Benda, F. / Benda, J. J.: Violin Concertos In G Major, D Major And D Minor

Description

Franticek Benda (1709-1686) & Jan Jirí Benda (1713-1752)Violin ConcertosThe Benda family has provided a continuing musical tradition from the time of the first Jan Jirí Benda, born in 1686 in the Bohemian village of Mstetice, to the present day. The Bendas had settled in Bohemia at least two generations earlier and Jan Jirí Benda’s grandfather had served as an estate steward. Jan Jirí himself, the founder of the musical dynasty, in 1706 married a member of a well-known Bohemian musical family, Dorota Brixi, and of their six children five were to distinguish themselves as musicians.The first surviving son, Franticek, was born at Staré Benátky (Old Benatky) in 1709. He had his first musical training from his father and from the cantor Alexius in New Benatky, becoming a chorister at the age of nine at the Benedictine monastery of St Nicholas in Prague, where he also studied at the Jesuit school. In 1719 or 1720 he ran away to Dresden, where he also became a chorister, profiting from the rich musical life of the city and court and studying the violin, the viola and singing. Eighteen months later he returned home to his parents, now as an alto to join the choir of the Jesuit Collegium Clementinum in Prague, where he took a leading part in a number of important musical events. When his voice broke, he concentrated on his study of the violin and between 1726 and 1729 served as a violinist to various noblemen in Vienna, before escaping to Warsaw with the violinist Jirí Cárt (Georg Czarth) and two other musicians, there to lead an ensemble assembled by Kazimierz Suchaczewski. In 1732 he joined the court orchestra in Warsaw, but this was dissolved the following year, on the death of August II, and Benda then moved to Dresden, before entering the service of the Prussian Crown Prince in Ruppin, moving with the latter’s establishment to Rheinsberg in 1736. In 1739 he married and the following year, when the Prince ascended the throne, moved to Potsdam. In 1734 he had been joined by his violinist and viola-player brother Jan Jiri and was himself taking lessons in composition, first from Johann Gottlieb Graun and then from the latter’s brother Carl Heinrich, who became Kapellmeister to the Prince in 1735. In 1742 King Frederick made it possible for Franz Benda, now a Protestant, to bring to Potsdam his parents and brothers and sisters, including two younger brothers eventually to join the court musical establishment as violinists. Franz Benda himself enjoyed a good relationship with the flute-playing King, with whom he collaborated in concert after concert, and in 1771, on the death of Johann Gottlieb Graun, was at last named Konzertmeister, although the gout that afflicted him in later years meant that his place seems often enough to have been taken by the youngest violinist of the family, Joseph Benda. Franz Benda provided for his family an autobiography, tracing his life up to 1763. He di