The first edition of Carl Heinrich Graun's Concerto for harpsichord and strings. Critical edition based on a manuscript held in the British Library.
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Carl Heinrich Graun was the most important opera composer of his generation inGermany. His training as a chorister in Dresden saw him working under the Neapolitan opera composer Antonio Lotti, and his early musical works – principally cantatas – shows the Italian master’s influence. In 1725 Graun made his opera debut as a tenor at Brunswick, but almost immediately started composing for the stage, writing six operas and two Passions. In 1735 he was appointed music director to Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia (later ‘Frederick the Great’) where he was to composer over thirty Italian operas. Among the resident musicians at Frederick’s court at this time were his brother, Johann Gottlieb Graun, Franz and Georg Benda, Johann Gottlieb Janitsch and Johann Joachim Quantz. Graun was instrumental in Carl Philip Emanuel Bach’s appointment as court harpsichordist, and it is likely that Bach was the intended soloist in the first performance of this concerto. The concerto survives in a manuscript collection of part held at the British Library, London (Add. 32397). The collection includes works by Pietro Pompeo Sales and Ludwig Wilhelm Maurer.