CHAPTER II
JOHANN KUHNAU
This remarkable musician was born, April 1660,[36] at Geysing, where his grandfather, who, on account of his religious opinions, had been forced to leave Bohemia, had settled. Already in his ninth year young Kuhnau showed gifts for science and art. He had a pleasing voice, and first studied under Salomon Krügner, and afterwards under Christian Kittel,[37] organist of the Elector at Dresden. His next teachers were his brother Andreas Kuhnau, Alexander Hering,[38] and Vincenzo Albrici. In 1680 the plague broke out at Dresden, and Kuhnau returned to his parents. He then went to Zittau with a certain Erhard Titius, who had been Praefectus at the Kreuzschule, Dresden, and received help from the court organist, Moritz Edelmann, also from the "celebrated" Weise. A motet of Kuhnau's was given at Zittau under his direction. After the death of Titius, Kuhnau resided for a time in the house of J.J. von Hartig, judge at Zittau. In 1682 he went to Leipzig, where D. Scherzer endeavoured to obtain for him the post of organist at St. Thomas'; Kühnel, however, was appointed. The latter died in 1684, and was succeeded by Kuhnau, who in 1700 also became cantor of St. Thomas'. He devoted much of his time to jurisprudence. Among other things, he wrote a curious satire, entitled Der musikalische Quacksalber, published in 1700. There remain in manuscript, Tractatus de tetrachordo and Introductio ad compositionem musicalem. Kuhnau had many pupils; we know of two who afterwards became distinguished men. The one was Christoph Graupner (1683-1760), who in 1710 became capellmeister at Darmstadt. In 1722, on the death of Kuhnau, Graupner,[39] who had been prize scholar under him, presented his testimonials, was examined, and seemed likely to become cantor as his teacher's successor. Meanwhile, however, John Sebastian Bach offered himself as candidate, and as Dr. Pepusch before Handel at Cannons in 1710, so did Graupner retire before his great rival. Mattheson, in his Ehren-Pforte (p. 410), tells us that "as a composer for the clavier, Graupner may rank as one of the best of his time." He wrote suites and sonatas for clavier. Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758 or 9), the second pupil, soon after leaving Leipzig, where he had enjoyed Kuhnau's instruction from 1701-7, went to Italy, and on his return studied for a short time with Graupner. Fasch then filled various posts, until in 1722 (the very year indeed of Kuhnau's death) he became capellmeister at Anhalt Zerbst, where he remained until his death. His son, Carl Friedrich Christian, was the founder of the Berlin Singakademie. In 1756 Emanuel Bach had something to do with Fasch's appointment as clavecinist to Frederick the Great. The father, who was then seventy years of age, and who, like old Sebastian Bach, lived with the fear of God before his eyes, opposed the wish of his son to enter the service of the infidel king. Emanuel, who wished the younger Fasch to come to Berlin, wrote to the father to say "that in the land over which Frederick the Great ruled, one could believe what one liked; that the king himself was certainly not religious, but on that very account esteemed everyone alike." Bach offered to take young Fasch into his house, and to preserve him as much as possible from temptation. With regard to Graupner, it would be interesting to know whether in any of his sonatas (the autographs of which are, we believe, at Darmstadt) he worked at all on Kuhnau's lines. And with regard to Fasch, one would like to know whether he ever conversed with Emanuel Bach about his father, who taught him theory, and about Johann Kuhnau, his father's renowned teacher. It is from such by-paths of history that one sometimes learns more than from statements showing how son descended from sire, and how pupils were directly influenced by their teachers.
But it is as a musician that we are now concerned with Kuhnau, and, in the first place, as the composer of the earliest known sonata for the clavier. In 1695 he published at Leipzig—
"Sieben Partien aus dem Re, Mi, Fa, oder Terzia minore eines jedweden Toni, benebenst einer Sonata aus dem B. Denen Liebhabern dieses Instrumenten zu gar besondern Vergnügen aufgesetzet." That is—
Seven Partitas based on the Re, Mi, Fa, or minor third of each mode, together with a Sonata in B flat, for the especial gratification of lovers of this instrument.
With respect to this sonata, Kuhnau remarks in his preface: "I have added at the end a Sonata in B flat, which will please amateurs; for why should not such things be attempted on the clavier as well as on other instruments?" In such modest fashion was ushered into the world the first sonata for clavier, or, at any rate, the earliest with which we are acquainted.[40]
Mattheson, in Das neu eröffnete Orchester (1713), speaks about the revival of clavier sonatas, so that it is not quite certain whether that B flat Sonata was actually the first.[41] During the seventeenth century, sonatas were written for various instruments, with a figured bass for the cembalo.
It will, of course, be interesting to trace the influences acting upon Kuhnau. They were of two kinds: the one, Italian; the other, German. Corelli deserves first mention; and next, the Italian organist and composer, Vincenzo Albrici,[42] capellmeister to the Elector of Saxony from 1664-88, and afterwards organist of St. Thomas', Leipzig, who is known to have encouraged Kuhnau when young, and to have helped him to learn the Italian language. But German influence must also have been strong. Of Froberger special mention will be made later on. There was one man, Diderich Becker, who published sonatas for violins and bass already in 1668, and these, if we mistake not, must have been well known to Kuhnau. Apart from the character of the music, the title of the work, Musikalische Frülings Früchte, and the religious style of the preface, remind one of Kuhnau's "Frische Früchte," also of his preface to the "Bible" Sonatas. It is curious to find the quaint expression "unintelligent birds" used first by Becker, and afterwards by Kuhnau.