Ignatz
Fränzl (1736-1811)
Gary Smith
Violinist and composer at
Mannheim. His father played the trumpet
and viola in the Mannheim orchestra
under the control of Johann Stamitz. He
studied music there and at the age of 18
he joined the Mannheim orchestra as a
violinist. By the age of 23, he was
considered one of the best musicians
within this body, and was being paid 500
gulden a year as his salary, more than
Mozart at the height of his pay in
Salzburg some 21 years later.
Fränzl became an acclaimed virtuoso and
went on several short tours. His most
successful tour was the one to Paris (as
were most tours undertaken by traveling
virtuosi of the time) in 1768. He
performed to excellent reviews with the
Concert Spirituel and won
enthusiastic praise from the Mercure
de France for his technique and
skills. This stood him in good stead
when he began to contact the various
publishing houses in Paris about issuing
his compositions. In the end, most of
his published works were issued in Paris
over the balance of his life.
He returned to Mannheim and to
advancement. Fränzl and his partner in
the orchestra Giovanni Battista Toeschi
were promoted in 1773 to the joint
leadership (Konzertmeister) of the
Mannheim orchestra. Eventually, at a pay
of 1400 gulden per year, Fränzl became
sole Konzertmeister. Upon the death of
the Elector of Bavaria in late 1777, the
Elector Palatine, Karl Theodor, became
heir to that post and so moved his court
to Munich in 1778, taking along most of
the Mannheim orchestra as well. At this
point, Fränzl stayed on and assumed the
post of music director to the newly
founded Nationaltheater in Mannheim. In
the autumn of 1778, Fränzl assembled the
remaining members of the court
orchestra, along with many amateurs, to
form the Akademie-Konzerte. This body
is, to this day, the center of musical
life in Mannheim. Thus he can be
credited with reorganizing and
sustaining the city’s musical life on a
civic basis.
At this point in time is when Fränzl and
Mozart met. Mozart was on the long tour
of 1777-78 which eventually wound up in
Paris, and ultimately home without any
secure job offers and no profits to show
for the time invested. He and his mother
arrived in Mannheim on 30 October 1777
and set about to meet old friends and
make new ones, all with an eye to
spending the winter in Mannheim with
Wolfgang attempting to gain a post with
the Elector, or as a fallback position
to compose for money and teach in order
to defray costs. Mozart would probably
have sought out the leaders of the
orchestra on his own in order to promote
himself, but no doubt the urgings of
Leopold to do so would not have been far
behind had he not done so. On 22
November, Mozart attended a gala concert
at which Fränzl performed one of his
violin concerti. Mozart writes:
“I had the pleasure of hearing Herr
Fränzl…play a concerto on the violin. I
like his playing very much. You know I
am no great lover of difficulties. He
plays difficult things, but his hearers
do not notice that they are difficult;
they think that they can imitate it at
once. That is real playing. He has too a
most beautiful, round tone. He never
misses a note, you can hear everything.
It is all clear cut. He has a beautiful
staccato, played with a single bowing,
up or down; and I have never heard
anyone play a double trill has he does.
In a word, he is no wizard, but a very
sound fiddler.”
We hear little more on Herr Fränzl until
just under a year later, when Mozart was
returning home (slowly and reluctantly)
and passed through Mannheim again.
Undoubtedly he was still casting about
with hope to gain a post or appointment
here, rather than continue on to
Salzburg, where he had begrudgingly
accepted a position paying 450 gulden
per year. In a letter dated 12 November
1778, Mozart writes of how he would
prefer to stay in Mannheim, cites an
offer to compose a duo drama for Dalberg
and the Nationaltheater for 40 louis
d‘or, and then notes:
“An Académie des Amateurs, like the one
in Paris, is about to be started here.
Herr Fränzl is to lead the violins. So
at the moment I am composing a concerto
for violin and clavier.”
This work is the Concerto for Piano and
Violin K.315f, left unfinished. It is an
opening Allegro consisting of 120 bars.
As Alfred Einstein writes of this
fragment:
“A sinfonia concertante for
Fränzl, whom Mozart admired so highly as
a violinist, and himself – what a gift
to the world this would have been! We
can estimate to some extent what we have
lost, from the surviving fragment of the
first movement. The orchestra includes
flutes, oboes, horns, trumpets and
timpani; the ritornello is broad and
imposing; there is a majestic Alla
Marcia; this would have been a
‘Coronation Concerto’ before either of
the two works we know by that name. But,
alas, the plans for the ‘academy’ came
to naught…One asks oneself why Mozart
did not finish the work in Munich; but
Ignatz Fränzl seems to have preferred to
stay in Mannheim, and Mozart obviously
must have had him and no one else in
mind when he began the work.” So fate,
as Einstein mourns, “…robbed us of a
masterpiece.”
Due to the time demands placed on him as
musical director, Fränzl basically
ceased composing and concert
performances. The Nationaltheater, under
Dalberg (for whom Mozart was suppose to
compose the duodrama Semiramis
K.315e in 1778) was at its height at
this point in time, which in the end
meant that Fränzl was required to attend
to his duties to the exclusion of most
other musical activities. He was
considered by many as one of the finest
violinists of his day, with many pupils,
and through them he exerted influence on
the next generation of virtuosi such as
Rode and Kreutzer.
The bulk of his compositions were
published in Paris; others in London.
While the total amount is sketchy, it
appears that a mass, 6 symphonies, nine
ballets, seven violin concerti, 4 string
quartets a couple of duets for two
violins and 6 sonatas for two violins
and cello can be ascribed to him. These
works are in the style of the second
generation of the Mannheim school,
showing Fränzl’s preference for the
relative minor in slow movements and
modulation sections. He moved beyond
using the stereotypical Mannheim melodic
patterns, instead working to introduce
new ideas and add life to a style that
by his time was becoming stilted and
predicable. A 1776 critique of his works
described them as: “…melodically correct
and beautiful – true in emotional terms
as they progress; naïve without being
funny; -- tender without being
frivolous; -- warm without exaggeration;
-- new without affectation; -- making
good use of contrast without being
hard…”
Available Music:
Mannheim: The Golden Age Music by
Cannabich, Carl Stamitz, Anton Fils,
Johann Stamitz and Ignatz Fränzl; the
last being Sinfonia #5 in C, a
three-movement work dating from ca.
1774-75 Teldec (Das Alte Werk, Concerto
Köln)
Sources:
Anderson, Emily The Letters of Mozart &
His Family MacMillan and Co. London 1938
3 volume set.
Einstein, Alfred Mozart: His Character,
His Work Oxford University Press, New
York 1945/1965
Sadie, Stanley (Ed.) The New Groves
Dictionary of Music and Musicians 2nd
Edition Groves Dictionaries, New York
2000. Article on Ignaz Fränzl
Liner Notes to the CD set noted above.
