Johann Baptist ELLMENREICH

Eigenschaften

Ereignisse

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Ehepartner und Kinder

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Der Stammvater, JOHANN BAPTIST, Baß, 1770 in Neu-Breisach (Elsaß) geboren, gestorben in Petersburg im Jahre 1816. Erster Auftritt im J. 1792 in Düsseldorf mit „Liebe im Narrenhaus" von Dittersdorf, im J. 1793 ist er in Frankfurt und 17795 am Nationaltheater von Berlin als Papageno der „Zauberflöte". In den folgenden Jahren in Bremen, Altona und Hamburg. Im J. 1800 auf Tournee in Weimar, Leipzig, Kassel und Amsterdam; dann im "Theatre Italien" in Paris mit Zwischenspielen von Paisiello und Cimarosa mit besonderem Erfolg (cfr. Le Coup de fouet, Paris 1802). Nach einem unfruchtbarem Versuch, in Deutschland eine eigene auf „leichtes Theater" spezialisierte Theatergruppe (das Theater-Mozart) aufzubauen, was hauptsächlich finanziell scheiterte, singt er in London, dann wieder in Paris und dann in Petersburg. Im J. 1803 besuchter er Frankfurt und Wien; im J. 1807 läßt er sich in München mit dem Titel eines Kammersängers nieder; im J. 1810 in Petersburg, wo er auch noch große Erfolge feierte. Er war ein auf italienische Art lustiger (buffo) Typ, als Schauspieler sehr brillant, wenn auch manchmal ein wenig ungeschliffen (grob), besaß eine hervorragende Ausdehnung (musikalisch), vom tiefen Be-moll, bis Ges. Außer den intermezzi von Cimarosa und Paisiello, welche immer seine besten Stücke darstellten, hatte er auch in seinem Repertoire „Das neue Sonntagskind von W.Müller (Hausmeister), Der Wasserträger (Les Deux journees) von Cherubini (Michelli), Hieronzmus Knicker von Dittersdorf (Hauptdarsteller), und Don Giovanni (Leporello). Anpassung der Musik für Intermezzo „Der Kapellmeister (Theater an der Wien, 28. März 1805") ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- der blaue Geiger * Internet edition volume 2/1 * October 1998 * part 6 of 6 Obscure Musician of the Month Who's Afraid of Josef Wölfl? (who possibly should have been afraid of Johann Baptiste Ellmenreich) (1773-1812) Some months ago, in a troglodytic column, I mentioned the name of "Wölfl" during one or another rant. This prompted a question from our scholarly editor. "What's a Wölfl?" Good question indeed. Actually, there are many species of wolf in the world. There is the infamous timber wolf of many legends from the cold and snowy north, the beast that prompted the Russians to develop the custom of carrying 'wolf-meat' with them on winter sleigh rides. (When the sleigh was chased by a pack of wolves, the meat was thrown off in the hope that the wolves would be distracted, and the occupants of the sleigh would escape; see also Bill Cosby, "Hofstra".) Then there is the Hollywood Wolf of Tex Avery cartoon fame. And the Virginia Wo(o)lf. And then there is the sort of wolf that musicians acknowledge, the Salzburg Wolf. Did I hear you say "Wolfgang" as in Mozart? Of course, that is the best and most famous of the species. But there is also another, about whom many tales are told. That this particular Wolf should be so obscure that not even our own editor could recognize the name is an even greater mystery, for this Wolf had a celebrated and mysterious career. Josef Wölfl was born in Salzburg on the 24th of December, 1773. His father, Johann Paul Wölfl, was the Verwalter ["administrator"] of the St.-Johann-Spital in Mülln, and was to all accounts well-regarded. Young "Sepperl" ["Joey"] was almost immediately recognized as being endowed with serious musical talent. In the Lexicon salzburgischer, theils verstorbener, theils lebender Künstler ["Lexicon of Artists of Salzburg, Part Dead, Part Living"] of Benedikt Pillwein (1821), Wölfl is credited with having performed a violin concerto at the age of 7. He became a pupil of Leopold Mozart and subsequently of Michael Haydn at the Salzburger Dom. Although there seems to be some controversy over whether Haydn really was one of his tutors. In an article entitled "Michael Haydns Salzburger Schülerkreis" ["Michael Haydn's Circle of Students in Salzburg"] from Österreichische Musikzeitschrift xxvii (1972), Ernst Hintermaier writes, "Festzuhalten wäre somit: eine direkte Kenntnis von einem Schülerverhältnis Wölfls zu [Michael] Haydn haben wir nicht." ["Thus we must keep in mind: we have no direct knowledge that Wölfl was one of Haydn's students."] This, in contradiction to the formidable Austrian sources of Pillwein and Wurzbach (Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich). So young, and already Joey had fallen into controversy. As regards Leopold, we have better evidence (and evidence more revealing of Leopold's character). In her daily diaries, Nannerl, the sister of the other Salzburg Wolf, almost obsessively recorded details, including the dates and times when Joey would arrive for his lessons. [Sept 1783] den 5 ten in der 7 uhr mess. beym hermes. nachmittag d'yppold bey uns. tonerl schachtner Seperl mit uns musick gemacht ... den 9 ten in der 7 uhr mess. bologna seinen part mit der gretl repetirt. beym hermes. nachmittag seperl gelernt ... den 10 ten in der 7 uhr mess. bologna seinem part bey uns repetirt. beym hermes. nachmittag d'yppold bey uns. seperl gelernt ... ["seperl gelernt" meaning "Joey studied", "Joey took his lesson"] Nannerl, the good little Catholic girl, always attended 7 A.M. mass. Joey tended to show up at the Mozarts' for lessons on a regular basis, usually two or three times a week. He studied both keyboard and violin, Leopold sometimes accompanying him, as her father told Nannerl in a letter dated January 19, 1785 ("und unterdessen musste der Sepperl geigen, und Clavierspielen, ich accompagnierte ihm"). These lessons went on for some time, for we find (in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen (Vol. 3), Bauer, Deutsch, Eibl (eds.)) another letter from Leopold to Nannerl dated October 28, 1785 wherein he complains that he has not been paid for giving these lessons! That Leopold had a penchant for complaining about money is well-known, but to send a letter to his daughter in which he not only complains about not being paid, but gives her a full accounting of the debt (which he calculates at "47 f[lorins] 12")! Curiously, the article in the fifth edition of Grove's Dictionary says "No mention of [Wölfl] occurs, however, in the correspondence of Leopold Mozart and his son." Joey had already fallen into another controversy. Undaunted, our Joey soon travelled to Vienna, arriving in 1790. There, according to Wurzbach, he met the other Salzburg Wolf and the two developed an "innigen Freundschaft", but this too is subject to dispute. Anyway, either with or without the influence of Wolfie, Joey found his way into the employ of Count Oginsky of Warsaw as Kapellmeister. Ever alert for, or perhaps oblivious to, controversy, he lived in Poland in the Count's employ until 1795, when the political situation in that country (more properly, that former country: 1795 saw the final partition of Poland among Prussia, Russia and Austria and it did not exist as an independent state again until after the First World War) became too difficult, so he returned to Austria. While in Poland, he began his career as a performer and composer, and upon his return to Vienna, collaborated with Schikaneder in the production of his first opera, Der Höllenberg. Not only did Schikaneder write the libretto, he debuted the opera in his own theater in 1795. This stage of Joey's life was very successful; other operas followed and were generally well-received, and his works were also performed in Leipzig and Prague. He also developed a reputation as a brilliant pianist and improvisor. Pillwein and Wurzbach both recount the tale that, at a concert in Dresden (in 1799?) it was discovered that his piano had been tuned exactly one-half step flat, so he simply transposed, on the spot, an entire concerto from C into C sharp. In Vienna, he was, as a pianist, considered second only to none other than Beethoven; according to the occasionally romantic Fétis Biographie universelle des musiciens, Wölfl became involved in an improvisation contest with Beethoven in which the latter came off the worse, and was not happy as a result. This version of the story, however, is uncorroborated. The contest itself is well-documented (in Thayer's Life of Beethoven) but we'll save the story for a little later in this article. What is certain is that Joey was clearly at the peak of his career, and was indeed renowned for his virtuosic playing. In 1798, Joey married the actress Therese Klemm. This proved ill-advised, for he found little happiness in his marriage, and soon took to the road. After a couple of years, he arrived in Paris (apparently September 1801), where he was, once again, well-received. His compositions were in general successful, and his performance skills were highly admired. In 1804, he premiered his opera L'amour romanesque at the Theatre-Feydeau - and then began his downfall. Or, as Grove's puts it, "Henceforward he falls, in some strange way, under a cloud." We now encounter a truly shadowy character, one Johann Baptiste Ellmenreich. This latter was apparently born in Alsace in 1770, studied voice (he was a bass) and became rather successful in the operas of the day as a performer. He also was known as a song-writer as well. He is also variously called "viel-seitige", "falsche Spieler" (Grove's calls him a "card-sharper"); one of his songs was entitled "Das Leben ist ein Würflspiel" ("Life is a Dice-Game"). (Note to Schubert scholars: Notice that "Das Leben ist ein Würflspiel" scans exactly as "Das Wandern ist das Müllers Lust". I have been unable to locate a score of this song.) Ellmenreich seems an unsavory character indeed. According to the story, he and Joey entered into some sort of business arrangement after becoming acquainted in Paris. Possibly Ellmenreich saw in Joey an easy mark: all sources are in agreement that he was a gentle and rather innocent man. According to Fétis, they traveled to Brussels, where they presented a concert and subsequently entered into polite society. Then, but let Fétis tell the tale: Woelffl et son compagnon y étaient compromis d'une manière si grave, que, sans l'intervention généreuse de M. de Jouy, alors secrétaire général du département de la Dyle, ils n'auraient pu s'éloigner en liberté. Wölfl and his companion became compromised in a manner so grave that without the generous intervention of M. de Juoy, at that time secretary-general of the Department of Dyle, they could not have remained at liberty. My goodness, Joey. What have you done? Pillwein and Wurzbach both ignore the story: Grove's dismisses it as "circumstantial" and says that it "seems to be incorrect in almost every detail". But then, Grove's includes this remarkable story: Schilling asserts that he was named music master to the Empress Josephine in 1804 and followed her after her divorce [i.e. of course, at the beginning of 1810] to Switzerland. Growing weary of the lonely mountain life, he went down the Rhine by boat, and so to England. This story seems to be pure fiction. Joey, Joey, Joey. What stories they're telling about you! However it was, it seems that Joey arrived in London in 1805, and Ellmenreich vanished, eventually to St. Petersburg and then into the dust-bin of history. In London, Joey did not meet with much success, and died in relative obscurity and poverty (although again, there is controversy about our Joey: Grove's insists that this too is improbable) in 1812. A remarkable life, to say the least. And what of the man and his music? The Troglodyte examined some of his scores and noted that the music (for piano, anyway) was characterized by a reliance on brilliance rather than substance. According to Grove's, As a composer Wölfl showed sound training but, like others of his time, wrote much trivial music, throwing off trifles to catch the popular ear with extraordinary ease. Talk about damning with faint praise. Wölfl was renowned for the enormous span of his fingers: according to legend he could reach a full 13th! His scores indeed show many 10ths and even greater intervals throughout. Of his playing, the descriptive phrase that most often occurs is "weder Licht noch Schatten" ("neither light nor shadow"); Wölfl seems to have had an incredibly light touch on the keyboard, one that did not lend itself to any real passion in the production of the music. In the aforementioned contest with Beethoven, Thayer tells the story that, at the house of Baron Raymond von Wetzlar, the two improvised against each other, in the presence of their respective fans. Thayer notes that Woelfl's party in Vienna was composed of those to whom extraordinary execution was the main thing; while Beethoven's admirers were of those who had hearts to be touched. It seems that opinion was that Beethoven was the deeper musician of the two, but that Wölfl's unusual hands, coupled with his overall competence, made him the more, if superficially, virtuosic. And that seems to be Wölfl's problem, his playing depended on superficial virtuosity alone. His compositions are not played these days, for many of them are simply and ridiculously unplayable, for they were written for his own use, and for his own hand-span. And so an otherwise talented musician, who really should have some sort of renown, is in fact, virtually forgotten. Back in the sixties, there appeared on television the show Burke's Law, one of the first of Aaron Spelling's offerings. The witty, tongue-in-cheek adventures of the humble millionaire police chief of Beverly Hills, Amos Burke, played (stylishly) by Bat Masterson (excuse me, Gene Barry). In one of the episodes, a great virtuoso of the keyboard sits down to play a new concerto written by a great composer. Tragedy ensues: at one point in the performance, the virtuoso strikes a chord and the piano blows up, killing him. After 45 minutes or so of television detective work during which he discovers that the virtuoso was an Arschloch of Olympic caliber who made enemies of everyone he met (quite unlike Wölfl), Amos Burke finally confronts the composer and asks him to play his new concerto. The composer with some ill grace consents, and soon comes to a chord that he simply can't play, and then breaks down. Yes, he says, I did it. Mine was a great work, but he ruined it! It was my work, but he had to insert that chord into it, to make it his, for, you see, it is a chord that only he could play, for it requires such large hands! Only he had the hands to reach that chord! So I rigged the piano to blow up whenever that chord was played, knowing that only he could set off the bomb! And the composer is dragged off to jail, crying, those hands, those enormous hands!! Joey, they're still making up stories about you! Dick Dienstag

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Titel	El-l-menreich
Beschreibung	Stammbaum der Familie El-l-menreich
Hochgeladen	2017-05-29 09:51:35.0
Einsender	Friedrich Ellmenreich
E-Mail	fidi@gmef.it
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