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Alles Gute zum Geburtstag Johann Mattheson! 🎹🥂 Composer: Johann Mattheson (1681-1764) Work: Suite in G-moll () Performers: Richаrd Egаrr (cembalo); Pаtrick Ayrtοn (cembalo) Drawing: Friedrich Bernhard Werner (1690-1776) - Hamburgum (1740) HD image: Engraving: Johann Jakob Haid (1704-1767) - Johann Mattheson HD image: Further info: Listen free: --- Johann Mattheson (Hamburg, 28 September 1681 - Hamburg, 17 April 1764) German composer, critic, music journalist, lexicographer and theorist. He was the third and only surviving son of Johann Mattheson, a Hamburg tax collector, and Margaretha Höling of Rendsburg (Holstein). Details of Mattheson’s life come largely from his autobiography published in the Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte. His education was exceptionally broad, perhaps because his parents hoped he would gain a position in Hamburg society. At the Johanneum he received a substantial background in the liberal arts, including musical instruction from Kantor Joachim Gerstenbüttel. He also had private instruction in dancing, drawing, arithmetic, riding, fencing, and English, French and Italian. At six he began private music lessons, studying the keyboard and composition for four years with J.N. Hanff, taking singing lessons from a local musician named Woldag and instruction on the gamba, violin, flute, oboe and lute. At nine Mattheson was a child prodigy, performing on the organ and singing in Hamburg churches. His unusual talent attracted the court circle and he was frequently asked to play and sing. Having previously sung mainly in the chorus and in minor roles, Mattheson made his solo début in female roles when the opera company visited Kiel in 1696. By the following year his voice had changed, and he began to take tenor roles in which he had considerable success up to 1705. Mattheson led an exceedingly rich musical life in these 15 years with the Hamburg opera; he sang and conducted rehearsals under such composers as J.G. Conradi, J.S. Kusser and Reinhard Keiser. He testified to learning the new, Italian manner of singing from Kusser. In 1699 he wrote and had performed his first opera, Die Plejades. Mattheson met Handel in 1703, and a mutually beneficial friendship developed over the next three years: Mattheson said that he influenced the growth of Handel’s musical style, particularly by teaching him how to compose in the dramatic style; he also probably obtained for Handel a position in the opera orchestra as second violinist and harpsichordist. During his professional career Mattheson not only performed in some 65 new operas but wrote several of his own. He became a virtuoso organist and found time to become involved in numerous social and musical activities, including teaching. In 1703 he was invited (as was Handel) to apply for the position of organist to succeed Dietrich Buxtehude at the Marienkirche in Lübeck. Mattheson and Handel travelled together to Lübeck for the auditions. They both turned down the position. Mattheson also declined invitations to other important positions as organist, including one at the Pfarrkirche in Haarlem and, as successor to the distinguished J.A. Reincken, at the Catharinenkirche in Hamburg. In 1704 Mattheson became a tutor of Cyrill Wich, son of the English ambassador to Hamburg, Sir John Wich. This position was the turning point in his career, offering him employment with social status and a considerable salary. He proved himself so capable that in January 1706 he was made secretary to Sir John Wich, a position he retained for most of his life, continuing with the same responsibilities when Wich’s son was appointed his father’s successor in 1715. In 1709 Mattheson married Catharina Jennings (?-1753), daughter of an English minister. In 1715 he became music director of Hamburg Cathedral. He was forced to resign this position in 1728, primarily as the result of increasing deafness; he was completely deaf by 1735. In 1719 Mattheson was appointed Kapellmeister to the court of the Duke of Holstein. During the extraordinarily productive years between 1715 and 1740 he wrote not only numerous important scores and treatises but also many translations from English of books. He also translated several English histories, novels and philosophical works, and produced a steady flow of articles for journals published in Hamburg. In 1741 Mattheson received the title of Legation Secretary to the Duke of Holstein, and in 1744 was promoted to ‘Legations-Rat’. After the death of his wife, he decided to donate the bulk of a considerable fortune, some 44,000 marks, to the Michaeliskirche in Hamburg for the rebuilding of the great organ destroyed by fire. He requested that in return he and his wife be buried in the church.
