Background
Johann Christian Gottlieb Graupner was born on 6 October 1767, in Verden, Hanover, Prussia. He was the seventh child of Johann Georg and Anna Maria Agnesa Schoenhagen Graupner. Graupner's baptismal date as October 9, 1767.
composer educator musician publisher
Johann Christian Gottlieb Graupner was born on 6 October 1767, in Verden, Hanover, Prussia. He was the seventh child of Johann Georg and Anna Maria Agnesa Schoenhagen Graupner. Graupner's baptismal date as October 9, 1767.
Though Graupner played several instruments, he followed in the footsteps of his father and became an excellent oboe player in a regiment at Hanover.
Desiring a larger sphere of activity, however, at his own request he received an honorable discharge. This parchment certificate was signed at Hameln April 8, 1788.
Soon after his discharge he went to London, and three years later when Haydn assembled an orchestra, the largest in existence at that time, he was chosen first oboist (1791 - 92).
Here he developed an intense admiration for the composer. The following year, he went to Prince Edward Island, but finding scarcely any demand for his services, in 1795, he went to Charleston, South Carolina. There he played in a theatre orchestra.
With his wife he soon went to Boston, where he made his first American solo appearance in the Boston Theatre in 1796. His wife had already made her successful debut there in 1794.
He played the oboe in the Federal Street Theatre but at once planned to form an orchestra for concert performances, the first of its kind in America.
As early as 1800, he had opened a music store at 6 Franklin Street, where he also had a music-hall and gave lessons. He not only sold instruments, but he published music, engraving and printing it himself.
Gathering together both amateur and professional instrumentalists, as well as vocalists, Graupner organized the Phil-harmonic Society in 1810 or 1811.
He was its first and only president, and the meetings, which were semi-social, were held Saturday evenings in Graupner’s Hall and later in Pythian Hall in what was then Bond Street.
The society began with less than twelve members, among whom were the Russian and English consuls, both violinists.
Besides being an oboist, Graupner played the violin, doublebass, German flute, clarinet, and the piano sufficiently well to fill in these parts when necessary, and he gave lessons on these instruments.
The baton was not then used in orchestra-conducting, but Graupner directed from the double-bass. At first, he ventured only on symphonies by Gyro- wetz, and as the orchestra gained in skill he undertook the simpler symphonies of his idol, Haydn.
As other foreign musicians settled in Boston, the ensemble improved and under his leadership the Philharmonic was said to be the finest among contemporary American orchestras.
Its last concert took place at the Pantheon, Boylston Square, November 24, 1824. Meantime choral work in Boston had received an impetus when a festival celebrating the Peace of Ghent was held in King’s Chapel on Washington’s birthday, 1815.
This made so deep an impression that it became evident that the time was ripe for a permanent choral society. Accordingly Graupner, Thomas Smith Webb, and Asa Peabody sent out a notice for a meeting to be held on March 30, 1815, at which the Handel and Haydn Society was organized.
Its first concert took place in King’s Chapel on December 25, 1815. The chorus, under the direction of its president, T. S. Webb, numbered nearly one hundred, of whom twenty were women.
Accompaniments were furnished by an orchestra of twelve players, trained by Graupner, and an organ. The program consisted of selections from Haydn’s Creation and from Handel’s Messiah, probably the first attempt at oratorio performance in this country.
Graupner gave many concerts with his wife and also wrote a pianoforte method, Rudiments of the Art of Playing on the Pianoforte containing pieces by Domenico Scarlatti, Corelli, Bach, Cherubini, and Pleyel, as well as some compositions of his own.
He died at 1 Province House Court, and according to the records of Trinity Church his funeral took place there on April 20, 1836.
In 1807, Graupner became an American citizen.
All of Graupner's children were musical, and a son, John Henry Howard Graupner, whom he had trained as a pianist and engraver, had charge of the music-engraving department of the Oliver Ditson Company for many years.
On April 6, 1796, Graupner was married to Mrs. Catherine Comerford Hillier, a distinguished English opera-singer, daughter of a London attorney.
