Richter, Franz Xaver

FRANZ XAVER RICHTER – THE PERIODICAL OVERTURE IN 8 PARTS XVIII

(1709–1789)

Published by Robert Bremner at the Harp and Hautboy, opposite Somerset-House, in the Strand
Issued: before 7 February 1767; price 2 shillings
Source: Henry Watson Music Library – Courtesy of Manchester Libraries,
Information and Archives, Manchester City Council: BR580Rm35
Instrumentation: 2 violins, viola, basso, 2 oboes, 2 horns [originally in D]
Editors: Barnaby Priest & Alyson McLamore

COMMENTARY
We do not know if printer Robert Bremner (c.1713–1789) had heard—prior to 1761—any examples of the new symphonic effects propagated by the Mannheim school, but he certainly was introduced to them by fellow Scot Thomas Alexander Erskine (1732–1781), the sixth Earl of Kelly. Kelly had spent several years in Mannheim, studying composition with the orchestral leader Johann Stamitz (1717–1757), and he applied his knowledge to his own six symphonies that Bremner published in Edinburgh in 1761, a year before the printer’s move to London. However, in the metropolis, concert-goers had been able to hear the new Mannheim approach as early as 1758. On 25 May of that year, the singer Christian Koerbitz announced that one of the attractions of his benefit concert would be symphonies by Franz Xaver Richter (1709–1789), who was “Cabinet Composer to the Highness the Elector Palatine” and “who lately arrived from Germany.” Two years later, in 1760, Richter had his Opus 2 symphonies printed by the London publisher John Walsh (although Richter had already published them in Amsterdam the preceding year). Therefore, when Bremner began including various Mannheim composers in his Periodical Overtures series, he was selling these works to many customers who were already prepared for the novel orchestral treatment. …

read more / (German preface not available)  … > HERE

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