[Sheet music] Johann Gottlieb Graun (1703-1771) - Sinfonia in Fa maggiore

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Composer: Johann Gottlieb Graun (1703-1771)
Work: Sinfonia in Fa maggiore (GraunWV C:XII:68 / IJG 55)
Software: Sibelius + Instruments samples
World Premiere: Yes
Sheet music (pdf): https://imslp.simssa.ca/files/imglnks/usimg/1/11/IMSLP322454-PMLP521907-Graun_Sinfonie_F-Dur.pdf
Sheet music (xml): https://www.mediafire.com/file/ci3hrc0ey7nnkkq/GRAUN-SinfoniaF.xml/file
Info about sheet music recovering project: https://i.ibb.co/hML4xyJ/HAYDN-M-3.jpg

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German family of which three brothers were musicians. Their father, August Graun (d 1736), came from a Saxon family of clergymen and worked as a tax-collector in Wahrenbrück. There the three sons received their first musical tuition from the town Kantor and organist Johann David Cocler. The loss of the church registers by fire in 1714 is the reason for the imprecision of birth dates. While the eldest son, August Friedrich, achieved only a local reputation, his brothers Johann Gottlieb and Carl Heinrich were regarded as leading composers in north Germany. At present the true extent of their output is uncertain: problems of attribution, chronology and biographical detail remain.

Johann Gottlieb Graun
(Wahrenbrück, 1703 - Berlin, 27 October 1771)

Brother of August Friedrich Graun (c.1698-1765) and Carl Heinrich Graun (1703-1759), from 1713 he attended the Kreuzschule in Dresden, where he sang in the boys' choir directed by Johann Zacharias Grundig, and from 1720 by Theodor Christlieb Reinhold. Although he was registered in 1718-19 at the University of Leipzig, the school archives show that he remained an alumnus until 1721. Graun studied the violin and composition with the Dresden Konzertmeister J.G. Pisendel, and continued his studies with Tartini in Padua, returning to Dresden afterwards. In 1726 he was appointed Konzertdirektor at the royal court in Merseburg, where his annual salary was over 306 thalers, including 43 thalers and 18 groschen as payment for his compositions. These probably included the six violin sonatas that Graun published in Merseburg. A measure of his reputation as a violinist is that J.S. Bach allowed his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, to be taught by him in 1726-7. The next phase in Graun's career was his appointment as Konzertdirektor at the court of Carl August Friedrich, Prince of Waldeck, on 1 September 1731. He had probably already been working in the prince's service since 1727. There he directed a small Kapelle made up of highly qualified singers and players. Their repertory consisted mainly of Italian music and works by Telemann. Graun's annual salary was 400 thalers, together with payments in kind. Clearly he now felt in a position to start a family, and in 1731 he married Dorothea-Josepha Schmiel, who bore him three children. In May 1728 Graun had performed at the Prussian court in Berlin and quite probably earned the approval of Pietro Locatelli, who was present. Apparently he maintained contacts with Berlin; not only did his marriage take place there, but in 1732 he became a member of the newly formed Kapelle of the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick in Ruppin. The orchestra developed gradually: in 1733 Franz Benda (a pupil of Graun) joined, in the following year Johann Benda and Christoph Schaffrath came, and then Graun's brother Carl Heinrich in 1735. With 17 members, the Kapelle followed the crown prince to Rheinsberg in 1736 and formed the kernel of the Prussian court Kapelle that Frederick the Great developed further after his accession to the throne in 1740. J.G. Graun held the position of Konzertmeister, with a salary of 1200 thalers, until his death. His duties included directing the orchestra at numerous court concerts, mainly for the reigning Queen Elisabeth Christine and for Frederick the Great's mother, the dowager Queen Sophia Dorothea. Most of Graun's instrumental works could have been written for the king's chamber concerts or for the larger court concerts. It is not known whether he was involved with any of the many musical societies formed in Berlin and Potsdam in the 1740s and 50s, which included professional musicians as well as amateurs from the nobility and bourgeoisie. However, we do know that Graun was involved in teaching the new generation of orchestral players; he received additional payments for instructing the violinists Ivan Böhme in 1746-50 and Balthasar Christian Bertram in 1749-51. #ClassicalMusic