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THE QUANTZ TERCENTARY
by Robert Brown.
Appeared in February 1997 issue.
The tercentenary of Johann Joachim Quantz, the German flautist, composer, writer on
music and flute maker, is being celebrated this year. Quantz was recognised as the
greatest flute virtuoso of the 18th century. He was born on January 30th, 1697, in the
village of Obersheden in Hanover. From the age of eight, he played the double bass in
village festivities. His father, Andreas, a blacksmith, opposed this interest in music,
and insisted that young Quantz begin work in the family trade when he turned nine. A
year later, in 1707, Andreas died, and in August 1708, the young Quantz was adopted
by his uncle, Justus Quantz, a town musician and tailor at Merseburg in Saxony, who
offered to train him as a musician. Justus died in 1709, and his son-in-law and
successor, Johann Adolf Fleischhack, continued the young Quantz’s musical
apprenticeship for the next five years. He learned to play the violin, oboe, trumpet,
cornett, trombone, horn, recorder, bassoon, ‘cello, viola da gamba and double bass.
The violin was his principal instrument, but he also became competent on the oboe
and trumpet, and studied composition and the harpsichord with Johann Friedrich
Kiesewetter, a relative who was organist of St Maximi’s Church.
In December 1713, Quantz had completed his musical apprenticeship, but continued
to serve Fleischhack as a journeyman until March 1716. He aspired to a higher level
of musicianship than that found in Merseburg, and planned to go to Dresden or Berlin
to continue his studies. He was offered several positions, but declined these, because
he would be the ‘best among bad’ players. In 1714, the death of the Duke of SaxonyMerseburg’s brother caused a temporary cessation of musical activities, and in June
Quantz left for Dresden. He couldn’t find any employment there, but found work as
assistant to Knoll, Stadmusikus (chief musician) of Radeburg. Soon afterwards, a
terrible thunderstorm and fire caused the complete destruction of Radeburg. Poor
Knoll was ruined by this disaster, and advised Quantz to go to Pirna, where he became
assistant to a musician called Schalle. He also came to know Gottfried Heine, the
director of the Dresden town band, who provided occasional employment. Here he
first encountered concertos by Vivaldi, which influenced his development as a
composer. He also became familiar with the music of Biber, J. J. Walther, Corelli,
Telemann and Heinechen.
Eventually Quantz returned to Merseburg, and Heine offered him a position in the
Dresden town band in March 1716. The Saxon capital was then a magnet for musical
celebrities, and the Royal orchestra was at its zenith. Quantz had the opportunity of
hearing many great artists, including Veracini, Sylvius Weiss and Richter, and found
‘the duties of a musician to consist of much more than the mere blowing of notes
written by a composer’. In 1717, court mourning caused a cessation of music making
for three months. After travelling through Upper and Lower Silesia, Quantz went to
Mahren and then Vienna, where he studied counterpoint with J. D. Zelenka. He
returned to Dresden in October 1717 after visiting Prague, and played the trumpet at
the jubilee celebrations of Luther’s reformation. Heine encouraged Augustus II to
provide Quantz with trumpet tuition.
In 1718, Quantz was engaged to play oboe in the Kleine Kammermusik, known as the
‘Polish Chapel’. This ensemble had 12 players, and Quantz received an annual salary
of 150 thalers (this was increased to 216 thalers in 1722). This ensemble
accompanied Augustus II (August the Strong), King of Poland and Elector of Saxony
and was stationed alternately in Warsaw and Dresden. Finding that there was little
opportunity to advance himself on the oboe in the ‘Polish Chapel’ because of the
seniority of the other oboists, Quantz took up the transverse flute, studying for four
months with the celebrated French flautist Pierre Gabriel Buffardin (1690-1768), who
was principal flute in the Dresden Royal Orchestra. He quickly mastered the
technicalities of his new instrument and the flautist in the ‘Polish Chapel’ willingly
allowed Quantz to take the first chair. Quantz credited his friend, the violinist J. G.
Pisendel, with having the greatest influence on the development of his musical style.
The scarcity of original music for the flute encouraged Quantz to turn his attention
towards composing music for his new instrument. Quantz went to Prague in 1723
with lutenist J. S. Weiss and C. H. Graun, where they participated in Fux’s grand
opera Costanza e fortessa, performed at Charles VI’s coronation on August 28th.
This took place in the open air, and involved 100 singers and 200 instrumentalists;
Quantz described the performance as ‘truly magnificent’. While in Prague, Quantz
heard the violinist Tartini perform. He admired Tartini’s tone and command of his
instrument, but was disappointed with his style.
After his appointment to the ‘Polish Chapel’, Quantz’s great abilities as a performer
were soon recognised, and he gained the support of several patrons. A planned study
tour to Italy in 1822 did not eventuate, but in 1824, through the influence of Prince
Lubomirsky, Quantz was finally given permission to visit Italy to begin what became
a three year grand tour. He travelled in the suite of Count von Lagnasco, the new
Polish minister to Rome. They left on May 23rd and arrived in Rome on June 11th,
where Quantz studied counterpoint with Francesco Gasparini. On January 13th, 1825,
Quantz moved on to Naples, where he stayed with J. A. Hasse, and made the
acquaintance of Mancini, Leo, Feo and other leading musicians. He studied with
Alessandro Scarlatti, who at first, had refused to meet Quantz, saying ‘I cannot endure
wind-instrument players, they all blow out of tune’. After Hasse persuaded him to
hear Quantz play, Scarlatti was so impressed that he wrote two solos expressly for
Quantz and recommended him to others. Quantz left Naples on March 23rd, having
narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, in which the jealous admirer of one of his
students, a marchesa, had tried to shoot Quantz while in his carriage. He returned to
Rome, where he declined numerous offers of permanent engagements. He left on
October 21st for a tour of northern Italy, visiting Florence, Livorno, Bologna, Ferrara,
Padua, Venice, Modena, Reggio, Parma, Milan and Turin, and met many musicians
along the way, including Vivaldi, Lotti, Marcello, Albinoni, Sammartini, Vinci,
Leclair and Popora. Apart from the oboist Sammartini, Quantz found Italy to be
lacking in good performers on woodwind instruments. He heard many fine string
players and was very impressed with the Italian singers, who became a model for his
own style.
Quantz left Italy on June 23rd, 1726, and journeyed to Mont Cenis, Geneva and
Lyons, arriving in Paris on August 16th. He found French vocal style disagreeable,
‘The acting, for which the French are eminently qualified, the decorations of the stage,
and the dancing, were the most attractive features of the opera. The orchestra was
bad; the performers played more from memory and by ear than from notes, and they
were kept in time by the strokes of a large stick’. He heard many instrumentalists,
including the gambist A. Fortcroix and violinist J. P. Guignon, and was impressed
with the leading French flautists, including Lucas, Jean-Jaques Naudot, the two Braun
brothers and Michel Blavet, a left handed player, with whom he established a warm
friendship.
Quantz had set himself on a mission to strive constantly for improved intonation.
While in Paris, he had a second key added to the footjoint of his transverse flute at
Naust’s workshop in consultation with its master, Antoine Delerablée. The two closed
footjoint keys had different size holes; the smaller hole under the D# key lowered the
pitch and the larger hole under the Eb key raised the pitch. This allowed the
performer to temper the tuning where necessary to improve the intonation, particularly
the sharps in the first octave and G# in the second octave. The use of different
fingerings for enharmonic notes was something that had been developing for some
time, Jacques Hotteterre had suggested different fingerings for F# and Gb in his
method of 1707. However, Quantz’s D# and Eb keys did not win popular appeal and
were never ‘generally accepted’.
Quantz was recalled to Dresden, but wished to visit London on the way. He left Paris
on March 10th, 1727, arriving in London on March 20th, at the height of the Handel
opera season. He heard Handel’s opera Admetus, and was impressed with the high
standard of the English opera. Handel had poached his Italian singers from Dresden
and Quantz witnessed the climax of the feud between singers Faustina and Cuzzoni.
Most of the orchestral players were Italians and Germans. The flute players at the
opera house, then called the King’s Theatre, were Wiedemann and Festin. Handel
urged Quantz to settle in England but he felt obligated to his patron and left on June
1st, and returned to Dresden via Holland, Hanover and Brunswick, arriving on July
23rd. His European tour had been the final stage of his training and had helped to
establish his reputation as a performer and composer. A number of his compositions
appeared in print in France, England and Holland, including some spurious works.
In March 1728, Quantz was appointed to the Electoral Chapel in Dresden, where he
received a salary of 250 thalers. At this time, he gave up the oboe because it
interfered with his flute playing. Early in 1728, the King of Prussia, Frederick
William I, and his family, including 16 year old son, Crown Prince Frederick (17121786), visited the court of August the Strong in Dresden, where Frederick heard his
first opera, Hasse’s Cleofide, with which he was greatly impressed. In August,
Quantz, Pisendel, Weiss and Buffardin accompanied August the Strong on a return
visit to Berlin, where they remained for some months. Frederick heard Quantz
perform and was so enchanted that he decided to take up the flute. He had been
allowed to take music lessons at the age of seven, studying the clavichord and
composition with Heine. But his father, Frederick William I, known as ‘the barracks
king’, was concerned about his son’s preference for intellectual and artistic pursuits
over the military and religious. Despite supervising Frederick day and night, his
maniacal rages and corporal punishments, the King was unable to change his son’s
interests. With the help of his mother, Sophia-Dorothea (daughter of George I of
England) and his elder sister, Wilhelmina, Frederick was able to gain access to
forbidden books and to dress in the French manner. The Queen asked Quantz to give
flute lessons to the young prince; he was permitted by August the Strong to visit
Frederick twice each year in Berlin for this purpose. Quantz was a strict teacher and
the prince was a willing student. The Queen tried to lure Quantz to Berlin, offering a
salary of 800 thalers, but August the Strong would not release him. Frederick’s father
tolerated this musical activity for a while, but by 1730, Frederick was forbidden to
play the flute or to have any further lessons. Frederick employed musical servants,
and practised in secret, often with Michael Fredersdorf, his flute playing valet. They
went on ‘hunting trips’ in the forest to play flute duets! On one visit, Quantz, flutes,
music and stands had to be hidden in a small ante room when Frederick had heard that
his father was approaching. The King was suspicious and searched but did not find
anything. On August 4th, 1730, Frederick had finally had enough of his father’s
repressive activities and attempted to escape to England with his friend Lieutenant
Katte. They were captured and Katte was beheaded in front of Frederick, who was
then confined at Küstrin.
Frederick agreed to marry Princess Elizabeth Christina of Brunswick in 1733, thus
restoring favour with his father. This arranged marriage was not successful.
Frederick now had his own private residence at Ruppin, where he was away from the
influence of his father, and established a chamber music ensemble. In 1736 he moved
to Rheinsburg, taking 17 musicians with him, including C. H. and J. G. Graun, C. P.
E. Bach and Franz and Johann Benda. He tried at this time, unsuccessfully, to secure
the services of Quantz. Augustus III came to the Polish throne in 1733, and retained
Quantz at the salary previously offered to him by the Queen of Prussia. Quantz was
allowed to continue teaching Frederick and also the Margrave of Bayreuth. During
these years Frederick developed into a real flute virtuoso and also studied
composition. In 1734, Quantz published his first six sonatas for transverse flute,
dedicating these to Augustus III. Quantz married Anna Rosina Carolina Schindler
(née Hölzel), the widow of a court musician, on June 26th, 1737, but this marriage
wasn’t happy either. He continued to visit many towns and cities throughout Europe.
Frederick ascended to the Prussian throne on May 31st, 1740. As King Frederick II,
one of his first acts was to appoint C. H. Graun as Kapellmeister of the Prussian court,
where he also installed his musicians from Rheinsburg. A new opera house was built
in Berlin and Graun was sent to Italy to engage the best singers. The opera house
opened on December 7th, 1742, with Graun’s Rodelinda. Frederick offered Quantz a
position as a court musician and an annual salary of 2,000 thalers, which was unheard
of for an instrumentalist at the time. Augustus III couldn’t match these terms and
Quantz couldn’t refuse Frederick’s offer. After being released from his duties by
Augustus III Quantz moved to Berlin in December 1741.
Quantz’s duties were to organise the private concerts at Potsdam (located south-west
of Berlin on an island in the middle of the Havel River), to play in the Royal Chamber
Ensemble, to attend the King daily, to play duets with him or try out new concertos,
and to compose a constant supply of new music. Frederick gave Quantz an additional
payment of 25 ducats for each new composition. Quantz was exempted from duties in
the opera orchestra and he alone had the privilege of criticising the King’s playing.
This was a privileged position rarely enjoyed by any other musician. Frederick
eventually employed some 40 musicians, and the composers J. F. Agricola and C.
Nichelmann. In one concert, Frederick is reported to have performed 6 concertos and
a sonata – apparently he had lots of stamina! Reports about Frederick’s playing vary,
but they all agree about his beautiful and expressive playing of slow movements. One
witness said that ‘every day in the evening, from 7 until 9 a regular concert is
performed in the chamber of the King, in which his Majesty himself is accustomed to
demonstrate his penetrating and exquisite taste, and his exceptional facility on the
flute’. These concerts were intended only for invited guests. In 1746 Quantz
accompanied Frederick to Bad Pyrmont and in 1760-61, joined him at his winter
quarters in Leipzig.
Quantz also assisted Frederick with his own compositions, which were mainly for the
flute. Frederick composed many pieces, including 121 flute sonatas and 4 flute
concertos. J. S. Bach visited Frederick’s court on May 7th, 1747, and on receiving a
musical theme from Frederick, he improvised a fugue. On his return to Leipzig, Bach
composed the famous Musical Offering, a set of canons and fugues on the royal
theme, to which he added a trio sonata, and sent these to Frederick. Frederick is
famous for his military campaigns in Silesia and Poland, for which he earned the title,
Frederick the Great. He always took with him his flute, a portable harpsichord and a
small group of musicians for camp concerts. It is said that his mood could be judged
by the way he played his flute in his tent!
Due to the problem of finding good flutes, Quantz started making and tuning flutes in
1739. Frederick imported whole tree trunks and paid Quantz 100 ducats for each flute
that he made for the King. The flutes were made from various hardwoods, including
boxwood, ebony, kingwood, lignum sanctum and grenadilla, and also ivory.
Boxwood was the most common and durable wood for transverse flutes. Quantz said
that ebony produced ‘the clearest and most beautiful tone’. Frederick also owned
several glass flutes and one made from amber. Quantz added two improvements to
the headjoint; the wooden tuning slide in 1752, and also the screw stopper, see the
illustrations below. The Quantz flute has a larger internal bore than most other flutes,
with the diameter varying from 20.2 mm to 20.6 mm, compared with other transverse
flutes, with diameters ranging from 18.6 mm to 19.9 mm, and the Böhm flute’s
diameter of 19 mm, with the head tapering to 17 mm. The larger bore of the Quantz
flute produces a very sonorous lower register, which is in keeping with Quantz’s
belief that flute playing should most resemble a contralto voice. Quantz also turned
his attention to the size and shape of the mouth hole, which had traditionally been
circular; an elliptical shape was then coming into vogue. Quantz’s mouth holes
typically measured 0.5 inch in length and 0.42 inch in width.
His famous treatise, Versuch Einer Anweisung die Flöte Transveriére zu Spielen
(Essay of a Method for Playing the Transverse Flute) was written in 1752, and
dedicated to King Frederick the Great. It appeared in both German and French
editions. At the time, this was the most extensive and comprehensive work to have
been written on music performance techniques and practices, and it served as a model
for later writers. Only a small portion of the book is of exclusive interest to flautists,
the rest of the text contains detailed information about music in the mid 18th century
that is of general interest to all musicians. The book begins with a chapter on ‘the
qualities required of those who would dedicate themselves to music’ and other topics
covered include practicing, breathing, good execution, ornamentation, extempore
variations on simple intervals, cadenzas, performing in public and accompanying.
The English translation by Edward Reilly was published in 1966. Quantz wrote his
autobiography in 1754, which appeared in F. W. Marpurg’s Historisch-kritische
Beyträge.
Quantz was a prolific composer, producing 300 concertos for one and two flutes, 277
of these were preserved in the New Palace at Potsdam. After Quantz died, Frederick
was able to complete his last flute concerto. Quantz wrote 200 flute solos, 26 sonatas
for flute and harpsichord, numerous flute duets, 39 trios, mostly for 2 flutes with bass,
studies, caprices, preludes and solfeggi for the flute, duets for oboe and viola, trios and
quartets for a variety of instruments, church music, secular songs, and other vocal
works, including a Serenata. Some of Quantz’s music was printed in his lifetime, but
most of his compositions remained in manuscript in the possession of King Frederick.
A limited amount of his music is available in print today. Quantz is well represented
in the AMEB Syllabuses. Exam students will be familiar with his Minuetto (AMEB
Grade 3 Book), Minuetto and Variations (AMEB Grade 4 Book), Arioso and Presto
(Grade 5, 24 Short Concert Pieces/Cavally), Concerto in G (Grades 5, 6, 7, Associate),
Sonata No 1 in A minor and Sonata No 3 in C minor (Grade 7), Sonata No 4 in D and
Sonata No 5 in E minor (Licentiate). Frederick the Great’s Sonata No 2 in C minor is
listed in the Grade 4 syllabus.
Apart from King Frederick the Great and the Margrave of Bayreuth, Quantz’s flute
students included George Gotthelf Liebeskind of Altenburg, who at the age of 17 was
engaged by King Frederick, J. Joseph Frederick Lindner (a nephew of Pisendel), G.
W. Kottowsky of Berlin, and Augustin Neuff of Graz.
Johann Joachim Quantz died in Potsdam on July 12th, 1773, aged 76 years, having
served at the Prussian court for 32 years. Frederick arranged for a magnificent
monument to be erected over Quantz’s grave in the old cemetery at Potsdam. It is
topped with the figure of Euterpe, the goddess of music, and below this is engraved in
marble a sheet of music, above which is a flute entwined with a wreath of laurel.
After Quantz died, musical activities continued at the Prussian court. Johann Baptiste
Wendling, who had been first flute in the chapel of Mannheim since 1754, was
appointed as Quantz’s successor.
In about 1780, Frederick had to give up flute playing because of problems with
missing teeth and gout. He died in 1786. His partnership with Quantz had
contributed much to the flute’s development, status and repertoire in so many ways,
and he had helped to promote and elevate all of the arts and had restored Berlin’s
position as a major musical centre after a long period of neglect.
Bibliography
Flutes, Flutists and Makers. Andrew Fairley. Pan Educational Music.
Frederick the Great - A Royal Flautist. Robert Brown. South Australian Flute News,
September 1986.
Pan, December 1996. Quantz - An Appreciation, Part I, by Rachel Brown.
Jacques Hotteterre le Romain. Principles of the Flute, Recorder and Oboe. Translated by
David Lasocki. Barrie and Rockcliff.
On Playing the Flute. J. J. Quantz. English translation of Versuch Einer Anweisung die Flöte
Transveriére zu Spielen by Edward R. Reilly. Faber.
My Complete Story of the Flute. Leonardo De Lorenzo. Texas University Press.
A Treatise on the Flute. R. S. Rockstro. Musica Rara.
Great Flute Makers of France. The Lot and Godfroy Families. Tula Giannini. Tony
Bingham.
The Flute. James Galway. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. MacDonald and Co.
Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th Edition. Edited by Eric Blom. MacMillan.
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Edited by Stanley Sadie. MacMillan.