Sebastian Mayer (1773 – 9 May 1835) was a bass singer and stage director of the Classical era

Classical period (music)

The dates of the Classical Period in Western music are generally accepted as being between about 1750 and 1830. However, the term classical music is used colloquially to describe a variety of Western musical styles from the ninth century to the present, and especially from the sixteenth or...

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Life

Mayer was born at Benediktbeuern

Benediktbeuern

Benediktbeuern is a municipality in the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen in Bavaria, Germany. The distance between Bichl and Benediktbeuern is only 2 kilometers, or 1.25 miles. The village has about 3,500 residents as of 2004....

. In 1793, he joined the theater company of Emanuel Schikaneder

Emanuel Schikaneder

Emanuel Schikaneder , born Johann Joseph Schickeneder, was a German impresario, dramatist, actor, singer and composer. He was the librettist of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Magic Flute and the builder of the Theater an der Wien...

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On 23 December 1797, he became the second husband of Josepha (Weber) Hofer

Josepha Weber

Josepha Weber was a German soprano of the classical era...

, the sister of Constanze Mozart

Constanze Mozart

Constanze Mozart was the wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.-Early years:Constanze Weber was born in Zell im Wiesental. Her mother was Cäcilia Weber, née Stamm. Her father Fridolin Weber worked as a "double bass player, prompter and music copyist." Fridolin's half-brother was the father of composer...

. Constanze was the widow of 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...

, who had died in 1791. Mayer's best man at this wedding was Emanuel Schikaneder

Emanuel Schikaneder

Emanuel Schikaneder , born Johann Joseph Schickeneder, was a German impresario, dramatist, actor, singer and composer. He was the librettist of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Magic Flute and the builder of the Theater an der Wien...

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In 1805, he participated in the premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

's opera Fidelio

Fidelio

Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...

, taking the part of Pizarro. The role apparently gave him difficulty, as the following quotation from Thayer

Alexander Wheelock Thayer

Alexander Wheelock Thayer , was a librarian and journalist who became the author of the first scholarly biography of Ludwig van Beethoven, still after many updatings regarded as a standard work of reference on the composer.-Life:Originally a librarian at Harvard law school, Thayer became aware of...

's biography of Beethoven (p. 326) indicates:

the voice moves over a series of scales, played by all the strings, so that the singer at each note which he has to utter, hears an appoggiatura of a minor second

Minor second

In modern Western tonal music theory a minor second is the interval between two notes on adjacent staff positions, or having adjacent note letters, whose alterations cause them to be one semitone or half-step apart, such as B and C or C and D....

 from the orchestra. The Pizarro of 1805 was unable with all his gesticulation and writhing to avoid the difficulty, the more since the mischievous players in the orchestra below maliciously emphasized the minor second by accentuation. Don Pizarro, snorting with rage, was thus at the mercy of the bows of the fiddlers. This aroused laughter. The singer, whose conceit was thus wounded, thereupon flew into a rage and hurled at the composer among other remarks the words: 'My brother-in-law would never have written such damned nonsense'

Mayer was apparently at least partly responsible for the preparation of the production, as he was the recipient of a letter from Beethoven filled with complaints and asking for more rehearsal and preparation.

Mayer, who was also active as stage director at the Theater an der Wien

Theater an der Wien

The Theater an der Wien is a historic theatre on the Left Wienzeile in the Mariahilf district of Vienna. Completed in 1801, it has seen the premieres of many celebrated works of theatre, opera, and symphonic music...

, died in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

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Assessment

Mayer is described in Thayer

Alexander Wheelock Thayer

Alexander Wheelock Thayer , was a librarian and journalist who became the author of the first scholarly biography of Ludwig van Beethoven, still after many updatings regarded as a standard work of reference on the composer.-Life:Originally a librarian at Harvard law school, Thayer became aware of...

's biography of Beethoven (p. 326) as "moderately gifted bass singer, but a very good actor, and of the noblest and most refined taste in vocal music, opera as well as oratorio"