- many, writing several singspiele (from about 1793), such as Dr. Faust (1797)
and Der Spiegelritter (1798), besides a coronation-cantata (1790).
Here for convenience may be inserted two composers who were influential upon music in Scandanavia:—
Friedrich Ludwig Aemilius Kunzen (d. 1817), son of K. A. Kunzen of Lübeck, was a cultivated pianist, who, after traveling as a virtuoso and short residences at Berlin (collaborating with Reichardt), Frankfort and Prague, in 1795 succeeded Schulz as choirmaster at Copenhagen. He had already written one Danish opera, Holger Danske (1789), and won applause by his Das Fest der Winzer (1795, Prague), and now produced a series of Danish operas and much other music, which not only placed him at the head of Danish musicians, but made him noted elsewhere. He issued a collection of Danish songs (1816).
Johann Christian Friedrich Häffner (d. 1833), who studied at Schmalkalden and Leipsic, went to Stockholm in 1780 as organist and assistant at the opera, becoming in 1794 royal choirmaster, but removed in 1808 to Upsala as director and organist at the cathedral. His advancement was due to three operas in the style of Gluck, the first of which was Electra (1787), but he later became specially interested in collecting and editing Swedish national songs and chorales (from 1819).
159. Secular Music in England.—After the accession of
George III. (1760) there was a notable outburst of secular music
in England, taking the form of light 'operas,' part-songs, glees
and 'catches,' detached songs or ballads. Comic song-plays or
comedies with incidental songs were exceedingly popular in
London, having a vogue like that of analogous forms in France
and Germany. These plays stimulated the writing of detached
songs, but, being mostly undertaken by writers not broadly
trained in composition and surrounded by an atmosphere not
artistically musical, had little intrinsic value or beneficial influence.
The development of the glee or unaccompanied part-song, however was characteristic and brilliant, somewhat recalling the madrigal period of a century and a half before. Writing of this sort attracted many church musicians, who brought to it disciplined talent and often delicate and original sentiment. Some of these, also, were producers of admirable solo songs.
Among the able church composers who also undertook song-plays and
operas were Samuel Arnold (d. 1802), who at 23 (1763) began as composer at
Covent Garden, writing in all over 40 works, mostly comic, the first being
The Maid of the Mill (1765), which was largely a pasticcio, but notable as the
first native music-drama since Purcell; William Jackson of Exeter (d. 1803),
with a few stage-pieces (1767-83), including the Lord of the Manor (1780),
