Carl philipp stamitz biography
Carl Stamitz
and the viola
Carl Stamitz is not a very familiar name to most music lovers but it has a special role in relation to the viola. He was a composer famous in his time as a violin and, especially, viola and viola d’amore virtuoso.
Born in , eleven years before Mozart, Carl Stamitz was the elder son of Johann, the founder of the so-called Mannheim school, and was the most famous member of the Stamitz family, a family of musicians particularly active in Mannheim (Germany) in the 18ᵗʰ century.
Carl joined the Mannheim orchestra when he was fifteen and there he became familiar with that style of orchestral playing and composing.
In , Carl Stamitz travelled to Paris and lived there more or less stably.
Carl philipp stamitz biography As a youth, Stamitz was employed as a violinist in the court orchestra at Mannheim. In , he resigned from his post and began travelling. Galant music Intermezzo Pastorale Sensitive style Turkish music style. Carl Philip Stamitz is the best-known representative of the second generation of composers who were active at the court of the Elector Palatine in Mannheim during the middle decades of the Eighteenth Century.He gave concerts several times at the Concert Spirituel with his brother Anton, also violin and viola player. In the following years he travelled as a virtuoso, visiting the most important north European cities, including Frankfurt, Augsburg, where his first string quartets were published in
He seems to have been in London from to , often collaborating with Johann Christian Bach, and where he published several of his works.
In The Hague he gave 28 concerts as a solo viola player at the local court between and At one of such concerts in the young Beethoven took part.
After his fame declined, Stamitz’s final years were marked by much travel, distributions of his compositions and requests for stable employment, including petitions sent to Wales and Russia.
In he was Kapellmeister and teacher at Jena University but died in poverty in At his death, his debt was so great that everything he owned was auctioned.
Carl Stamitz was one of the most prolific Mannheim orchestral composers, writing quartets, more than 50 symphonies, 60 concertos for several instruments and 38 symphonies concertante, a type of composition very fashionable in Mannheim and Paris.
See full list on classiccat.net In he went to Paris, where he went into service with Louis, Duke of Noailles , who made him his court composer. With Paris as his base, he made frequent concert tours to a number of German cities: on 12 April he appeared in Frankfurt ; a year later he was in Augsburg ; and in he ventured as far as the Russian capital, Saint Petersburg. Als PDF herunterladen Druckversion. Weblinks [ Bearbeiten Quelltext bearbeiten ].As a person, my feeling is that he must have been quite original, having chosen the viola as his favourite instrument.
At that time, and indeed until the 20ᵗʰ century, with Lionel Tertis and William Primrose, the normal thing for a virtuoso to do was to play violin and maybe, sometimes, pick up the viola.
Hector Berlioz tells that during his musical journeys in Europe, his Harold In Italy was always performed by the first violin of the orchestra, only once by one of the violas.
Carl Stamitz, instead, chose the viola as his virtuoso instrument.
Slonimsky, Nicolas, ed. Bakers Biographical Dictionary of Musicians.5th Completely Revised Edition. New York, 1958. The players created a sensation with their ability to play with subtlety and precision, as well as with a great dynamic range. Article Talk. Stylistically, Stamitz's music is not too far removed from the galante works of the young Mozart, or those of Haydn's middle period. Retrieve it.As a performer Carl’s style of playing must have been really impressive because there are several testimonies of his qualities, especially on viola and viola d’amore.
The music historian J.N. Forkel, who among other things wrote the first biography of Johann Sebastian Bach, in an article in gives a description of the viola which concludes with these words:
‘But would anyone who has heard Stamitz play the viola with a taste for majesty and tenderness, which appears to be peculiar only to him, not then declare himself for the viola, would he not then accept it among his favourite instruments’
Although Stamitz worked a lot as a viola virtuoso and published a great number of compositions during his life, few have survived and are performed now.
The following are some
Interesting works for the viola
- Stamitz Viola concerto
- Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra
- Duos for violin and viola, 2 violas, viola and viola d’amore.
This page of is recommended by the Encyclopaedia Britannica in their External Web sites section.
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