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Johann Georg Pisendel was a German Baroque musician, violinist and composer who for many years led the Court Orchestra in Dresden, then the finest instrumental ensemble in Europe. J.G. Pisendel was born in Cadolzburg, a small town near Nuremberg, where his father Simon Pisendel was the cantor and organist of the Lutheran Church, although the family originated in Markneukirchen. In the first half of 1697 when he was still nine years old, Johann Georg became a choirboy at the court chapel of Ansbach (Köpp 2005, p. 39). Such positions usually involved further musical training. The Music Director there was the virtuoso singer Francesco Antonio Pistocchi (with whom he studied singing) and the Concert Master was the celebrated violinist and composer Giuseppe Torelli. Pisendel study the violin as "Kapellknabe" with G. Torelli from 1697 until G. Torelli left Ansbach in autumn 1700 ((Köpp 2005, p. 55). Pisendel was employed as a violinist in in the Court Orchestra of Ansbach from 1704 until 1709 and continued to study the violin in the Italian style (Köpp 2005, p. 43). But in 1709 he left Dresden for Leipzig to study law and to further his musical studies.
On the way to Leipzig, Johann Georg Pisendel met J.S. Bach at Weimar and, once in Leipzig, was introduced to Georg Philipp Telemann. J.G. Pisendel was an enthusiastic member of the student Collegium musicum founded by G.P. Telemann and they became close friends. J.G. Pisendel performed a Tomaso Albinoni violin concerto at the Collegium musicum and soon became a familiar part of Leipzig's musical life. In 1710, when Collegium musicum director Georg Melchior Hoffmann went on a concert tour, he appointed J.G. Pisendel to substitute for him. In 1711, after a performance at Darmstadt, he was offered a place in the court orchestra there, but declined.
In 1711, J.G. Pisendel accepted a place in the Dresden Court Orchestra. He was officially listed as chamber musician in a Dresden court document of December 1, 1711 (Köpp 2005, p. 79). He remained with the Dresden orchestra for the rest of his life, though he accompanied his new master, the Crown Prince, on a tour of Europe. In 1714 he went to France and in 1715 to Berlin as part of the Dresden diplomatic entourage. His stay in Venice from April to December 1716 was directly linked to the crown prince's grand tour, on which he converted to catholicism: Pisendel was assigned to daily duties in his entourage as a chamber musician and was expected to take lessons with Antonio Vivaldi (also in composition from Johann David Heinichen, who lived in Venice at that time). From January to Septtember 1717 Pisendel travelled to Rome, studying with Antonio Montanari (1676- 1737 cf. Köpp 2005, p. 97) and Florence where he studied with Martino Bitti (1655/56-1743 cf. Köpp 2005, p. 102).
J.G. Pisendel did not do as much touring thereafter. After J.B. Volumier's death in 1728, J.G. Pisendel was promiesd to succed him, but it wasn't until 1731, when Johann Adolf Hasse first appeared in Dresden as Kapellmeister, that he finally got appointed, with 21 months of salary being paid as a compensation for waiting (Köpp 2005, p. 144). He served in this post until his death in 1755. He was an admired orchestra director, improving further the standards of orchestral playing (especially in collaboration with J.A. Hasse), and introducing not only the instrumental works of Italian composers such as A. Vivaldi and Tatrtini but also those of central and north German musicians as G.P. Telemann, Johann Joachim Quantz, and the Bendas and Grauns, many of whom he had known and taught.
J.G. Pisendel taught violinists in Dresden. His most important student was Johann Joachim Quantz, an he taught both Graun brothers (Carl Heinrich Graun and Johann Gottlieb Graun) when they were still tudying at the Kreuzschule in Dresden and beyond. Johann Friedrich Agricola also studied with Pisendel, while Franz Benda was probably not a student in the specific sense. Anyway, Pisendel arranged for his secret conversion to protestantism, and Franz Benda
had to flee Dresden to fond employment in Berlin, where the other students of Pisendel were working. He was also a close friend of Jan Dismas Zelenka, some of whose works he helped publish posthumously.
Johann Georg Pisendel's compositions are few in number but high in quality and are mostly in an Italian style influenced by A. Vivaldi. All of his surviving works are instrumental. They include 10 violin concertos, 4 concertos for orchestra, 2 sonatas for violin, a Sinfonia and Trio. However slight the number of his own compositions, the influence of J.G. Pisendel on music was great. The likes of Tomaso Albinoni, Antonio Vivaldi and Georg Philipp Telemann all dedicated violin concertos to him. J.G. Pisendel was the foremost German violinist of his day and he was directly or indirectly responsible for the creation of much memorable music. His sonata for unaccompanied violin possibly provided the inspiration for J.S. Bach's solo violin works. In Kai Köpp's Dissertation, which focussed on Pisendel's important role als orchestra director, he included an updated register of his works after he was able to identify quite a number of previously unknown compositions (Köpp 2005 p. 263): 30 concerts for solo violin or groups of solo instruments, 3 orchestral compositions, 10 violin sonatas, 5 ascribed works. Since the Dresden "Schranck Nr. II" collection of 18th century music manuscripts is based on Pisendel's personal collection, more anonymous works might be identified as Pisendel's compositions in the future (Köpp 2005, p. 399). |
