Richter, Franz Xaver

All

Richter, Franz Xaver

Adagio and Fugue in G minor for Strings

SKU: 1853 Category:

14,00 

Franz Xaver Richter

Adagio and Fugue in G minor for Strings

(b. Holleschau, Noravia, 1 December 1709 – gest. Straßburg, 12 September 1789 )

Preface
Franz Xaver Richter was a German composer of Moravian descent who was most prominent at the Mannheim court for chamber works, symphonies, and other orchestral works. Hugo Riemann regards Franz Richter as a “senior of the Mannheim School,” who exploits the “Mannheim symphonic style with his own differentiated dynamics and instrumentation.” Although Holleschau in Moravia is traditionally considered to be his hometown, no entry in the Holleschau church records confirm this assertion. Despite this lack of evidence, according to musicologist Jochen Reutter, it is likely that Richter spent his childhood in Moravia.

Richter traveled frequently: in 1746, he joined the Hofkapelle of the Elector Palatine Carl Theodor in Mannheim as a vocal bass, during the 1750s he travelled to France, England, and the Netherlands, and in 1760 he spent time in Bonn, where he applied for the post of Hofkapellmeister. Later on, he also composed some church music. Between 1760 and 1767 he wrote his treatise Harmonische Belehrungen, dedicated to the Elector Carl Theodor. This treatise is in fact a course in counterpoint on the models of Fux and Meinrad Spiess, but it also refers to more modern genres such as the solo concerto and the symphony. Little source material exists on the Six Sinfonie, Op. 3. The Sinfonia in G minor was published in 1760, according to Reutter. It is known that it was published in Paris (including this G minor Sinfonia) as a collection of works, so it is possible that it was composed during the 1750s when he traveled in France.

This symphony could be regarded as a precursor to the late eighteenth-century symphony because of Richter’s employment of the Baroque learned style (stile antico). Jochen Reutter claims that Richter‘s compositional idiom “changed from a late Baroque sound to a tonal language which reached the threshold of the Classical style.” According to Reutter, fugue, Baroque sequences, and minor tonalities are common to Richter’s compositions during his early period. Musicologist Bertil Van Boer suggests that the first movement, an Adagio and Fugue in G minor (1760) almost entirely based on various sequences and fugato passages (imitative texture), was perhaps influenced by Richter’s experience with the sophisticated contrapuntal style both in church compositions as well as in the writing of his treatise.

The Adagio can be seen as an introduction to the fugue—very different from the first movement sonata-allegro form that would become typical of later symphonies. The instrumentation is small, rather resembling a string quartet: two violins, a viola and a cello. The movement begins with the tonic key, G minor, entitled Adagio and Fugue. Unlike the primary theme in symphonies by Mozart and Haydn, Richter’s opening material does not offer an immediately recognizable melody. One could call the opening instead a primary key area rather than theme.

 

Read full preface / Komplettes Vorwort lesen > HERE

Score No.

Edition

Genre

Size

Printing

Pages

Go to Top