Johann David HEINICHEN (1683-1729)
Dresden Concerti, Siebel 211, 213-5, 217, 226, 231-5
Serenata di Moritzburg, Siebel 204
Sonata in A, Siebel 208
Concert movement in C minor, Siebel 240
Musica Antiqua Koln/Reinhard Goebel
rec. Deutschlandfunk, Cologne, February and March 1992
Presto CD
ARCHIV PRODUKTION 474 892-2 [70.45 + 66.04]
When this set of Heinichen’s Dresden Concerti appeared in 1993 the name of the composer was almost completely unknown; there had been not a single item by him featured in the catalogues back in the closing days of the LP era in 1979. In his extensive booklet essay (given in English translation only in this reissue) Reinhard Goebel speculates on the reasons for his neglect, describing it as “astonishing” that these concertos disappeared into obscurity so rapidly after the composer’s death. But then, despite the publicity afforded to Heinichen by the Gramophone award to this set for non-vocal baroque issues in 1993, the intervening years have done relatively little to rectify the situation. Several of the composer’s masses have found their way onto disc, but this remains the only complete recording of the so-called ‘Dresden concerti’ (spread over two very well-filled discs), which is surprising given the widespread popularity of releases of baroque concerti played on period instruments.
But then these performances are really very good indeed, and it is difficult to imagine them being bettered by later interpretations. Goebel in his essay draws attention to Heinichen’s sometimes unidiomatic style of writing for his chosen solo instruments, which he attributes to the fashion at the period for novelty sometimes at the expense of immediate practicability. This was certainly encouraged by the colourful Saxon monarchs of the period, Friedrich August I (King Augustus II of Poland) and his son Friedrich August II (also known as Augustus III). The former, known as ‘the Strong’ as much for his prolific number of illegitimate children as for his physical prowess, had converted to Roman Catholicism and – presumably benefiting from the example of the ill-advised James II of England – safeguarded his throne by making it clear to his predominantly Protestant subjects that he had no intention of forcing his new religion on anyone else. He also understood the value of sustaining the cultural values of his people, opening his art collections to the public and assembling an orchestra in Dresden to outrank any other body of players to be found north of the Alps. Composers such as Albinoni, Vivaldi and Telemann flocked to provide music for these instrumentalists, and Bach cast envious glances in the direction of Dresden from his home in nearby Leipzig; but Augustus III preferred composers with a more up-to-date style, importing Johann Adolf Hasse to provide a series of fashionable operas and enrolling a whole raft of virtuosi in his Dresden band – including, for the last twelve years of his life, Johann David Heinichen.
After his death some of Heinichen’s manuscript scores were diffused to various other courts in Germany, where they were subjected to revisions and abridgements, although the majority remained in the Royal Library in Dresden (they are indexed here by reference to a catalogue assembled by ‘G Siebel’ of Leipzig in 1913). Goebel has assembled, and where necessary recast, the complete concerti from their various sources, and one (Siebel 214) is heard here in two versions, one from a Venice manuscript and another from Darmstadt which is nearly a full minute shorter. The concerti, despite their sometimes unconventional writing and extravagant effects, fully conform to the expected parameters of musical form of their day. Nearly all of the pieces here employ the full forces of the Dresden orchestra, and were indeed designed to display the virtuosity of the King’s players during royal progresses from palace to palace, and indeed on forays to Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Venice. Goebel sums up the Dresden concerti in these words: “realistic and straightforward, unusually energetic and sumptuous, sometimes sweet but never weak, and never losing sight, in self-absorption, of their duty to represent the King-Elector to the world.” It is in the last phrase that Heinichen’s weakness lies; he may sometimes do something mildly unconventional, but he never ever does anything to offend against the dictates of good taste and politeness. It is difficult, for example, to imagine him committing such an outrage as the Frenchman Rebel’s opening depiction of Chaos in his Les
élémens. But then, even Haydn didn’t match that half a century later.
But it is no good complaining that Heinichen is not the sort of composer that he would never have set out to be, and he would not have been thanked by his contemporaries if he had succeeded in any such aim. What we have here is a thoroughly professional and resourceful writer of baroque concerti (with a couple of sonatas and other movements thrown in for good measure), played by a group of excellent players, magnificently recorded in a splendid acoustic, and even if the booklet has lost the multilingual texts of the original issue it still retains a batch of entertaining period engravings depicting some of the characters involved in the history of the day. For the purposes of this recording Goebel has nearly doubled the usual size of his baroque ensemble, and this is all to good purpose when one considers the size of the court establishment for whom this music was written.
I am not going to devote space here to a lengthy description of each of the movements of these concerti, since there is already such an essay on this site (view). Similarly, Stuart Sillitoe, when reviewing a recording of Heinichen’s solitary opera Flavio Crispo, also enthused about this Goebel set of concerti (review). The Gramophone review at the time of the first release (before the award was given) complained mildly about “an element of routine passage-work” but I would suggest that there is no more of that here than one would happily accept as normal in a Vivaldi concerto.
The original ‘Gramophone Awards’ issue has for some reason been allowed to slip out of the current catalogues, and we should therefore express our thanks to Presto for making the discs available once again (although there does appear to be an alternative reissue under the ‘DG Grand Prix’ aegis). In the past we may have had cause to complain that adherence to the contents of the original CDs may have led to rather short measure, or inappropriate couplings, but there can be no such complaints here. Those who missed these discs on their original issue should snap them up now while they remain available.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
