U!

enbach, Johann Friedrich Armand von

13/02/14 09:36

Uffenbach, Johann Friedrich Armand von

(b Frankfurt, 6 May 1687; d Frankfurt, 10 April 1769). German amateur musician. He was a member of an old Frankfurt family of prosperous tradespeople. As a student he travelled in the company of his elder brother Zacharias Conrad to Lbeck and then from Hamburg to England where they recorded their impressions of musical performances. Johann Friedrich, the more musical of the two, spent two further years studying in Strasbourg and after graduating in law in 1714 travelled through Switzerland to Italy to gain experience of operatic and concert life there. In Venice, at the S Angelo theatre, he witnessed a performance of L.A. Predieris Lucio Papirio during which Vivaldi, who was acting as musical director and leader of the orchestra, played an astonishing cadenza where he ascended so high that, his fingers came, in Uffenbachs words, within a straws breadth of the bridge. Later in 1715 he went to Paris to receive instruction in lute playing from Gallot; he returned two years later to settle in Frankfurt, where he keenly supported the Frauenstein musical society concerts then directed by Telemann. Uffenbach was a man of wide interests and many accomplishments. He formed a private learned society in Frankfurt (resembling Mizlers in Leipzig), and rose to an eminent position in the administration of the city. In Dichtung und Wahrheit Goethe referred to his work in organizing concerts and oratorios there and to his fine collection of music. Uffenbach was a benefactor of the new University of Gttingen, to whose library he left, among other things, the journals of his extensive travels in Europe. These constitute an important body of historical source material, as do his letters to musicians such as Telemann, Hotteterre, Graupner, Mattheson and Graun. In England in 170910 the Uffenbachs heard Nicolini and Pepusch with admiration and noted the excellence of the London orchestras, consisting largely of foreigners. They found the English not very talented musically except as organists, a view confirmed for them on a visit to Cambridge where they heard the organ played in Trinity College chapel and attended a meeting of the music club at Christs College where the ingenia, apparently, were not in the least musica. Uffenbachs interest in opera extended to writing two librettos: Larti communi: quo vanno per la citt, a dramma per musica which was printed, and Pharasmanes, a Singspiel dated 1720 which remained unpublished until 1930. BIBLIOGRAPHY MGG1 (W. Boetticher) J.G. Schelhorn, ed.: Herrn Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach merkwrdige Reise (Ulm and Memmingen, 17534; Eng. trans., 1928) J.E.B. Mayor, ed.: Cambridge under Queen Anne (Cambridge, 1911) W. Nagel: Deutsche Musiker des 18. Jahrhunderts im Verkehr mit J.F.A. von Uffenbach, SIMG, xiii (191112), 69106 M. Arnim, ed.: J.F. Armand von Uffenbachs Tagbuch einer Spazierfarth durch die Hessische in die Braunschweig-Lneburgischen Lande (Gttingen, 1928) M. Arnim, ed.: Johann Fredrich v. Uffenbachs Reise durch die Pfalz (Mannheim, 1928) E. Preussner, ed.: Die musikalischen Reisen des Herrn von Uffenbach (Kassel, 1949)
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U!enbach, Johann Friedrich Armand von

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MICHAEL TILMOUTH

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