Johann Kusser
Encyclopedia
Johann Sigismund Kusser or Cousser (baptised 13 February 1660, Pressburg (Bratislava
) – November 1727, Dublin) was a German composer who settled in Ireland.
in Pressburg, Johann Sigismund and his parents moved to Stuttgart
in 1674. Two years later he went to spend six years in Paris
and the Palace of Versailles
. There he met the French court composer Jean-Baptiste Lully
and learned from him how to compose in the French style. Kusser was then employed at the princely courts in Baden-Baden
and Ansbach
, before in October 1683 taking a trip to Germany.
In 1690 he became the first Kapellmeister
of the new opera house in Braunschweig. In the following years he married Hedwig Melusine von Damm, daughter of a Ratsherr of Braunschweig
. Their daughter Auguste Elisabeth married the Braunhschweig chronicler Philipp Julius Rehtmeyer. During his time in Braunschweig Kussler wrote eight operas, enriching the Italian-influenced repertoire. Disagreements in 1694 with the librettist and court poet Friedrich Christian Bressand
led Kussler to move to the Oper am Gänsemarkt
in Hamburg
. He then left Hamburg at the end of 1695 and, after spells working in Nuremberg
and Augsburg
, took a post at the court of Eberhard Louis, Duke of Württemberg in 1699, being made Hofkapellmeister there the following year.
At the end of 1704 he moved to London as a composer and private music teacher. In 1707 he went to Dublin and in 1711 was made Chapel-Master of Trinity College, Dublin
. He was then appointed "Chief Composer" and "Master of the Music, attending His Majesties State in Ireland" in 1716, dying in Dublin in 1727. Kusser's works are now rarely played, but he influenced the following generation of composers, such as Reinhard Keiser
, Johann Mattheson
, Georg Philipp Telemann
, Christoph Graupner
, Georg Caspar Schürmann
and Georg Friedrich Händel.
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
) – November 1727, Dublin) was a German composer who settled in Ireland.
Life
The son of Johann Kusser, a Protestant cantorCantor
Cantor is surname of:* Andrés Cantor , Spanish-language soccer announcer* Anthony Cantor , British diplomat* Arthur Cantor , American theatrical producer* Aviva Cantor , American journalist, lecturer and author...
in Pressburg, Johann Sigismund and his parents moved to Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
in 1674. Two years later he went to spend six years in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and the Palace of Versailles
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....
. There he met the French court composer Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...
and learned from him how to compose in the French style. Kusser was then employed at the princely courts in Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden is a spa town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the western foothills of the Black Forest, on the banks of the Oos River, in the region of Karlsruhe...
and Ansbach
Ansbach
Ansbach, originally Onolzbach, is a town in Bavaria, Germany. It is the capital of the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Ansbach is situated southwest of Nuremberg and north of Munich, on the Fränkische Rezat, a tributary of the Main river. As of 2004, its population was 40,723.Ansbach...
, before in October 1683 taking a trip to Germany.
In 1690 he became the first Kapellmeister
Kapellmeister
Kapellmeister is a German word designating a person in charge of music-making. The word is a compound, consisting of the roots Kapelle and Meister . The words Kapelle and Meister derive from the Latin: capella and magister...
of the new opera house in Braunschweig. In the following years he married Hedwig Melusine von Damm, daughter of a Ratsherr of Braunschweig
Braunschweig
Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
. Their daughter Auguste Elisabeth married the Braunhschweig chronicler Philipp Julius Rehtmeyer. During his time in Braunschweig Kussler wrote eight operas, enriching the Italian-influenced repertoire. Disagreements in 1694 with the librettist and court poet Friedrich Christian Bressand
Friedrich Christian Bressand
Friedrich Christian Bressand was a Baroque German poet and opera librettist.-Life:Bressands too-short life was predominantly in the service of German courts. He was born the son of the Margrave of Durlach's personal cook, but was forced to flee the town when it was destroyed by French troops in 1689...
led Kussler to move to the Oper am Gänsemarkt
Oper am Gänsemarkt
Oper am Gänsemarkt was a theatre in Hamburg, Germany, built in 1678. It was torn down in 1765...
in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
. He then left Hamburg at the end of 1695 and, after spells working in Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
and Augsburg
Augsburg
Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...
, took a post at the court of Eberhard Louis, Duke of Württemberg in 1699, being made Hofkapellmeister there the following year.
At the end of 1704 he moved to London as a composer and private music teacher. In 1707 he went to Dublin and in 1711 was made Chapel-Master of Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
. He was then appointed "Chief Composer" and "Master of the Music, attending His Majesties State in Ireland" in 1716, dying in Dublin in 1727. Kusser's works are now rarely played, but he influenced the following generation of composers, such as Reinhard Keiser
Reinhard Keiser
Reinhard Keiser was a popular German opera composer based in Hamburg. He wrote over a hundred operas, and in 1745 Johann Adolph Scheibe considered him an equal to Johann Kuhnau, George Frideric Handel and Georg Philipp Telemann , but his work was largely forgotten for many...
, Johann Mattheson
Johann Mattheson
Johann Mattheson was a German composer, writer, lexicographer, diplomat and music theorist.Mattheson was born and died in Hamburg. He was a close friend of George Frideric Handel, although he nearly killed him in a sudden quarrel, during a performance of Mattheson's opera Cleopatra in 1704...
, Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually...
, Christoph Graupner
Christoph Graupner
Christoph Graupner was a German harpsichordist and composer of high Baroque music who lived and worked at the same time as Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann and George Frideric Handel.-Graupner's life:Born in Hartmannsdorf near Kirchberg in Saxony, Graupner received his first musical...
, Georg Caspar Schürmann
Georg Caspar Schürmann
Georg Caspar Schürmann was a German Baroque composer. His name also appears as Schurmann and in Hochdeutsch as Scheuermann.-Life:...
and Georg Friedrich Händel.
Instrumental works
- Composition de Musique (1682), a collection of overtures
- Three collections of suites: Apollon Enjoüé, Festin des Muses and La cicala della cetra d'eunomio (1700)
Stage works
- Cleopatra (Libretto presumed to be by Friedrich Christian Bressand after Giacomo Francesco Bussani, Giulio Cesare in Egitto), Opera in a prologue and three acts (premiered 4 February 1690 Braunschweig)
- Julia (ibid.?), Opera in 3 acts (1690 ibid.)
- La Grotta di Salzdahl (Flaminio Parisetti), Divertimento 1 Akt (new year 1691 ibid.)
- Narcissus (Gottlieb Fiedler), Opera in prologue and 3 acts (4 October 1692 ibid.; Kusser is referred to on the Libretto [Hamburg 1692] as Ober-Capellmeister)
- Andromeda, Singspiel 3 Akte (1692 ibid.)
- Ariadne (Bressand), Oper 5 Akte (15. Dez. 1692 ibid.)
- Jason (ibid.), Singspiel 5 Akte (1. Sept. 1692 ibid.)
- Porus (ibid., after Jean RacineJean RacineJean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
), SingspielSingspielA Singspiel is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera...
in 5 acts (1693 ibid.); reworked by Christian Heinrich Postel and put on in Hamburg in 1694 as Der durch Groß-Muth und Tapfferkeit besiegte Porus under Kusser's direction - Erindo oder Die unsträfliche Liebe (Bressand), Schäferspiel 3 acts (1694 Hamburg)
- Der großmütige Scipio Africanus (Fiedler, after Nicolò MinatoNicolò MinatoCount Nicolò Minato was an Italian poet, librettist and impresario. His career can be divided into two parts: the years he spent at Venice, from 1650 to 1669, and the years at Vienna, from 1669 until his death....
), Opera in 3 acts (1694 Hamburg) - Pyramus und Thisbe getreue und festverbundene Liebe (C. Schröder), Opera with prologue (possibly never staged)
- Der verliebte Wald, Singspiel in 1 Act (? Stuttgart)
- Gensericus, als Rom und Karthagens Überwinder (Postel), Opera (1694? Hamburg); dubious attribution, possibly even by Johann Georg ConradiJohann Georg ConradiJohann Georg Conradi was a German composer. He was, with Johann Theile, Nicolaus Adam Strungk, Johann Philipp Fortsch, Johann Wolfgang Franck and Johann Sigismund Kusser one of the main composers of the early Hamburg Opera....
- The Man of ModeThe Man of ModeThe Man of Mode, or, Sir Fopling Flutter is a Restoration comedy by George Etherege, written in 1676 and first performed March 2 of the same year. Gibbons argues that the play "offers the comedy of manners in its most concentrated form"...
(play by George EtheregeGeorge EtheregeSir George Etherege was an English dramatist. He wrote the plays The Comical Revenge or, Love in a Tub in 1664, She Would if She Could in 1668, and The Man of Mode or, Sir Fopling Flutter in 1676.-Early life:George Etherege was born in Maidenhead, Berkshire, around 1635, to George Etherege and...
) (9 February 1705 London, Little Lincoln's Inn FieldsLincoln's Inn FieldsLincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London, UK. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes...
)