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- Wagenseil, Georg Christoph
- WORKS printed works published in Paris unless otherwise stated dramatic
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wagenmann, Abraham(b Öhringen, c1570; d Nuremberg, 19 March 1632). German printer. He was a printer at Öhringen, but became a citizen of Nuremberg on his marriage to Ursula Adelhart in 1593. He printed or published over 150 items, of which almost a third are music. His publications include works by German and Italian composers, notably Vecchi; he was a particularly staunch promoter of the music of Austrian exiles. His work is discussed in T. Wohnhaas: ‘Nurnberger Gesangbuchdrucker und -verleger im 17. Jahrhundert’, Festschrift Bruno Stäblein, ed. M. Ruhnke (Kassel, 1967), 301–15. THEODOR WOHNHAAS Wagenseil, Georg Christoph(b Vienna, 29 Jan 1715; d Vienna, 1 March 1777). Austrian composer, keyboard player and teacher. He can be considered one of the pivotal figures in the development of the Classical style in Vienna with a compositional career that spanned a period from Fux, his teacher, to Haydn and W.A. Mozart, for whom he served as a precursor. 1. Life. 2. Works. WORKS BIBLIOGRAPHY JOHN KUCABA/BERTIL H. VAN BOER Wagenseil, Georg Christoph 1. Life.Wagenseil’s father and maternal grandfather were functionaries at the Viennese imperial court. In his teens he began to compose keyboard pieces and to receive keyboard instruction with the organist of the Michaelerkirche in Vienna, Adam Weger. His accomplishments brought him to the attention of the court Kapellmeister, Johann Joseph Fux, who recommended him for a court scholarship in 1735; for the next three years he received intensive instruction in keyboard playing, counterpoint and composition from his sponsor and from Matteo Palotta. As a result of an enthusiastic endorsement from Fux, Wagenseil was appointed composer to the court on 6 February 1739, a post he held until his death. He also served as organist from 1741 to 1750 in the private chapel of Empress Elisabeth Christine (widow of Charles VI), and in 1749 became Hofklaviermeister to the imperial archduchesses. To the latter he dedicated four sets of divertimentos, which were engraved and issued as opp.1–4 by Bernardi of Vienna (1753–63). Wagenseil travelled to Venice in 1745 to supervise the production of his first opera, Ariodante, and in 1759–60 he was in Milan for a performance of Demetrio. In the mid-1750s uncommonly generous publication privileges granted by Parisian printers brought about a flood of instrumental compositions, particularly symphonies (see illustration), which raised him to international prominence, and which were undoubtedly responsible for Burney’s high opinion of him. Among those acquainted with his music was the young Mozart, who played one of Wagenseil’s concertos before Maria Theresa in 1762 and several keyboard pieces at the English court in 1764. Haydn was likewise familiar both with numerous instrumental works, as entries in the so-called Quartbuch show, and with Wagenseil’s operas, which found their way to Eisenstadt. Wagenseil was also renowned as a keyboard virtuoso, and elicited the highest praise from contemporaries such as C.F.D. Schubart (who remarked that Wagenseil ‘played with extraordinary expressive power and was capable of improvising a fugue with great thoroughness’). But from about 1765 steadily worsening lameness and an attack of gout which affected his left hand curtailed his activities at court and eventually confined him to his quarters where, according to Burney, who visited him on several occasions, he continued to compose and to teach. Among Wagenseil’s pupils were Leopold Hofmann, J.A. Štěpán, F.X. Dušek, Johann Gallus-Mederitsch, G.A. Matielli, P. le Roy, the brothers Franz and Anton Teyber, and J.B. Schenk. The last, who began instruction in 1774, provided in his autobiography a detailed account of his mentor’s teaching methods which, not surprisingly, were based on Fux (a legacy Schenk was then to transmit to Beethoven later in the century) but which were also remarkable for their time in drawing on Handel and Bach. Wagenseil, Georg Christoph 2. Works.Wagenseil’s earliest creative efforts (up to about 1745) appear to focus on sacred music, particularly masses, both a cappella and concerted. Some of those in the latter style were brilliantly scored for four trumpets, timpani, cornetto, two trombones, bassoon, strings and organ. The choral writing displays a formidable contrapuntal skill (canons, strettos, fugatos and double, triple and quadruple fugues abound), and the predominantly lyric and contemplative solo and ensemble sections deftly fuse voices and concerting instruments. Beginning with his first opera in 1745, Wagenseil expended considerable efforts on stage works over the next five years. Many of these were composed for festivities celebrating the nameday or birthday of various members of the imperial family. His operas are remarkable for their stylistic development that transcends the traditional norms of opera seria. He soon introduced diminutive arias in folk or galant style, expressive accompanied recitatives and finely wrought choruses to disrupt the traditional sequence of secco recitatives and da capo arias. But the most significant progressive feature is the welding of aria, ensemble, recitative and chorus into large unified tableaux, exemplified in its most mature form by the central scene between Orpheus and Eurydice which Wagenseil wrote in 1750 for the pasticcio Euridice and which pointed the way to Gluck’s operatic reform of 1762. In the solo keyboard music a clear stylistic development is discernible from the early dance suites which open with an overture or arpeggiated prelude, through miniature sonatas (also called divertimentos) employing successions of tiny repeated melodic fragments, to the late works which have acquired fluency, breadth and definition of structural details. Wagenseil seldom deviated from full recapitulations, although he frequently begins these in the subdominant key. Though he experimented with two-, four- and five-movement cycles, he preferred a three-movement sequence, either fast–minuet–fast or fast–slow–minuet, similar to the early keyboard compositions of Haydn. The sonatas juxtapose improvisatory, dance, folk and cantabile elements which are distributed over the keyboard in colourful and imaginative fashion. Though the prevalent tone is one of delicacy and charm, he was capable of depth of expression and, on occasion, striking departures from the usual facile harmonic conventions. The numerous string trios, offered for sale over several decades by publishers in London, Paris and Leipzig and singled out for praise by Hiller (Wöchentliche Nachrichten, 3 October 1768), also range from conservative works written for ecclesiastical use to pieces in galant style. Most of the keyboard concertos are chamber works intended for the dilettante, reflecting his position as court keyboard instructor. The harpsichord is the preferred solo instrument, although the sources often designate the organ, or less frequently the piano (and even the harp), as also appropriate. Thin accompaniments comprising two violins and bass and ever-present minuet finales point to the influence of the divertimento. The music bristles with a variety of ornaments, as well as with triplets, short trills and patterns of very short note-values; the repetition of phrases in the minor (a hallmark of the composer’s style) is especially in evidence, and Wagenseil introduced fresh keyboard figurations and patterns which served as pedagogical models for the coming decades. The finales, with their innocuous melodic substance and limited rhythmic vocabulary, are the least effective units in the cycle, and a number of the initial movements are marred by a certain predictability in the disposition of material between solo and tutti, weaknesses which are offset by impressive sustained cantilenas or highly ornamented coloratura writing in the slow movements. Among concertos for other solo instruments, the one for cello in A major (dated 1752) is worthy of mention for its extraordinary sweep and expressive power, and the concerto for alto trombone remains one of the most significant early concertos for this instrument. Wagenseil’s symphonies offer more diversity, and are of greater consequence in his total output. They draw on a wide variety of influences: opera sinfonia, trio sonata, divertimento, solo concerto, concerto grosso, opera buffa and suite. Here, as in the majority of his other instrumental works, Wagenseil favoured a three-movement scheme, although there are examples in four movements. The opening movements reflect a continuous stylistic development from the triadic unisons, common to the Italian sinfonia of the 1740s, to a series of sequential galant motifs, to a final form in which segmenting and development of thematic ideas within an overall sonata form appears to dominate. The grand Baroque gestures of his earlier slow movements later became ingratiating and delicate utterances, and Wagenseil began to depart from the customary dance finales in 3/8 or 3/4 by infusing them with greater rhythmic, melodic and textural interest, or by substituting rondo designs or extended movements in duple metre. That his symphonies were popular on an international scale can be seen by the uncommonly wide distribution of their sources. Wagenseil’s numerous contributions to most of the forms then current and the international dissemination and success of these works assure him a central position in the development of the Classical style. Wagenseil, Georg Christoph WORKSprinted works published in Paris unless otherwise stated dramaticunless otherwise stated, first performed in Vienna and MSS in A-Wn
vocalMSS in A-Wn unless otherwise stated
orchestralthematic catalogue in Scholz-Michelitsch, 1972
chamberThematic catalogues in Michelitsch, 1966, and Scholz-Michelitsch, 1972 and 1980.
theoretical works
Wagenseil, Georg Christoph BIBLIOGRAPHYBurneyGN NewmannSCE I. de Luca: ‘Das Andenken Georgs Christophs von Wagenseil k. k. Hofcompositors in Wien’, Kaiserlich königlichen allergnädigst privilegierten Realzeitung der Wissenschaften, Künste und Kommerzien, xxvi (23 Sept 1777), 405ff C.F.D. Schubart: Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst (Vienna, 1806/R) K. Horwitz and K.Riedel: Introduction to Wiener Instrumentalmusik vor und um 1750, DTÖ, xxxi, Jg.xv/2 (1908) R. Sondheimer: ‘Die formale Entwicklung der vorklassischen Sinfonie’, AMw, iv (1922), 85–99, 123–39 J.B. Schenk: ‘Autobiographische Skizze’, SMw, xi (1924), 75–85; Eng. trans. in P. Nettl: Forgotten Musicians (New York, 1951/R), 265–79 W. Vetter: ‘Georg Christoph Wagenseil, ein Vorläufer Christoph Willibald Glucks’, ZMw, viii (1925–6), 385–402 W. Vetter: ‘Der Opernkomponist Georg Christoph Wagenseil und sein Verhältnis zu Mozart und Gluck’, Gedenkschrift für Hermann Abert, ed. F. Blume (Halle, 1928/R), 165–76 W. Vetter: ‘Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der opera seria um 1750 in Wien’, ZMw, xiv (1931–2), 2–28 R. Philipp: Die Messenkompositionen der Wiener Vorklassiker G.M. Monn und G.Chr. Wagenseil (diss., U. of Vienna, 1938) G. Hausswald: ‘Der Divertimento-Begriff bei Georg Christoph Wagenseil’, AMw, ix (1952), 45–50 W. Vetter: ‘Der deutsche Charakter der italienischen Oper Georg Christoph Wagenseils’, Festschrift Karl Gustav Fellerer zum sechzigsten Geburtstag, ed. H. Hüschen (Regensburg, 1962/R), 558–72 W. Vetter: ‘Italienische Opernkomponisten um Georg Christoph Wagenseil: ein stilkundlicher Versuch’, Festschrift Friedrich Blume, ed. A.A. Abert and W. Pfannkuch (Kassel, 1963), 363–74 H. Michelitsch: Das Klavierwerk von Georg Christoph Wagenseil: thematischer Katalog (Vienna, 1966) J. Kucaba: The Symphonies of Georg Christoph Wagenseil (diss., Boston U., 1967) H. Scholz-Michelitsch: Georg Christoph Wagenseil als Klavierkomponist: eine Studie zu seinen zyklischen Soloklavierwerken (diss., U. of Vienna, 1967) H. Scholz-Michelitsch: Das Orchester- und Kammermusikwerk von Georg Christoph Wagenseil: thematischer Katalog (Vienna, 1972) H. Scholz-Michelitsch: Georg Christoph Wagenseil (Vienna, 1980) R. Zelenka: ‘Georg Christoph Wagenseil und seine böhmischen Schüler’, Blankenburger Studien, xiii (1982), 97–8 P. Sauerbrei: The Keyboard Concertos of Georg Christoph Wagenseil (diss., U. of Toronto, 1984) H. Scholz-Michelitsch: ‘Der Hofkomponist und Pädagog Georg Christoph Wagenseil’, Musik am Hof Maria Theresias: in memoriam Vera Schwarz, ed. R.V. Karpf (Munich and Salzburg, 1984), 141–3 K. Stout: ‘Georg Wagenseil and the Organ Concerto’, Diapason, lxxxi/8 (1990), 12–13 W. Reich: ‘Wagenseil in Dresden’, Mf, xlvii (1994), 274–5 G. Croll: ‘“Gli allegri e i presti sono molto veloci e legati”: eine authentische Spielanweisung eines Komponisten für seine Musik’, Musicus perfectus: studi in onore di Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, ed. P. Pellizzari (Bologna, 1995), 185–90 D. Heartz: Haydn, Mozart and the Viennese School 1740–1780 (New York, 1995) Directory: New%20Grove%20Dictionnary%20Of%20Music Download 14.95 Mb. Share with your friends:
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