Musicology
04-27-2010, 03:09 PM
J.A. Steffan (1726-97)
Piano Concerto in B Flat Major (c.1781-2)
Unknown but highly talented composer of the late 18th century. (Buried beneath the reputations of ‘other composers’).
Czech keyboard teacher and virtuoso who was active active for many years in Austria. His musical gifts were first nurtured by his father, who was an organist and schoolmaster. (When the Prussian army invaded Bohemia in 1741 he fled to Vienna, where he sought the patronage of the lord of the Kopidlno estate, Count František Jindřich Šlik (Franz Heinrich Schlick). He there studied violin with the count’s music director, Hammel (whom he later succeeded), and became an early harpsichord and composition pupil of the Vienna court composer G.C. Wagenseil. Štěpán (Steffan) was a very gifted composer and as one of the most brilliant harpsichordists of the time. He enjoyed great reputation as a teacher, and throughout his career composed numerous pieces. In July 1766 he was appointed tutor to the young archduchesses Maria Carolina (later Queen of Naples) and Maria Antonia (later Queen of France), but by August 1775 had finished his court duties. Partly because of a temporary loss of sight he was allowed to retain his salary of 500 florins as a pension. He again started private teaching and was a guest in fashionable salons. Also continued composing until his very last years. And yet he died in obscurity.
The very brief obituary notice in the 'Wiener Zeitung' of 19th April 1797 only records his sudden death from a stroke !
Štěpán’s (Steffan's) great contribution to the Classical style and the value of his music still await full recognition. He is acknowledged for historical importance of his collections of songs, the first of their kind to be published in Vienna, but his real significance lies in his remarkable keyboard music, which spans the whole of his creative life. The divertimentos and sonatas of his early period, before about 1765, already show a mastery of the new Italian manner and a gift for attractive ideas creatively worked out in some notably forward-looking pieces. Štěpán firmly established a colourful personal style, and in the publications of the 1770s, all substantial four-movement works and produced some of the most interesting of Viennese sonatas. His keyboard idiom is characterized by a full texture animated by complex part-writing, intricate thematic configurations and and rhythmic vitality and impetus.
The mature keyboard works, from the late 1770s onwards are conceived for the piano, with appropriate stylization and an idiosyncratic use of dynamics. Štěpán’s style in all genres shows a successful transformation into a Classical manner amazingly close to Mozart in its cantabile themes and melodic chromaticism, and also to Josef Haydn in keyboard style and structural ingenuity, with many stylistic parallels in addition. Štěpán’s individuality is also in the continuing incorporation of fantasia effects (preludes, cadenzas, capriccios) and programmatic elements. Other late sonatas are in two or three extended movements, sometimes with an introduction, but always without a minuet and trio. His expressive range extends from introspective gravity and temperamental outbursts to witty exuberance. Some late keyboard and chamber music pieces show self-borrowing and an exaggerated use of favourite motifs and other devices.
His keyboard concertos are unique in the regular use of expressive minor-key slow introductions, with the soloist taking part. The slow movements were the last to develop in individuality, but eventually he dispensed with the customary prolific solo figuration and these became vehicles for melodic and dramatic interest. The character of his finales was changed, as in the sonatas, by using folksong-like themes as a means to further progress. The finales of his late concertos are large-scale movements in various types of sonata form, and are as weighty as first movements. Štěpán maintained an independent course which led him to anticipate the ‘accompanied sonata’ concept of the concerto, in which the soloist dominates almost completely. He was certainly one of the most advanced concerto composers in Vienna before Mozart, but so amazingly soon after his death his music fell into neglect. One of various examples of the time.
J.A. Steffan
Concerto in B Flat Major
For Piano and Orchestra (Vienna - c.1781/2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAoS5XOeNo4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3vhYDQ8IJ4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Eq-kkq5uxY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhmVeBWScG8&feature=related
Piano Concerto in B Flat Major (c.1781-2)
Unknown but highly talented composer of the late 18th century. (Buried beneath the reputations of ‘other composers’).
Czech keyboard teacher and virtuoso who was active active for many years in Austria. His musical gifts were first nurtured by his father, who was an organist and schoolmaster. (When the Prussian army invaded Bohemia in 1741 he fled to Vienna, where he sought the patronage of the lord of the Kopidlno estate, Count František Jindřich Šlik (Franz Heinrich Schlick). He there studied violin with the count’s music director, Hammel (whom he later succeeded), and became an early harpsichord and composition pupil of the Vienna court composer G.C. Wagenseil. Štěpán (Steffan) was a very gifted composer and as one of the most brilliant harpsichordists of the time. He enjoyed great reputation as a teacher, and throughout his career composed numerous pieces. In July 1766 he was appointed tutor to the young archduchesses Maria Carolina (later Queen of Naples) and Maria Antonia (later Queen of France), but by August 1775 had finished his court duties. Partly because of a temporary loss of sight he was allowed to retain his salary of 500 florins as a pension. He again started private teaching and was a guest in fashionable salons. Also continued composing until his very last years. And yet he died in obscurity.
The very brief obituary notice in the 'Wiener Zeitung' of 19th April 1797 only records his sudden death from a stroke !
Štěpán’s (Steffan's) great contribution to the Classical style and the value of his music still await full recognition. He is acknowledged for historical importance of his collections of songs, the first of their kind to be published in Vienna, but his real significance lies in his remarkable keyboard music, which spans the whole of his creative life. The divertimentos and sonatas of his early period, before about 1765, already show a mastery of the new Italian manner and a gift for attractive ideas creatively worked out in some notably forward-looking pieces. Štěpán firmly established a colourful personal style, and in the publications of the 1770s, all substantial four-movement works and produced some of the most interesting of Viennese sonatas. His keyboard idiom is characterized by a full texture animated by complex part-writing, intricate thematic configurations and and rhythmic vitality and impetus.
The mature keyboard works, from the late 1770s onwards are conceived for the piano, with appropriate stylization and an idiosyncratic use of dynamics. Štěpán’s style in all genres shows a successful transformation into a Classical manner amazingly close to Mozart in its cantabile themes and melodic chromaticism, and also to Josef Haydn in keyboard style and structural ingenuity, with many stylistic parallels in addition. Štěpán’s individuality is also in the continuing incorporation of fantasia effects (preludes, cadenzas, capriccios) and programmatic elements. Other late sonatas are in two or three extended movements, sometimes with an introduction, but always without a minuet and trio. His expressive range extends from introspective gravity and temperamental outbursts to witty exuberance. Some late keyboard and chamber music pieces show self-borrowing and an exaggerated use of favourite motifs and other devices.
His keyboard concertos are unique in the regular use of expressive minor-key slow introductions, with the soloist taking part. The slow movements were the last to develop in individuality, but eventually he dispensed with the customary prolific solo figuration and these became vehicles for melodic and dramatic interest. The character of his finales was changed, as in the sonatas, by using folksong-like themes as a means to further progress. The finales of his late concertos are large-scale movements in various types of sonata form, and are as weighty as first movements. Štěpán maintained an independent course which led him to anticipate the ‘accompanied sonata’ concept of the concerto, in which the soloist dominates almost completely. He was certainly one of the most advanced concerto composers in Vienna before Mozart, but so amazingly soon after his death his music fell into neglect. One of various examples of the time.
J.A. Steffan
Concerto in B Flat Major
For Piano and Orchestra (Vienna - c.1781/2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAoS5XOeNo4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3vhYDQ8IJ4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Eq-kkq5uxY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhmVeBWScG8&feature=related