ALTHOUGH YOU MIGHT NOT EXPECT IT, the 2005 Boston Early Music Festival was full of first performances. The centerpiece of the festival was the world premiere of an almost 300-year-old opera: Johann Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow, which proved to be a musical gem. The Festival Orchestra concert was to provide two more first performances, thanks in part to an ill-disposed soloist. A planned work for the concert was a terrific keyboard concerto by the long-neglected German composer Johann Wilhelm Hertel (1727-1789), performed by South African keyboard whiz Kristian Bezuidenhout.
At an early rehearsal, principal cellist Phoebe Carrai mentioned that coincidentally, she had recently given the Canadian premiere of a Hertel cello concerto. Her friend Markus Möellenbeck had unearthed and edited the concerto, publishing it in 2005. Imagine Carrai’s surprise when, a week later, the BEMF directors asked her if she could give the concerto’s US premiere two days later.
The result was a winning performance of a truly delightful piece. The audience gave it a warm reception, and Boston Globe reviewer Richard Dyer proclaimed: “With eloquence and finesse, cellist Phoebe Carrai played a terrific concerto by Johann Wilhelm Hertel that deserves a place in the repertory alongside the concertos of Haydn.”
Strong praise, indeed!
If Hertel’s music is so terrific, why has history forgotten him? Probably because he lived and worked in small towns in Northern Germany, where his compositions circulated in manuscript form only. When his works were published, it was almost always for local consumption. Simply put, he didn’t travel far and neither did his music.
FAMILY TIES
Hertel harkened from a musical family; both his grandfather and father made their living as performers and composers. Although his father Johann Christian traveled, for he was an accomplished viola da gamba player, he concertized mostly in his native Germany and occasionally in Holland. Johann Wilhelm was born in the German town of Eisenach, where his father performed in the court orchestra of the local duke. Early on, Johann Wilhelm studied violin with his father, and harpsichord with J.H. Heil, a student of Bach.
Talented and adept, by 12 he played the harpsichord for his father on concert tours. As he followed his father from one court position to another, the youngest Hertel gained musical experience as well. By the age of 17 he had joined his father in the court orchestra of Strelitz, which is a city north of Berlin. When that orchestra was dissolved in 1753, Johann Wilhelm relocated to the town of Schwerin, slightly north and east of Strelitz, where he would spend much of the rest of his life in the employ of a princess and a count.
Over his lifetime, Hertel composed an impressive quantity of music, and was particularly lauded for his vocal works, including lieder, oratorios, cantatas, passions and masses. He also wrote over 40 symphonies (one with eight obbligato timpani!), and numerous chamber and keyboard sonatas as well as many concertos for diverse instruments. Hertel penned a treatise on thorough-bass as well as two autobiographies, which include a list of his works. Sadly, much of his musical output has been lost over time. Of the six cello concerti that Hertel composed, only two survive: the autographs of both are located at the library of the Royal Conservatory in Brussels.
The Hertel autographs were part of the extraordinary collection of Johann Jakob Westphal (1774-1835) who amassed many manuscripts by J.S. Bach, including one of the four extant manuscripts of the cello suites, and C.P.E. Bach and his contemporaries.
We are fortunate that Markus Möellenbeck has made Hertel’s A minor Cello Concerto available in a modern edition, and can only hope that he will do the same for the A major Cello Concerto that is also housed at the Royal Conservatory.
While Hertel may not have been well known outside of northern Germany, he certainly was a sophisticated and erudite composer. He did travel to Berlin, and came in contact with several well-known musicians there, including violinist Franz Benda (with whom he studied), C.H. Graun, and Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach. An influence on both C.P.E. Bach and Hertel was the then-popular “Empfindsamkeit” (“sensibility” or “sentimental style”), a North-German aesthetic found in both music and literature that focused on subjective expression. The music tended to be not too ornate and rhetorical: instrumental compositions imitated the speaking style of vocal recitatives. It also really tried to evoke emotions, sometimes changing moods quite quickly and surprisingly.
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THREE MOVEMENTS
Hertel’s A minor Cello Concerto, dated 1759, may well have been inspired by C.P.E. Bach, who composed three similar-length cello concertos earlier in the decade. According to Möellenbeck, Hertel probably composed his cello concertos for Franz Xaver Woschitka, a virtuoso who held the post of solo cellist in the Mecklenburg-Schwerin court chapel. The 20-minute composition consists of three movements, all of which end with an exact repetition of an initial orchestral introduction. The cello part is beautifully written for the instrument, making ample use of its singing tenor range. The solo line doesn’t often venture into thumb position, but nonetheless contains some difficult passages.
The first movement, marked Allegro con Spirito, is the meatiest of the three and begins with the orchestra in unison going up and down an A-minor scale only to land at the end of the second measure on a surprising D#. The cello, when it enters, has its own mournful melodies, which are often punctuated by orchestral scales reminiscent of the opening.
The final movement, a brief Allegro, contains some string-crossing passagework that is both challenging and impressive.
However, it is the plaintive middle movement, in C major, which we will explore in more detail. This slow movement, Adagio poco andante, is the emotional core of the concerto. Its main theme is a melody that reaches stepwise up for a measure, only to return back down the following measure in sighing 16ths separated by rests. At the beginning of the movement, the violins play this melody in thirds. While many composers of the Baroque and Classical eras were sparse with their dynamic markings, Hertel was not. In keeping with the emotional Empfindsamkeit style, Hertel showed his intentions through his dynamics, with sudden shifts from pianissimo to forte. This is true even in the context of the slow movement, an example of which is here in the opening orchestral tutti.
SOLO CELLO PART
The cello enters in mm. 10 (where our excerpt begins) with the same melody, but now two octaves lower, accompanied by the first violins playing on their bottom two strings. The lower range gives the melody an added richness and depth. Once the solo cello has stated the theme, it begins to explore some thematic ideas, accompanied for a few measures (mm.12–14) only by the celli/bassi. When the cello reaches upward onto the A string, settling on a long-held D, the violins re-enter (mm. 14–15) in pianissimo, with tender, melodic broken thirds.
The solo cello takes over the melodic line again at the end of mm. 15, but with a lengthier, more unsettled passage (mm. 15–20) full of syncopated rhythms, 32nd notes, and grace notes. This tension-filled passage modulates, settling on the dominant key of G major at its conclusion. Hertel constantly varies the accompaniment: the passage begins with all the strings, but after two measures the violins drop out.
The viola line stops the following measure, leaving only the basso continuo to accompany the cello’s impassioned comments of mm. 19–20, and even the continuo rests on the cello’s final note.
Here our excerpt ends, where the violins return with a restatement of the opening theme, but now in the newly established key of G major.
I hope that this brief introduction to the A minor Cello Concerto has whetted your appetite for the whole composition. The score and solo cello part are published by Edition Walhall, EW 398, in the series Il Violoncello Concertato. Since it only needs a string and keyboard accompaniment, the Hertel concerto is perfect for a chamber-orchestra setting. Enjoy!
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A minor Cello Concerto
By Johann Wilhelm Hertel
In this excerpt from the slow second movement, Adagio poco andante, the cello enters and states a simple theme, then explores thematic ideas before being joined by violins (mm.14-15) and tender broken thirds. It then resumes the melodic role (mm. 15-20) with a lengthier, more unsettled passage full of syncopated rhythms, 32nd notes, and grace notes. An audio sample of the excerpt, featuring principal cellist Phoebe Carrai of the Boston Early Music Festival orchestra, can be found by clicking on the link, below.
Download the music to "A minor Cello Concerto"
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