TY - JOUR
AU - Worthington,, Emily
AB - Abstract The life of clarinettist Franz Tausch (1762–1817) spanned a formative period of development both for his instrument and the culture he operated within, yet he has been neglected because of his lack of association with a major composer. Tausch received his musical education at the Mannheim and Munich courts, where he was exposed to broad cultural and musical influences. His compositions for clarinet show his playing to have foreshadowed the virtuosity associated with his pupils Heinrich Baermann and Bernhard Henrik Crusell. This can particularly be seen in his exploitation of the new possibilities afforded by instruments with a fully chromatic bottom octave, as well as in his incorporation of extreme high-register writing in his concertos. Tausch’s transition from a life of court service to successfully establishing himself within the diverse musical culture and social hierarchy of Berlin is documented in the changing nature of his compositions as well as contemporary written sources. His life is a case study of a trajectory typical of many musicians working at the end of the eighteenth century. THE CLARINETTIST FRANZ TAUSCH has never been studied in detail, yet he is a key figure in the emergence of the clarinet in Germany in the late eighteenth century.1 Tausch provides a link between the instrument’s early adoption at the Mannheim court in the 1760s and 1770s and its emergence as a virtuoso instrument in the early 1800s. His legacy was carried forward by his student Heinrich Baermann, who, along with his son Carl, had a profound influence on the development of German clarinet playing, instruments, and repertory throughout the nineteenth century and beyond. Tausch’s working life, which began amidst the protective environment of a well-funded court, was defined by his desire to establish a place for wind music, and for his young instrument, within what William Weber characterizes as a ‘period of crisis’ and instability for musical culture from 1789 to 1814.2 As is common for eighteenth-century court musicians, written documentation of Tausch’s life is relatively scant. Though he was a highly regarded teacher, he published no method or treatise on his instrument, and only one piece of writing. However, where words fail, Tausch’s own surviving compositions serve as revealing artefacts of his musical activity, his playing, and the developing capabilities of his instrument. A combination of written and musical sources reveals aspects of his transition from a life of court service to establishing himself within the diverse culture and social hierarchy of a major metropolitan centre as a virtuoso soloist, chamber musician, and facilitator of both professional and amateur music-making.3 EARLY LIFE AND TRAINING Franz Tausch was born on 26 December 1762 in Heidelberg, where his father Jacob Tausch (?–1803) was a church musician. When the young Tausch was 2 years old, Jacob was apparently heard playing the clarinet during a ‘hunting jamboree’ (Jagdlustbarkeit) by the Palatinate Elector Carl Theodor II and offered a position in the Hofkapelle in nearby Mannheim.4 It was here, in the midst of the Mannheim court, that Franz spent his childhood and received his musical training. Mannheim under Elector Carl Theodor was one of the best funded and most artistically advanced centres of music-making of the eighteenth century. Though it has long been cited as a crucial incubator for developments in musical style, it is only relatively recently that attention has turned to understanding the structure and daily life of the Kapelle itself.5 One feature of this was a well-established educational system,6 whereby promising young players were either taught by their parents or had their tuition paid for by the Elector, and, when ready, entered the Hofkapelle as Accessisten (trainees). Franz received his musical instruction from his father, first on the violin from the age of 4, and then on the clarinet. Franz’s apprenticeship in the orchestra began in 1770 when he was 8, when he is listed in the court calendar as an Accessist alongside the three adult clarinettists of the Hofkapelle: Michael Quallenberg (c.1726–86), Thaddäus Hampel (c.1737–92), and Jacob Tausch. According to Ernest Gerber’s Lexicon, Tausch was from this young age ‘counted a capable member of the orchestra, on both clarinet and violin, and gave unbroken service as such’.7 However, it is not known what activities an Accessist such as Tausch would have participated in, or how duties were divided among the clarinettists in the Mannheim orchestra. Clarinets were first introduced to the Mannheim Kapelle in the 1750s, and surviving symphonic and operatic works indicate that they were thereafter regularly employed in the orchestra, a conclusion supported by the fact that the clarinettists’ salaries were comparable to those of other woodwind players at court. W. A. Mozart’s positive impression of the clarinettists at Mannheim, pertaining to a visit in 1777 while Tausch and his father were in residence, is well documented, and has been cited as the origin of his interest in writing for the clarinet.8 It is nonetheless intriguing that, although the instrumentalists of the Kapelle are listed in the court calendar in order of their instrument’s tessitura (violins, flutes, oboes, violas, celli, bassoons, basses), the clarinets appear at the very end of the orchestra list, after the basses and horns. It is tempting to speculate that this indicates a status not yet wholly integrated into the orchestra, and a working life that may have seen them combined with horns for outdoor music as often as among the orchestra for the opera and Akademien, the evening performances of orchestral music. It is therefore unfortunate that little chamber music with clarinet and no Harmoniemusik survives from Mannheim during this period, probably due to the loss of material in a fire that destroyed the Mannheim Theatre in 1795, and the Mannheim court convention that manuscripts were generally retained by their composers, leading to works becoming scattered or lost.9 As a young man at the Mannheim court of the 1770s, Tausch would have been exposed not only to musical influences but to a rich and varied culture. Under the reign of the highly musically accomplished and culturally enlightened Elector Carl Theodor, the court had developed into a centre of diverse and sophisticated cultural activity, in which its musicians were important participants.10 The orchestra was at the heart of court life, providing music for church and ceremonial occasions, hunts, balls, and formal dinners, Akademien, operas, plays, and other entertainments. In the summer months the court moved to the Elector’s summer residence at Schwetzingen for an opera season of unusual diversity that exposed the musicians to a wide range of repertory.11 The atmosphere is vividly recalled by Burney: To anyone walking through the streets of Schwetzingen, during the summer, this palace must seem to be inhabited only by a colony of musicians, who are constantly exercising their profession: at one house a fine player on the violin is heard: at another a German flute: Here an excellent hautbois; there a bassoon, a clarinet, a violoncello, or a concert of several instruments together.12  The palace at Mannheim, whose construction was only completed in the 1760s, housed rich collections, including an observatory, a library, a Naturalienkabinett, and the Antikensaal (a collection of plaster casts of ancient sculpture), all of which were a destination for Mannheim’s educated visitors,13 and indeed perhaps also Mannheim’s own musicians. Wurtz and others have suggested that members of Carl Theodor’s Kapelle enjoyed a stable income and a significant degree of emancipation that contrasted with the situations experienced by many of their contemporaries elsewhere: the atmosphere was less paternalistic and more outward-looking than in Esterháza, for instance.14 Some musicians of the court are even documented as owning their own houses.15 Among their number the Elector had assembled some of the leading virtuosos from around Europe—Charles Burney’s ‘Army of Generals’—and many received leave of absence to make concert tours throughout Europe, both as ambassadors for the court and also to bring back the latest musical fashions and developments. Thomas Irvine has thus likened the atmosphere of the Mannheim musical establishment to that of its Antikensaal: a living exhibition of the musical knowledge, styles, and achievements of eighteenth-century Europe: ‘like a museum, they offered a wide, pan-European repertoire and thus fostered consciousness of “style” as a concept’.16 It follows that a young musician who grew up surrounded by such riches would have been exposed to a broad set of musical and cultural influences, which would have served as good preparation for the changing times ahead. The Mannheim orchestra was at the peak of its powers and renown in 1778 when Carl Theodor became Elector of Bavaria, a development that precipitated his moving to Munich. He took a large part of his orchestra with him, where it was combined with the Munich court’s existing musicians so that his ambitious musical programme could continue. Because there were no clarinettists in Munich, all of the Mannheim players made the move, including the 15-year-old Tausch, still an Accessist. The best-documented event of the orchestra’s early years in Munich was the first performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo, directed by the composer in early 1781. While the assertion elsewhere that Tausch father and son played in the premiere performances appears to be based solely on circumstantial evidence,17 it seems likely that they would have come into contact with Mozart during his visits to Mannheim and Munich, given his well-documented mixing with the musicians of the Kapelle.18 It is unclear from the court records at what point Tausch ceased to be an Accessist and graduated to being a full member of the orchestra. His status is indicated irregularly through the extant orchestra lists, and though the last explicit mention of him as an Accessist is in 1777, he does not seem to have received a full salary until 1786.19 Progression relied on a post becoming vacant, rather than the skill level of the player, and thus Tausch’s promotion probably occurred when Hampel retired that same year. The Accessist position was immediately filled by Tausch’s younger brother Joseph, meaning that when Quallenberg left the orchestra the following year, the section was entirely populated by the Tausch family. FROM MUNICH TO BERLIN It was common for the most promising young musicians of Carl Theodor’s court to travel and undertake study abroad in order to complete their education.20 A six-month trip by Tausch to Vienna c.1781 in the company of his colleague, the violinist and composer Peter von Winter, was probably of this nature, though sadly no record of his stay in the city has been traced.21 The choice of location was probably practical as well as educational, since Vienna at this moment was ripe with possibilities for ambitious young musicians: Mozart, who moved to the city in the same year, described it as ‘the best place in the world’, detailing in a letter to his father the range of opportunities that were open to him.22 Following the death of Empress Maria Theresa the previous year, the culturally ambitious Emperor Joseph II had assumed sole charge of the Imperial court and its Hofkapelle, bringing the prospect of new appointments. For wind players, the burgeoning fashion for Harmoniemusik that resulted from the Emperor’s predilection for the genre offered both casual money-making opportunities and the possibility of permanent appointments, and it is no coincidence that the clarinettist brothers Anton and Josef Stadler—later famous for their association with Mozart—settled in the city during 1781.23 There is no record of a meeting between Tausch and the Stadlers, but he certainly would have been aware of Mozart’s presence. Mozart had made the acquaintance of Tausch’s travelling companion when von Winter was concertmaster for the Munich premiere of Idomeneo, and von Winter renewed the contact while in Vienna, though apparently in not entirely amicable circumstances.24 Despite Tausch’s trip reportedly resulting in several offers of employment,25 he chose to return to Munich. Soon after his return, he married Maria Anna Joseph Aloysia von Hamm von Sonnenfels (1765–post 1825), daughter of Joseph Konrad von Hamm Edler von Sonnenfels (1728–95), war-secretary to the Munich court.26 They were a musical and culturally aspirational family: Maria von Hamm was a promising pianist, and in 1777 her father had corresponded with Leopold Mozart about the possibility of sending her to stay and study in the Mozart household. The negotiations ultimately came to nothing because they could not agree a fee, but in the meantime Leopold send his son Wolfgang to visit the von Hamm house in Munich. The latter described Maria as a talented but poorly taught keyboard player, entertaining but awkward, with a tiny, mouse-like voice, christening her ‘Miss Simplicity von Hamm’.27 Nonetheless, it is clear that Maria von Hamm was a young woman of education and status, and her marriage to the young Tausch can only have enhanced his social position. The alliance quickly brought Tausch the opportunity to make new connections when in 1784 he made a nine-month tour in the company of his father-in-law to the courts of Berlin, Dresden, and the Rhineland.28 Just as von Hamm was a diplomatic representative of the Palatinate court, so Tausch would have been an artistic ambassador. It was a further step in establishing his reputation as a virtuoso clarinettist, and though there is no suggestion that Tausch had immediate plans to leave Munich, this tour may well have sowed the seeds of his eventual move away from the court that had nurtured him. During the 1770s and 1780s, conditions for the Mannheim-Munich court musicians had been so advantageous compared to those elsewhere that not only individuals but whole family dynasties such as the Danzis, Wendlings, and Ritters remained loyal to the court.29 By 1788, however, relations between Elector Carl Theodor and the Bavarian populace had grown so strained that the court withdrew to Mannheim.30 This must have created a sense of instability, surely heightened by developments the following year in France. Richard Carlton suggests that a growing sense of individualism and emancipation, together with a move away from the humble acceptance of servant status, motivated musicians to become more mobile and entrepreneurial from this period onwards.31 It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that some of the court musicians resigned their positions during this period. Among them was the principal bassoonist Georg Wenzel Ritter, leaving his post in 1788 to join the Kapelle of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II, apparently with the prospect of a significant increase in salary.32 The following year, Tausch followed his colleague to the Prussian capital, accepting an invitation to join the orchestra of the dowager Queen Elizabeth, widow of Frederick the Great. Two years later, in 1791, Tausch was called on to deputize for Joseph Beer in the Berlin Hofkapelle, leading eventually to a permanent appointment.33 Tausch’s move to Berlin in 1789 was a clever strategic move for an ambitious musician because Berlin, just like Vienna a few years before, was rich in opportunities. Following the death of Frederick the Great in 1786 Hofkapellmeister Johann Friedrich Reichardt had been given greater authority and resources to reform the court orchestra, which like any reorganization opened the possibility of new appointments.34 The host of public concerts and musical associations established by underemployed court musicians during the latter part of Frederick the Great’s reign also offered opportunities to the ambitious and entrepreneurial. There was also an abundance of accomplished musicians and musical connoisseurs within the nobility and the emerging bourgeoisie ready to support the endeavours of professionals such as Tausch.35 Unlike Mannheim, where the advantageous situation of the musicians was reliant on the fortunes of the court, Berlin therefore offered a fertile arena for a musician to build an independent livelihood. Tausch seems to have taken full advantage of this situation, apparently with the support of Reichardt and his network of associates, because it is in periodicals established by Reichardt, including the Musikalisches Wochenblatt (1791–3) and the Berlinische Musikalische Zeitung (1805–6), that much documentation of Tausch’s activities can be found. In the early 1790s these centred around ‘der Stadt Paris’, one of Berlin’s principal concert venues, which since 1787 had also been home to Carl Friedrich Rellstab’s Concerte für Kenner und Liebhaber.36 Reichardt’s Musikalisches Wochenblatt documents a series of subscription concerts at the Stadt Paris, which appear to have been established by the journal’s weekly editor, Ludwig Aemilius Kunzen (1761–1817), who was also co-proprietor of the music shop where tickets for the concerts could be purchased. When Kunzen left Berlin in 1792, stewardship of the concerts seems to have passed to the Bohemian tenor Friedrich Franz Hůrka and Tausch.37 tausch as virtuoso A report of these concerts contains the first known accounts of Tausch’s clarinet playing. In 1791, a performance of one of his own concertos was reported as arousing a ‘general sensation among the public’.38 In 1792, an anonymous review in the Musikalische Wochenblatt compared Tausch’s playing to the visiting Anton Stadler, also performing in the Stadt Paris concerts, claiming that the latter lacked Tausch’s ‘coaxing, gentle tone and tasteful delivery’.39 A piece in the same journal the following year described Tausch’s ‘fine, sentimental playing, his nuances of sound’, in contrast to his Berlin colleague Josef Beer’s powerful delivery, which could only be fully appreciated in ‘church-sized halls’.40 Gerber, writing retrospectively, praised the beauty and softness of Tausch’s tone and charming, tasteful execution thus: ‘What variety in the modification of the tone of his instrument! Now it was like the low murmur of leaves stirred by the Zephyr’s gentle breath, now his instrument soared above the others in thundering, brilliant arpeggiated passages, with a constant succession of the most melting melodies.’41 These reviews reflect a late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century notion of virtuosity based on a holistic definition of excellence that encompassed musical understanding and technical and stylistic ability rather than the negative connotations of ‘empty’ showmanship that emerged as the century progressed.42 However, they also obscure a more complex overall picture. A useful parallel can be drawn with the playing of Tausch’s contemporaries Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760–1812) and Muzio Clementi (1752–1832). Contemporary reviews of the two pianists rarely dwell on their specific technical attributes, but rather emphasize their musicianship, style, and expressivity. However, as Cliff Eisen observes, these musicians also practised virtuosity in the more familiar sense, becoming associated with specific technical feats such as double thirds and octaves.43 Furthermore, the embrace of new instrument technologies resulting from their close relationship with specific instrument makers also allowed Dussek and Clementi to develop a distinctive and forward-looking approach to both technical and expressive aspects of playing style, as well as delivering audiences the sonic novelty provided by instruments with an extended compass.44 Tausch’s own ambitions, expressed in an 1805 article, show a similar desire to further the possibilities of his instrument. He writes: Your lordships will remember that, at the time I arrived in Berlin, wind instruments and especially my own had achieved only a low degree of development, and thereby had been left standing by all other instruments, which were already at this time further along in their perfectionment, although in my opinion if [wind instruments] had kept the same pace with the rest by following [the example of] the human voice, they could have claimed an equal if not higher status.  With this heartfelt conviction I redoubled the efforts that I had already applied to my instrument, and I noticed to my satisfaction that my keen endeavors to perfect it more and more, and to expand the use of it further, were not left wholly fruitless.45 Understood in the context of Tausch’s wider activities, the lack of ‘development’ (Ausbildung) that he identifies encompasses both wind instrument design and playing technique. His ‘efforts’ to address this are clearly demonstrated in his own compositions for the clarinet in the form of technical innovation, expressive virtuosity, and the exploitation of advancing instrument technologies to create novel and striking effects. Tausch’s compositional activities were primarily in the service of his own performing and teaching rather than to further his ambition as a composer. With the exception of an early duo for violin and viola, published as Op. 3, all of Tausch’s extant works are for clarinet. His surviving output, detailed in the Appendix, includes concertos and double concertos, two quartets for clarinet and strings, works for two to six wind instruments, and a number of Harmoniemusik arrangements. Sources for Tausch’s compositions are somewhat scant: there are no known autograph manuscripts, though a set of manuscript parts for his Quartet Op. 30 recently identified in the Schott archive at the Munich Staatsbibliothek may be an example of Tausch’s hand.46 Manuscript copies of two solo concertos, one double concerto, an Andante and Polonaise, and a Serenata for clarinets, horns, and bassoons are also extant. All other works survive only in prints, issued during Tausch’s lifetime or immediately after his death, through a range of publishing houses. Technical Virtuosity At least two solo concertos by Tausch survive, both in manuscript copies: one in the British Library (R.M.21.d.11), the other in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek (Berlin 30077).47 Both works are in E flat and the emphasis is, as might be expected, on technical display, particularly in the outer movements, which are encrusted with extended passage-work. A prominent feature is Tausch’s noticeably adventurous approach to the third or ‘altissimo’ register of the instrument (see Fig. 1). In the late eighteenth century the upper part of the altissimo range, above d‴, was generally used sparingly by central European composers: contemporary works by Carl Stamitz, Josef Beer, and Mozart all use the note f‴ in particular as a special effect, reserved for moments of dramatic impact such as at a cadence or as the climax of an arpeggio figure, and rarely in scalic or melodic writing. Tausch, however, is more adventurous than his Central European contemporaries, treating f‴ almost as a routine part of the clarinet’s range. The solo part of R.M.21.d.11 ascends to f‴ in the first solo entry (b. 88) and returns to the high register regularly thereafter, including in the rondo theme of the third movement (see Ex. 1). In this his writing resembles more closely the models of French clarinettist-composers such as Mathieu-Frédéric Blasius and Jean-Xavier Lefevre. However, Tausch’s concerto Berlin 30077 and the Concerto for Two Clarinets, Op. 27 far exceeds his own previous works or those of his French contemporaries. The writing in Berlin 30077 is the most remarkable of any of Tausch’s music and reveals the full extent of his abilities in a display of conspicuous boundary-pushing technical virtuosity. Here, Tausch uses the notes e‴–g‴ not only at the top of extended arpeggios, but also in wide leaps between the registers of the instrument, designed to emphasize his extended range and control in producing extreme pitches in isolation (see Ex. 2). A similar passage in the Concerto for Two Clarinets, Op. 27 was singled out for ‘capricious’ difficulty in an article in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1808.48 Patterns of octave figuration far more idiomatic to the flute and oboe than the clarinet can also be found in Tausch’s Andante and Polonaise (Ex. 3). It is telling that the only work of comparable difficulty prior to 1800, Josef Eybler’s Concerto in B flat (1798), appears to have been significantly modified and simplified for performance.49 Tausch’s concertos are thus testament to his exceptional level of skill and a public statement of his desire to push the technical boundaries of clarinet playing in a way that is more often associated with the following generation of players.50 Fig. 1. Open in new tabDownload slide The range and registers of the clarinet Fig. 1. Open in new tabDownload slide The range and registers of the clarinet Ex. 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, Concerto in E flat R.M.21.d.11, mvt. III, Rondo allegretto, bb. 1–16 Ex. 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, Concerto in E flat R.M.21.d.11, mvt. III, Rondo allegretto, bb. 1–16 Ex. 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, Concerto in E flat Berlin 30077, mvt. I, Allegro, bb. 150–70 Ex. 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, Concerto in E flat Berlin 30077, mvt. I, Allegro, bb. 150–70 Ex. 3. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, Andante and Polonaise, bb. 89–101 Ex. 3. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, Andante and Polonaise, bb. 89–101 Instrument Technologies Tausch’s treatment of the bottom part of the clarinet’s range changes over the course of his compositions in response to developing instrument technologies. The design of the clarinet altered significantly through Tausch’s active playing period. In the 1760s, when Tausch began his education, clarinet design was in the midst of a transition from a Baroque instrument of two to three keys, designed primarily to function in the second and third registers, into what is now referred to as the ‘Classical’ clarinet, an instrument of four or five keys, with a usable fundamental register (see Fig. 1 above). Many composers in the latter part of the eighteenth century continued to use this bottom register with caution, writing for the clarinet primarily in the same tessitura as the oboe c′–d‴; by the 1790s, however, there are examples of concertos using the full range from e to g‴ and beyond.51 Because the five-keyed clarinet of the 1790s uses solely a recorder-like system of open and forked fingerings, the scale of the instrument is only truly fully chromatic in the second and third registers: though it is technically possible to produce each chromatic step between e and b♭′, some pitches are weak and usable only in limited contexts. The addition of further keys after 1800 addressed this issue as well as providing the player with multiple fingering options for certain notes, each with different tonal and intonation characteristics. Changes in Tausch’s writing for the clarinet in his concertos, as well as his quartets for clarinet and strings, clearly illuminate his response to these developments. The Concerto R.M.21.d.11 is the most limited in its use of the low register, being primarily written from c″ upwards with the exception of a few instances of extended scales and Alberti passagework. The two quartets are also overwhelmingly written in the range g′–c‴, with the low register from e to f′ not used as an integrated part of the clarinet’s range, but rather as an occasional special effect. This usually takes the form of Alberti figuration, which, as in the concerto, is used for bravura effect towards the end of fast movements. In the slow movement of the Quartet in B flat the low register is also invoked as an alternative voice: here, Tausch makes an expressive feature of the two lowest notes of the instrument, e and f, presented in isolation and marked with a double hairpin (Ex. 4). The tessitura of these works points strongly to their having been among the early part of Tausch’s compositional output, probably dating from the 1780s. Even for this date, however, Tausch’s avoidance of the low register is somewhat conservative. Clarinet design advanced extremely rapidly from the 1790s to the 1800s, and several factors support the notion, also put forward by Albert Rice, that Tausch progressed to an instrument with more keys after 1800.52 There is a published letter from 1802 in which Tausch and two colleagues from the Königliche Kapelle praise the qualities of instruments made for them by the Berlin woodwind-maker Griesling & Schlott.53 Tausch’s student Baermann used a Griesling & Schlott instrument, which had ten keys, while for his other well-known student Bernhard Crusell he acquired an instrument from the Dresden maker Heinrich Grenser with eleven keys.54 Tausch was also acquainted with the Sonderhausen clarinettist Simon Hermstedt, who is known to have added keys to his instrument in 1805 in order to overcome the difficulties of Louis Spohr’s First Concerto.55 Tausch’s concerto Berlin 30077 and double concerto Op. 27 show a development in his writing for the clarinet that suggests he embraced these new developments in clarinet design. The solo parts of the double concerto move fluidly between the lower and upper registers of the instrument and, unlike Tausch’s earlier works, feature instances of expressive and melodic writing in the lower register. A particular feature is made of semitone movement between b and c ′, which Tausch clearly treats as a timbral novelty (see Ex. 5). This is an interval avoided by most players and composers in the late eighteenth century because on a five-keyed clarinet the note b is obtained by a half-hole fingering that is difficult to control and produces a weak sound. Tausch’s featuring of this interval at the end of the double concerto Op. 27 is notable and indicates a move by him and his pupils (who regularly played the work) to instruments that included a b key on the right-hand joint, which produces a reliable and sonorous note. The concerto Berlin 30077, meanwhile, contains an extended section of Alberti bass figuration in written F minor in the low register of the instrument; this is highly unusual and demanding for an instrument usually only written for in keys of up to two flats (see Ex. 6). Tausch’s duos Op. 21 Nos. 2 and 3 for clarinet and bassoon, published in 1812, show a further development towards melodic writing in this register. They contain several passages heavily featuring b and c♯′, another note for which an additional key was required. The extension of Tausch’s writing into this range also allows him to create lengthy passages where the clarinet provides a bass line to the bassoon solo. The review of the duos in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung commends them to lovers, not of music, but of the clarinet and bassoon, and praises their writing for allowing the players to concentrate on producing good tone and a melodious, expressive performance.56 Such a reception demonstrates the interest that the expanding tonal possibilities of early nineteenth-century wind instruments held for audiences, as well as the increasing interest in timbre and orchestration as an end in itself in musical composition.57 Expressive Virtuosity The dynamic and expressive markings in Tausch’s concertos suggest an expressive virtuosity that corresponds with the emphasis on nuance and delivery in accounts of his playing. It was of course common practice in the eighteenth century for dynamic markings to give only the broadest outline, with most nuance and expressive shaping left to the performer.58 Nonetheless, the dynamics that are present can still tell a story, as they serve to indicate not only the most important structural and ornamental gestures, but also special, unusual, or counter-intuitive effects. The manuscript parts for the concerto R.M.21.d.11 are relatively sparsely marked with dynamics ranging from forte to pianissimo, with most dynamic gradations left to the performer, as was common practice. In the outer movements of the concerto Berlin 30077 and the Polonaise in B flat, only piano and pianissimo appear, with the forte markings that are obviously expected in much of the brilliant passagework left implicit. It is not known for whom these manuscript copies were prepared, but it would appear that they were considered not to require fully notated dynamics. One characteristic that is nonetheless observable across all three works is a predilection for piano effects: the middle movement of the concerto R.M.21.d.11 finishes on a repeated pianissimo c‴, as surprisingly does the final movement, an effect clearly intended to draw attention to the player’s fine control. The first movement of Berlin 30077 begins pianissimo and ends with a quietly unwinding piano triplet figure. This is far from the grand ‘noise-killer’ opening and dramatic ending that might be expected of a virtuoso concerto movement.59 The orchestral parts that survive alongside the concerto R.M.21.d.11 provide further evidence for a conspicuous virtuosity of expression. They contain clearly differentiated solo and ripieno copies for first and second violin, with the ripieno violins playing only in forte tuttis. The ripieno violins and winds have also had their parts for the slow movement struck out and replaced with a tacet. While acknowledging that the survival of only a single example of each part does not necessarily imply the forces used, and that this set of copied parts (whose provenance is unknown) may have been prepared for a performance in particular circumstances, the material is indicative of the possibility of casting this concerto on a relatively intimate scale, perhaps even with solo strings accompanying the solo passages. This version of the concerto seems to have been modified to facilitate a detailed and nuanced performance by releasing the soloist from the necessity to project over a large string section—something that accords with the contemporary reviews of Tausch’s performances. Tausch’s quartets for clarinet and strings survive only in published parts, which, as might be expected, have more explicit and detailed dynamic markings to serve the purposes of the remote consumer.60 Forte, piano, and hairpin markings appear in the outer as well as middle movements, and there are also some instances of performative dynamic ‘effects’ designed to draw the attention of the listener, such as a crescendo-subito piano at the introduction of the coda in the first movement of the Quartet in B flat. Rinforzandos appear frequently in the slow movement to mark diminished chords, and like several of the concerto movements, the final movement of this quartet has a delicate pianissimo ending. While we cannot be certain that the markings in these works represent Tausch’s own practice in performance, such features do demand the mastery of nuance and soft tone for which he was praised. Moreover, Martin Harlow has observed the frequency with which music critics in Vienna during this period singled out soft playing and delicacy by clarinet soloists for particular comment, indicating that it was either a novelty or a prized characteristic.61 In this context, the conspicuous use of quiet dynamics in these works is as much a demonstration of virtuosity as the bravura passagework elsewhere in the concertos, and indeed a device to throw the latter into relief and emphasize the performer’s range of expression—a fact that accords with Gerber’s recollection that Tausch’s delivery ranged from the ‘Zephyr’s gentle breath’ to the ‘thundering, brilliant arpeggiated passages’. Another aspect of expressive and musical virtuosity is the ability to embellish the music, introducing spontaneity and variety into performance. Mary Hunter suggests that musical works can draw the listener’s attention either to the act of performance, through conspicuous dynamic effects, ornamentation, and extemporization, or to compositional technique, by a conspicuous treatment of harmony, orchestration, or phrase structures that subvert expectations.62 The former category often demonstrates ‘the inextricable entanglement of composition and performance, an entanglement particularly tightly knotted when the compositions were not routinely or officially available for publication’, as is certainly the case for the music by Tausch considered in this section.63 Works that give prominence to more composerly attributes, meanwhile, speak of the separation of the roles of composer and performer, and the rise of a ‘public-private’ listening environment where individual members of a gathered audience sought to commune directly with the ‘composer-as-embodied-in-the-work’—something that, as we will see, Tausch also began to engage in during his time in Berlin.64 While in Tausch’s concertos the density of the technical writing largely precludes ornamentation, his two quartets for clarinet and strings appear designed to facilitate embellishment. The Quartet in B flat includes several fermatas, two in the opening Allegro over cadence points that certainly demand elaboration, and one at the end of the A section of the Adagio preceding an unprepared shift to the subdominant key, which invites a short Eingang. The sonata-form first movements of both quartets also feature unusually bare and repetitive triadic second themes that cry out for some form of elaboration. Both also have a ternary-form slow movement, with a repeat of the opening theme that clearly invites ornamentation. Hunter suggests that this style of writing can be associated with the eighteenth-century culture of patronage and private or court performance, such as that within which Tausch operated during the 1780s and 1790s.65 It is certainly possible that Tausch’s quartets served for private performances during this period, and the string parts are even simple enough to have been taken by a good amateur player such as the Elector Carl Theodor or the Prussian monarch Friedrich Wilhelm II, both of whom were keen cellists. However, the only accounts of performances of quartets by Tausch are at larger-scale events. Gerber describes having heard Tausch in 1793 perform ‘one of his most lovely quartets with variations, at the concert in the Stadt Paris’.66 Tausch’s student Crusell is known to have performed a quartet by his teacher twice during his stay in Berlin in 1803. On the first occasion he appeared ‘scared and trembling’ at a gathering of ‘30–40 people, of both genders, all of whom were music lovers and experts’, alongside the violinist Pierre Baillot in a programme that also included a Haydn quartet.67 The other, ‘in the presence of numerous princes and princesses’, was preceded by a Wranitzky symphony, suggesting a larger-scale occasion.68 Although we cannot be certain that these performances featured the surviving quartets discussed here, it is clear that such works were performed by Crusell and Tausch in the same kind of settings as his concertos. Furthermore, if one accepts the possibility that the concertos were at times given by very small forces, the main distinction between the works is the overtly virtuosic writing in the concertos versus the increased space for extemporization and ornamentation in the quartets. These commonalities offer an explanation as to why, as is the case with many late eighteenth-century quartets and quintets for solo wind instrument and strings, Tausch’s quartets do not fulfil our expectations of ‘chamber music’ in the sense that emerged around the turn of the nineteenth century, with its overtones of stylized musical conversation and ‘composerly’ features intended for a quiet and attentive audience.69 Approaching these works as miniature ‘public’ works, rather than perhaps rather simplistic chamber music, is an important step in understanding how the compositions of virtuoso wind players were heard during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. tausch as chamber musician Gerber refers to Tausch hosting private concerts in his home in the late 1790s, described as ‘ein sogenanntes Quartett unter Freunden und Musikkennern’ (‘a so-called Quartet among friends and musical connoisseurs’).70 Gerber claims that this ‘subsequently expanded into a fortnightly grand concert, to be given at the expense of both the players and the audience—the latter being required to be themselves thoroughly musical, and only to be admitted in restricted numbers’.71 Though no further trace has been found of these concerts, some clue to their nature may be found in accounts of similar activities elsewhere in Berlin. The resemblance of the title to Rellstab’s Concerte für Kenner und Liebhaber and the earlier Liebhaberconcerte, a subscription series run by Carl Ludwig Bachmann and Friedrich Ernst Benda from 1770 to 1785, is notable, though it may speak of the wider dilettante musical culture rather than a direct attempt to emulate the earlier series. The idea of a private salon event evolving into a grand concert initially seems incongruous; however, as discussed by writers including Hunter and Robert Eschbach, ‘private’ or salon concerts were not necessarily small, intimate gatherings, but could attract large crowds.72 The distinction between these events and public concerts was perhaps less the number of attendees than the atmosphere and their link to the culture of Bildung and Geselligkeit that was fostered through the musical Gesellschaften and salon culture of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Berlin.73 The clearest evidence that Tausch participated in this kind of music-making is his 13 Pièces en Quatuor, Op. 22 for two clarinets, horn, and bassoon. Though the pieces were published by Adolf Schlesinger in Berlin around 1812 and shortly afterwards in Paris, it seems likely that at least some were composed somewhat earlier, probably around 1800.74 The musical material itself is very different from Tausch’s more public and virtuosic works. While the former are compositions in the service of the act of performance, the Op. 22 quartets are the opposite, demanding performance in the service of the act of composition, and a context of attentive, engaged listening, of the kind one would expect to find in a gathering of ‘Musikkennern’. The thirteen movements survey a wide range of musical forms and styles typically found in the wind chamber music of this period, including rondos, dances (Minuet, Allemande, and Polonaise), and variations, as well as six slow movements. In contrast to Tausch’s other works, all of which display a certain commonality of language and structural approach, almost every movement of Op. 22 seems to experiment with a different approach or idea. Thus in the Allegro no. III we find extensive notated tempo modification, and the Andante Moderato no. XI includes a substantial written-out ensemble cadenza (see Ex. 7). The pieces are also rich in allusions to eighteenth-century topics and characters both high and low. Some movements invoke the association of wind music with the pastoral and with outdoor serenading: in the Rondo no. VI, for instance, the main subject is a rustic dance theme in the horn, complete with droning accompaniment. In the minor-key Andante no. IX Tausch uses echo effects, a reference to the eighteenth-century fashion for ‘echo-partitas’ played by two spatially separated Harmonien,75 though the same movement ends by transforming the echo into a far more noble figure, that of falling tears (see Ex. 8). There are also fundamental formal features that set these pieces apart from Tausch’s other music and make it clear that he was writing for an attentive audience. This is most clear in the six slow movements, all Adagios and Andantes. Far from the simple ternary forms seen in the middle movements of Tausch’s concertos and quartets with strings, these short movements are mostly organic, through-composed structures with melodic units varied and developed throughout, with open-ended and irregular phrase structures and frequent use of chromatic harmonic progressions. Where clear principal themes are introduced, they rarely return in their original form, and in many cases the only nod to recapitulation is a motivic reference to the opening theme in the coda of the movement. Tausch’s use of articulation and small-scale phrasing adds a further layer of irregularity to the music. The presence of detailed and complex articulation markings is consistent throughout the sources for all of Tausch’s works, including in the manuscripts of his solo concertos where they appear in the copyist’s hand throughout. This is contrary to the usual practice in late eighteenth-century concertos, where it is common to find articulation, like dynamics, left to the performer’s discretion, and suggests that, to Tausch, a nuanced approach to articulation was important enough not to be left to the spontaneity of the moment.76 Even in Tausch’s early, large-scale works, where the articulation patterns in semiquaver passagework generally align with the rhythmic groupings, there is an intricacy in the way that he deploys different patterns in both bravura and melodic passages, often calling attention to chromatic inflections and leaps. In Op. 22, however, articulation markings are used not only to emphasize the twists and turns of melodic lines and passagework, but also to create phrasing structures that work directly in tension with the metre and melodic structure. This is most evident in passages where the notated articulation is used to impose a regular metric pattern onto a phrase that is a hemiola or which is metrically displaced (see Ex. 9 and Ex. 10). In the opening of the Menuetto no. IV, Tausch uses slurring patterns to obfuscate the already complex phrase pattern of the opening twelve-bar phrase (Ex. 11). It begins with two two-bar phrases where the harmony, articulation, and texture place the emphasis on the second bar. The slurring pattern of bars 5–6 suggests two one-bar phrases, followed by a two-bar slur that creates an ambiguous extended phrase that could be either six or eight beats long. The final gesture of this opening theme begins on the last beat of bar 9. The section is then concluded by a pair of more regular 2 + 2 phrases. The irregular feeling of this opening is further emphasized if the performers follow the practice of placing emphasis on the beginning of each notated slur. The final and most striking difference between Op. 22 and Tausch’s other works is the quantity of dynamic markings. The pieces contain the full range of his dynamic markings (pp, p, mf, f, and ff) as well as rf and sf. Table 1 shows the number of these markings per movement in the 13 Morceaux compared to the Quartet in B flat for clarinet and strings. While the most densely marked movement of the Quartet in B flat, the slow movement, contains fourteen markings in forty-one bars, a density of 0.34 markings per bar, four out of five of the slow movements of the 13 Morceaux have a density of 0.67 or higher. The significance of this lies not only in the quantity of dynamics, but in Tausch’s use of them: conspicuous dynamic effects such as changes between piano and forte mid-phrase and subito effects occur frequently, emphasizing the unexpected harmonic shifts and irregular phrasing structures. Such a use of dynamics is too complex to appear a (quasi-)spontaneous interpretative gesture on the part of the performers, and rather presents itself as a part of the composed structure of the piece. Table 1 Density of dynamic markings in Franz Tausch, 13 Morceaux en Quatuor, Op. 22, and Quartet in B flat for Clarinet and Strings Movement . Bars . Dynamics . Density . I Allegro 225 65 0.29 II Adagio 52 35 0.67 III Allegro 131 34 0.26 IV Menuetto moderato 84 21 0.25 V Andante Moderato 79 37 0.47 VI Rondo 200 47 0.235 VII Adagio 60 46 0.77 VIII Allemande allegretto 153 29 0.19 IX Andante 50 37 0.74 X Polonaise 90 37 0.41 XI Andante moderato 63 44 0.7 XII Adagio 25 24 0.96 XIII Allegro molto 127 60 0.47 Quartet in B flat: Allegro molto 148 38 0.26 Quartet in B flat: II Adagio 41 14 0.34 Quartet in B flat: Rondo: Allegro 174 38 0.22 Movement . Bars . Dynamics . Density . I Allegro 225 65 0.29 II Adagio 52 35 0.67 III Allegro 131 34 0.26 IV Menuetto moderato 84 21 0.25 V Andante Moderato 79 37 0.47 VI Rondo 200 47 0.235 VII Adagio 60 46 0.77 VIII Allemande allegretto 153 29 0.19 IX Andante 50 37 0.74 X Polonaise 90 37 0.41 XI Andante moderato 63 44 0.7 XII Adagio 25 24 0.96 XIII Allegro molto 127 60 0.47 Quartet in B flat: Allegro molto 148 38 0.26 Quartet in B flat: II Adagio 41 14 0.34 Quartet in B flat: Rondo: Allegro 174 38 0.22 Open in new tab Table 1 Density of dynamic markings in Franz Tausch, 13 Morceaux en Quatuor, Op. 22, and Quartet in B flat for Clarinet and Strings Movement . Bars . Dynamics . Density . I Allegro 225 65 0.29 II Adagio 52 35 0.67 III Allegro 131 34 0.26 IV Menuetto moderato 84 21 0.25 V Andante Moderato 79 37 0.47 VI Rondo 200 47 0.235 VII Adagio 60 46 0.77 VIII Allemande allegretto 153 29 0.19 IX Andante 50 37 0.74 X Polonaise 90 37 0.41 XI Andante moderato 63 44 0.7 XII Adagio 25 24 0.96 XIII Allegro molto 127 60 0.47 Quartet in B flat: Allegro molto 148 38 0.26 Quartet in B flat: II Adagio 41 14 0.34 Quartet in B flat: Rondo: Allegro 174 38 0.22 Movement . Bars . Dynamics . Density . I Allegro 225 65 0.29 II Adagio 52 35 0.67 III Allegro 131 34 0.26 IV Menuetto moderato 84 21 0.25 V Andante Moderato 79 37 0.47 VI Rondo 200 47 0.235 VII Adagio 60 46 0.77 VIII Allemande allegretto 153 29 0.19 IX Andante 50 37 0.74 X Polonaise 90 37 0.41 XI Andante moderato 63 44 0.7 XII Adagio 25 24 0.96 XIII Allegro molto 127 60 0.47 Quartet in B flat: Allegro molto 148 38 0.26 Quartet in B flat: II Adagio 41 14 0.34 Quartet in B flat: Rondo: Allegro 174 38 0.22 Open in new tab Together, the characteristics of Op. 22 speak of a performance context in which both listeners and players are invited to ponder intricately written, richly topical music and to delight in turns of phrase and harmony. To return to Hunter’s model, if in Tausch’s concertos and quartets with strings the acts of composition and performance are part of one continuous process, in these chamber works the two begin to become discrete. Whereas the concertos and quartets thus tell of Tausch as a clarinettist, to play the Op. 22 pieces is to engage in a dialogue with Tausch the composer. inside the musikalische gesellschaft: tausch’s conservatorium der bläseinstrumente In 1805 Tausch published an article in Reichardt’s short-lived periodical the Berlinische Musikalische Zeitung introducing a new initiative he had recently established: a Conservatorium der Bläseinstrumente.77 In it he writes: I believed that the highest possible perfectionment of all wind instruments could only be achieved through the bringing together of all kindred forces, and this gave me the idea to form an independent institution, where many artists could strive together to this purpose, which would best be achieved not only individually but also, as I hoped and later was truly convinced, through a large instrumentation, which could create a hitherto wholly unknown effect.  I announced my plan to several musical friends, and much to my pleasure it was received with approval, and thus encouraged I summoned all my efforts to realize it as soon as possible.78 Tausch’s account of his Conservatorium, together with the small number of press reports that document its public appearances, also provide an insight into the workings of a musical Gesellschaft, as well as a rare account of private and dilettante musical activity centring around a wind ensemble. The regulations of the Conservatorium do not describe a training school in the sense of the recently founded Paris Conservatoire, but a Musikalische Gesellschaft of the kind that flourished in Berlin in the second half of the eighteenth century.79 The published membership list reveals the Conservatorium to have been an association of musicians from the Kapelle and military officers, together with a circle of ‘wealthy, enthusiastic and competent amateurs’, who both funded and participated in its activities.80 The musical Gesellschaften of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were an expression of the Enlightenment notion of Bildung, in the sense of individual and collective self-realization through social activity focused on the development of cultural and aesthetic sensibility, a strong sense of which comes through in Tausch’s description of the aims of the Conservatorium. The model for the Conservatorium was clearly Carl Friedrich Fasch’s Sing-Akademie, the most prominent of Berlin’s musical Gesellschaften. Reichardt drew a direct comparison between the two organizations: Everyone who recognizes the grand effect of a well-organized and richly equipped choir of wind instruments and who has had the opportunity to listen to the effect of two hundred voices in the choir of the Fasch Singing Academy has to feel the strong desire to hear these two institutes, distinct in their own right and which already assemble in the same location, united into a deliberately large-scale event. From that, surely, there would emerge an effect which the world, and even the so-richly endowed city of Paris, has never achieved.81 Though no accounts survive of meetings of Tausch’s Conservatorium, its constitution indicates that sessions were highly organized, with an emphasis on regular and punctual attendance that suggests an atmosphere of concentration was fostered. Gerber’s account of an evening at the Sing-Akademie, which met in the same location as the Conservatorium, is indicative of the strict and earnest approach with which such musical activities were conducted. Invited by a friend, he was obliged to join the chorus for the evening, as non-participating observers were not permitted. He reports not only the high standard of the music-making, but also its seriousness: taking a moment to enjoy the sound of the ensemble during a passage of rests in his part, Gerber missed his next entry, incurring the fierce glances of his fellow singers.82 As this vignette illustrates, among the Liebhaber of Berlin were musicians who took their practice very seriously, and thereby achieved high standards of accomplishment. Singers, keyboard players, flautists, and string players have long been familiar to scholars of this period, but dilettante reed and horn players are much more poorly documented and have received very little attention. Tausch’s account of his Conservatorium, with titled amateurs listed among the players of clarinets, horns, bassoons, and even oboes, thus provides important evidence of dilettante engagement with these instruments, and is an important counterbalance to the notion that wind playing was primarily a professional and often functional activity. Identifying the individual members of the Conservatorium is challenging, because only surnames are given, and spellings are at times irregular. However, it is possible to recognize representatives of a number of prominent Prussian noble families, including von Malzahn, von Riedesel, von Jagow, and von Stollberg. Tausch reports that the Conservatorium initially depended on members of the ‘local garrison’, who served on its Directorate until their evacuation in the upheavals of 1805–6; and indeed, a number of names on his membership list correspond to officers of the Berlin garrison, and in particular the nineteenth infantry regiment.83 A few members of the association may have played more than one instrument, such as ‘Herr Graf von Haake [sic]’ (horn and clarinet) and ‘Herr von Jagow’ (horn and flute). The continued inclusion of these names despite the departure of the garrison was presumably an attempt to enhance the grandeur, in both size and status, of the Conservatorium, in an article that was no doubt intended to expand Tausch’s supporter base. It is clear from the names given in the membership list that Tausch’s musicians became part of a network that supported his wider activities. Several names on the list also appear in dedications on his published compositions, such as the clarinet-playing ‘Herr Graf von Reuß’, presumably the same ‘Henri LXIII Reuß Comte and Signeur de Plauen’, to whom Tausch’s Op. 21 Duos for Clarinet and Bassoon were later dedicated. The horn-playing ‘Herr Graf von Brühl’ was Karl von Brühl, a chamberlain to the King, who served on the directorate of the Conservatorium and was the dedicatee of Tausch’s Op. 22 Morceaux en Quatuor. The amateur member of the Conservatorium whose musical activities are best documented is the bassoonist Captain Wilhelm von Bredow, the dedicatee of Tausch’s Op. 5 Quartets for basset horns and bassoons in 1805. Bredow was a student of Ritter, Tausch’s colleague in Mannheim and Berlin, and was sufficiently accomplished to perform alongside his teacher and the other bassoonists of the Hofkapelle in 1807 in a concerto for four bassoons by Georg A. Schneider. The Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung described Bredow as ‘ein trefflich spielender dilettant’ (an excellent amateur player), and he was bequeathed Ritter’s instrument on his death in 1808.84 In the Conservatorium, these noble amateurs were joined by many of Tausch’s colleagues from the Hofkapelle, including the clarinettist Josef Beer, the horn player Johann Andreas Schunke, the oboists Friedrich Westenholz and ‘Große [sic] der Vater,85 and the bassoonists Carl Baermann and Christian Gottlieb Schwarz. Also present were Tausch’s students Heinrich Baermann and Georg Reinhardt. A number of names on the membership list do not appear to be either members of the nobility or court musicians: these, such as the flautists Herr Adam and Herr Damm, are common names that correspond to a number of merchants and tradesman listed in the Berlin directories of the period, possibly indicating middle-class participation in the Conservatorium. A fuller interrogation of the organization’s membership lists in conjunction with concert and sheet-music subscription lists of the period may lead to a richer picture of the social make-up of the Conservatorium. Organization and Activities The constitution of the Conservatorium reveals a subscription model, in which individuals of means were encouraged to supplement their contribution in order to subsidize those who could not afford the full fee—an indication of socially egalitarian principles underpinning the endeavour. According to the constitution, the Conservatorium met to rehearse each week on Friday and Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. There were strict rules and sanctions for those members who attended late or were absent for social engagements, perhaps in an attempt to impress discipline on the dilettante members. The Friday meeting took place in Tausch’s own apartment, while the Saturday meeting was held in the Saal der Akademie, by permission of the King.86 There are references to at least five public performances by the Conservatorium during 1806 and 1807, including one in the Saal der Akademie that was attended by the royal family. The Zeitung für die Elegante Welt reports that the ensemble contained around fifty members, considerably more than were listed in Tausch’s 1805 article.87 Several appearances at the National-Theatre are also documented, in which the Conservatorium performed as part of a mixed programme including orchestral and vocal works. Reviews in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung call its performances ‘masterful’ and praise ‘the precision and craftsmanship that could be expected from the conservatoire for wind instruments’, indicating that the organization had established a reputation for high performance standards.88 Instrumentation and Repertory It appears that the focus of the Conservatorium’s activities revolved around music for a large wind ensemble. Tausch’s membership list includes flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, double bass and bass horn, trumpets, trombones, and timpani, an instrumentation that closely resembles the much-admired Harmonie of the Duke of Sonderhausen, one of Tausch’s supporters.89 Sonderhausen encouraged the Conservatorium to adopt the bass horn, a brass instrument related to the serpent for whose improved design he claimed the credit.90 Tausch extols its virtues as a more appropriate 16-foot foundation for a wind ensemble than a double bass or contrabassoon, and even claims for it a five-octave chromatic range, though his comments may be in part designed to curry favour with his patron.91 It is not clear from Tausch’s descriptions whether the Conservatorium was a one-to-a-part ensemble or used massed forces. Reichardt refers to it as ‘a well-organized and richly equipped choir of wind instruments’.92 The term ‘choir’ seems to imply the doubling of parts; however, in the list of the works Tausch arranged for the use of the Conservatorium, he includes ‘Der Zauberwald [Righini] in which I experimented with doubling the solo part for each instrument, in order to keep the keys as they are in their original version one after another without gaps.’93 Numerous references are made in the constitution of the Conservatorium to the allocation and hourly rotation of ‘Soloparthien’ during meetings, and Crusell describes the practice retrospectively as ‘8–10 solo players accompanied by the rest’.94 Among the Conservatorium’s repertory there were also arrangements of concertante works, which presumably preserved the original solo parts, with the orchestral accompaniment arranged for wind. A reasonable conclusion would be that the Conservatorium’s formation varied, and was probably based on one-on-a-part performance, but may also have featured some sort of ripieno group. Tausch’s arrangements seem to have formed the core of the Conservatorium’s repertory. According to his article, these included several operas: although only the titles are given, they all correspond to recent works by composers at the Prussian court: Friedrich Himmel’s Vasco di Gama (1801), Vincenzo Righini’s Tigrane (1800) and Der Zauberwald (La Selva incantata, 1803), and Reichardt’s Rosmonda (1801). Alongside these are arrangements of a symphony and a work for four bassoons by G. A. Schneider, in whose benefit concert the Conservatorium performed in 1806, and Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito. Only one arrangement mentioned in the article is extant: Himmel’s Fanchon das Leiermädchen (1804), described by Tausch as one of a ‘few smaller works’ created for the Conservatorium, is presumably the same arrangement as that published by Rudolph Werckmeister.95 The instrumentation of the published edition is flute, oboe, two clarinets, two horns, two bassoons, two trumpets, and double bass. Manuscript copies of the same piece are also preserved in the collection of the Sonderhausen Hofkapelle and the library of the Thurn und Taxis Harmonie at Regensberg, evidence of Tausch’s work reaching a network of other wind ensembles. Christoph Henzel has suggested that Tausch’s Conservatorium was an evolution of the eighteenth-century Harmoniemusik tradition and a foreshadowing of the coming popularity of military wind bands in the 1820s.96 However, given that there is no evidence that Tausch had any connection with, or interest in, military band activity, and that his stated aim for the Conservatorium was that it help wind players emulate the artistic achievements of singers and string players, there are strong grounds for the opposite interpretation: that Tausch was looking to distance the Conservatorium from the functional associations of Harmoniemusik and military music and raise the artistic status of the wind ensemble. It is notable in this regard that he does not use the term ‘Harmoniemusik’ to refer to the Conservatorium or its repertory. Taken from this point of view, it is interesting that Tausch did not compose any music for the Conservatorium, though in his 1805 article he stated his wish for others to write for the ensemble.97 Works were indeed composed for the joint forces of the Conservatorium and Singakademie by both Reichardt and Bernhard Anselm Weber, and performed in July and December 1807, to critical praise.98 Nonetheless, the repertory of the Conservatorium as described in 1805 was principally comprised of opera arrangements, as was commonly the case for eighteenth-century Harmonien. These arrangements are often portrayed as a form of popular ‘juke box’, a way of bringing the fashionable music of the moment to the court or the public in a small setting, and this is probably an accurate portrayal of many eighteenth-century arrangements. But by the early nineteenth century, arrangers were becoming increasingly ambitious and virtuosic in their work, as testified by the writing of Josef Triebensee for the Leichtenstein Kapelle or the anonymous settings of Beethoven published by Steiner in Vienna. Triebensee’s setting of La Clemenza di Tito, for instance, contains not only individual arias but also a complete section of the Act I finale, a dramatic, abstract, and complex ensemble number hardly suitable for background music. For these performer-arrangers, as for Tausch, appropriated repertory was approached not as a derivative genre, but as a way of furnishing themselves and their ensembles with music of a complexity and richness capable of matching their artistic aspirations. later years The last decade of Tausch’s life is poorly documented, and seems to have been a period of decline. During the first decade of the nineteenth century, solo appearances by Tausch begin to be outnumbered by those by his son, Friedrich Wilhelm (c.1790–1849), often performing his father’s music. When Crusell visited Berlin in 1811, he found his former teacher had suffered financially during the later years of the Napoleonic wars, which he reported had ‘destroyed’ the Conservatorium initiative. Tausch reported that the Kapelle had been combined with the National-Theatre, and the salaries of the musicians halved: not only this, but he feared the negative influence of the theatre director August Wilhelm Iffland, who had little interest in opera. Crusell’s main reason for visiting was to discover the fate of a clarinet that Tausch was to have procured for him from the instrument maker Heinrich Grenser in Dresden: he discovered that Tausch had indeed used his money to commission an instrument, but instead of sending it to him had sold it. Crusell records that he was able to reach an agreement with Tausch and shortly after proceeded to Dresden to take possession of the long-awaited instrument, which still survives.99 However, it appears that Tausch remained active in musical circles during the 1810s. He must have been pleased when, in 1815, his friend Graf Karl von Brühl was appointed Intendant of the National-Theatre, where he exerted an enlightened approach to programming and casting in both theatre and opera, and fostered a close cooperation with his artists.100 A concert report from 1816 tells of a performance of Harmoniemusik by Tausch featuring the keyed trumpet, indicating that he had retained an interest in the latest instrument technology.101 Even more touchingly, in 1816 a notice signed ‘Brühl’ in the Königlich privilegierte Berlinische Zeitung announcing the Festival of Thanksgiving for the Peace (Friedensfestes) requested that local dilettante players of flute oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn who were willing to contribute to a celebratory performance were asked to make themselves known to Tausch, who was clearly still involved in amateur music-making.102 Franz Tausch died the following year, aged 56. His obituary in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung appears to have been derived directly from Gerber’s Lexicon, rather than being based on more recent information. Tausch’s son took his place in the Königliche Kapelle, and the name Tausch appeared in the clarinet section of that orchestra until 1844. conclusion This study of Franz Tausch has its roots in my first experience of his music, performing the Pièces en Quatuor, Op. 22. To me as a professional historical clarinettist immersed in the music of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the sheer variety, intricate character, and concentrated expression of the pieces confounded my expectations, and felt musically and technically at odds with other wind repertory of the period and with the peripheral place their composer had been afforded in the historiography of the clarinet. For a long time my attempts to understand where this music came from yielded only more questions: why were the Op. 22 pieces so different from the rest of Tausch’s chamber music? How did a player whose roots were so firmly in the eighteenth century come to write concertos whose virtuosity placed them unequivocally alongside that of the following generation? And why had there been so little attention paid to Tausch, despite his links both backwards to Mannheim and forwards to important figures of the nineteenth century? This article hopefully goes some way to addressing these questions. That of Tausch’s relative neglect is worthy of a little more consideration. With the exception of broad studies of organology and repertory by Hoeprich and Rice,103 the historiography of the clarinet in the eighteenth and nineteenth century is dominated by a handful of individuals whose posthumous, iconic status is defined by their position as ‘muses’ to particular composers: Anton Stadler and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Heinrich Baermann and Carl Maria von Weber, Johann Simon Hermstedt and Louis Spohr, and, later in the nineteenth century, Richard Mühlfeld and Johannes Brahms.104 This is of course a reflection of a musicology that until recently was structured around the canon and a hierarchy that placed composition above performance. This is not to deny that certain composers’ interest in a relatively unfamiliar instrument was stimulated to some extent by a succession of prominent individuals; nonetheless, there is a far a richer and more complex story of the instrument’s emergence and development to be told. That the neglect of Franz Tausch can only be explained by his lack of connection with a prominent composer becomes apparent when he is compared to his contemporary Stadler, a musician frequently discussed in both scholarly and popular writing on Mozart.105 Despite his role in the genesis of Mozart’s clarinet works, Stadler is somewhat of a cul-de-sac: he had no known students, his origins and activities are more obscure than Tausch’s, and the instrument that he was associated with developing, now known as the ‘basset-clarinet’, did not become established. By comparison, Tausch’s contribution to the development of his instrument shows a much clearer lineage and, by tracing his journey, we learn more about the world he moved in than is possible from focusing on the genesis of a handful of ‘masterworks’. The sources discussed here show Tausch to have been an ambitious musician who repeatedly adapted to the changing musical culture that surrounded him. The opportunities for social mobility, which allowed the son of a humble church musician to marry the daughter of a diplomat and mix with the nobility of the Prussian court, were a result of the readiness of that nobility both to fund and to participate in music-making. That they showed an enthusiasm for wind ensembles as much as string quartets and choral music is a facet of this culture that deserves more attention than it has received. As a musician, Tausch was a progressive, determined to further his own art by seeking ever-higher levels of virtuosity and the cause of wind-playing through the creation of his Conservatorium. Eduard Hanslick characterized virtuoso wind players as ‘wandering artists’ with their ‘boring little pipes’,106 but Tausch shows that they could be idealists and entrepreneurs, fully engaged in the world around them. Tausch’s attempts to harness the opportunities that presented themselves reveal not only his personal artistic aspirations, but also the desire to find a place for wind music within new cultural structures as they began to crystallize at the start of the new century.  The following manuscript abbreviations are used:   R.M.21.d.11 British Library R.M.21.d.11   Berlin 30077 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung, Mus. ms. 30077  The following manuscript abbreviations are used:   R.M.21.d.11 British Library R.M.21.d.11   Berlin 30077 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung, Mus. ms. 30077 Open in new tab  The following manuscript abbreviations are used:   R.M.21.d.11 British Library R.M.21.d.11   Berlin 30077 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung, Mus. ms. 30077  The following manuscript abbreviations are used:   R.M.21.d.11 British Library R.M.21.d.11   Berlin 30077 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung, Mus. ms. 30077 Open in new tab APPENDIX Extant Works by Franz Tausch A relatively small number of works by Franz Tausch are extant, surviving in a combination of early prints and copyists’ manuscripts. In the absence of a body of correspondence or other written references to specific compositions, it is difficult to assign dates to individual works. Some, but not all, published pieces have been assigned opus numbers: these range up to 30 but with only eight numbers accounted for (3, 5, 21, 22, 26, 27, and 30). This suggests that Tausch gave numbers to unpublished works rather than assigning them upon publication, though the known numbers do not necessarily imply a chronology of composition. For a more detailed work-list, including untraced works, please see www.emilyworthington.co.uk. Instrumental Concerto for clarinet and orchestra Allegro spiritoso [E flat] – Romance: Andante [B flat] – Rondo: Allegretto [E flat] MSS: London British Library, R.M.21.d.11; Uppsala Universitetsbibliotek, Instr. mus. i hs. 80:6 Berlin: Hummel, c.1796 Referred to erroneously by Clinch as ‘Concerto no. 3’ and by Weston as ‘Concerto Op. 7’ Concerto for clarinet and orchestra Allegro [E flat] – Adagio [A flat] – Polonaise [E flat] MS: Berlin, Staatsbibliothek 30077 Berlin: Schlesinger, c.1810–1817 Referred to by Clinch as ‘Concerto no. 4’ Andante and Polonaise [B flat] for clarinet and orchestra MS: Berlin, Staatsbibliothek 30077 Leipzig: Peters, c.1818 Concerto for two clarinets and orchestra, Op 26 Grave: Allegro [B flat] – Adagio [E flat] – Rondo: allegro moderato [B flat] MS: Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Mus.Hs. 5122 Berlin: Schlesinger 293 Concerto for two clarinets and orchestra, Op. 27 Allegro [B flat ] – Adagio [E flat] – Rondo [B flat] Berlin: Hummel 1034 (c.1800) Chamber and ensemble 3 Duos for violin and viola, Op. 3 Berlin: Hummel 1076 6 Quartets for two basset horns, two bassoons, and two horns ad. lib., Op. 5 Oranienberg: Werckmeister 72 3 Duos for clarinet and bassoon, Op. 21 [E flat, B flat, F] Berlin: Schlesinger 63 13 Pièces en quatuors for two clarinets, bassoon, and horn, Op. 22 Berlin: Schlesinger 66 Paris: Bochsa 172–3 [as XIII Morceaux en Quatuors] Quatuor Tres Facile [B flat] for clarinet and strings, Op. 30 MS: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Mus.Schott.Ha 1410 Mainz: Schott 1417 Serenata [E flat] for two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons MS: Berlin, Staatsbibliothek KHM 341 Quatuor [B flat] pour clarinette, violin, alto & violoncelle Offenbach: André 4012 (c.1815) Funf Marsch und ein Choral für die kaiserlich russische Garde Berlin: Schlesinger 138 (1814–15) Arrangements Fanchon das Leyermädchen [Himmel] arranged for 9–11 winds MS: Rudolstadt, Thüringisches Staatsarchiv SH 218; Regensburg Fürst Thurn und Taxis Hofbibliothek und Zentralbibliothek, Himmel 3/II Oranienberg: Werckmeister Douze duos pour deux clarinettes, tirés de l’opéra Fanchon [Himmel] Leipzig: Bureau des arts et d’industrie 384 Pieces choisies … arrangées pour la clarinette [Righini] Berlin: Schlesinger 144 (152) Pièces d’harmonie tirées de Minerve et Dedale de V. Righini arranged for six winds Oranienberg: Werckmeister 10 Ex. 4. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, Quartet in B flat for clarinet and strings, mvt. II, Adagio, bb. 18–22 Ex. 4. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, Quartet in B flat for clarinet and strings, mvt. II, Adagio, bb. 18–22 Ex. 5. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, Concerto in B flat, Op. 27, mvt. I, Allegro, bb. 141–6 Ex. 5. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, Concerto in B flat, Op. 27, mvt. I, Allegro, bb. 141–6 Ex. 6. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, Concerto in E flat Berlin 30077, mvt. III, Polonaise, bb. 147–60 Ex. 6. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, Concerto in E flat Berlin 30077, mvt. III, Polonaise, bb. 147–60 Ex. 7. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, 13 Morceaux en Quatuor, Op. 22, no. XI, Andante moderato, bb. 39–47 Ex. 7. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, 13 Morceaux en Quatuor, Op. 22, no. XI, Andante moderato, bb. 39–47 Ex. 8. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, 13 Morceaux en Quatuor, Op. 22, mvt. IX, Andante: (a) bb. 1–6; (b) bb. 47–50 Ex. 8. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, 13 Morceaux en Quatuor, Op. 22, mvt. IX, Andante: (a) bb. 1–6; (b) bb. 47–50 Ex. 9. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, 13 Morceaux en Quatuor, Op. 22, mvt. I, Allegro molto, bb. 203–7 Ex. 9. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, 13 Morceaux en Quatuor, Op. 22, mvt. I, Allegro molto, bb. 203–7 Ex. 10. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, 13 Morceaux en Quatuor, Op. 22, mvt. XI, Andante moderato, bb. 13–17 Ex. 10. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, 13 Morceaux en Quatuor, Op. 22, mvt. XI, Andante moderato, bb. 13–17 Ex. 11. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, 13 Morceaux en Quatuor, Op. 22, mvt. IV, Menuetto: Moderato, bb. 1–12 Ex. 11. Open in new tabDownload slide Franz Tausch, 13 Morceaux en Quatuor, Op. 22, mvt. IV, Menuetto: Moderato, bb. 1–12 Footnotes 1 The sole scholarly source focusing on Tausch is Peter Clinch, ‘Clarinet Concerto No. 3 by Franz Tausch (1762–1817)’, Studies in Music, 8 [suppl.] (1974), 17–31. Pamela Weston’s work in this area is still commonly cited, but was written for a general readership and contains few source references. See Pamela Weston, ‘The First Virtuosi: Joseph Beer and Franz Tausch’, in her Clarinet Virtuosi of the Past (Ampleforth, 1971), 29–45. 2 William Weber, The Great Transformation of Musical Taste: Concert Programming from Haydn to Brahms (Cambridge, 2008), 87–9. 3 See John Spitzer and Neal Zaslaw, ‘The Life and Times of an Eighteenth-Century Orchestra Musician’, in The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650–1815 (Oxford, 2004), 398–435 at 401–3. 4 The main source of information on Franz Tausch’s early life is an entry in Gerber’s 1814 Neues historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler, which Gerber claimed to be based on an ‘account drafted by Herr Tausch in his own hand (die vom Hrn. Tausch eigenhändig entworsene Geschichte verursacht hat, welche diesem Artikel zum Grunde liegt)’. Ernst Ludwig Gerber, ‘Franz Tausch’, in Neues historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler, iv (1814), cols. 326–8 at col. 327. My thanks to Nick Morgan for translating this article. François-Joseph Fétis, in his Biographie universelle (Paris, 1835–44), vii. 191 appears to reproduce the contents of Gerber’s article in a truncated form and does not include any additional information. 5 See in particular Eugene Wolf et al., Manuscripts from Mannheim, ca. 1730–1778: A Study in the Methodology of Musical Source Research (Frankfurt-am-Main, 2002), 29–35; Eugene Wolf, ‘F.X. Richter's Six quartetto’s (London, 1768) and the concept of chamber music at Mannheim’, in Kristina Pfarr and Karl Böhmer (eds.), Kammermusik an Rhein und Main: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Streichquartetts—Christoph-Hellmut Mahling zum 75. Geburtstag (Mainz, 2007), 39–61; Bärbel Pelker, ‘The Palatine Court in Mannheim’, in Samantha Owens, Barbara M. Reul, and Janice B. Stockigt (eds.), Music at German Courts, 1715–1760 (Woodbridge, 2015), 131–62; and Ludwig Finscher (ed.), Die Mannheimer Hofkapelle im Zeitalter Carl Theodors (Mannheim, 1992). 6 Pelker, ‘The Palatine Court at Mannheim’, 151. 7 ‘Von dieser Zeit an wurde er als ein dienstfähiges Mitglied der Kapelle, sowohl auf der Klarinette, als auf der Violine, augesehen und ununterbrochen fort gebraucht.’ Gerber, ‘Franz Tausch’, col. 326. 8 Robert Münster, ‘München oder Mannheim? Ein Beitrag zum Thema: Mozart und die Klarinette’, Acta Mozartiana, 18 (1971), 10–13. 9 Wolf et al., Manuscripts from Mannheim, 38 and 41–2. 10 See Pelker, ‘The Palatine Court at Mannheim’, 143–4; Wolf et al., Manuscripts from Mannheim, 29–35. 11 Pelker, ‘The Palatine Court at Mannheim’, 149. 12 Charles Burney, The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and United Provinces. Or, The Journal of a Tour through those Countries, Undertaken to Collect Materials for a General History of Music (London, 1775), 79. 13 Thomas Irvine, ‘Mozart, Mannheim, and Performance’, Mozart Jahrbuch (2006), 163–76 at 168. 14 See Roland Würtz, ‘Die Organisation der Mannheimer Hofkapelle’, in Finscher (ed.), Die Mannheimer Hofkapelle im Zeitalter Carl Theodors (Mannheim, 1992), 37–48; Spitzer and Zaslaw, The Birth of the Orchestra, 262 and 401–3. 15 See Gabriele Busch-Salmen, ‘Auch unter dem Tache die feinsten Wohnungen: Neue Dokumente zu Socialstatus und Wohnsituation der Mannheimer Hofmusiker’, in Finscher (ed.), Die Mannheimer Hofkapelle, 21–38 at 22–3. 16 Irvine, ‘Mozart, Mannheim, and Performance’, 167–8. 17 See Robert Münster, ‘Das Münchener “Idomeneo”-Orchester von 1781’, in Robert Münster (ed.), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Idomeneo, 1781–1981: Essays, Forschungsberichte, Katalog (Munich, 1981), 106–21; Albert Rice, The Clarinet in the Classical Period (Oxford, 2003), 137. 18 See Harald Strebel, ‘“…Ach, wenn wir nur auch clarinetti hätten!” Bemerkungen zu frühen Begegnungen Mozarts mit führenden Repräsentanten seines “Favorit”-Instrumentes’, Mitteilungen der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum, 47 (1999), 41–7 at 43–4. 19 Kurpfälzischer Hof- und Staats-Kalender (Munich, 1777), 56; Churfürstlichen Durchleucht zu Pfalz etc. etc. Hof- und Staats-Kalender (Munich, 1780–90). The ‘Franz Wilhelm Tausch’ referred to in 1777 and the ‘Wilhelm Tausch’ who appears in some of the later calendars are assumed to be synonymous with Franz Tausch. See also Robert Eitner, Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen-Lexikon der Musiker und Musikgelehrten, ix (Leipzig, 1900), 360–1. 20 See Pelker, ‘The Palatine Court at Mannheim’, 152. 21 Gerber gives the year of the trip as 1780, but Mozart’s correspondence dates Winter’s presence in the city to late 1781. 22 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, letter to Leopold Mozart, 4 Apr. 1781, in Mozart: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen (Kassel, 2005), iii. 101–2: ‘ich versichere Sie, daß hier ein Herrlicher ort ist—und für mein Metier der beste ort von der Welt’. 23 Pamela Poulin, ‘A Little-Known Letter by Anton Stadler’, Music & Letters 69 (1988), 49–56. 24 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, letter to Leopold Mozart, 22 Dec. 1781, in Mozart: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, iii. 184–8. 25 Gerber, ‘Franz Tausch’, col. 326. 26 No link has been established, but it seems likely that the von Hamm family were connected to the prominent Viennese Jewish family of Alois Wiener, Edler von Sonnenfels, whose son, the novelist Joseph von Sonnenfels (1732–1817), was a patron of Mozart and dedicatee of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28. 27 ‘frl: Hamm von Einfalts-kasten’. See Mozart: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, ii. 47 and 62. 28 Gerber, ‘Franz Tausch’, col. 326. 29 Pelker, ‘The Palatine Court at Mannheim’, 141. 30 On the connections between political tensions and cultural activities, see Austin Glatthorn, ‘The Theatre of Politics and the Politics of Theatre: Music as Representational Culture in the Twilight of the Holy Roman Empire’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Southampton, 2015), 37–40. 31 Richard A. Carlton, ‘Changes in Status and Role-Play: The Musician at the End of the Eighteenth Century’, in International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 37 (2006), 3–16 at 14. 32 Daniel G. Lipori, ‘Georg Wenzel Ritter (1748–1808) and the Mannheim Bassoon School’ (DMA diss., University of Arizona, 1997), 24–5. 33 It is unclear exactly when Tausch was appointed to the Köningliche Kapelle. Though his published works from the late 1790s and early 1800s describe him as ‘Musicien de Ses Majestés le Roi et la Reine Douairiere de Prusse’, his name does not appear in the Hofkapelle list until 1804. His position is confirmed by a concert billing c.1806, where he is described as ‘Konigl Preuß. Kammermusikus und erste Clarinettist der Kapelle’. ‘Ein Großes vokal- und instrumental-Concert’, 7 December [1806], Düsseldorf Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek (online resource), http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:061:2-61640. 34 See Thomas Drescher, ‘“Die Pracht, diess schöne Ensemble hat kein Orchester”: Johann Friedrich Reichardt als Leiter der Berliner Hofkapelle’, Basler Jarhbuch für historische Musikpraxis, 17 (1993), 139–60 at 139–40. 35 See Peter Wollny, ‘Sara Levy and the Making of Musical Taste in Berlin’, Musical Quarterly, 77 (1993), 652–88 at 652. 36 Ingeborg Allihn, ‘Organisatoren und Formen der Organisation des Musiklebens in Berlin im ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert’, in Hans Eric Bödeker, Michael Werner, and Patrice Veit (eds.), Le Concert et son Public (Paris, 2002), 159–76 at 168–9. It is also thought that Mozart stayed at der Stadt Paris during his visit of 1789, as a result of his contact with Rellstab. 37 Gerber, ‘Franz Tausch’, col. 327. 38 Musicalische Wochenblatt, 1 (1791), 79. 39 ‘einschmeichelnden sanften Ton und geschmackvollen Vortrag’. Musikalisches Wochenblatt, 2 (1792), 118. 40 ‘sein feines, empfindungsvolles Spiel, seine Nüancirungen des Tons’; Berlinische musikalische Zeitung: Historischen und kritischen Inhalts (1793), 193–4. 41 Gerber, ‘Franz Tausch’, col. 328: ‘Welch eine Mannichfaltigkeit in der Modifikation der Töne seines instrument! Bald war es das leise flüstern der durch den sanften hauch des Zephyrs bewegten Blätter, bald erhob sich sein instrument in rollenden und gläzenden gebrochen Passagen über alle übrigen, wohen immer die schmelzendsten Melodien abwechselten.’ 42 See Mai Kawabata, Paganini: The ‘Demonic’ Virtuoso (Oxford, 2013), 109–12; Cliff Eisen, ‘The Rise (and Fall) of the Concerto Virtuoso in the Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, in Simon P. Keefe (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Concerto (Cambridge, 2005), 175–91. 43 Eisen, ‘The Rise (and Fall) of the Concerto Virtuoso’, 184. 44 See David Rowland, ‘Piano Music and Keyboard Compass in the 1790s’, Early Music, 27 (1999), 283–93; Bart van Oort, ‘Haydn and the English Classical Piano Style’, Early Music, 28 (2000), 79–89 at 84–8. 45 Franz Tausch, ‘Nachricht von der Entstehung und Einrichtung des Berlinischen Conservatoriums’, Berlinische Musikalische Zeitung, 1 (1805), 399–402 and 403. ‘Ew. Wohlgeb. werden sich erinnern, daß die Blasinstrumente und besonders das meinige zur Zeit, als ich nach Berlin kam, erst einen nur geringen Grad der Ausbildung erlangt hatten, und dadurch noch allen übrigen Instrumenten, für deren Vervollkommung damals schon weit mehr geschehen war, nachstehen mußten, obgleich jene, wenn sie mit diesen immer gleichen Schritt gehalten hätten, meiner Meinung nach, gewiß mit ihnen nach der menschlichen Stimme, einen gleichen, wo nicht gar einen höhern Rang hätten behaupten können. Hiervon innig überzeugt verdoppelte ich den Fleiß, welchen ich meinem Instrumente schon vorher gewidmet hatte, und bemerkte zu meiner Satisfaction, daß mein eifriges Bestreben, dasselbe immer mehr und mehr zu vervollkommen, und den Gebrauch desselben weiter auszudehnen nicht ganz fruchtlos blieb.’ Translations are my own unless otherwise stated. 46 See Appendix: The Extant Works of Franz Tausch. 47 The identification of Tausch’s extant concertos in print and manuscript is problematic. R.M.21.d.11 is the work designated by Peter Clinch as ‘Concerto no. 3’. However, the ‘no. 3’ inscribed on the first page of the solo part almost certainly refers to its position as the third work bound within R.M.21.d.11, rather than it being the third of Tausch’s concertos. Berlin 30077 is the work designated by Clinch as ‘no. 4’ and is the work also referred to as ‘Concerto Op. 7’ by Pamela Weston. See Clinch, ‘Clarinet Concerto No. 3 by Franz Tausch (1762–1817)’, 17; and Pamela Weston, More Clarinet Virtuosi of the Past (Haverhill, 1977), 253. 48 ‘M.’ [Christian Friedrich Michaelis], ‘Ueber die Klarinette’, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 10 (Mar. 1808), cols. 385–91 at 386; Eric Hoeprich, ‘“Regarding the clarinet”: Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 1808’, Early Music, 37 (2009), 89–99. 49 Joseph Leopole Eybler, Concerto per il Clarinetto (1798), Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, M. H. 2690. 50 See Eric Hoeprich, The Clarinet (New Haven, 2008), 149. 51 See Rice, The Clarinet in the Classical Period, 110–12. 52 Clinch, ‘Clarinet Concerto no. 3 by Franz Tausch (1762–1817)’, 23; Rice, The Clarinet in the Classical Period, 166. 53 Intelligenz-Blatt zur Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 5/10 (Dec. 1802), cols. 41–2. 54 Rice, The Clarinet in the Classical Period, 111 and 167. 55 Ibid.168. 56 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 15/50 (Dec. 1813), col. 823. 57 Spitzer and Zaslaw, The Birth of the Orchestra, 506. 58 Contemporary texts on performance frequently emphasize the inability of written dynamics to capture the nuances of performance and the necessity of observing expert practice in order to understand the tasteful application of dynamic shaping and accentuation. For a thorough discussion see Clive Brown, Classical and Romantic Performing Practice 1750–1900 (Oxford, 1999), 59–63. 59 László Somfai, ‘The London Revision of Haydn’s Instrumental Style’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 100 (1973–4), 159–174 at 167. 60 Two quartets for clarinet and strings survive in printed sources only: Franz Tausch, Quartet in B flat (Offenbach am Main: André 4012), Stockholm Musik- och teaterbiblioteket, E4; and Franz Tausch, Quatuor Trés Facile in B flat, Op. 30 (Mainz: Schott 4017), Kloster Einsiedeln Musikbibliothek (no shelfmark). 61 Martin Harlow, ‘Viennese Chamber Music with Clarinet and Piano, 1783–1827: Repertory and Performance Strategy’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Sheffield, 2004), 201. 62 Mary Hunter, ‘Haydn’s London Piano Trios and his Salomon String Quartets: Private vs. Public?’, in Elaine R. Sisman (ed.), Haydn and his World (Princeton, 1997), 103–30 at 109–10. 63 Ibid. 125. 64 Ibid. 109. 65 Ibid. 125. 66 Gerber, ‘Franz Tausch’, col. 328. 67 Sven Wilson (ed.), Bernhard Crusell: Tonsättare, klarinettvirtuos. Hans dagböcker, studier i hans konst, verkförteckning (Stockholm, 1977), 40: ‘Sällskapet bestod af 30 à 40 personer af båda könen, alla Musikälskare och kännare.’ 68 Ibid. 90–1: ‘Efter en Sinfonie af Wranitzki blåste jag Quart. af Tausch i närvaro af en stor mängd Prinsar och Prinsessor.’ 69 Hunter, ‘Haydn’s London Piano Trios’, 109. 70 Gerber, ‘Franz Tausch’, col. 327. 71 Ibid.: ‘welches aber in der Folge dahin erweitert wurde, daß alle 14 Tage großes Konzert, sowohl auf Kosten der Spieler, als der Zuhörer, gegeben werden sollte, wohin leztere durchaus selbst musikalisch seyn und nur in bestimmter Anzahl zugelassen werden sollten.’ 72 See Hunter, ‘Haydn’s London Piano Trios’, 105–6, and Robert Eshbach, ‘The Joachim Quartet Concerts at the Berlin Singakademie: Mendelssohnian Geselligkeit in Wilhelmine Germany’, in Katy Hamilton and Natasha Loges (eds.), Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall: Between Private and Public Performance (Cambridge, 2015), 22–42 at 26–7. 73 See Eshbach, ‘The Joachim Quartet Concerts’, 29–33. 74 This is supported by the fact that the twelfth piece of the set can be found transplanted complete into the slow movement of the double concerto Op. 26. It seems highly unlikely that Tausch would have set out to compose a concerto movement that featured only four wind instruments throughout, thus we can assume that it originated as a chamber work. 75 Echo-partitas, where the Harmonie was divided into two spatially separated groups, were composed by a number of Bohemian and Viennese composers including Georg Druschetzky, Franz Asplmayr, Ignaz Ritter von Seyfried, Franz Anton Hoffmeister, and Josef Triebensee. Stoneham, Gillaspie, and Clark draw a comparison with the older tradition of opposing wind bands exemplified by Giovanni Gabrieli but note that echo-partitas ‘aimed at the effect of distance rather than stereophony’. Jon A. Gillaspie, Marshall Stoneham, and David Lindsay Clark, Wind Ensemble Sourcebook and Biographical Guide (Westport, Conn., 1997), 155. 76 See Brown, Classical and Romantic Performing Practice, 138. 77 Tausch, ‘Nachricht’, 399–402 and 403. 78 Ibid. 400: ‘glaubte ich doch, daß die höchstmöglichste Vollkommenheit aller Blasinstrumente, nur durch die Vereinigung aller darauf einzeln verwandter Kräfte erreicht werden könne, und dies brachte mich auf den Gedanken, ein eigenes Institut zu bilden, wo mehrere Künstler gemeinschaftlich nach diesem Zweck hinstreben möchten, wodurch derselbe nicht allein am besten erreicht werden mußte, sondern auch, wie ich hoffte und nachher wirklich überzeugt wurde, durch eine gehörig starke Besetzung, eine zuvor noch ganz unbekannte Wirkung hervorgebracht werden konnte. Ich theilte meinen Plan mehrern Musikfreunden mit, von welchen derselbe zu meinem Vergnügen mit Beifall aufgenommen wurde, und hierdurch aufgemuntert bot ich alle meine Kräfte auf, um denselben nun auch sobald als möglich zu realisieren.’ 79 For an account of Gesellschaften in Berlin around this time, see Wollny, ‘Sarah Levy’, 652. 80 Tausch, ‘Nachricht’, 400. 81 Johann Friedrich Reichardt, postscript to ‘Nachricht’, Berlinische Musikalische Zeitung, 1 (1805), 399 n.: ‘Bei jedem, der die große Wirkung eines wohlorganiserten und reichtbesetzten Chors von Blasinstrumenten kennt, und der auch Gelegenheit gehabt, die Wirkung des zwei hundert Stimmen starken Chors der Fascheschen Singakademie zu hören, muß wohl natürlich der Wunsch rege werden, diese beiden in ihrer Art ganz einzigen Institute, die ohne hin sich demselben Locale zu versammeln pflegen, einmal zu einer absichtlich groß angelegten Wirkung vereinigt zu hören. Hieraus würde sicher ein Effekt hervorgehen, der nirgend in der Welt, selbst in dem an allen Kunstmitteln so reichen Paris nicht zu erreicht seyn möchte.’ 82 Gerber, Neues-Lexikon, ii, col. 80. 83 Karl Neander von Petersheiden, Neue anschauliche Tabellen von der gesamten Residenz-Stadt Berlin (Berlin, 1801). 84 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 10 (Nov. 1807), col. 85. 85 The Christian name of the oboist Groß is unknown. His son Friedrich August Groß (1780–1860) also played oboe in the Kapelle. 86 Tausch, ‘Nachricht’, 401. 87 Zeitung für die Elegante Welt, 6 (1806), 20. 88 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 10 (Dec. 1807), col. 223: ‘mit der Präcision und Kunstfertigkeit gegeben, die man von dem Conservator[sic], für blasinstrumente erwarten konnte’. 89 It is presumably also through Sondershausen that Tausch had contact with the lexicographer Gerber, who was Sondershausen’s Hoforganist, though Tausch’s status alone is sufficient justification for his inclusion in Gerber’s Lexicon. According to a conversation recorded in Crusell’s travel diaries, Tausch also gave lessons to the clarinettist Johann Simon Hermstedt, who led the Duke’s Harmonie from 1801 to 1839; however, Crusell records that Hermstedt’s musical taste differed from Tausch’s, and Hermstedt does not appear in the list of members of the Conservatoire. 90 The correspondence between Sondershausen, Tausch, and the Graf von Malzahn about the bass horn is discussed in Herbert Heyde, Musikinstrumentenbau in Preussen (Tutzing, 1994), 541–2. 91 Tausch, ‘Nachricht’, 401. 92 Reichardt, postscript to Tausch, ‘Nachricht’, 399: ‘eines wohlorganiserten und reichtbesetzten Chors von Blasinstrumenten’. 93 Tausch, ‘Nachricht’, 401: ‘Der Zauberwald, mit welchem ich den Versuch gemacht habe, durch doppelte Besetzung der Solostimmen aller Instrumente, die Tonarten, wie sie im Originale sind, nacheinander ohne Lücken beizubehalten.’ 94 Wilson, Bernhard Henrik Crusell, 100–1: ‘8 à 10 Soloblåsare accompagnerades af resten’. 95 See Appendix. 96 Christoph Henzel, Quellentexte zur Berliner Musikgeschichte im 18. Jahrhundert (Wilhelmshaven, 1999), 139–42. My thanks to Katherine Hambridge for alerting me to this and several other sources referenced in this article. 97 Tausch, ‘Nachricht’, 401. 98 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 9/44 (July 1807), col. 703. 99 Wilson, Bernhard Crusell, 100–1. The instrument is held in the Scenkonst Museet Swedish Museum of Performing Arts, N.43554. 100 See Francien Markx, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Cosmopolitanism, and the Struggle for German Opera (Leiden, 2016), 223–30. 101 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 45/3 (Jan. 1816), col. 45. 102 Königlich privilegierte Berlinische Zeitung von Staats- und Gelehrten Sachen, 13 Jan. 1816, n.p. 103 Hoeprich, The Clarinet, and Rice, The Clarinet in the Classical Period. 104 See, for example, Colin Lawson, Brahms: Clarinet Quintet (Cambridge: 1998), p. x. Pamela Weston places a strong emphasis on clarinettists who had a relationship with composers: see, for instance, her ‘Players and Composers’ in Colin Lawson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet (Cambridge, 1995), 92–106. But the trope has much older roots: the Edinburgh correspondent of the Zeitschrift der internationallen Musikgesellschaft, for instance, commented on a concert of clarinet quintets in 1912: ‘It is noteworthy that the great composers who wrote concertos and chamber music for the clarinet were inspired by their admiration and friendship for virtuosi on that instrument—Mozart for Anton Stadler, Weber for Heinrich Joseph Bärmann, Spohr for Johann Simon Hermstedt, and Brahms for Richard Mühlfeld of Meiningen …’; Zeitschrift der internationalen Musikgesellschaft, 14/2 (1912), 56. 105 Including Harald Strebel, Anton Stadler: Wirken und Lebensumfeld des ‘Mozart-Klarinettisten’: Fakten, Daten und Hypothesen zu seiner Biographie (Vienna, 2016); Martin Harlow, ‘The Clarinet in Works of Franz Xaver Süssmayr (1766–1803): Anton Stadler and the Mozartian Example’, Acta Mozartiana, 57 (2010), 147–65. Pamela L. Poulin has been the most prolific writer on Stadler, including: ‘A View of Eighteenth-Century Life and Training: Anton Stadler’s Musick Plan’, Music & Letters, 71 (1990), 215–24, and ‘Anton Stadler’s Basset Clarinet: Recent Discoveries in Riga I’, Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society, 22 (1996), 110–27. Representative of recent popular writing on Stadler are Luis Rossi, ‘Stadler and Mühlfeld: Two Personal Voices’, The Clarinet, 42 (2015), 58–62, and Mark Pullinger, ‘Mozart’s Muse: Anton Stadler and the Basset Clarinet’, Bachtrack (2018), https://bachtrack.com/feature-anton-stadler-wolfgang-amadeus-mozart-basset-clarinet-may-2018. 106 Eduard Hanslick, Geschischte des Concertwesens in Wien (Vienna, 1870), ii. 397. © The Author(s) (2020). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - ‘The Uttermost Perfection of All Wind Instruments’: Franz Tausch (1762–1817) as Virtuoso Clarinettist and Director of The Conservatorium Der BlÄSeinstrumente in Berlin
JF - Music and Letters
DO - 10.1093/ml/gcaa006
DA - 2008-07-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/the-uttermost-perfection-of-all-wind-instruments-franz-tausch-1762-0ucTQHqgG5
SP - 1
VL - Advance Article
IS - 
DP - DeepDyve
ER -