The veil of mystery surrounding the life history and musical education of Johann Joseph Fux has still not been lifted. When he was approximately thirty years old, he suddenly appeared as a finished musician in Vienna where he worked mainly as an organist. The emperor heard him at the home of a nobleman and named him Court Composer (the title was created especially for him) in 1698. Later he entered the court orchestra and was named conductor of the imperial court orchestra. - As a composer, Fux has not been held in the esteem he merits. That is probably because he was the author of the famous manual on counterpoint Gradus ad Parnassum (the work from which the \/iennese classicists still drew their technical knowledge), and because no one was willing to believe that a theoretician could also be a full-blooded musician. Even today, a musician who can express himself on the subject of music is usually stamped a dry theoretician. The popular picture of the "artist" shows him surrounded by a magic aureole; intellect does not fit into that picture. Fux personally took another view of himself: "...at the time in which l was not yet in full use of my reason, I was swept away by the vehemence of some urge that could not identify; it directed all of my thoughts and feelings toward music, and even now I am permeated by an almost miraculous desire to learn to master it, indeed, I am pushed in that direction as if I had no will of my own; day and night my ears seem surrounded by sweet rnusical tones, so that I have no reason to doubt the virtue of my choice of profession."
In his "Concentus musico instrumentalis... 1701", that he dedicated to Leopold's son Joseph I, he presented a collection of sonatas and suites with highly varying instrumentations. ln these works the French and Italian styles pervade each other and are blended with influences that stem from Austrian folklore. These works must probably also be considered to be typical of Austria's contribution to the baroque concert of notions.
The Serenade on this record is the opening piece of this collection; it is a suite with sixteen movements. The versatile employment of the valveless trumpet is particularly interesting: in three movements it comes forth festively resounding, in the other movements its line is delicate and cantabile. The composer apparently wanted to demonstrate all of the instruments possibilities. But even aside from the trumpet the scoring is remarltable. There are solo passages for the oboes like those that loter appeared in Handel's Concerti grossi. The individual movements are in part free fantasy forms (Marche, Aria, Aria, lntrada, Finale), in part dances or the movements of the French overture suite (Guigue, Menuet Ouverture, Menuet l, ll, Guigue, Aria [Passepied] Bourrée I, ll, Rigadon, Ciacona, Guigue, Menuet). But Fux by no means kept strictly to a formal pattern in the movements. To the Guigue, Ciacona and Menuet he wrote a free solo part for the trumpet: elements of peasant music from his native Styria can be heard repeatedly, for example, in several minuets, but especially in the completely unorthodox Ciacona that at times sounds just like a Ländler.
The other two pieces on this recording were found in the Dresden State Library; The Rondeau a 7 was included in this collection chiefly for its unusual solo group. A simple dance-like theme (that is played by all instruments eleven times with slight rhythmic and dynamic variation) forms a framework for the soli and duets of the violino piccolo and the bassaon. The Sonata a Quattro requires exactly the same instruments as Schmelzer's Carioletta, a generation later, however; hence it is considerably clearer and smoother, a masterpiece of four-port chamber musrc, scored for four entirely different sounding instruments; thus the individual voices always remain independently clear and maintain their presence throughout the contrapuntal structure.
That Vienna was already a center of music in the baroque period is probably chiefly due to the extraordinary enthusiasm shown by several Hapsburg emperors for music. In the case of Leopold I (1640-1705), Austria's baroque emperor par excellence enthousiasm grew steadily into fanaticism. Yhis strange man, who was emperor for nearly fifty years, was by no means a born ruler. Since he was sickly and weak, had a strong brother (Ferinand IV) and was furthermore highly plous, he was educated for the priesthood. The sudden death of his brother thus forced him into a role for which he was completely unprepared. Nonetheless, or perhaps for just that very reason and despite all of its dissonant tones, the period of his reign was thoroughly fruitful and in no wise less successful than that of his brilliant French counterpart, Louis XIV, whose reign was just about as long. Leopold was not at all war-like. A lovely concert meant more to him than winning a battle. His generals complained that, although he had no money for the army, he still gave out huge sums for his opera performances. - Leopold not only had a passionate ear for music, he himself was also a composer, and not a bad one. He wrote masses, oratorios, dances, German songs and many additions to the compositions of his court musicians. Frequently he was satisfied in inventing the melody and left the instrumentation to his court composers Berthali or Ebner. Although the Austrian state coffers were always empty, often even in debt, the Italian musicians in the court orchestra received princely salaries. In every respect they were the predecessors of today's highly paid "star" musicians. - Gottlieb Eucharius Rinck, a captain in the imperial army, wrote about Leopold and his court orchestra: "The emperor is a great artist in music... if there was anything in this world that gave the emperor pleasure, it was unmistakably good music. It increased his joy, it diminished his worries, and one can say of him that he never had any more pleasurable hour among any form of diversion than that which a well-fitted concert gave him. This could be seen particularly in his rooms. For when he, as was his customs, changed residence four times a year - namely, from the castle to Laxenburg, from there to the "Favority" and then to Ebersburg, there was always a costly spinet in each of the emperor's rooms, upon which the emperor spent all of his leisurely hours. His band can well be called the most perfect orchestra in the world, and that is surely no wonder since the emperor himself held the examination. Whenever an applicant was accepted, then he had been judged according to his merits and not by inclination... One can judge from the number of experienced musicians how expensive they must have been for the emperor. For many of these people were barons and were paid such salaries that they could live as befits their station... Whenever the emperor was in a concert of his incomparable orchestra, he enjoyed himself so much that he gave unlimited attention, such as if he were bearing it for the very first time... When a passage came that particularly pleased him, he closed his eyes tightly so as to listen with greater attention. His ear was so keen that he could detect among fifty players which one had bowed incorrectly."