Andrew Talle
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252040849
- eISBN:
- 9780252099342
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252040849.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This book investigates the musical life of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Germany from the perspectives of those who lived in it. The men, women, and children of the era are treated here not as extras in ...
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This book investigates the musical life of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Germany from the perspectives of those who lived in it. The men, women, and children of the era are treated here not as extras in the life of a famous composer but rather as protagonists in their own right. The primary focus is on keyboard music, from those who built organs, harpsichords, and clavichords, to those who played keyboards recreationally and professionally, and those who supported their construction through patronage. Examples include: Barthold Fritz, a clavichord maker who published a list of his customers; Christiane Sibÿlla Bose, an amateur keyboardist and close friend of Bach’s wife; the Countesses zu Epstein, whose surviving library documents the musical interests of teenage girls of the era; Luise Gottsched, who found Bach’s music less appealing than that of Handel; Johann Christoph Müller, a keyboard instructor who fell in love with one of his aristocratic pupils; and Carl August Hartung, a professional organist and fanatical collector of Bach’s keyboard music. The book draws on published novels, poems, and visual art as well as manuscript account books, sheet music, letters, and diaries. For most music lovers of the era, J. S. Bach himself was an impressive figure whose music was too challenging to hold a prominent place in their musical lives.Less
This book investigates the musical life of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Germany from the perspectives of those who lived in it. The men, women, and children of the era are treated here not as extras in the life of a famous composer but rather as protagonists in their own right. The primary focus is on keyboard music, from those who built organs, harpsichords, and clavichords, to those who played keyboards recreationally and professionally, and those who supported their construction through patronage. Examples include: Barthold Fritz, a clavichord maker who published a list of his customers; Christiane Sibÿlla Bose, an amateur keyboardist and close friend of Bach’s wife; the Countesses zu Epstein, whose surviving library documents the musical interests of teenage girls of the era; Luise Gottsched, who found Bach’s music less appealing than that of Handel; Johann Christoph Müller, a keyboard instructor who fell in love with one of his aristocratic pupils; and Carl August Hartung, a professional organist and fanatical collector of Bach’s keyboard music. The book draws on published novels, poems, and visual art as well as manuscript account books, sheet music, letters, and diaries. For most music lovers of the era, J. S. Bach himself was an impressive figure whose music was too challenging to hold a prominent place in their musical lives.
Andrew Talle
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252040849
- eISBN:
- 9780252099342
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252040849.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Chapter two sheds light on the demographics of instrument ownership, chiefly through the analysis of a list of persons who bought clavichords between 1721 and 1757 from a maker in Braunschweig named ...
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Chapter two sheds light on the demographics of instrument ownership, chiefly through the analysis of a list of persons who bought clavichords between 1721 and 1757 from a maker in Braunschweig named Barthold Fritz. Special attention is devoted not only to the builder himself but also to one of his customers, a tax collector named Johann Heinrich Heyne whose instrument is preserved today in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Heyne was typical of Fritz’s customers in that he was wealthy, male, involved in intellectual rather than physical work, and employed by the court in Braunschweig. Fritz’s goals in building instruments, and Heyne’s goals in buying this particular instrument, are examined in terms of the visual images each voluntarily used to decorate them.Less
Chapter two sheds light on the demographics of instrument ownership, chiefly through the analysis of a list of persons who bought clavichords between 1721 and 1757 from a maker in Braunschweig named Barthold Fritz. Special attention is devoted not only to the builder himself but also to one of his customers, a tax collector named Johann Heinrich Heyne whose instrument is preserved today in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Heyne was typical of Fritz’s customers in that he was wealthy, male, involved in intellectual rather than physical work, and employed by the court in Braunschweig. Fritz’s goals in building instruments, and Heyne’s goals in buying this particular instrument, are examined in terms of the visual images each voluntarily used to decorate them.
