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(Kârl Hin’-rikh Groun) 1703/4–59 German composer Graun worked in the opera at Dresden and then at Brunswick (where he wrote six operas), before becoming Kapellmeister in 1735 to Frederick, the Prussian prince. He was promoted to royal Kapellmeister when Frederick (who later acquired the title ‘the Great’) acceded in 1740. Graun was put in charge of the new Berlin court opera ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Classical Era
• Composer

post-Revolution role as civic composer and ‘democratizer of art’. Recommended Recording: Sinfonias, London Mozart Players (cond) Matthias Bamert (Chandos) Introduction | Classical Era | Classical Personalities | Carl Heinrich Graun | Classical Era | Classical ...

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way by the middle of the eighteenth century to agreeable, elegant and affecting melody. The writer J. A. Scheibe said: ‘Who can listen to a symphony by Hasse or Graun without pleasure and benefit ?’ – as opposed, he meant, to the learned complexities of Bachian counterpoint. Enlightenment Operas Increasingly, the vernacular forms of opera (Singspiel, ...

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as a demanding martinet. His control over operas performed in Berlin was unprecedented, even in an age of royal despotism. No libretto could reach Frederick’s composers, Hasse or Graun, unless the king had seen and approved it first. He also composed his own plots for operas and insisted on supervising the design of the stage sets and costumes. ...