AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Performance
• Classical
• Classical Era

One of the catalysts of eighteenth-century music was the Palatine court at Mannheim under Elector Carl Theodor, who reigned from 1742 until he became Elector of Bavaria in 1778 and the court dissolved. Carl Theodor appointed Johann Stamitz (1717–57) leader of the orchestra in the 1740s and director in 1750. Stamitz assembled an orchestra of unprecedented skill, many of ...

• Instruments
• Classical
• Classical Era

a mouthpiece. Clarinets began to appear in music by J. C. Bach and Arne in the 1760s, although they differed in several ways from the modern instrument. The famous Mannheim orchestra championed it. Mozart wrote parts for it in his Divertimento K113, perhaps as a result of his travels to the Mannheim court. His operas make extensive, if ...

• Instruments
• Woodwind

uppermost pitches are known as the ‘extreme register’. The Clarinet in Performance Composers used the clarinet as early as 1716 in Antonio Vivaldi’s (1678–1741) Juditha triumpans but it was the Mannheim Orchestra that most boosted the instrument’s popularity, causing Mozart to rue the lack of them in his orchestra. He wrote a number of pieces especially for versions of the ...

• Instruments
• Classical
• Classical Era

to rewrite it for performances elsewhere, since the instrument was not otherwise available. Nevertheless, improved communications meant that news travelled and comparisons were made between different orchestras. The Mannheim ensemble was particularly influential in orchestral development, but commentators at the time also noted the Elector of Saxony’s orchestra and the opera orchestra in Turin. The classical orchestra settled ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Early Romantic

(Frants Dant’-se) 1763–1826 German composer At the age of 15 Danzi was a cellist in the famous Mannheim orchestra. He was appointed deputy Kapellmeister in Munich in 1798, and in 1807 became Kapellmeister in Stuttgart, where he befriended Weber, before holding a similar position in Karlsrühe. Danzi’s positions as theatre Kapellmeister encouraged him to compose extensively for the stage ...

• Personalities
• Early Romantic
• Opera

he finally found his niche. It happened when, at his own expense, Schiller published his revolutionary drama Die Raüber (‘The Robbers’, 1781). When the play was staged in Mannheim in 1782, it was an encouraging success, but the playwright, who was still in the army, was arrested for attending the first night without the permission ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Classical Era
• Composer

favour and acclaim at the concerts he arranged with his friend the composer Abel, and from here they became more widely known. Later J. C. Bach wrote operas for Mannheim and Paris, but his reputation enjoyed only a relatively brief moment in the spotlight, and his renown soon faded. This particular Bach died young, in straitened circumstances. ...

• Personalities
• Classical Era
• Opera

Queen Charlotte, with its delicate orchestration. Subsequently, Johann Christian was appointed music master to the queen. However, he continued to write for European opera houses, in Mannheim, Germany and Paris, which staged his last opera Amadis de Gaule (1779). His final London opera was La clemenza di Scipione (‘Scipio’s Mercy’), which was staged in 1778. ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Classical Era
• Composer

(Yo’-han Vent’-zel An’-ton Shta’-mit) 1717–57 Bohemian composer Born in Bohemia, by 1741 Stamitz was working at the Mannheim court, where he became leading violinist in 1743, Konzertmeister soon after, and director in 1750. He made the Mannheim orchestra the most famous in Europe for its discipline and its capacity to achieve new effects. Although he composed concertos and ...

• Personalities
• Classical Era
• Opera

for performance in Italy. Among the first was Ifigenia in Aulide (1751), which was set to music by Jommelli. Some 10 years later, Verazi was at the court in Mannheim, which later moved to Munich. Verazi went too. The most important libretti that he wrote while in Munich included Sofonisba (1762), written for music by Traetta, and an ...

• Personalities
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

1850–1900, Czech Although little known today, during his lifetime Fibich was fêted as the successor to Smetana and certainly commanded operatic attention equal to Dvořák. He studied initially with his mother in Prague, then in Leipzig, Paris and Mannheim. His early adult life was far from easy, with the death of his wife less than a ...

• Classical
• Classical Era

of the reasons for the synthesis in Vienna of national styles drawn from the rest of Europe. Key Events 1750 Johann Stamitz appointed leader of Europe’s finest orchestra, at Mannheim c. 1762 Robert Adam’s Syon House echoes classical Roman architectural styles 1770s Haydn’s early mature works; classical era in music reckoned to start 1775 American Revolution against the British begins ...

• Opera
• Classical Era

wider appeal and mirrored the concerns of real people in the real, everyday world. Key Events 1750 Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz appointed leader of Europe’s finest orchestra – the Mannheim 1755 Samuel Johnson publishes his dictionary 1756 The Seven Years’ War begins 1762 Catherine the Great becomes ruler of Russia 1770 Captain Cook claims New Zealand and Eastern Australia for ...

• Personalities
• Classical Era
• Opera

last opera Mozart completed in Salzburg: Il rè pastore (‘The Shepherd King’, 1775), a static, serenata-type piece in the pastoral tradition. Triumph in Munich After his fateful journey to Mannheim and Paris in 1777–78, Mozart began a Singspiel with a fashionable oriental setting – Zaide (unfinished, 1779). Its many beauties include a glorious quartet and, uniquely in ...

• Classical
• Classical Era

Bologna, the centre of learning; Paris and London, the two great commercial capital cities, had more wealth and a wider public than anywhere else; while in Germany Mannheim (until 1778) was the centre of orchestral music, Dresden remained a major operatic centre, Berlin was growing in cultural importance and Leipzig was becoming a centre of publishing ...