Recorded at:		-
	Live / Studio		Studio
	Producer		-
	Balance engineer		-
	First LP Edition		BASF | 29 21188-6 | 2 LPs | durata 36' 29" - 41' 30" | (p) 1972
	First CD Edition		PILZ - ACANTA | 44 2160-2 | 2 CDs | durata 36' 29" - 41' 30" | (c) 1993 | ADD
	Note		-

Musik aus Schlössernb & Residenzen (20 CD Collection) Membran | 234355 | (c) 2016 (in CD 19 & 20)

In March 1800 when the twenty-nine-year-old Karl Cannabich took over the music at the Munich court he had a band of eighty-two musicians and thirty-nine singers in his charge. Born in Mannheim, the son of Christian Cannabich, a highly respected composer and orchestral conductor, he moved to Munich, where he became a violinist in the court orchestra, later going to Frankfurt, where, from 1796 to 1799, he was a conductor at the theatre. The short but successful period during which he was music director in Munich brought to a conclusion one of the most prolific and colourful eras in the musical life of this city, namely its 150 years as an Electoral city. On May 1st, 1806, two months after Bavaria had proclaimed a kingdom, Karl Cannabich died at the age of thirty-five. An obituary notice describes him as an excellent violinist and pianist. His own music has nevertheless long since been forgotten. The charming Concertante for two Solo Violins and Orchestra composed around 1800, however, can still delight music-lovers and is a far better testimonial to the composer’s ability than the writings of any music chronicler. We can follow the progress of the court orchestra’s public concerts in the years following Cannabich’s death from a report in the „Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung“ dated 1832: „For nearly half a century, in fact since the appearance under the patronage of Elector Karl Theodor of the Mannheim Orchestra, famous now in musical history, concerts have been given every winter by what has been known since 1811 as the „Musical Academy“. At first there were 72 such concerts in which amateurs, travelling musicians, and young artists of all kinds were given the opportunity of becoming known. Later the number was reduced to 6, then to 3. This last winter they stopped altogether. Not even on the Sunday before Easter, a day when from time immemorial there had been an oratorio or psalm, the „Messiah“, „The Creation“, „The Seasons“, was there a performace .... Where are we to seek the causes of this remarkable lack of public interest here? „ One of the main reasons for the apathy of the concert-going public was the fact that Munich had no musical personality to fill the position of Musical Director in the city. A few years later however the situation was to be completely reversed when Munich gained the services of Franz Lachner, born 1803 at Rain-on-Lech. The new Kapellmeister had belonged to Franz Schubert’s close circle of friends in Vienna and brought with him from that city, and from Mannheim, the necessary experience of the concert hall and the theatre. He was a brillant conductor, capable of injecting new life into an orchestra. Under him the Munich orchestra reached a leading position in Germany. Both the high standard of his concert programmes, based upon composers of the Viennese Classical school but taking generous account of contemporary works, and his well-thought out opera repertoire had a decisive effect on public taste in music. Two great musical events saw the culmination of his work – the Munich Festivals of 1855 and 1865. In the field of composition Franz Lachner is known mainly for his opera „Catarina Cornaro“ and his seven orchestral suites. In addition there is much in his wealth of compositions deserving of revival. Of particular musical and melodic charm is his Nonet for Strings and Wind Instruments in F major composed in 1857 and preserved in manuscript, it is a companion piece to the more frequently perfomed nonet by Ludwig Spohr, who was twenty years his senior. Formally, as, for example, in the sequence of the four movements, he strictly adheres to the classical tradition. Another 19th century Munich nonet we owe to the pen of Joseph Rheinberger, who was born in Liechtenstein but made his home in Munich. Lachner aside, he was probably the most outstanding resident composer at the time. At the early age of twelve he began his studies at the Munich Konservatorium, where he soon attained „a degree of skill and confidence in counterpoint amazing for his age“. Franz Lachner wrote in the fifteen-year-old student’s report: „Thoroughly trained in theory and practice, he performs superbly on the pianoforte and organ, but it is his composition which gives rise to the greatest expectations „. At the age of twenty he was made a professor at the Konservatorium. Later he worked for a short time in the theatre and for many years was a conductor of vocal music. Regarded highly in the musical world both as a person and as an artist, he enjoyed the esteem of many of his fellow composers and the friendship of Johannes Brahms. The latter observed that he thought Rheinberger had much in common with Franz Schubert. As his biographer Theodor Kroyer points out, his affinity with Schubert lies in his full-blooded music-making, in his revelling in music. Just to what extent Joseph Rheinberger’s own ideas on the nature and purpose of music as an art coincide with those of Schubert is confirmed by these words written by him shortly before his death, „There is no justification for music without melodiousness and beauty of sound. I am well aware that there are many opponents to my point of view, but white is white, not grey or black. Music ought never to sound brooding, for basically it is the outpouring of joy and even in pain knows no pessimism.“ Written 1884 when the composer was forty-five, his nonet, corresponding to Lachner’s in sequence of movements, is a testimony in sound to Rheinberger’s conservatism in music. It is one of the most appealing instrumental compositions in a plentiful collection in which there are still discoveries to be made. Dr. Robert Münster