
Christian Benda
The cellist
and conductor Christian Benda belongs to a family of
Czech musicians whose earlier members established in the eighteenth century a
dynasty of composers, musicians at the court of Frederick the Great. His early
musical training was at home. Supported by Paul Tortelier,
he was launched on a solo career by Pierre Fournier, at first in Bohemia with the Prague
Symphony Orchestra and the violinist Josef Suk, with
whom he played the Brahms Double Concerto and later collaborated as soloist and
conductor with the Suk Chamber Orchestra. Engagements
with major orchestras in Eastern Europe were
followed by appearances elsewhere. He has recorded for broadcasting the
concertos of Lalo, Haydn, Boccherini
and Villa-Lobos, with Bloch's Schelomo, the Double
Concerto of Brahms and the Triple of Beethoven, with a number of other
recordings on compact disc.