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★ Follow music ► Composer: Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (1657-1714) Work: Josephs neuer Kaiserthron: Musicalia bei dem Actu homagiali Mulhusino (1705) Performers: Judіt Schеrrеr (soprano); Mаtthіas Lucht (counter-tenor); Jаkob PіIgrаm (tenor); Domіnіk Wörnеr (bass); Concerto SteIIa Mаtutіnа Painting: Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734) - Verherrlichung des Thronfolgers Joseph (I.) als Kriegsheld und tugendhaften Mann, der schließlich als Sieger den Lorbeerkranz vor dem Thron der Ewigkeit empfängt Image in high resolution: Further info: Listen free: --- Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (Esens, bap. 25 July 1657 - Rudolstadt, 17 April 1714) German composer. He was one of the leading composers of his time in central Germany, especially of church music and more particularly of cantatas, of which he wrote several hundred. Erlebach probably received his earliest musical training at the East Friesian court. Through the family connections of the ruling house he was sent with a recommendation to Thuringia, where he was employed from 1678 to 1679, first as musician and valet and then, from 1681, as Kapellmeister, at the court of Count Albert Anton von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. At Rudolstadt he entered a lively musical environment. During his 33 years as Kapellmeister he not only succeeded in making this small establishment into a main centre of musical activity in Thuringia but also made a considerable name for himself in central Germany as a composer. He enjoyed both musical and personal relations with J.P. Krieger, Kapellmeister of the court at Weissenfels, and he paid visits to the ducal court of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and to Nuremberg, where several of his works were printed. In 1705 he took part, as a member of Albert Anton's retinue, in a ceremony of homage to the Emperor Joseph I at Mühlhausen, where, with the Rudolstadt court orchestra, he directed a large-scale ceremonial work, which he had composed for the occasion and which is his only music to survive in an autograph copy. He wrote several pieces for the funerals of Albert Anton (1710) and of his consort (1707). When Albert Anton's son Ludwig Friedrich came to the throne in 1711, the event was celebrated with a number of festival cantatas, all of which Erlebach also composed. In his last years he was revered and sought out above all as a teacher; Johann Caspar Vogler, who also studied with Bach, was one of the many musicians who learnt the rudiments of their craft from him. After his death the Rudolstadt court bought his collection of music from his widow; it included many sacred and secular works that were destroyed by fire in 1735 and are known now only from two extensive catalogues. Erlebach composed in nearly all the forms common at the time and was equally successful in instrumental and vocal works. Of his 120 or so instrumental works there survive only six suites, six trio sonatas and a march. The suites show the influence of French orchestral suites, and the trio sonatas that of the Italian sonata da camera; in all these works Erlebach succeeded in uniting foreign formal elements with German features, which can be seen above all in the distinctly folklike nature of some of the melodic material and which also produces sonorities reminiscent of those of vocal music. Erlebach was most prolific as a composer of church music, which was the field in which he began his career as a composer about 1680. His sacred music embraces a cappella motets for four or more voices, concertato psalms and hymns, masses, oratorios (the Christmas, Easter, Resurrection and Whitsuntide stories and pieces for the New Year) and various kinds of cantata. All the oratorios are lost, and only some of their texts are extant. But his best works in the other genres bear witness to his mastery as a composer of church music. His psalm settings, which adhere to the style of the sacred concerto for large forces, are interesting particularly for their colourful harmonies, precisely indicated contrasts of tempo and dynamics and free use of madrigalian motifs: such features, following in the wake of Schütz's achievements, helped to enhance the importance of works of this type, at least in central Germany. Erlebach soon began to specialize as a composer of cantatas. Most of them are lost, but their texts show a logical development from those closely adhering to Gospel passages, through those containing arias and concerto-like textures conceived on soloistic lines, to cantatas based on free texts with recitative and da capo arias, and to solo cantatas with an obbligato instrument.
