Franz Danzi: Briefwechsel (1785-1826).

Alexander, Peter M.

Edited by Volkmar von Pechstaedt. Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1997. [309 p. ISBN 3-7952-0871-8. DM 148.]

Franz Danzi (1763-1826) lived at a significant time in the history of European concert music. His career, spanning the transition from the late classical to the early romantic style, coincided with the origin of much of the music that lives in our concert halls and in the hearts of audiences. As a young man he knew Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whom he revered; he was a contemporary of Ludwig van Beethoven, about whom he - like many of his generation - had strong but strongly mixed feelings; and he was a mentor for the young Carl Maria von Weber, whose music he respected and promoted.

Born and raised in Mannheim, Danzi joined the superlative orchestra of the elector Karl Theodor as a teenager. He remained behind in a more provincial Mannheim when Karl Theodor moved his court to Munich in 1778. After an apprenticeship with the small theater orchestra left in Mannheim, he rejoined the main court in Munich as principal cellist - taking his father's position - in 1784.

By 1798 he had risen to the position of Vizekapellmeister in one of the most important music centers of Europe, but in 1807, unhappy at the treatment he received at court and despairing of any further advancement, he left Munich to be Kapellmeister in the smaller and less important court of Wurttemberg in Stuttgart. After five years he moved to Karlsruhe, where he spent the last years of his life struggling to raise the modest courtly music establishment to respectability.

Although not himself a composer of the first rank, Danzi was a highly competent musician. Known today chiefly for his woodwind quintets, he composed in most major genres of the time, including opera, church music, orchestral music, and many varieties of chamber music. He was a first-rate cellist as well as a conscientious and - by all reports - effective orchestra leader and conductor.

Danzi wrote engagingly and vividly in his letters, 129 of which have been compiled by Volkmar von Pechstaedt - along with 60 more to Danzi from others - into a fascinating and worthwhile volume. These letters - exchanged with friends, court officials, and publishers - reveal an entertaining and likable human being. Of greater historical significance, they reflect the daily life of a professional musician. Thus this volume is not only a major contribution to our understanding of Danzi; it is a valuable document of the musical life of the early nineteenth century. And since most of the letters were previously unpublished, Pechstaedt has opened a door onto a completely new source of information.

The edition has been carefully prepared. The letters are listed in chronological order with four of uncertain date at the end. Especially helpful are the thorough annotations identifying people and works - many of them obscure - mentioned in the letters. The historical context is often filled in a way that is both entertaining and enlightening, as when Danzi's irreverent account of a courtly celebration in Stuttgart (letter no. 2 to the actor and playwright Georg Lambrecht, pp. 23-25) is contrasted with the more official report published in the periodical Journal des Luxus und der Moden (no. 4, pp. 25-26).

Among the letters to his friends, surely the most memorable are the fifty Danzi wrote to Joseph von Morigotti in Munich. From 1807, around the time he left Munich, until 1821, Danzi opened his heart to Morigotti, describing his daily activities and sharing his opinions of the singers and other musicians with whom he worked, the operas he performed, and the musical scene in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe (which he viewed as oppressively provincial and limited in comparison to the more cosmopolitan Munich). In these personal letters, Danzi emerges as thoughtful and sincere but sometimes contentious, a man who cared for his friends and, in spite of discouraging obstacles, maintained high ideals in his work.

Particularly interesting is the series of letters Danzi wrote at the time of his move from Munich to Stuttgart (roughly nos. 1319, pp. 44-54). In them we sense the inner feelings of the composer and learn of the hopes - soon to be dashed - that he had for his new position. Such personal revelations, set in the context of petitions to leave one post and negotiations for the new one, give vivid human meaning to the employment conditions of musicians in the early nineteenth century.

Interesting for the same reason are the letters to court officials. Filled with the requisite formal language, they are, when contrasted with Danzi's more open expressions to his friends, especially revealing of life within the courtly hierarchy. Although the rigid stratification of early nineteenth-century society placed severe constraints on behavior and public expression, we can see that under the outward attitude of compliance and servility required of court appointees there was a healthy lack of reverence.

The letters to his publishers, including Breitkopf and Hartel, Ambros Kuhnel, and Johann Anton Andre, provide insight into the business relationships of the time. Some are of further interest, particularly the letters to Andre, whom Danzi regarded as a friend as well as business associate. Coming from the last years of the composer's life, these letters contain Danzi's most extensive statements on music values and the works of other composers. Here we find, for example, Danzi's opinion of Beethoven, that "even the most famous man can err, as in these new times we often see with the genius Beethoven" ("auch der beruhmteste Mann kann ja irren, wie wir es in neueren Zeiten oft an dem genialen Beethoven sehen"), followed shortly by the statement that "I still consider melody to be the most essential element in music, in spite of the Zeitgeist" ("denn ich die Melodie, trotz dem geitgeiste, noch immer fur das Wesentliche in der Musick halte"; letter no. 145, pp. 212-13: Danzi's emphasis).

Through such personal statements stylistic change is transformed from a theoretical concern to a human issue. Pechstaedt has done an admirable job in making available these fascinating, revealing, and sometimes touching letters.

PETER U. ALEXANDER University of Iowa