Johann Mattheson (28 September 1681 – 17 April 1764)
was a German composer, singer, writer,
lexicographer
Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries.
* Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.
* Theoreti ...
, diplomat and
music theorist
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the " rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (k ...
.
Early life and career
The son of a prosperous tax collector, Mattheson received a broad liberal education and, aside from general musical training, took lessons in
keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers which are pressed by the fingers. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital piano ...
s,
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
,
composition
Composition or Compositions may refer to:
Arts and literature
*Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography
*Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...
and singing. 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
A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...
at the opera, conducted rehearsals and composed operas himself. He was cantor at
St. Mary's Cathedral from 1718 until increasing
deafness
Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...
led to his retirement from that post in 1728.
Mattheson's chief occupation from 1706 was as a professional diplomat. He had studied
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
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; their marriage was without issue.
Friendship with Handel
Mattheson was a close friend of
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque music, Baroque composer well known for his opera#Baroque era, operas, oratorios, anthems, concerto grosso, concerti grossi, ...
, although he nearly killed Handel in a sudden quarrel, during a performance of Mattheson's opera ''Cleopatra'' 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
__NOTOC__
John Mainwaring (1724 – 15 April 1807) was an English theologian and the first biographer of the composer Georg Friedrich Händel in any language. He was a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and parish priest, and later a prof ...
's biography of Handel into
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
and had it published in Hamburg at his own expense ("''auf Kosten des Übersetzers''") in 1761.
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
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
. He is particularly important for his work on the relationship of the disciplines of
rhetoric
Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...
and music, for example in ''Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre'' and ''
Der vollkommene Capellmeister''. However his books raise more and more attention and suspicion because Mattheson was a brilliant polemist and his theories on music are often full of pedantry and pseudo-erudition.
[Agathe Sueur, ''Le Frein et l'Aiguillon. Eloquence musicale et nombre oratoire (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle)'', Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2014. "Johann Mattheson et le pédantisme: des usages de l'érudition dans la théorie musicale allemande au XVIIIe siècle", ''Revue de musicologie'', 2014, 100/1, pp.3-36.]
The bulk of his compositional output was vocal, including eight operas, and numerous
oratorio
An oratorio () is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is mus ...
s and
cantatas. He also wrote a few
sonatas
Sonata (; Italian: , pl. ''sonate''; from Latin and Italian: ''sonare'' rchaic Italian; replaced in the modern language by ''suonare'' "to sound"), in music, literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cant ...
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
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, but was given back to
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
from
Yerevan
Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Y ...
,
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
, in 1998. This includes four operas and most of the oratorios. The manuscripts are now located at the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, the former Hamburg Stadtbibliothek (City Library).
Selected works
Operas
*''Cleopatra''
*''
Boris Goudenow
''Boris Goudenow'' is a German-language opera composed in 1710 by Johann Mattheson. The plot concerns intrigues among tsars Feodor I and Boris Godunov and tsarina Irina Godunova, and a cast of Russian, Danish and Swedish nobles. It was never p ...
''
Oratorios
*"Das größte Kind", Weihnachtsoratorium
*"Die heilsame Geburt", Weihnachtsoratorium
*''Joseph'', Oratorium, 1727
*''Der liebreiche und geduldige David''
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.
See also
*
Doctrine of the affections
The doctrine of the affections, also known as the ''doctrine of affects'', ''doctrine of the passions'', ''theory of the affects'', or by the German term Affektenlehre (after the German ''Affekt''; plural ''Affekte'') was a theory in the aesthe ...
*
Letters and writings of George Frideric Handel
Few of the letters and writings of George Frideric Handel remain today—certainly far fewer than remain for other major composers. Handel wrote relatively few letters and kept no diary, yet those letters that do remain provide insight into the v ...
Notes
References
*"Johann Mattheson", "Rhetoric and music" from ''
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...
'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London,
Macmillan Publishers Ltd
Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publi ...
., 1980.
*
Manfred Bukofzer
Manfred Fritz Bukofzer (27 March 1910 – 7 December 1955) was a German-born American musicologist.
Life and career
He studied at Heidelberg University and the Stern conservatory in Berlin, but left Germany in 1933 for Switzerland, where he ob ...
, ''Music in the Baroque Era''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1947.
Further reading
*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.
External links
*: music and books.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mattheson, Johann
1681 births
1764 deaths
18th-century classical composers
18th-century German composers
18th-century German male musicians
18th-century German writers
18th-century German male writers
German Baroque composers
German male classical composers
German opera composers
German music theorists
German lexicographers
German diplomats
German duellists
German male non-fiction writers
Male opera composers
Musicians from Hamburg
Writers from Hamburg
Deaf classical musicians
Deaf people from Germany
18th-century lexicographers