Johann Caspar Kerll (1627 – 1693) was a German
baroque composer and organist. He is also known as
Kerl, Gherl, Giovanni Gasparo Cherll and Gaspard Kerle.
He was Born in Adorf in the Electorate of Saxony, the
son of an organist, Kerll showed outstanding musical
abilities at an early age, and was taught by Giovanni
Valentini, court Kapellmeister at Vienna. Kerll became
one of the most acclaimed composers of his time, known
both as a gifted composer and an outstanding teacher.
He worked at Vienna...(+)
Johann Caspar Kerll (1627 – 1693) was a German
baroque composer and organist. He is also known as
Kerl, Gherl, Giovanni Gasparo Cherll and Gaspard Kerle.
He was Born in Adorf in the Electorate of Saxony, the
son of an organist, Kerll showed outstanding musical
abilities at an early age, and was taught by Giovanni
Valentini, court Kapellmeister at Vienna. Kerll became
one of the most acclaimed composers of his time, known
both as a gifted composer and an outstanding teacher.
He worked at Vienna, Munich and Brussels, and also
travelled widely. His pupils included Agostino
Steffani, Franz Xaver Murschhauser, and possibly Johann
Pachelbel, and his influence is seen in works by Handel
and Johann Sebastian Bach: Handel frequently borrowed
themes and fragments of music from Kerll's works, and
Bach arranged the Sanctus movement from Kerll's Missa
superba as BWV 241, Sanctus in D major.
Kerll was highly regarded by his contemporaries: many
of his works were published during his lifetime.
Particularly important are the many printed concerted
masses, a collection of motets and sacred concertos
entitled Delectus sacrarum cantionum (Munich, 1669) and
Modulatio organica super Magnificat octo ecclesiasticis
tonis respondens (Munich, 1686), which contains
liturgical organ music. Kerll was not an especially
prolific composer, so the surviving works are
relatively few. Much of his music was lost, including
11 operas (which he was most famous for during his
lifetime), 25 offertories, four masses, litanies,
chamber sonatas and miscellaneous keyboard works.
The surviving keyboard music is cast in the typical
southern German style, combining strict German
counterpoint with Italian styles and techniques;
Frescobaldi and especially Froberger were the most
important influences. Most of Kerll's keyboard works
are playable on both pipe organ and harpsichord, the
exceptions are four dance suites composed for
harpsichord and two organ toccatas: Toccata quarta
Cromatica con Durezze e Ligature and Toccata sesta per
il pedali. Partial chronology can be established using
Kerll's (incomplete) catalogue of his own works which
is included in the 1686 Modulatio organica (it is the
earliest surviving thematic catalogue of a specific
composer's works): it lists 22 pieces, 18 of which were
composed by 1676 at the latest. The earliest known
composition by Kerll, Ricercata à 4 in A (also known
as Ricercata in Cylindrum phonotacticum transferanda),
was published in 1650 in Rome.
Kerll's eight toccatas (that correspond to the eight
church modes) alternate between free and strict
contrapuntal sections, sometimes in contrasting meters.
Frequent use of 12/8 gigue-like endings is similar to
Froberger's toccatas. The four dance suites are also
reminiscent of Froberger's suites, yet two of them
contain variation movements. Kerll's canzonas consist,
typically for the time, of several fugal sections; some
also have toccata-like passagework embedded in the
development of cadences. Two ostinato works survive, a
passacaglia and a chaconne, both built on a descending
bass pattern; the passacaglia is perhaps Kerll's most
well-known work.
The two best known keyboard pieces by Kerll are both
programmatic, descriptive pieces. Battaglia is a
descriptive piece in C major, over 200 bars long and
featuring numerous repeats of fanfare-like themes, it
is also attributed to Juan Bautista Cabanilles.
Capriccio sopra il Cucu is based on an imitation of the
cuckoo's call, which is heard more than 200 times in
the piece. It is modelled after Frescobaldi's piece
based on the same idea, Capriccio sopra il cucho, but
is more structurally and harmonically complex. The idea
of repeating a particular theme in Kerll's music
reaches its extreme in the Magnificat tertii toni,
where a fugue subject consists of sixteen repeated E's.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Caspar_Kerll)
Although originally written for Organ, I created this
Interpretation of the Tiento 'Batalla Imperial' in C
Major for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
PARTITION