Johann Georg Pisendel is a far more distinguished figure. He was born on the twenty-sixth of December, 1687, at Carlsburg in Franconia, and died in Dresden, after many years’ service there, in November, 1755. While still a boy the Marquis of Anspach attached him to his chapel, on account of his beautiful voice. In the service of the same prince at that time was Torelli, the great Italian composer for the violin; and Pisendel was his pupil for a considerable period. Later in life he was able to journey in Italy and France, and was apparently at one time a pupil of Vivaldi’s in Venice. From 1728 to the time of his death he was first violin in the royal opera house at Dresden. His playing was distinguished by care in shading, and in his conducting he was said to have laid great importance upon ‘loud and soft.’ As a composer he is without significance, though some of his works—concertos and sonatas—have been preserved. But his influence served to educate violinists in that part of Germany, so that little by little Germans came to supplant the Italians in that branch of music, and to find occupation in connection with the opera house orchestra, which had been up to that time almost entirely made up of Italians.
Most conspicuous among those who were actually his pupils was Johann Gottlieb Graun, brother of the still familiar Carl Heinrich. But Graun was not content with instruction in Germany alone, and betook himself to Tartini in Padua. After his return to his native land, he eventually found his place at the court of Frederick the Great, who was still crown prince. With him at this time were Quantz, the flute player, and Franz Benda. After the accession of Frederick to the throne of Prussia, Graun was made first violin and concert master in the royal orchestra; and he held this place until his death in 1771. His compositions, like all others for the violin at this period, are hardly more than imitations of the Italian masterpieces. And like Pisendel, his importance is in the improvement of the state of instrumental music in Germany, and especially of the orchestra at Berlin.
His successor in this royal orchestra was Franz Benda, who, not only by reason of the romantic wanderings of his life, is one of the most interesting figures in the history of music in Germany during the eighteenth century. His father, Hans Georg, had been a sort of wandering player, as well as a weaver; and his brothers, Johann, Georg, and Joseph, were all musicians who won a high place in their day. Georg was perhaps the most distinguished of the family, but in the history of violin-music Franz occupies a more important place.
The Bendas were Bohemians, but most of them settled in Germany and accepted German ideals and training. Franz Benda, after a changing career as a boy singer in various places, finally came under the influence of Graun and Quantz in the crown prince’s orchestra, at Rheinsberg. The principal instruction he received upon the violin came from Graun, who was himself a pupil of Tartini’s; so, although Benda shows the marks of an independent and self-sufficient development, not a little of Italian influence came close to him. He remained in the service of the Prussian court from 1733, when Quantz befriended him, until his death as an old man in 1786.
His playing was admired for its warm, singing quality, which showed to such advantages in all slow movements that musicians would come long distances to hear him play an adagio. Burney heard him in 1772 and was impressed by the true feeling in his playing. Burney, too, mentioned that in all Benda’s compositions for the violin there were no passages which should not be played in a singing and expressive manner. He went on to say that Benda’s playing was distinguished in this quality from that of Tartini, Somis, and Veracini, and that it was something all his own which he had acquired in his early association with singers.
He had indeed been a great singer, and he gave up public singing only because after singing he was subject to violent headache. He trained his two daughters to be distinguished singers of the next generation.
His works for the violin are numerous, but only a small part of them was published, and this posthumously. In spite of the often lovely melodies in the slow movements they have not been able to outlive their own day. Wasielewski calls attention to the general use of conventional arpeggio figures in the long movements, which, characteristic of a great deal of contemporary music for the violin, may have been written with the idea of offering good technical exercise in the art of bowing.
Among Benda’s many pupils the two most significant are his own son, Carl, and Friedrich Wilhelm Rust. The former seems to have inherited a great part of his father’s skill and style. The sonatas of the latter are among the best compositions written in Germany for the violin in the second half of the eighteenth century. Rust died in February, 1798. His name is remembered as much for his sonatas for pianoforte as for his violin compositions. Another pupil, Carl Haack, lived until September, 1819, and thus was able to carry the Benda tradition over into the nineteenth century. On the whole Franz Benda may be said to have founded a school of violin playing in Berlin which has influenced the growth of music for that instrument in Germany. Its chief characteristic was the care given to simplicity and straightforwardness, especially in the playing of slow movements and melodies, which stands out quite distinctly against the current of more or less specious virtuosity running across the century.
Johann Peter Salomon (1745-1815) has been associated with the Berlin group, though his youth was spent in and about Bonn, and his greatest activity was displayed as an orchestral conductor in London. It was he who engaged Haydn to come to London and to compose symphonies specially for a London audience; and he occupies an important place in the history of music in England as one of the founders (1813) of the Philharmonic Society. He published but little music, and that is without significance.
One of the outstanding figures in the history of violin music in Germany is Leopold Mozart, the father of Wolfgang. He is hardly important as a composer, though many of his works were fairly well known in and about Salzburg where the greatest part of his life was spent; but his instruction book on playing the violin marks the beginning of a new epoch in his own country. This was first published in Augsburg in 1756, was reprinted again in 1770, 1785, and in Vienna in 1791 and 1804. It was for many years the only book on the subject in Germany.