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THE POLISH-SAXON EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF GREGOR JOSEPH WERNER
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 August 2019
Extract
Musicological literature devoted to the life and works of Gregor Joseph Werner (1693–1766) has remained very limited. Researchers have usually been motivated to discover more about him for two reasons: the fact that from 1728 he was Kapellmeister at the court of the Esterházy princes in Eisenstadt, and that while there he met and worked with the great Joseph Haydn. It is no exaggeration to claim that Werner is usually mentioned only because of this association: he has found his way into music history on account of his connection with Haydn. However, this approach leaves too much room for a superficial assessment of Werner's achievements as a composer. Haydn valued his music and commented on it favourably. His private music collection included Werner's Good Friday oratorios and arrangements of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. In a striking testament to the respect he had for Werner's music, Haydn also arranged six of Werner's fugues for string quartet, writing his own musical introductions, and published them with Artaria in Vienna in 1804 as VI Fugen in Quartetten auf zwey Violin, Viola und Violonzell von G. J. Werner Weyland Kapelmeister S. D. des Fürsten N. Esterházy etc. / Aus besonderer Achtung gegen diesen berühmten Meister nun herausgegeben von dessen Nachfolger J. Haydn, a volume dedicated to Prince Nicholas Esterházy II.
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Footnotes
This article was written as part of a research project conducted by the author entitled ‘W cieniu kapeli królewskiej. Muzyka i patronat muzyczny ministrów dworu polsko-saskiego w czasach panowania Augusta II i Augusta III – Jakoba Henryka Flemminga, Christopha Augusta Wackerbartha i Aleksandra Sułkowskiego’ (In the Shadow of the Royal Orchestra. Music and Music Patronage by Ministers of the Polish-Saxon Court: Jacob Heinrich Flemming, Christoph August Wackerbarth and Aleksander Sułkowski), financed by the Narodowe Centrum Nauki (National Science Centre, Poland), project registration no. 2017/25/B/HS2/02451.
References
1 For the purposes of this article the most important work in this area remains the book by Pausch, Oskar, Die Herkunft Gregor Joseph Werners: Mit einer Studie über musiktheoretische Lehrbücher aus dem Besitz des Meisters (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1975)Google Scholar. Other accessible literature is listed in Unverricht, Hubert, ‘Werner, Gregor Joseph’, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, ed. Sadie, Stanley and Tyrrell, John (London: Macmillan, 2001), volume 27, 294Google Scholar.
2 See Pohl, Carl Ferdinand, Joseph Haydn, two volumes, volume 1 (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1878), 367–368Google Scholar, and Moder, Richard, ‘Gregor Joseph Werner, ein Meister des ausgehenden musikalischen Barock in Eisenstadt’, Burgenländische Heimblätter 22 (1959), 141Google Scholar.
3 Pausch, Die Herkunft Gregor Joseph Werners, 42 (and see Figure 3 on page 49).
4 Pausch, Die Herkunft Gregor Joseph Werners, 42: ‘Freilich taucht Werner nicht in der Liste der Melkner Stiftsorganisten auf . . . . Vielleicht hat Werner nur die Vakanz von fünf Monaten (29. November 1715–1. Mai 1716) nach dem Tod des ebenfalls aus Ybbs stammenden Mathias Hochedlinger oder zwischen 1720 und 1721 überbrückt, vielleicht war eine Art Substitut. Gegen ein längeres Wirken im Stift spricht eine Absenz unter den Melker Hauskomponisten.’ (It must be admitted that Werner does not appear on the list of organists at Melk Abbey . . . . Perhaps Werner only filled a vacancy for five months (29 November 1715–1 May 1716) after the death of Mathias Hochedlinger, also from Ybbs, or acted as a kind of replacement between 1720 and 1721. The fact that his name does not make an appearance amongst those who were local Melk composers argues against any more lengthy period of activity in the monastery.)
5 The possibility of Werner's having studied with Fux was first mentioned by Pohl in Joseph Haydn, volume 1, 209. However, Pohl based his hypothesis on not very convincing grounds: the fact that Werner had outstanding contrapuntal skills, and that his legacy includes a copy of Fux's Missa Canonica written in Werner's hand. All the later authors who adopted the hypothesis of Werner studying with Fux usually referred to the work of Pohl. More than a hundred years later, Pausch (Die Herkunft Gregor Joseph Werners, 21–23) described a copy of Fux's Gradus ad Parnasum (today in private hands) that belonged to Werner in which the latter entered at the end some important biographical information, including the year and place of his birth. However, studying with Fux is not mentioned there. Thus the best claim that can be made at present is that Werner educated himself using the famous textbook by Fux. In his copy of Gradus ad Parnassum Werner made a number of corrections to and even significant adaptations of Fux's music examples; this provides evidence of intensive use of that textbook, but nothing more than that.
In the Acta Musicalia of the Esterházy family we find a bill concerning the purchase by Werner of instruments and sheet music for the court in Eisenstadt even prior to the move there. Among the musical items obtained by Werner there was, alongside works by Caldara, Paumann, Reinhardt and others, one composition by Fux: the Motetto de Apostolis. See Pratl, Joseph and Scheck, Herbert, Regesten der Esterházyschen Acta musicalia und Acta theatralia in Budapest (Tutzing: Schneider 2004), 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, all of this is insufficient to confirm that Werner had been a pupil of Fux, as postulated by Hubert Dopf in ‘Die Messenkompositionen Gregor Joseph Werners’ (PhD dissertation, Universität Innsbruck, 1956), 4. The state of our knowledge about contacts between Werner and Fux is reported here on the basis of Petermayr, Klaus, ‘Die Beziehungen von Johann Joseph Fux zum Fürstenhaus Esterházy’, in Fux-Forschung: Standpunkte und Perspektiven. Bericht des wissenschaftlichen Symposions auf Schloss Seggau 14.-16. Oktober 2005 anlässlich des Jubiläums ‘50 Jahre Johann-Joseph-Fux-Gesellschaft’, ed. Hochradner, Thomas and Janes, Susanne (Tutzing: Schneider, 2008), 147–148Google Scholar (paragraph ‘Werner und Fux’).
6 Trittinger, Adolf, ‘Musica sacra Mellicensis’, Singende Kirche 13 (1966), 41Google Scholar: ‘falls Werner in Melk erzogen wurde, wären frühe Berührungen mit Johann Joseph Fux möglich gewesen’ (if Werner had been educated in Melk, earlier contact with Johann Joseph Fux would have been possible).
7 Pohl, Joseph Haydn, volume 1, 209.
8 Staszewski, Jacek, August III Sas (Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1989), 84–85Google Scholar.
9 This legendary event was described by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Agricola and Lorenz Christoph Mitzler in the famous obituary of Johann Sebastian Bach published by them in 1754 in Mitzler's Musikalische Bibliothek. See Dokumente zum Nachwirken Johann Sebastian Bachs 1750–1800, ed. Schulze, Hans–Joachim (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1972)Google Scholar, 83 (document no. 666). The same event was later described by Bach's first biographer, Nikolaus Forkel, in his book Über Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke (Leipzig: Hoffmeister und Kühnel, 1802), 23.
10 Szymon Paczkowski, ‘Muzyka na dworze marszałka Jakuba Henryka Flemminga (1667–1728)’ (Music at the Court of Marshal Jacob Heinrich von Flemming, 1667–1728), in Środowiska kulturotwórcze i kontakty kulturalne Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego od XV do XIX wieku (Cultural Circles and Contacts in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries), ed. Urszula Augustyniak (Warsaw: Neriton, 2009), 67–82, and Paczkowski, , ‘Aus der Geschichte der Musikbibliothek von Jacob Heinrich von Flemming’, in Musikgeschichte zwischen Ost und West: Von der ‘musica sacra’ bis zur Kunstreligion. Festschrift für Helmut Loos zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Keym, Stefan and Wünsche, Stephan (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2015), 560–574Google Scholar. For earlier literature of the subject see Bieńkowska, Irena, ‘Notatki o muzykach Jakuba Henryka Flemminga’ (Notes on the Musicians of Jacob Heinrich von Flemming), Barok 3/2 (1996), 155–166Google Scholar, and Żórawska-Witkowska, Alina, Muzyka na dworze Augusta II w Warszawie (Music at the Court of August II in Warsaw) (Warsaw: Arx Regia, 1997), 317 and 322–323Google Scholar.
11 The initials PL-Wagad and D-Dla that are used here come from the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) database. Unfortunately, this database does not use separate initials for the archives at Vilnius and Minsk.
12 Lists of the documents investigated, their titles and shelfmarks are available in Paczkowski, ‘Muzyka na dworze marszałka Jakuba Henryka Flemminga (1667–1728)’ and ‘Aus der Geschichte der Musikbibliothek von Jacob Heinrich von Flemming’. For a current list of musicians in the service of Flemming see Paczkowski, ‘Muzyka na dworze marszałka Jakuba Henryka Flemminga (1667–1728)’, 77–79. The full list of documents which mention Werner is given in the Appendix to this essay.
13 See D-Dla: Bestand 10282, ‘Grundherrschaft Heynitz (bei Meissen)’, No. 314, ‘Bericht über die Hofhaltung des Grafen Flemming in Dresden’ (fol. 3 in unpaginated document).
14 Pl-Wagad: Archiwum Radziwiłłów, dział X ‘Dokumenty domów obcych – Papiery Flemmingów z lat 1697–1730’ (The Radziwiłł Archive, Section X, ‘Documents of Foreign Houses: The Flemming Papers from 1697 to 1739’) (hereafter AR X), shelfmark 347, fol. 5, items 13 and 14.
15 I owe this information to Jóhannes Ágústsson (Reykjavík) and thank him for sharing it. RISM does not use separate initials for the Dresden City Archive (Stadtarchiv Dresden).
16 LAH, shelfmark F. 459/1, No. 1625, fol. 3: list of payments from Flemming's funds in Vienna (August 1719, item 7 – ‘Werner der Bassiste’).
17 On the list of pro mense payments from Flemming's funds in the month of March 1719, immediately after the musician [Peter] Rummel – a violinist in Flemming's ensemble and later violinist at the Dresden Hof-Kapelle – there is a record of ‘Castellan Werner’ with the renumeration of 20 thalers. However, it is difficult to decide whether this Werner ‘Castellan’ and Werner ‘Bassiste’ are the same person. See LAH: shelfmark F. 1280/1 1109, fol. 5.
18 Pl-Wagad: AR X, shelfmark 359, fol. 23; LAH: shelfmark F. 459/1, 1848, fol. 24, and shelfmark F. 459/1, 1109, fol. 60.
19 Jan Dismas Zelenka, Inventarium rerum Musicarum Variorum Authorum Ecclesiae Servientum (Sign. D-Dl Bibl. Arch. III Hb. 787d), fol. 56; see also Zelenka-Dokumentation: Quellen und Materialien, ed. Ortrun Landmann, Wolfgang Reich, Wolfgang Horn and Thomas Kohlhase, two volumes (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1989), volume 1, 36, and volume 2, 221.
20 Horn, Wolfgang, Die Dresdner Hofkirchenmusik 1720–1745: Studien zu ihren Voraussetzungen und ihrem Repertoire (Kassel: Bärenreiter and Stuttgart: Carus, 1987), 147Google Scholar.
21 LAH: shelfmark F. 1280/1, No. 1109, fol. 108: list of payments for December 1723 (Carl – 7.8 thalers); LAH: shelfmark F. 459/1, No. 3775, fol. 12: list of payments from Marshal Flemming's funds in July 1728 (by then after the Marshal's death; Carl – 9 thalers).
22 Kačic, Ladislav, ‘Kapela Imbricha Esterházyho v rokoch 1725–1745’ (The Music Ensemble of Emmerich Esterházy in the Years 1725–1745), Musicologica Slovaca 5/2 [31] (2014), 189–254Google Scholar.
23 Kačic, ‘Kapela Imbricha Esterházyho’, 199.
24 Urszula Kosińska, ‘“Ach, es ist aus mit mir. Ach Jesu!” – choroby i śmierć Jakuba Henryka Flemminga’ (‘Ach, es ist aus mit mir. Ach Jesu!’: The Illnesses and Death of Jacob Heinrich Flemming), Barok 21/1 (2015), 107–116.
25 The RISM database records only three compositions signed by the surname Carl alone: Ave regina (H-PH Mus. Jes.117 – copy from 1773), Miserere (SK-KRE 36) and Vesperae de Apostolis (A-Ed G22). In Dokumente zur Esterházyschen Hofmusik (Regensburg: Gustav Bosse, 1981, 296) Ulrich Tank also identifies an Anton Carl (c1717–1784), musician and composer active in the Esterházy ensemble in Eisenstadt. The relationship between Leopold and Anton Carl will need to be established in the future. However, in this context one also has to consider the possibility that the ‘joint’ Werner and Carl composition, Vesperae de Apostolis from the collection in Budapest, may have been the work of Anton Carl from Eisenstadt, and not Leopold Carl from Pressburg.
It should also be added at this point that the list of musicians belonging to the court ensemble of the emperor's widow Eleonora in Vienna for the years 1717–1720 included a violinist called Ambrosius Carl. See Eybl, Martin, ‘Die Kapelle der Kaiserinwitwe Elisabeth Christine (1741–1750) I: Besetzung, Stellung am landesfürstlichen Hof und Hauptkopisten’, Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 45 (1996), 54Google Scholar. The question about whether this musician had a family connection with Carl from the Flemming ensemble remains to be investigated.
1 I would like to express my gratitude to my colleague Irena Bieńkowska from the University of Warsaw's Institute of Musicology for indicating to me the shelfmarks of the documents quoted here from the Historical Archive in Minsk, and for making their photocopies available to me.
2 Facsimile of document in Bieńkowska, ‘Notatki o muzykach Jakuba Henryka Flemminga’, 164.
3 Facsimile of document in Bieńkowska, ‘Notatki o muzykach Jakuba Henryka Flemminga’, 163.