Graupner, Christoph

(b Kirchberg, Saxony, 13 Jan 1683; d Darmstadt, 10 May 1760). German composer. The son of Christoph Graupner (1650–1721) and Maria Hochmuth (1653–1721), he was born into a family of tailors and clothmakers. He received his earliest musical training from the local Kantor Michael Mylius (who early detected Graupner’s exceptional abilities to sing at sight) and the organist Nikolaus Kuster. In 1694 Graupner followed Kuster to Reichenbach, remaining there under his guidance until admitted as an alumnus of the Thomasschule in Leipzig, where he remained from 1696 to 1704. His teachers there included Johann Schelle and Kuhnau, for whom he also worked as copyist and amanuensis. His subsequent studies in jurisprudence at the University of Leipzig were broken off in 1706 through a Swedish military invasion, and he emigrated to Hamburg. In Leipzig he had already made firm and artistically stimulating friendships with G.P. Telemann (then director of the collegium musicum) and Gottfried Grünewald.

At Hamburg in 1707 Graupner succeeded J.C. Schiefferdecker as harpsichordist of the Gänsemarktoper. Between 1707 and 1709 Graupner composed five operas for this theatre and possibly collaborated with Reinhard Keiser in the joint composition of another three. His librettists included Hinrich Hinsch (Dido, Königin von Carthago) and Barthold Feind, a jurist-satirist-aesthetician. In 1709, in response to an invitation from Ernst Ludwig, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, Graupner accepted the position of vice-Kapellmeister to W.C. Briegel, whom he succeeded on the latter’s death in 1712. In 1711 he was married to Sophie Elisabeth Eckard, who bore him six sons and a daughter; her younger sister was married to a Lutheran pastor, Johann Conrad Lichtenberg of Neunkirchen in Odenwald, the author of the texts of most of Graupner’s subsequent cantatas.

Under Graupner’s direction the Darmstadt Hofkapelle experienced a period of vigorous expansion. At its peak (1714–18) the Kapelle employed 40 musicians, many of whom, in keeping with practices of the day, were adept in several different instruments. In these early years of his long incumbency, Italian operas were performed frequently and Graupner centred his activities on operatic compositions. Between 1712 and 1721 he also renewed his early friendship with Telemann, then active in Frankfurt. After 1719, however, financial pressures enforced a reduction in the size of the Kapelle and Graupner composed no more operas, concentrating instead on the cantata, orchestral and instrumental forms. During this period most of the orchestral personnel were obliged to find subsidiary employment, often in other court duties, and the relationship between the Landgrave and his musicians deteriorated. In 1722–3 Graupner successfully applied (in competition with J.S. Bach) for the Thomaskirche cantorate in Leipzig, on Telemann’s withdrawal, but when the Landgrave refused acceptance of his resignation, granting him a significant increase in salary and other emoluments, he decided to remain in Darmstadt. There his reputation attracted a number of important composers, including J.F. Fasch, as his students. Until his activities were restricted by failing eyesight and eventually blindness in 1754, Graupner remained extraordinarily prolific, producing 1418 church cantatas, 24 secular cantatas, 113 symphonies, about 50 concertos, 86 overture-suites, 36 sonatas for instrumental combinations and a substantial body of keyboard music. In addition he made numerous copies of works in the current repertory by other composers such as C.H. Graun, J.W.A. Stamitz and F.X. Richter. His diligence and musical calligraphy were particularly famed, as Mattheson attested (Der vollkommene Capellmeister, p.481): ‘[his] scores are so beautifully written as to be comparable with an etching’.

As an opera composer, Graupner began his career with works in the eclectic north German tradition of Kusser, Keiser, Mattheson and G.C. Schürmann, drawing on the Italian and French styles. As early as his Hamburg days, Graupner’s operas enjoyed considerable public acclaim, the Hamburg Relations-Courier (30 November 1708) reporting of his Bellerophon how ‘a vast public such as has not been seen for some years attended the performance’. His Hamburg operas sometimes displayed particular skill in the marshalling of large formal structures, for example Act 2 scene i of Dido, Königin von Carthago, which is a chaconne over a developed lamento bass with music for quartet, individual soloists and duet. In Antiochus und Stratonica(1708) a scene (1.vi) is cast as a set of variants on the opening march theme, including entrées, dances, choruses, an arioso, an aria and finally a chaconne. The libretto of the opera Simson (1709) suggests effective dramatic use of the chorus. Above all, Graupner’s Hamburg operas, following Keiser’s, were remarkable for the emancipation and development of instrumental motif and the employment of specific obbligato combinations to impart dramatic continuity. Of his Darmstadt operas, La constanza vince l'inganno (for which Landgrave Ernst Ludwig supplied the overture and ballet music) is in Italian throughout. The macaronic traditions of the Hamburg operas did continue however in Berenice und Lucilla which has 24 arias in Italian and eight in German.

Most of Graupner’s 1418 church cantatas were composed for Jahrgänge to texts by G.C. Lehms (1684–1717) and J.C. Lichtenberg (1689–1751). Lehms favoured a form using rhymed recitatives, arias and biblical quotations and chorales; Lichtenberg also employed these forms and procedures in the texts he provided for Graupner from 1719 to 1743. After 1743 Graupner continued to use Lichtenberg’s verse, also completing earlier cycles left incomplete at the death in 1739 of his deputy Hofkapellmeister, Gottfried Grünewald. Graupner’s 55 Christmas cantatas are often suggestive of a transition from a baroque to a more galant style, but usually favouring a co-existence of conservative and progressive elements. Graupner’s cantatas were of seminal importance for the Passion compositions of J.F. Fasch. An investigation of Graupner’s 24 secular cantatas remains to be undertaken.

Among Graupner’s orchestral works, the largest single category is represented by the 113 symphonies, all in major keys, most of which (according to Cahn) date from the period 1746 to 1753. 55 are in the three-movement sinfonia style of Alessandro Scarlatti and Vivaldi; the remaining are in various hybrid forms between sinfonia and suite, with an opening movement in sinfonia form succeeded by between four and seven dances or character-pieces. All 28 four-movement symphonies contain a minuet. The overture-suites, which are sometimes compared with Telemann’s, usually comprise a French overture followed by between six and eight dances or character-pieces, several of which carry affective or quasi-programmatic titles, such as ‘La rimenbrenza compassione vole’ (no.11 in G major), ‘Uccelino chiuso’ (no.14 in G major) and ‘La congiuranzione’ (Entrata no.2 in G minor). As in his symphonies and concertos, Graupner frequently incorporated less familiar instruments such as viola d’amore, flauto d’amore and chalumeau.

Of the 50 concertos ascribed to Graupner, covering from 1724 to 1745, only 44 are established by Witte as authentic, the remaining being transcriptions (one of Vivaldi). All reveal a keen feeling for colour and diversity of timbre in the choice of instruments (preferably woodwind). Whereas the form of Corelli’s concertos embraced from four to seven movements, 24 of Graupner’s concertos are in the Vivaldian three-movement pattern (fast–slow–fast) and the remaining 20 in a four-movement one (slow–fast–slow–fast). Concerto form predominates in the fast movements; the slow movements, departing from ordinary concertino–ripieno procedures, follow sonata or symphonic structures and textures, or a concertante style with successive (or simultaneous, as in ostinato forms) concertino–ripieno contrast. Of the sonatas, those for two horns, two violins, viola and continuo (1745–8) are Graupner’s most extended studies in the large-scale instrumental application of fugal forms and devices.

An anonymous entry in the Hochfürstliche Hessen Darmstäder Staats- und Adresskalender of 1781 recalled Graupner as an exceptional keyboard performer while in his middle age. The three volumes of keyboard music published in Darmstadt represent only a small proportion of his total production in this field, much of which is in manuscript (D-DS). His output can be divided into three groups, representing the Partien or suites, two series of teaching pieces (Monatliche Clavir Früchte, 1722; Leichte Clavier–Übungen, c1730), and miscellaneous volumes of either individual or assorted movements. An estimated production of 65 Partien is once thought to have existed, of which only 26 are shown by Hoffmann-Erbrecht to be extant. With their origins in the central German styles of Kuhnau and J.C.F. Fischer, the keyboard works follow both French and Italian styles, sometimes achieving a fusion of them. The Partien vary from four to 11 movements, the most usual sequence being the orthodox Allemande–Courante–Sarabande–Gigue pattern (the last sometimes replaced by Chaconne, Rondeau or Variation). Graupner is sensitive to the different demands of ‘Kenner’ and ‘Liebhaber’ and, working on a modest scale, was regarded more for the originality of his ideas than for their working out. The presence of pieces with programmatic subtitles and the eclectic view of foreign styles has led to comparisons with the keyboard music of Telemann.

Graupner’s interest in music theory, which emerged after 1730, is evident from the copies he made of treatises by Johann Theile and J.A. Scheibe and from material which survives for an unfinished book on the technique of canon. This includes preliminary workings (D-DS) and 5625 four-part canons which are arranged according to the order of the voice entries, the interval of imitation and the distance between entries, reflecting a tirelessly experimental attitude in the investigation of the possibilities of imitation.

WORKS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ANDREW D. McCREDIE

Graupner, Christoph

WORKS

Editions: Christoph Graupner, Ausgewählte Werke, ed. F. Noack (Kassel, 1955–7/R) [N]Christoph Graupner, Oeuvres pour flutes à bec, ed. S. Möhlmeier and F. Thouvenot (Courlay, 1995) [facs.] [M]

operas

music lost unless otherwise indicated

other vocal

orchestral

MSS in D-DS unless otherwise stated

chamber

MSS in D-DS unless otherwise stated

Graupner, Christoph

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MatthesonGEP

W. Nagel: ‘Christoph Graupner als Sinfoniker’, Musikalisches Magazin, xlix (1912), 3

F. Noack: Christoph Graupner als Kirchenkomponist, suppl. to DDT, li–lii (1926/R)

L. Hoffmann-Erbrecht: ‘Johann Christoph Graupner als Klavierkomponist’, AMw, x (1953), 140–52

H.C. Wolff: Die Barockoper in Hamburg (Wolfenbüttel, 1957), 306ff

M. Witte: Die Instrumentalkonzerte von Christoph Graupner (diss., Göttingen U., 1963)

R. Brockpähler: Handbuch zur Geschichte der Barockoper in Deutschland (Emsdetten, 1964)

A.D. McCredie: ‘Christoph Graupner as Opera Composer’, MMA, i (1966), 74–116

C.-H. Mahling: ‘Johann Christoph Graupner und sein Wirken’, Zur Aufführungspraxis und Interpretation der Instrumentalmusik von G.Ph. Telemann: Blankenburg, Harz, 1981, 15–18

A.D. McCredie: ‘The Polonaise Movements in the Orchestral Ensemble Suites and Keyboard Music of Christoph Graupner of Darmstadt’, Musiqua antiqua VI: Bydgoszcz 1982, 7–24

G. Weiss: ‘Christoph Graupners Instrumentalwerke mit Viola d’amore’, Das Orchester, xxx (1982), 127–38

C. Dahlhaus: ‘Christoph Graupner und das Formprinzip in Autobiographie’, Bachiana et alia musicologica: Festschrift Alfred Dürr, ed. W. Rehm (Kassel, 1983), 58–61

A. Eichberger: ‘Johann Christoph Graupner, Trompetenkonzert Nr.1 in D dur: Hinweise zu Verzieherungsmöglichkeiten’, Musikzentren: Konzertschaffen im 18. Jahrhundert: Blankenburg, Harz, 1983, 46–7

A.D. McCredie: ‘Christoph Graupner: the Suites and Sonatas for Instrumental Ensemble at Darmstadt’, SMA, xvii (1983), 91–111

O. Bill: ‘Telemann und Graupner’, Telemann und seine Freunde: Magdeburg 1984, 27–35

P. Cahn: ‘Christoph Graupners Kanons als Versuch einer systematischen Imitationslehre’, Musiktheorie, i (1986), 129–37

O. Bill, ed.: Christoph Graupner, Hofkapellmeister in Darmstadt 1709–1760 (Mainz, 1987)

M. Kawabata and K. Sakamaki: ‘Christoph Graupners no kyokai kantata kenkyu: Darmstädter kyutei no ongaku jijo tono kakawari wo chushinto shite’ [Investigation of Christoph Graupner’s church cantatas, with special consideration of the musical situation at the Darmstadt court], Ongakugaku, xxxviii (1992), 1–18

R. Schmidt: The Christmas Cantatas of Christoph Graupner (1683–1760) (diss, U. of North Texas, 1992)

C. Grosspietsch: Graupners Ouvertüren und Tafelmusiken (Mainz, 1994)

T. Hiebert: ‘Early Examples of Mixed-Keyed Horns and Trumpets in Works of C. Graupner’, HBSJ, vi (1994), 231–43

K.-P. Koch: ‘Keiser, Graupner, Grünewald und Schieferdecker: die Jahre 1706–1709’, Georg Friedrich Händel: ein Lebensinhalt: Gedenkschrift für Bernd Baselt (1934–1993), ed. K. Hortschansky and K. Musketa (Kassel, 1995), 413–22