Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (13 January 1690 – 27 November 1749) was a German composer of the Baroque era.
Biography
Stölzel was born in Grünstädtel in Saxony on 13 January 1690. His father, organist in Grünstädtel, gave him his first music education. When he was thirteen, he was sent to study in Schneeberg, where he was taught music, including thoroughbass, by cantor Christian Umlaufft, a former student of Johann Kuhnau. A few years later he was admitted to the gymnasium in Gera, where he further practiced music under Emanuel Kegel, the director of the court chapel. Some of his educators took a dim view of music, and tried to divert his attention from it: apart from engaging in poetry and oratory, Stölzel nonetheless continued to develop his interest in music.
In 1707 he became a student of theology in Leipzig. The city had a lot to offer from a musical point of view: its opera had been reopened shortly before, which Stölzel liked to visit. He became acquainted with Melchior Hoffmann, at the time music director of the Neukirche and conductor of the Collegium Musicum, both in succession of Georg Philipp Telemann, who had left Leipzig in 1705. Perfecting his art under Hoffmann, Stölzel also acted as his copyist, and started composing: initially Hoffmann performed these compositions as his own, Stölzel gradually coming to the open as their composer.
In 1710 Stölzel went to Breslau in Silesia, where his first opera, Narcissus, on his own libretto, was performed in 1711. Returning to Halle after over two years in Silesia, he composed the operas Valeria, instigated by Johann Theile, for Naumburg, and Rosen und Dornen der Liebe for Gera. In 1713 he composed two further operas on his own librettos, Artemisia and Orion, both premiered in Naumburg.
Late in 1713 he travelled to Italy, where he met composers like Johann David Heinichen and Antonio Vivaldi in Venice, Francesco Gasparini in Florence and Domenico Scarlatti and Antonio Bononcini in Rome. Returning after more than a year, he spent some time in Innsbruck, and travelled over Linz to Prague where he worked for nearly three years (1715–17).
In 1715 the post of Kapellmeister at the court of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen became vacant. Stölzel applied, but Prince Christian William I promoted Johann Balthasar Christian Freißlich, the court organist, to Kapellmeister in 1716. Court musicians such as Johann Christoph Rödiger felt disappointed with their master's choice.
In Prague Stölzel premiered three more operas, several oratorios, masses, and many instrumental compositions. Stölzel was for a short time court Kapellmeister in Bayreuth (1717–18) and in Gera (1719). His opera Diomedes was premiered in 1718 in Bayreuth. Stölzel married Christiana Dorothea Knauer on 25 May 1719. They had nine sons and one daughter. Three sons died at a young age.
On 24 November 1719 Stölzel assumed the position of Kapellmeister at the court in Gotha, where he worked under the dukes Frederick II and Frederick III of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg until his death in 1749.
Stölzel wrote several theoretical works about music, but only one of these was published during his lifetime: a treatise on the composition of canons, of which 400 copies were printed in 1725.
In 1720 Prince Günther I succeeded his father in Sondershausen. He too regretted his father's choice for the court Kapellmeister. He asked Stölzel to provide music for the court chapel. However, Stölzel did not comply to this request until 1730, when Freißlich was leaving for Danzig (where he was appointed in 1731). Until Günther's death in 1740 Stölzel provided music for the Sondershausen court, which included four cycles of church cantatas, other sacred music, and secular music such as serenatas.
In 1739 Stölzel became a member of Lorenz Christoph Mizler's . As a member of this Society he composed a cantata and wrote a treatise on the recitative, which was published as Abhandlung vom Recitativ in the 20th century.
The last two years of his life Stölzel suffered from ill health, becoming feeble-minded ("im Haupte schwach"). Some of Stölzel's manuscripts were sold to cover expenses. He died 27 November 1749 in Gotha, less than 60 years old. Mizler printed Stölzel's obituary as second of three (of which Johann Sebastian Bach's was the third), in the fourth volume of his , the organ of the Society of Musical Sciences.
Compositions
According to an 18th-century source Stölzel would have composed eight double cantata cycles.
Stölzel composed twelve complete annual cycles of sacred cantatas, which amounts to 1,358 cantatas. 1,215 of these are at least partially extant, 605 surviving with music. Additionally, Stölzel set cantatas to secular texts.