Quantz: Four Sonatas for Flute and Continuo

Johann Joachim Quantz Four Sonatas for Flute and Continuo liner notes

Johann Joachim Quantz was not a great composer, but his music, in addition to being pleasant and spirited, served a valuable historical and esthetic function. And the close relationship he maintained with Frederick the Great resulted in several fringe benefits to himself, the monarch, and to music history. In 1754 Quantz wrote his autobiography. When we read this, in conjunction with the letters and descriptions of his contemporaries, we receive a fascinating picture of the man and his milieu. "I was born in the province of Hannover," Quantz wrote, "on the 30th of January in the year 1697." His father and mother died within a few years of one another, leaving Quantz an orphan at the age of ten. After his father's death in 1707, he went to live with his uncle, Justus Quantz, who had been a town musician in Merseburg. After a few months he, too, died and the boy went to live with Adolf Fleischhack, who was also a town musician. Quantz described him: "He was, by the standards of those times, not a bad musician, particularly on the violin. He preferred tending to his comfort, however, to giving his apprentices the proper musical instruction. The journeymen, for the most part, were of the same mind. Consequently, there was no instruction available other than that which one apprentice gave, as well as he could, to the other." In those days, town musicians were required to play several instruments, and Quantz studied the violin, oboe, and trumpet. Among the other instruments he was called upon to play were the trombone, recorder, bassoon, cello, "and who knows how many more, all of which the real Kunstpfeifer must be able to play." In addition to these instruments, Quantz received clavier lessons from the organist Kiesewetter, and also undertook the composition of short works, such as marches and dances.