Books › Grove's Dictionary of music and musicians, 1910 › scan 34
Scan 34
Grove's Dictionary of music and musicians, 1910
6 lines. Read by computer on 12 September 2026. Printed page 14. See the scan on archive.org.
1and piano. She married in 1821, and made several professional tours in France with her husband, both performing in public with great success. Madame Farrenc was not only a clever woman, but an able and conscientious teacher, as is shown by the many excellent female pupils she trained during the thirty years she was professor of the piano at the Conservatoire (Nov. 1842–Jan. 1873). Besides some remarkable études, sonatas, and pieces for the pianoforte, she composed sonatas for piano and violin or violoncello, trios, two quintets, a sestet, and a nonet, for which works she obtained in 1869 the prize of the Académie des Beaux Arts for chamber-music. She also wrote two symphonies and three overtures for full orchestra, and several of her more important compositions were performed at the Conservatoire concerts. More than by all these, however, her name will be perpetuated by the Trésor des Pianistes, a real anthology of music, containing chefs-d’œuvre of all the classical masters of the harpsichord and pianoforte from the 16th century down to Weber and Chopin, as well as more modern works of the highest value. [Her Traité des abréviations was published in 1897. See also Trésor des Pianistes.] G. C.
3FASCH, JOHANN FRIEDRICH, born at Buttstedt (Weimar), April 15, 1688, was a chorister at Weissenfels in 1699, a scholar of the Thomas-schule in Leipzig from 1701 to 1707, where he studied law as well as music, the latter under Kuhnau. He founded a 'Collegium musicum,' which seems to have been the ancestor of the 'Grosses Concert' and so of the Gewandhaus concerts; he wrote overtures for the society in the style of Telemann, and composed three operas for the Naumburg fair and elsewhere. In 1714, after leading a wandering life for some years, he was an official secretary at Gera, and in 1719 went to Zeitz as organist and 'Rathschreiber,' where he remained for two years. In 1721 he took service with Count Morzini at Lucaveč in Bohemia, and in 1722 was appointed court capellmeister at Zerbst, where he died, Dec. 5, 1768. He was invited to compete for the post of cantor at the Thomasschule against Bach, but apparently refused to do so. (Spitta, J. S. Bach (Engl. transl.), ii. 181.) Bach held Fasch's music in high esteem, and copied out five orchestral suites of his. In the collection of music left by Philipp Emanuel Bach was a whole set of church cantatas by Fasch. Several masses, a requiem, eleven church cantatas and motets, one Passion-setting, various overtures, trios, sonatas, etc., are preserved in MS. at Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin, and Brussels (see Quellen-Lexikon, from which, with Riemann's Lexikon, the above particulars are taken). Fasch's son,
5CARL FRIEDRICH CHRISTIAN FASCH, founder of the 'Singakademie' at Berlin, was born Nov. 18, 1736, at Zerbst. As a child he was delicate, and much indulged. He made rapid progress on the violin and clavier, and in the rudiments of harmony. After a short stay at Coethen, where he made his first attempts at composition in church music, he was sent to Strelitz. Here he continued his studies under Hertel, in all branches of music, but especially in accompaniment, at that time a difficult art, as the accompanist had only the figured bass to guide him. In 1751 Linicke, the court clavierist, having declined to accompany Franz Benda, Fasch offered to supply his place at the harpsichord, and Benda's praises incited him to still greater efforts. After his return to Zerbst he was sent to complete his education at Klosterbergen near Magdeburg. Benda had not forgotten their meeting, and in 1756, when just twenty, Fasch was appointed on his recommendation accompanist to Frederick the Great. His coadjutor was no less a person than Emanuel Bach; they took it in turns to accompany the King's flute-concertos, and as soon as Fasch had become accustomed to the royal amateur's impetuous style of execution, his accompaniments gave every satisfaction. The Seven Years' War put an end to Frederick's flute-playing, and as Fasch received his salary (300 thalers) in paper, worth only a fifth part of its nominal value,—a misfortune in which he anticipated Beethoven—he was compelled to maintain himself by giving lessons. For his lessons in composition he made a collection of several thousand examples. About the same time he wrote several most ingenious canons, particularly one for twenty-five voices containing five canons put together, one being in seven parts, one in six, and three in four parts. After the battle of Torgau the King granted him an addition of 100 thalers to his salary, but the increase covered the direction of the opera, which was put into his hands from 1774 to 1776. After the war of the Bavarian succession Frederick gave up his practice, and Fasch was free to follow his natural inclination for church music. In 1783, incited by a 16-part Mass of Benevoli's, which Reichardt had brought from Italy, he wrote one for the same number of voices, which, however, proved too difficult for the court-singers. He retained his post after Frederick's death, but occupied himself chiefly with composition and teaching. In the summer of 1790, as he himself tells us, he began choral-meetings in the summer-house of Geheimrath Milow, which resulted in the 'Singakademie,' an institution which under his pupil and successor Zelter became very popular, and exercised an important influence on musical taste in Berlin for many years. Before his death Fasch was twice visited by Beethoven, who spent some time in Berlin in the summer of 1796. On the first occasion, June 21, he heard a chorale, the three first numbers of Fasch's mass, and several movements from his 119th Psalm, and he himself extemporised on one of the subjects of the latter. On the 28th he reappeared and again extemporised, to the delight
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.