Music at German courts, 1715–1760: Changing artistic priorities (original) (raw)

2011, The Boydell Press eBooks

Early modern Germany had a common language and to a large extent a shared culture, yet the lack of a centralized seat of power meant that each of its kingdoms and principalities had its own Residenzstadt, the seat of one of a bewildering array of electors, dukes, princes, prince-bishops, landgraves and margraves. For most of these rulers, the challenge of holding in tension the shifting imperatives of cooperation and competition in the political and military spheres also extended to the cultural arena, where it was played out in part through the maintenance of a court musical establishment as extensive as the budget could accommodate (and sometimes more). While there is a long tradition of scholarship on music in the German courts, it has tended to be fragmentary, and much of it has not been readily accessible in English. The editors of this volume are therefore to be congratulated on assembling a systematically organized collection of essays by an impressive international panel of scholars, each of whom is an expert on a particular court and its archival sources. While the book makes no claims to comprehensiveness-the selection of case studies was, as the editors note, ultimately dependent on the willingness of expert scholars to share their research, as well as the survival of relevant primary sources-it is nevertheless a wideranging and representative study of German courts and their musical practices during a crucial period of development and change in the early-and mid-eighteenth century. It includes much new and occasionally surprising information, and a substantial amount of material made available in English for the first time. This ranges from the complex logistics of the Warsaw Kapelle of the Saxon kings of Poland (Alina _ Zòrawska-Witkowska), to a reappraisal of the sometimes lurid contemporary accounts of Margrave Carl Wilhelm of Baden-Durlach, whose 'seraglio' of sixty female Hofsängerinnen [court singers] waited upon him in Turkish-style tents pitched in the pheasant garden, and followed his coach on horseback, dressed as hussars (Rüdiger Thomsen-Fürst). In line with the theme of 'changing artistic priorities' announced in the volume's subtitle, the editors have opted for a 'snapshot' approach, examining the state of music in each court in 1715, 1730, 1745 and 1760. In practice, the 'snapshot' years necessarily vary in each essay, depending on the vagaries of surviving records and disruptive events such as the seven-years war, but this variability paradoxically highlights why this approach is valuable: it allows for a chronological survey of the changing artistic and political priorities of different rulers over a significant period, while also acknowledging the changing practical circumstances that inevitably affected artistic outcomes and the professional lives of musicians. A particular contribution of this collection is the inclusion of comprehensive tables of key artistic personnel at each court at each 'snapshot' date. These are an invaluable resource for tracing the career paths of individual musicians within and between courts, and also provide insight into the changing organizational structures and numerical strengths of individual court music establishments over a period of almost half a century. Apart from the value of the essays themselves, these tables alone would surely make this volume an indispensable reference for years to come. Samantha Owens' and Barbara Reul's admirably clear and concise introductory chapter provides a broader context for the individual case studies that follow. They clarify terminology that may be unfamiliar to non-specialists, and highlight both the Reviews 125