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By Samantha Owens
In some ways, it feels as though Johann Sigismund Kusser (or, as he was known in early eighteenth-century Ireland, John Sigismond Cousser) has been following me around since the 1990s, when, during the course of my Ph.D. research, I first became aware of the brief period he was employed as Württemberg court kapellmeister. Born in 1660 in Bratislava (at that time Pressburg, Hungary), Kusser moved to Stuttgart with his family while still a teenager, before going on to study music in France. His professional career began in the early 1680s with a string of kapellmeister appointments at different German courts, as well as several years in Hamburg. After two and a half years working in England as a freelancer, Kusser arrived in Dublin, where he lived the remaining twenty years of his life. Over the course of those years, Kusser would compose and direct performances of more than twenty semi-staged serenatas at Dublin Castle, before the elite audience of the Irish viceregal court.
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April 19, 2017Read More
By Nancy November
The name of Emanuel Aloys Förster (1748–1823) comes up with some frequency when one researches Beethoven’s string quartets, yet Förster’s own quartets are no longer part of the standard chamber music repertoire, nor are they much discussed by musicologists. This neglect stems partly from the fact that only three of Förster’s string quartets were available in score until recently. But it also reflects the fact that his works have invariably been considered solely in comparison with Beethoven’s string quartets. These three editions, comprising the eighteen quartets published during Förster’s lifetime (opp. 7, 16, and 21, featuring six quartets each), aim to bring this important composer back to the notice of performers and scholars.
