Georg Benda
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Georg Anton Benda (Template:Langx; 30 June 1722Template:Snd6 November 1795) was a Bohemian composer, violinist and Kapellmeister of the classical period.
Biography
Born into a family of notable musicians in Old Benatek (today Benátky nad Jizerou), Bohemia, he studied at the Piarist Gymnasium (grammar school) in Kosmanos and at the Jesuit Gymnasium in Gitschin from 1735 to 1742.[1] Benda was 19 when Frederick the Great bestowed upon him in 1741 the position of second violinist in the chapel of Berlin. The following year Benda was summoned to Potsdam as a composer and arranger for his older brother Franz, himself an illustrious composer and violinist.[2] Seven years later, in 1749, he entered the service of the Duke of Gotha as Kapellmeister, where he constantly cultivated his talents for composition, specializing in religious music.
A stipend from the duke allowed Benda to take a study trip to Italy in 1764. He returned to Gotha in 1766, and devoted himself to composition. In all, he wrote about ten operas, several operettas, and the melodramas Script error: No such module "Lang"., Medea and Script error: No such module "Lang".. In 1778 he resigned his position and visited Hamburg, Vienna and other cities, and finally settled at the little hamlet of Köstritz.[3]
Script error: No such module "Listen". Benda's most important contribution lies in the development of the German melodramas, a form of musical stage entertainment which influenced Mozart. In 1774, the Swiss-born director Abel Seyler's theatrical company arrived in Gotha, and Seyler commissioned Benda to write several successful melodramas, including Ariadne auf Naxos, Medea and Pygmalion. Ariadne auf Naxos is generally considered his best work. At its debut in 1775, the opera received enthusiastic reviews in Germany and afterwards, in the whole of Europe, with music critics calling attention to its originality, sweetness, and ingenious execution. Besides that he wrote many instrumental pieces including many sinfonias, keyboard sonatas, keyboard concertos, violin concertos and a smaller number of trio sonatas, violin sonatas and flute sonatas.
Benda also wrote music for masonic rituals.[4]
Benda died in Köstritz, Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, at the age of 73, leaving his son, Friedrich Ludwig Benda (1752–1796), who briefly carried on the family musical tradition, serving as a music director in Hamburg and later at Ludwigslust Castle in Mecklenburg,[5] before finally becoming the concertmaster in Königsberg. He died less than a year after his father.
Benda's Harpsichord Concerto in C was featured in Apple Computer's 1987 Knowledge Navigator concept video.[6][7]
Operas and Melodramas
- Script error: No such module "Lang". (libretto by Giovanni Andrea Galletti, opera seria, 1765, Gotha)
- Script error: No such module "Lang". (libretto by Galletti, Intermezzo, 1766, Gotha)
- Script error: No such module "Lang". (Intermezzo, 1766, Gotha)
- Script error: No such module "Lang". (libretto by Template:Interlanguage link, melodrama, 1775, Gotha)
- Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "Lang".) (libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter, Singspiel, 1775, Gotha)
- Medea (libretto by Gotter, melodrama, 1775, Leipzig)
- Walder (libretto by Gotter, Singspiel, 1776, Gotha)
- Script error: No such module "Lang". (libretto by Gotter, Singspiel, 1776, Gotha)
- Script error: No such module "Lang". (libretto by Gotter, Singspiel, 1778, Gotha)
- Pygmalion (libretto by Gotter, melodrama, 1779, Vienna)
- Script error: No such module "Lang"., revised as Almansor und Nadine (1791), (unknown librettist, melodrama, 1779, Vienna)[8][9]
- Script error: No such module "Lang". (libretto by Gotter, Singspiel, 1787, Mannheim)
References
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- ↑ Landeshauptarchiv Schwerin : (Personal file) 2.26-1 Grand Ducal Cabinet, Court Chapel, No. 6956 (1783), No. 631 (1785) and No. 12635 (1788)
- ↑ Apple's 1987 Knowledge Navigator Video
- ↑ Jiří Antonín Benda - Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings in C major - Mezzo alegro
- ↑ Glatthorn, Austin (2020). "Introduction" in Georg Anton Benda, Philon und Theone, ed. Austin Glatthorn, Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, 115. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions doi:10.31022/C115.
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Further reading
- REDIRECT Template:Cite ADB
- "4. Georg (Anton) [Jiří Antonín] Benda" by John D. Drake, Thomas Bauman, Zdeňka Pilková, chapter 4 of "Benda family" in Grove Music Online Script error: No such module "CS1 identifiers". Template:Link note
- "1. Georg (Anton) [Jiří Antonín] Benda" by Thomas Bauman, chapter 1 of "Benda family (opera)" in Grove Music Online Script error: No such module "CS1 identifiers". Template:Link note
- Template:Cite Americana
External links
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- Free scores by Georg Benda at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- List of operas, italianopera.org
Template:Georg Benda Template:Classical period (music) Template:Portal bar Template:Authority control
- Pages with script errors
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- Composers with IMSLP links
- Articles with International Music Score Library Project links
- 1722 births
- 1795 deaths
- 18th-century classical composers from Bohemia
- 18th-century German composers
- 18th-century male musicians
- Composers of masonic music
- Classical-period composers from Bohemia
- Czech opera composers
- German male classical composers
- German opera composers
- Czech male opera composers
- People from Benátky nad Jizerou
- Seyler theatrical company