Franz Xaver Richter
Encyclopedia
Franz Xaver Richter, known as François Xavier Richter in France (Holleschau, now: Holešov
, December 1, 1709 – Strasbourg
, September 12, 1789) was an Austro-Moravian singer, violin
ist, composer
, conductor
and music theoretician who spent most of his life first in Austria
and later in Mannheim
and in Strasbourg, where he was music director of the cathedral
. From 1783 on Haydn’s favourite pupil Ignaz Pleyel
was his deputy at the cathedral.
The most traditional of the first generation composers of the so-called Mannheim school
, he was highly regarded in his day as a contrapuntist. As a composer he was equally at home in the concerto and the strict church style. Mozart heard a mass by Richter on his journey back from Paris to Salzburg in 1778 and called it charmingly written.
Richter, as a contemporary engraving clearly shows, must have been one of the first conductors to actually have conducted with a music sheet roll in his hand.
Richter wrote chiefly symphonies
, concertos for woodwinds, trumpet
, chamber
and church music, his masses receiving special praise. He was a man of a transitional period, and his symphonies in a way constitute one of the missing links between the generation of Bach
and Handel
and the Viennese classic. Although sometimes contrapuntal in a learned way, Richter’s orchestral works nevertheless exhibit considerable drive and verve. Until a few years ago Richter "survived" with recordings of his trumpet concerto in D major but recently a number of chamber orchestras and ensembles have taken many of his pieces, particularly symphonies and concertos, in their repertoire.
but was then a town in the Holy Roman Empire
, this, however, is not entirely certain. There is no record of his birth in the Holleschau church register. In his employment contract with the Prince Abbot of Kempten it says that he hailed from Bohemia, the musicologist Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg
has Richter being from Hungarian descent and on his Strasbourg death certificate it says: “ex Kratz oriundus”.
Although his whereabouts until 1740 are nowhere documented, it is clear that Richter got a very thorough training in counterpoint and that this took place using the influential counterpoint treatise Gradus ad Parnassum by Johann Josef Fux
; Richter may even have been Fux’s pupil in Vienna. Richter’s lifelong mastery of the strict church style which is particularly evident in his liturgical works but also shines through in his symphonies and chamber music, is testimony to his roots in the Austrian and south German Baroque music.
Anselm von Reichlin-Meldeg of Kempten
in Allgäu
. Reichlin Meldeg as Prince Abbot presided over the Fürststift Kempten, a large Benedictine
Monastery
in what is now south-western Bavaria
. The monastery certainly would have had a choir and probably a small orchestra (rather a band, as it was called then) , as well, but this must have been a small affair. Richter stayed in Kempten for six years but it is hard to imagine that a man of his education and talents would have liked the idea of spending the rest of his life in this scenically beautiful but otherwise completely parochial town.
Twelve of Richter's symphonies for strings were published in Paris in the year 1744. In February 1743 Richter married Maria Anna Josepha Moz, who was probably from Kempten. It is assumed that Richter left Kempten already before the death of Reichlin-Meldeg in December 1747.
Charles Theodore
in Mannheim – but not as music director or in any other leading function but as a simple singer (bass). Obviously Richter preferred being one among many (singers and orchestra combine numbered more than 70 persons) in Mannheim to acting deputy Kapellmeister in a small town like Kempten.
Because of his old fashioned, even reactionary music style Richter was not popular in Mannheim.
The title awarded to him in 1768 as Cammercompositeur (chamber composer) seems to have been merely an honorary one. He was slightly more successful as a composer of sacred music and as music theoretician. In 1748 the Elector commissioned him to compose an oratorio for Good Friday, La deposizione dalla croce. It is sometimes concluded that this oratorio was not a success as there was only one performance and Richter was never commissioned to write another one.
Richter was also a respected teacher of composition. Between 1761 and 1767 he wrote a treatise on composition (Harmonische Belehrungen oder gründliche Anweisung zu der musikalischen Ton-Kunst oder regulären Komposition), based on Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum – the only representative of the Mannheim School to do so. The lengthy work in three tomes is dedicated to Charles Theodore. Among his more notable pupils were Joseph Martin Kraus
, probably Carl Stamitz
and Ferdinand Fränzl
.
After 1768 Richter's name disappears from the lists of court singers. During his Mannheim years Richter made tours to the Oettingen-Wallerstein court in 1754 and later to France, the Netherlands and England where his compositions found a ready market with publishers.
It seems clear from Richter’s compositions that he did not really fit in at the Mannheim court. Whereas his colleagues at the orchestra were interested in lively, energetic, homophonic music that focused on drive, brilliancy and sparkling orchestral effects gained from stock devices, Richter, rooted in the Austrian Baroque tradition, wrote music that was in a way reminiscent of Handel and his teacher Fux. Thus, when in 1769 an opening at Strasbourg's cathedral became known Richter seems to have applied right away.
, where both his performing and composing activities turned increasingly to sacred music. He was by then recognized as a leading contrapuntist and church composer. Johann Sebastian Bach’s
first Biographer, composer and musicologist Johann Nikolaus Forkel
, wrote about Richter in 1782:
In Strasbourg Richter also had to direct the concerts at the Episcopal court (today Palais Rohan); in addition to that he was for a time also in charge of the town concerts which were held at regular intervals. The main part of Richter’s sacred music was composed during his Strasbourg years. He was active as a composer until his last year. During his last years Haydn's favourite pupil Ignaz Pleyel served as his assistant at the cathedral.
In 1787 he visited Munich
, where he met Mozart’s father Leopold, one last time. In Munich he met most of his former colleagues of the Mannheim court orchestra who by then had moved to Munich to where the court had been transferred.
From 1783 on, and due to Richter's advanced age and declining health, Joseph Haydn
's favourite pupil Ignaz Pleyel
served as his assistant. He would succeed him at the post after his death.
Richter died an octogenarian in the year of the French Revolution
, and this was probably for the better. Thus he did not have to witness that his deputy Ignaz Pleyel was forced to write hymns to praise the supreme being and that Jean-Frédéric Edelmann
, a gifted composer from Strasbourg, would die under the guillotine
in his home town.
In 1770 Marie Antoinette
, future queen of France, on her way from Vienna to Paris passed through the Alsatian capital, where she stayed at the Episcopal Palace, the Palais Rohan
. Richter, who almost certainly directed the church music when Marie Antoinette went to mass the next day, witnessed the earliest stages of historical events that would later contribute to the downfall of the French monarchy. The prelate who greeted Marie Antoinette on the steps of the cathedral, probably in Richter’s presence, was the same Louis Rohan who would later, duped by a prostitute impersonating Marie Antoinette, trigger the Affair of the Diamond Necklace
. Several historians and writers think that this bizarre episode undermined the trust of the French in their queen and thus hastened the onset of the French Revolution.
But Richter did not live to see this. What he saw was Strasbourg all dressed up to greet the Dauphiness:
Both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
and his father Leopold
knew Richter. Mozart would have meet him still as a boy on his Family Grand tour in 1763 when the Mozart family came through Schwetzingen, the summer residence of the Elector Palatinate.
Mozart met him once again in 1778 on his way back from Paris when he was headed for the unloved Salzburg after his plans to gain permanent employment in Mannheim or Paris had come to naught. In a letter to his father, dated November 2, 1778, Mozart seems to suggest that the by then elderly Richter was something of an alcoholic:
However, Mozart was not one to laud lightly. The epithet “charmingly written” can be taken at face value and from someone like Mozart this was high praise indeed.
Holešov
Holešov is a town in the Zlín Region, Czech Republic. The town is located on the western hillside of the Hostýn Hills - the westernmost part of the Carpathian Mountains....
, December 1, 1709 – Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
, September 12, 1789) was an Austro-Moravian singer, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist, composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
and music theoretician who spent most of his life first in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and later in Mannheim
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
and in Strasbourg, where he was music director of the cathedral
Cathedral
A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...
. From 1783 on Haydn’s favourite pupil Ignaz Pleyel
Ignaz Pleyel
Ignace Joseph Pleyel , ; was an Austrian-born French composer and piano builder of the Classical period.-Early years:...
was his deputy at the cathedral.
The most traditional of the first generation composers of the so-called Mannheim school
Mannheim school
Mannheim school refers to both the orchestral techniques pioneered by the court orchestra of Mannheim in the latter half of the 18th century as well as the group of composers who wrote such music for the orchestra of Mannheim and others.-History:...
, he was highly regarded in his day as a contrapuntist. As a composer he was equally at home in the concerto and the strict church style. Mozart heard a mass by Richter on his journey back from Paris to Salzburg in 1778 and called it charmingly written.
Richter, as a contemporary engraving clearly shows, must have been one of the first conductors to actually have conducted with a music sheet roll in his hand.
Richter wrote chiefly symphonies
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
, concertos for woodwinds, trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
, chamber
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
and church music, his masses receiving special praise. He was a man of a transitional period, and his symphonies in a way constitute one of the missing links between the generation of Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
and Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
and the Viennese classic. Although sometimes contrapuntal in a learned way, Richter’s orchestral works nevertheless exhibit considerable drive and verve. Until a few years ago Richter "survived" with recordings of his trumpet concerto in D major but recently a number of chamber orchestras and ensembles have taken many of his pieces, particularly symphonies and concertos, in their repertoire.
1709-1739 Origins and education
Franz Xaver Richter was most probably born in Holleschau in what is now the Czech RepublicCzech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
but was then a town in the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
, this, however, is not entirely certain. There is no record of his birth in the Holleschau church register. In his employment contract with the Prince Abbot of Kempten it says that he hailed from Bohemia, the musicologist Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg
Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg
Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg was a German music critic, music-theorist and composer. He was friendly and active with many figures of the Enlightenment of the 18th century.-Life:...
has Richter being from Hungarian descent and on his Strasbourg death certificate it says: “ex Kratz oriundus”.
Although his whereabouts until 1740 are nowhere documented, it is clear that Richter got a very thorough training in counterpoint and that this took place using the influential counterpoint treatise Gradus ad Parnassum by Johann Josef Fux
Johann Fux
Johann Joseph Fux was an Austrian composer, music theorist and pedagogue of the late Baroque era. He is most famous as the author of Gradus ad Parnassum, a treatise on counterpoint, which has become the single most influential book on the Palestrina style of Renaissance polyphony...
; Richter may even have been Fux’s pupil in Vienna. Richter’s lifelong mastery of the strict church style which is particularly evident in his liturgical works but also shines through in his symphonies and chamber music, is testimony to his roots in the Austrian and south German Baroque music.
1740-1747 Vize-Kapellmeister in Kempten
On April, 2 1740 Richter was appointed deputy Kapellmeister (Vize-Kapellmeister) to the Prince-AbbotPrince-abbot
A Prince-Abbot is a title for a cleric who is a Prince of the Church , in the sense of an ex officio temporal lord of a feudal entity, notably a State of the Holy Roman Empire. The secular territory ruled by the head of an abbey is known as Prince-Abbacy or Abbey-principality...
Anselm von Reichlin-Meldeg of Kempten
Kempten
Kempten can refer to:* Kempten im Allgäu, a town in Bavaria, Germany* Kempten ZH, a district of the town of Wetzikon in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland* Kempton Park, Gauteng, a city in South Africa which was named after Kempten in Bavaria...
in Allgäu
Allgäu
The Allgäu is a southern German region in Swabia. It covers the south of Bavarian Swabia and southeastern Baden-Württemberg. The region stretches from the prealpine lands up to the Alps...
. Reichlin Meldeg as Prince Abbot presided over the Fürststift Kempten, a large Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
Monastery
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
in what is now south-western Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
. The monastery certainly would have had a choir and probably a small orchestra (rather a band, as it was called then) , as well, but this must have been a small affair. Richter stayed in Kempten for six years but it is hard to imagine that a man of his education and talents would have liked the idea of spending the rest of his life in this scenically beautiful but otherwise completely parochial town.
Twelve of Richter's symphonies for strings were published in Paris in the year 1744. In February 1743 Richter married Maria Anna Josepha Moz, who was probably from Kempten. It is assumed that Richter left Kempten already before the death of Reichlin-Meldeg in December 1747.
1747-1768 Singer and Cammercompositeur in Mannheim
Just how much Richter must have disliked Kempten can be deduced from the fact that in 1747 his name appears among the court musicians of the Prince electorPrince-elector
The Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Roman king or, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, directly the Holy Roman Emperor.The heir-apparent to a prince-elector was known as an...
Charles Theodore
Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria
Charles Theodore, Prince-Elector, Count Palatine and Duke of Bavaria reigned as Prince-Elector and Count palatine from 1742, as Duke of Jülich and Berg from 1742 and also as Prince-Elector and Duke of Bavaria from 1777, until his death...
in Mannheim – but not as music director or in any other leading function but as a simple singer (bass). Obviously Richter preferred being one among many (singers and orchestra combine numbered more than 70 persons) in Mannheim to acting deputy Kapellmeister in a small town like Kempten.
Because of his old fashioned, even reactionary music style Richter was not popular in Mannheim.
The title awarded to him in 1768 as Cammercompositeur (chamber composer) seems to have been merely an honorary one. He was slightly more successful as a composer of sacred music and as music theoretician. In 1748 the Elector commissioned him to compose an oratorio for Good Friday, La deposizione dalla croce. It is sometimes concluded that this oratorio was not a success as there was only one performance and Richter was never commissioned to write another one.
Richter was also a respected teacher of composition. Between 1761 and 1767 he wrote a treatise on composition (Harmonische Belehrungen oder gründliche Anweisung zu der musikalischen Ton-Kunst oder regulären Komposition), based on Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum – the only representative of the Mannheim School to do so. The lengthy work in three tomes is dedicated to Charles Theodore. Among his more notable pupils were Joseph Martin Kraus
Joseph Martin Kraus
Joseph Martin Kraus , was a composer in the classical era who was born in Miltenberg am Main, Germany. He moved to Sweden at age 21, and died at the age of 36 in Stockholm...
, probably Carl Stamitz
Carl Stamitz
Karl Philipp Stamitz , who later changed his given name to Carl, was a German composer of partial Czech ancestry , and a violin, viola and viola d'amore virtuoso...
and Ferdinand Fränzl
Ferdinand Fränzl
Ferdinand Fränzl, , was a German violinist, composer, conductor, opera director, and a representative of the third generation of the so-called Mannheim school....
.
After 1768 Richter's name disappears from the lists of court singers. During his Mannheim years Richter made tours to the Oettingen-Wallerstein court in 1754 and later to France, the Netherlands and England where his compositions found a ready market with publishers.
It seems clear from Richter’s compositions that he did not really fit in at the Mannheim court. Whereas his colleagues at the orchestra were interested in lively, energetic, homophonic music that focused on drive, brilliancy and sparkling orchestral effects gained from stock devices, Richter, rooted in the Austrian Baroque tradition, wrote music that was in a way reminiscent of Handel and his teacher Fux. Thus, when in 1769 an opening at Strasbourg's cathedral became known Richter seems to have applied right away.
1769-1789 Maitre de Chapelle de Notre-Dame de Strasbourg
In April 1769 he succeeded Joseph Garnier as Kapellmeister at Strasbourg CathedralStrasbourg Cathedral
Strasbourg Cathedral or the Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Strasbourg, France. Although considerable parts of it are still in Romanesque architecture, it is widely consideredSusan Bernstein: , The Johns Hopkins University Press to be among the finest...
, where both his performing and composing activities turned increasingly to sacred music. He was by then recognized as a leading contrapuntist and church composer. Johann Sebastian Bach’s
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
first Biographer, composer and musicologist Johann Nikolaus Forkel
Johann Nikolaus Forkel
Johann Nikolaus Forkel , was a German musician, musicologist and music theorist.-Biography:...
, wrote about Richter in 1782:
- "Ist ein sehr guter Contrapunktist und Kirchenkomponist." ("Is a very good contrapuntist and church composer.")
In Strasbourg Richter also had to direct the concerts at the Episcopal court (today Palais Rohan); in addition to that he was for a time also in charge of the town concerts which were held at regular intervals. The main part of Richter’s sacred music was composed during his Strasbourg years. He was active as a composer until his last year. During his last years Haydn's favourite pupil Ignaz Pleyel served as his assistant at the cathedral.
In 1787 he visited Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, where he met Mozart’s father Leopold, one last time. In Munich he met most of his former colleagues of the Mannheim court orchestra who by then had moved to Munich to where the court had been transferred.
From 1783 on, and due to Richter's advanced age and declining health, Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
's favourite pupil Ignaz Pleyel
Ignaz Pleyel
Ignace Joseph Pleyel , ; was an Austrian-born French composer and piano builder of the Classical period.-Early years:...
served as his assistant. He would succeed him at the post after his death.
Richter died an octogenarian in the year of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, and this was probably for the better. Thus he did not have to witness that his deputy Ignaz Pleyel was forced to write hymns to praise the supreme being and that Jean-Frédéric Edelmann
Jean-Frédéric Edelmann
Jean-Frédéric Edelmann was a French classical composer. He was born in Strasbourg but, after studying law and music, he moved to Paris in 1774 where he played and taught the piano. It is possible that Edelmann worked for some time in London. During the French Revolution he was appointed...
, a gifted composer from Strasbourg, would die under the guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
in his home town.
1770 Richter meets Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
, future queen of France, on her way from Vienna to Paris passed through the Alsatian capital, where she stayed at the Episcopal Palace, the Palais Rohan
Palais Rohan, Strasbourg
The Palais Rohan is one of the most important buildings in the city of Strasbourg in Alsace, France. It represents not only the high point of local baroque architecture, according to widespread opinion among art historians, but has also housed three of the most important museums in the city since...
. Richter, who almost certainly directed the church music when Marie Antoinette went to mass the next day, witnessed the earliest stages of historical events that would later contribute to the downfall of the French monarchy. The prelate who greeted Marie Antoinette on the steps of the cathedral, probably in Richter’s presence, was the same Louis Rohan who would later, duped by a prostitute impersonating Marie Antoinette, trigger the Affair of the Diamond Necklace
Affair of the diamond necklace
The Affair of the Diamond Necklace was a mysterious incident in the 1780s at the court of Louis XVI of France involving his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette. The reputation of the Queen, which was already tarnished by gossip, was ruined by the implication that she had participated in a crime to defraud...
. Several historians and writers think that this bizarre episode undermined the trust of the French in their queen and thus hastened the onset of the French Revolution.
But Richter did not live to see this. What he saw was Strasbourg all dressed up to greet the Dauphiness:
- "The city of Strasburg was in gala array. It had prepared for the dauphiness the splendours it had displayed 25 years before for the journey of Louis the Well-beloved. (...) Three companies of young children from twelve to fifteen years of age, habited as Cent-Suisses, formed the line along the passage of the princess. Twenty-four young girls of the most distinguished families of Strasbourg, dressed in the national costume, strewed flowers before her; and eighteen shepherds and shepherdesses presented her with baskets of flowers. (...)
- On the following day (May 8, 1770) Marie Antoinette visited the cathedral. By a strange coincidence the prelate who awaited her with the chapter at the entrance to felicitate her, and who greeted her "the soul of Maria Theresa about to unite itself to the soul of the Bourbons", was the nephew of the bishop, that prince, Louis de Rohan, who was later to inflict upon the dauphiness, become queen, the deadliest of injuries. But in the midst of the then so brilliant prospect who could discern these shadows?"
1778 Richter meets Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
and his father Leopold
Leopold Mozart
Johann Georg Leopold Mozart was a German composer, conductor, teacher, and violinist. Mozart is best known today as the father and teacher of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and for his violin textbook Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule.-Childhood and student years:He was born in Augsburg, son of...
knew Richter. Mozart would have meet him still as a boy on his Family Grand tour in 1763 when the Mozart family came through Schwetzingen, the summer residence of the Elector Palatinate.
Mozart met him once again in 1778 on his way back from Paris when he was headed for the unloved Salzburg after his plans to gain permanent employment in Mannheim or Paris had come to naught. In a letter to his father, dated November 2, 1778, Mozart seems to suggest that the by then elderly Richter was something of an alcoholic:
-
- "Strasbourg can scarcely do without me. You cannot think how much I am esteemed and beloved here. People say that I am disinterested as well as steady and polite, and praise my manners. Everyone knows me. As soon as they heard my name, the two Herrn Silbermann [i. e. Andreas Silbermann and Johann Andreas Silbermann] and Herr Hepp (organist) came to call on me, and also Kapellmeister Richter. He has now restricted himself very much ; instead of forty bottles of wine a day, he only drinks twenty! ... If the Cardinal had died, (and he was very ill when I arrived,) I might have got a good situation, for Herr Richter is seventy-eight years of age. Now farewell ! Be cheerful and in good spirits, and remember that your son is, thank God ! well, and rejoicing that his happiness daily draws nearer. Last Sunday I heard a new mass of Herr Richter's, which is charmingly written."
However, Mozart was not one to laud lightly. The epithet “charmingly written” can be taken at face value and from someone like Mozart this was high praise indeed.
Orchestral
- Symphonies (approximately 80 are extant)
- Thereof: Grandes Symphonies 1-6 (Paris 1744)
- Thereof: Grandes Symphonies 7-12 (Paris 1744)
- Several concertos for flute and orchestra, oboe and orchestra, and trumpet and orchestra
Sacred music
- Kempten Te Deum for soli, choir and orchestra (1745)
- 39 Masses
- La Deposizione della Croce (Oratorio, 1748)
- Numerous motets and psalms.
Chamber music
- Sonate da camera Op.2 Nr. 1-6 (sonatas for harpsichord, flute and violoncello)
- String quartets Op. 5 Nr. 1-6 (1757)
Sources
- Blume, FriedrichFriedrich BlumeFriedrich Blume was professor of Musicology in Kiel University from 1938-1958. He was a student in Munich, Berlin and Leipzig, and taught in the last two of these for some years before being called to the chair in Kiel. His early studies were on Lutheran church music, including several books on...
, Hrsg. Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik. Ungekürzte elektronische Ausgabe der ersten Auflage. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1949-1987. - Forkel, Johann NikolausJohann Nikolaus ForkelJohann Nikolaus Forkel , was a German musician, musicologist and music theorist.-Biography:...
. Musikalischer Almanach für Deutschland auf das Jahr 1782. Leipzig: Im Schwickertschen Verlag, 1781. - Funck-Brentano, Frantz. The Diamond Necklace. Translated by H. Sutherland Edwards. London: Greening & Co. LTD, 1911.
- Goncourt, Edmond et Jules de. Histoire de Marie Antoinette. Paris: G. Charpentier et Cie., 1884.
- Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Edited by Ludwig Nohl. Translated by Lady Wallace (i.e. Grace Jane WallaceGrace Jane Wallace-Life:She was the eldest daughter of John Stein of Edinburgh. She became, on 19 August 1824, the second wife of Sir Alexander Don, sixth baronet of Newton Don, and the intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott...
). Vol. 1. 2 vols. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1866. - Randel, Don Michael, ed. The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-674-37299-9
- Riemann, HugoHugo RiemannKarl Wilhelm Julius Hugo Riemann was a German music theorist.-Biography:Riemann was born at Grossmehlra, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen. He was educated in theory by Frankenberger, studied the piano with Barthel and Ratzenberger, studied law, and finally philosophy and history at Berlin and Tübingen...
. Handbuch der Musikgeschichte. Die Musik des 18. und 19. Jahrhhunderts. Zweite, von Alfred Einstein durchgesehene Auflage. Bd. II. V Bde. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1922. - Rocheterie, Maxime de la. The Life of Marie Antoinette. Translated by Cora Hamilton Bell. Vol. 1. 2 vols. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1895.
- Slonimsky, Nicolas, ed. Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. 5th Completely Revised Edition. New York, 1958.
- Alfried Wieczorek, Hansjörg Probst, Wieland Koenig, Hrsg. Lebenslust und Frömmigkeit - Kurfürst Carl Theodor (1724–1799) zwischen Barock und Aufklärung. Bd. 2. 2 Bde. Regensburg, 1999. ISBN 3-7917-1678-6
Discography (Selection)
- Grandes Symphonies (1744), Nos. 1-6 (Set 1) (Helsinki Baroque, Hakkinen) NAXOS 8.557818
- Grandes Symphonies (1744), Nos. 7-12 (Set 2) (Helsinki Baroque, Hakkinen) NAXOS 8.570597
- Sonate da camera (1764): Nos. 1-3 (Fred, Peltoniemi, Hakkinen) NAXOS 8.572029
- Symphonies (London Mozart Players, Bamert) Chandos