tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3702228687865205642024-02-07T22:23:13.937-08:00Peter SimplissimusThe schoolmaster of Tippelbruder and erstwhile historian, Simplissimus is researching the archives of the great scientist, Krankenhause, to develop biographies of some of the worthies of Tippelbruder, including Hans Bumsen, the composer,Dummer etcPeter Simplissimushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09995330629313388099noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370222868786520564.post-20927285500977995702008-03-09T10:21:00.000-07:002008-03-09T13:05:31.689-07:00Catastrophe! Is this the end of our town?Most Gentle and Illustrious Reader,<br />I am almost too upset to write.... Apart from the treatment of Gluck and the tragic end of my dear friend,the last sentance of this fragment from the Krankenhause Archive talks of our <strong>former</strong> state's song! No details are given, but the implication is clear. this must <strong>surely</strong> be a mere speculation<strong>.....</strong><br /><br /> ......Upon Gluck’s first visit to Paris in 1773, Bumsen hired street urchins to quack at him in the manner of geese. Upon poor Gluck’s mild protest, Bumsen retracted, bided his time and then marshalled such a storm of anti-Gluck protest the following year against Gluck’s “Iphiginie in Aulide” that Gluck destroyed his operatic manuscripts and returned to Vienna.<br />Our only contemporary description of the elusive Bumsen comes from his first meeting with James Boswell in Utrecht, while promoting "The Bath Attendant of Augsburg" and its racy melody, “Splish spritzen ich nahm ein Bad”, in 1763. In December of that year, Boswell wrote to Charles Giffardier, “I begin to make acquaintance with the people of fashion and do most earnestly wish you to meet Herr Bumsen to whose vitriolic wit even Alte Grosse Jonners [our name for Dr. Johnson] must give way. His music would make a St Giles cat dance; tho’ he is but an ill-favoured, short fellow. Tho’ he has the nose of a Cyrano, he has the very mind of a Man. He is a great success with the fairer sex for in his rooms, a rather mean suite of chambers, he keeps, so he says, an enormous engine that gives them much pleasure.” Boswell presumed that it was some form of organ. Their friendship broke when the older man charmed away Boswell’s lover, the accomplished writer and musician Belle van Zuilen who dallied with Bumsen before she moved to Switzerland in the 1770's to marry. She published several romances, pamphlets and novels including “B…..n, Mon Amour” A recently discovered graffito long hidden under layers of whitewash on the wall of a garderobe in the Grafin’s Castle at Hoch Kellerai may well portray the middle-aged Bumsen. The Revolution effectively destroyed the greater part of Bumsen’s assets and he eked out a miserable existence in Vienna for the last six years of his life by fortune telling and knavery at cards..............<br /><br />[This <strong>sounds</strong> like Bumsen, but what is the <strong>Revolution</strong>? Could <strong>Boswell</strong> be that nervous, sickly Scottish boy of 15, who pestered Bumsen to be his tutor last Autumn? A spotty, fat child, of a wordy nature I seem to remember.He was a pronounced hero-worshipper of the academic. <strong>Jonners</strong>, I suppose, would be the writer of that damned Dictionary that has been selling so well. There is no definition of <em>wurst</em> in it. Do not, dear reader, research the word <em>take,</em> it takes<em> <strong>five</strong> pages of English</em> to define! <em>Cough</em> is defined as 'A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity. It is pronounced 'coff' 'I need another dictionary to understand his work! Bumsen met Jonners in London when he was animpoverished hack writer. Of the Divine Bach he said"And pray, Sir, who is Bach? Is he a piper?" The man is obviously a Philistine . Still, to return to the matter in hand.”<br /><br />.................................He had one illegitimate child, Herman Bumsen, who was never acknowledged, but the boy possessed many of his father’s traits. <a title="Joseph Haydn" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Haydn">Joseph Haydn</a> died, aged 77, on May 31, 1809. As Austria was at war and the Viennese capital occupied by <a title="Napoleon" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon">Napoleon</a>'s [???]troops, a rather simple burial took place in the Hundsthurm churchyard in <a title="Gumpendorf" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumpendorf">Gumpendorf</a>, the suburb of <a title="Vienna" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna">Vienna</a> where Haydn had lived. Following the burial, three men contrived to bribe the sexton and thereby sever and steal the dead composer's head. These were Karl Rosenbaum, the secretary of the <a title="House of Esterházy" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Esterh%C3%A1zy">Esterházy</a> family (Haydn's employers), Johann Nepomuk Peter, governor of the provincial prison of <a title="Lower Austria" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Austria">Lower Austria</a>, and Herman Bumsen. Rosenbaum is described as having been a friend of Haydn's. Peter and Rosenbaum's motivation was an interest in <a title="Phrenology" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology">phrenology</a>, a now-discredited scientific movement (see <a title="Franz Joseph Gall" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Joseph_Gall">Franz Joseph Gall</a> and <a title="Johann Spurzheim" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Spurzheim">Johann Spurzheim</a>) that attempted to associate mental capacities with aspects of cranial anatomy. Of particular interest to phrenologists was the anatomy of individuals held to have exhibited great genius during their lifetime. The process of stealing the head was, apparently, not pleasant, since decomposition had set in and the smell was strong. However, Peter and Rosenbaum succeeded in cleaning the skull and duly carried out their phrenological examination. Peter declared that "the bump of music" in Haydn's skull was indeed "fully developed". Afterward, Peter kept it in a handsome custom-made black wooden box, with a symbolic golden <a title="Lyre" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyre">lyre</a> at the top, glass windows, and a white cushion.......<br /><br />One of the old man’s few joys was persecuting the young Beethoven. Beethoven's first music teacher was his father, who was a <a title="Tenor" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenor">tenor</a> in the service of the <a title="Prince-elector" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince-elector">Electoral</a> court at Bonn. He was reportedly a harsh instructor. Johann later engaged a friend, Tobias Pfeiffer, to preside over his son's musical training, and it is said Johann and his friends, including Bumsen, would at times come home late from a night of drinking to pull young Ludwig out of bed to practice until morning.<br />Bumsen died on his birthday when, sliding on a pile of horse’s ordure, he fell into an open cellar. His remains were returned to the city of his birth but were given a pauper’s funeral in a grave still undiscovered, although believed to be somewhere near or under the central conveniences in the modern Domplatz – yet his beautiful anthem continues to thrill those modern Tipperbrudderians who know the history of their former city state’s song....."<br /><br />Oh, how my heart fails!Peter Simplissimushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09995330629313388099noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370222868786520564.post-33937704109925651192008-03-08T04:04:00.000-08:002008-03-08T17:06:28.042-08:00Yet more from Krankenhause Archive<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_5dxS5daRC7mEm8Afn6MG_Cq6LlixfZJhmzTdYl2J7mfUh4DUI4-bAHtfn_bt4Dfe-SUdz-tcBfYqg8e4bZCVifHPdFXYdKPs7Z7VzGwuK336l81lC4-a3ZxfyMZJ85rcgHdBhTLjbcA8/s1600-h/hogarth_balance.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175531576297529842" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="271" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_5dxS5daRC7mEm8Afn6MG_Cq6LlixfZJhmzTdYl2J7mfUh4DUI4-bAHtfn_bt4Dfe-SUdz-tcBfYqg8e4bZCVifHPdFXYdKPs7Z7VzGwuK336l81lC4-a3ZxfyMZJ85rcgHdBhTLjbcA8/s320/hogarth_balance.jpg" width="228" border="0" /></a><br /><div>This was discovered at the bottom of a trunk full of old garments where it had been used to block a hole in the leather. In consequence, some was illegible, so my transcription may be flawed. I pray God that it is so, for letter by letter, it pulls apart the future reputation of my good friend, the great <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Bumsen</span>. This section refers to the future of Junior Mozart, known as "Wolfie", an odious little child pianist with a slight gift for ditties. Close friends of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Bumsen</span>, the family visited <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Tippelbruder</span> last year. I was forced to sit through over two hours of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">plinkety</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">plonkety</span> piano pounding by this ten year old pink-faced little oaf,who also has a taste for puerile humour. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Interestingly</span>, he possesses, like Bunsen, the ability to break wind at will! This "future" reference from the Krankenhause Archive indicates that he will have a musical career of some sort and get to know some influential people. Already he displays a phenomonal aptitude for "..Braunes sich bewegt vorsichtig.." as the common folk say.At the age of seven, he proposed to Matrie-Antoinette! She was sensible enough not to loose her head over"wittle Wolfie". He has played at most of the great courts. Bumsen has discovered that he hates being called Theophilus...............This document may also explain, however, why <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Bumsen</span> never received a significant honour from Potsdam. To loose that, for the sake of baiting such a piffle as Junior Mozart, is inexplicable... ..It is Bumsen's treatment of the divine <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Gluck</span> which seems so lamentable. Why did Bumsen debauch Boring Boswell's beloved ? I run too fast, gentle reader, but truth must out. Perhaps the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Phlogistion</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">should </span>never have been invented...I hope in my heart that it was not and that this is nothing but the mazed rumours of a crazy mind! Read on.</div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>".......studying under <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Eberlein</span> in 1734, in Augsburg, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Bumsen</span> may have first met Leopold Mozart. They were staunch friends for 50 years, Wolfgang Amadeus was named after him and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Bumsen</span> took a profound interest in the young man’s welfare; he advised Leopold that Wolfgang Amadeus should stay in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Salzburg</span> to learn his trade as a classicist and later advised him not to marry.<br />On <a title="September 23" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_23">23 September</a> <a title="1777" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1777">1777</a>, at the age of 21, Mozart began yet another job-hunting tour, this time accompanied by his mother Anna Maria. The visit included <a title="Munich" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich">Munich</a>, <a title="Mannheim" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannheim">Mannheim</a>, and <a title="Paris" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris">Paris</a>. <a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart#_note-17#_note-17"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Bumsen</span></a> followed, spreading innuendo in large doses about the young genius. A cartoon circulated by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Bumsen</span>, showing the effects of a Mozart recital is seen above.<br />In Mannheim he became acquainted with members of the Mannheim orchestra, the best in Europe at the time. He also fell in love with <a title="Aloysia Weber" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloysia_Weber">Aloysia Weber</a>, one of four daughters in a musical family. Mozart moved on to Paris and attempted to build his career there, but was unsuccessful (He did obtain a job offer as organist at Versailles, but it was a job he did not want.) The visit to Paris was an especially unhappy one because Mozart's mother took ill and died there, <a title="June 23" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_23">23 June</a> <a title="1778" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1778">1778</a>.<a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart#_note-19#_note-19">[20]</a> On his way back to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Salzburg</span> Mozart passed through Munich again, where Aloysia, now employed at the opera there as a singer, indicated she was no longer interested in him.<a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart#_note-20#_note-20">[</a><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Bumsen</span> had spent time with the family. Whether or not Aloysia was seduced by the older man,[ we know he had some considerable power over women.] or whether he spread lies about Wolfgang, we do not know.<br />Mozart's discontent with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Salzburg</span> continued after his return.The question arises why Mozart, despite his talent, was unable to find a job on this trip. It has been suggested that the problem lay in conflict with Leopold, who insisted that Mozart find a high-level position that would support the entire family. Wolfgang favored the alternative strategy of settling in a major city, working as a freelance, and cultivating the aristocracy to the point that he would be favored for an important job; this had worked earlier for other musicians such as <a title="Joseph Haydn" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Haydn">Haydn</a>. The plan Leopold imposed, coupled with Mozart's youth (he was only 21 when he left <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Salzburg</span>), seems to have had foreordained failure. Besides, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Bumsen</span> had used all his contacts in advance to stifle the young Amadeus’ career.<br />The subsequent family rift caused much distress and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Bumsen</span> thought even less of the composer’s more famous son. In January 1781, Mozart's opera “<a title="Idomeneo" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idomeneo"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Idomeneo</span></a>,” premiered with "considerable success" in <a title="Munich" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich">Munich</a>. The following March, the composer was summoned to <a title="Vienna" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna">Vienna</a>, where his employer, <a title="Hieronymus Colloredo" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Colloredo">Prince-Archbishop <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Colloredo</span></a> of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Salzburg</span>, was attending the celebrations for the installation of the Emperor <a title="Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_II%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor">Joseph II</a>. Mozart, who had just experienced success in Munich, was offended when <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Colloredo</span> treated him as a mere servant, and particularly when the Archbishop forbade him to perform before the Emperor at <a title="Maria Wilhelmine Thun" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Wilhelmine_Thun">Countess <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Thun</span></a>'s (for a fee that would have been fully half of his <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Salzburg</span> salary).<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Bumsen</span> informed <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Colleredo</span> that Mozart was considering becoming a Freemason. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Bumsen</span> had been secretly inducted into the Order by Leopold, becoming a member of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Zur</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Wohltätigkeit</span> (Charity) Lodge, some six years previously, In May the resulting quarrel intensified: Mozart attempted to resign, and was refused. The following month, however, the delayed permission was granted, but in a grossly insulting way: Mozart was dismissed literally "with a kick in the arse", administered by the Archbishop's steward, Count <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Arco</span> while watched by a deliriously happy <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Bumsen</span>. In the meantime, Mozart had been noticing opportunities to earn a good living in Vienna, and he felt he ought to settle there and develop his own freelance career........<br />The quarrel with the Archbishop was made harder for Mozart by the fact that his father, under the promptings of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Bumsen</span>, took the Archbishop's side: hoping fervently that his son would come home when <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Colloredo</span> returned, his father exchanged emotionally intense letters with Wolfgang, urging him to reconcile with their employer. Wolfgang passionately defended his intention to pursue his career alone in Vienna. The debate ended when Mozart was dismissed, freeing himself both of his oppressive employer and of his father's and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Bumsen</span>’s demands to return. His decision made a definite enemy of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Bumsen</span> and greatly altered the course of his future life.<a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart#_note-24#_note-24">.</a> For example,<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Bumsen</span> altered letters that Mozart wrote to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla ("<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Basel</span>") between 1777 and 1781 to suggest they contained <a title="Scatology" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scatology">scatological language</a>; he also changed canons titled “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">Lösen</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">Sie</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">mich</span> in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Arkadien</span> “ or “Loose me in Arcadia”to “<a title="Leck mich im Arsch" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leck_mich_im_Arsch"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">Leck</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">mich</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">im</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">Arsch</span></a> “("Lick my arse") or variations thereof (including the <a title="Pseudo-Latin" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Latin">pseudo-Latin</a> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">Difficile</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">lectu</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">mihi</span> mars). During the years 1782–1785, Mozart put on a series of concerts in Vienna in which he appeared as soloist in <a title="Mozart Piano Concertos" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_Piano_Concertos">his own piano concertos</a>. He wrote three or four concertos for each concert season, and since space in the theaters was scarce, he booked unconventional venues: a large room in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">Trattnerhof</span>, an apartment building; and the ballroom of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">Mehlgrube</span>, a restaurant. Despite their commercial success, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">Bumsen</span> was outraged that such a prodigy could lower his standards so. He forcibly expressed his distaste for Wolfgang to the surprisingly excitable <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_55">Salieri</span> in July 1784 over coffee and kuchen in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">Café</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_57">Frauenhuber</span>, Vienna....... [ <em>Alas, what happened between then and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_58">Junior's</span> death, and what precisely was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_59">Bumsen's</span> role in the demise in 1791 is lost to us</em>......]<br />.......<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_60">Bumsen</span> ...........Van <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_61">Swieten</span>, and it was probably in response to a codicil in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_62">Bumsen</span>’s will that Mozart was interred in a pauper’s grave with little or no ceremony. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_63">Swieten</span> was well off financially, though by no means as wealthy as the great princes of the Empire. .......<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_64">Bumsen</span> no doubt had revealed some slur on Mozart’s Masonic fidelity in his will. Certainly, the Masonic lodges that Mozart and the Baron attended gave no support to his widow.<br />In 1780, when Joseph II came to the throne, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_65">Swieten's</span> career reached its peak of success. He was strongly sympathetic to the program of reforms which Joseph sought to impose on his empire, and was made President of the Court Commission on Education and Censorship, considered by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_66">Braunbehrens</span> to be the equivalent of being minister of culture. When Joseph died in 1790, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_67">Swieten's</span> influence greatly declined. He lost his commission post on 5 December 1791, coincidentally the day Mozart died. ........"</div><div></div><div>Alas, dear reader, I <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_68">can</span> only feel that the odious Junior deserved all he got, but as for poor <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_69">Gluck</span>.......</div>Peter Simplissimushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09995330629313388099noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370222868786520564.post-11240366214886085982008-03-07T17:59:00.000-08:002008-03-08T17:04:53.899-08:00Alas, more discoveries!Yet another fragment from the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Krankenhause</span> Papers relating to the future of the illustrious <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Bumsen</span>! .... I can hardly bring myself to publish these <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">scrawlings</span> but I am committed to prove that the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">besmircher</span> of great <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Bumsen's</span> name is nothing but a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">microbius</span>.. but what if the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Krankenhause</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Phlogistrion</span> worked and time could be spanned... then there were rumours of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">shamanistic</span> cannibalism............. Still, I must commit to Truth!<br /><br />"......After visiting <a title="Paris" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris">Paris</a> and residing there for some time, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Geminiani</span> returned to England in <a title="1755" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1755">1755</a>. In <a title="1761" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1761">1761</a>, on one of his sojourns in <a title="Dublin" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin">Dublin</a>, a servant robbed him of a musical manuscript on which he had bestowed much time and labour. His vexation at this is said to have hastened his death, the following year. This servant was almost certainly Thomas <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Plunkett</span>, a notorious highwayman, who, with an accomplice, wearing Venetian masks and carrying pistols, terrorized London in the middle of the century. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Bumsen</span> was suspected of having supplied the masks and pointed out prospective targets. He may even have helped <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Plunkett</span> escape <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Tyburn</span> and flee to Ireland with his ill-gotten gains. Certainly, two years after <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Geminiani</span>’s death, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Bumsen</span> published “Die <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Kunst</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">des</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Bestehens</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">für</span> die <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Gitarre</span>, Organ, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Kielflügel</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">und</span> Die <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Bumbast</span>”<br /><br />The next sheet, which I have deciphered using <em>Dante's </em><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24"><em>Dilemma,</em> relates to Junior Mozart, a precocious brat of ten or so, who recently visited Tippelbruder and played for HOURS on the piano. Now if he could manage the Bumbast....</span>Peter Simplissimushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09995330629313388099noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370222868786520564.post-21331192552523034782008-03-05T17:04:00.000-08:002008-03-08T16:44:36.217-08:00Bumsen and the MarseillaiseSome in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Stagonia</span> doubt the hand of the master. Research conducted by PS amongst the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Krankenhaus</span> Papers reveals this comment, written in an unlettered hand and unsigned.<br /><br />"It is a matter of common knowledge that the music to "La Marseillaise" was composed by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Rouget</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">de</span> Lisle as "Chant De <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Guerre</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">de</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">l'armee</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">du</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Rhin</span>"in 1792. His music was adapted from "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Variazioni</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">sulla</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Marsigliese</span> per <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">violino</span> e orchestra" by Giovanni <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Battista</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Viotti</span>, written in 1784.However, recent research has revealed that the original composer was none other than Hans <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Bumsen</span>, the tune developed from a theme in "Don Corleone" {1750], namely, the catchy "Al <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Matresses</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">por</span> Corleone, i <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">miei</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">ragazzi</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">coraggio</span>'<br />Per <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">le</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Cinque</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Famiglie</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">ci</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">attaccano</span><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Soprattutto</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">quel</span> Moe Verde <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">di</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">diavolo</span>..."<br />This would fit in with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Bumsen's</span> expulsion from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Tippelbruder</span> in 1756and his cash flow shortage of that period and would correspond entirely with his general nasty character."<br /><br />Yet how, in this year of grace 1757, could one know such marvels? Only my research into the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Phlogistrion</span> Time Machine may provide an answer. The great <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Krankenhaus</span> may indeed have pierced the virgin veil of Time herself! What honour for the glorious city of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Tippelbruder</span>!Peter Simplissimushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09995330629313388099noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370222868786520564.post-18333375825329408262008-03-04T16:35:00.000-08:002008-03-08T16:48:54.995-08:00Hans Bumsen - an Appreciation<div align="justify">Hans Amadeus <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Bumsen</span> 1700 - 1757 -a Monograph by P.P.<br /><br /><br />Born in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Tippelbruder</span> on April 1st, 1700, Hans Amadeus <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Bumsen</span> is surely one of the 18<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">th</span> Century’s unsung geniuses. Although he is rarely heard now, most of his works having been lost for reasons cited below, he inspired and inflamed debate amongst the most elite members of the musical circles of Europe during the Enlightenment. Indeed, his motifs and themes run throughout European classical music, pale shadows of their ghostly forebears.<br /><br />His parents, Jacob <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Bumsen</span> and Maria <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Klopp</span> were actively involved in music, Jacob being a writer of scurrilous verse which Maria would sell by singing them up and down the inns and bawdy houses of “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">KlinkenGlasseStrasse</span>”. Hans was a sickly child and long periods of absence from school allowed him to develop a precocious musical talent first on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Bumbast</span>, then on the infinitely more subtle <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">organistrum</span> or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">drehorgel</span>. His skill with the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">bumbast</span> was such that, according to school legend, having heard the emission only once, he could immediately play an imitation of anyone <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">flatulating</span>. He is generally regarded as the European master of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">vielle</span> a roue, and would later in his career resent the then current English vulgarity of naming the instrument as “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">hurdy</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">gurdy</span>”. His father, though usually inebriated, took time to teach young Hans, the rudiments of the instrument. [Maria, who came from Hesse, was one of a family of twenty-eight so was probably one of the first “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Hurdy</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Gurdy</span> girls”, unwanted female children presented with a home-made <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">organistrum</span> as an sexual inducement for a sale, whose desperate plight so outraged German reformers. It is known that she was much younger than Jacob, surviving him by some thirty years. From his mother, who was part Gypsy, he learnt to read fortunes and card sharp to an exceptional level of skill, attainments which would allay poverty in his closing years.<br /><br />Jacob insisted that Hans leave school early to help the family business. In truth, Hans was not unhappy to leave school. Like many prodigies he possessed a precocious side and by the age of eight he was already notorious for his temper, his aptitude for petty larceny and his ability to resent even the most minute and unintentional slight, while his capacity for intricate and damaging revenge was far in advance of his years. These qualities would largely direct his life and future career. His school mates were, sad to say, glad to see him depart. He was a more than capable bully. Many of them had experience of one of his favourite tricks - the insertion of a short length of smouldering slow match between the soles of their shoes and the subsequent intense pain was known as a “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Bumsen</span> Burner”. The family lived on in desperate poverty, Hans having to carry and wash slop pots for a meagre living, until Jacob wrote, “Franciska <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Hügel</span> : <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Memoires</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">einer</span> Frau <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">des</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Vergnügens</span>” in 1710. An instant success throughout central Europe and beyond, the initial royalties from the novel were invested by Jacob in the purchase of what would become <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Trippelbruder</span>’s most celebrated and exclusive house of ill-repute, “Die Western <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">im</span> Mai”, the profits from which would enable Hans to live in relative comfort for almost the rest of his life. [Ever scrupulous to protect his family rights, he would unsuccessfully and expensively pursue the slippery John <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Cleland</span> through the English courts for abject plagiarism of his father’s great opus.] “Die Western in Mai”, sited at the town’s central crossroads, ideally situated for passing trade where the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">bierhalles</span> of“<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">KlingkenGlasseStrasse</span>” intersect with the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">weinerei</span> of “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">TippelbruderRhinehessenWeinGlasseStrasse</span>”, soon attracted a substantial and illustrious clientele, and these provided an opportunity for blackmail. It is said that Maria hired artists of some repute to observe and record liaisons through the numerous peepholes built into the fabric of the inn. Francois <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Boucher</span> may have worked there in the 1720’s, but certainly the young Fragonard drew many of the clients while en route to Rome in 1749. Their experiences would come to good use in latter life at the licentious court of Le Roi De <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Soleil</span>. [It may have been one of Fragonard’s more explicit sketches that inspired the soldiers’ parody of the Seven Year’s War cited above. If, as tradition in the town still maintains, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Bumsen</span> was responsible for the scurrilous lyrics, this would explain his subsequent pillorying and ejection from his beloved home town.[see below] Maria collated the sketches and held them in a secret place in her rooms.<br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Bumsen</span>‘s first musical work was nearly his last. Having studied for six months under Dirk van Dyke, the bibulous organist at the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Domkirche</span>, he produced his first and only <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">avante</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">garde</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Masse</span>, “Die <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">KlingkenglasseStrasse</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Messe</span> in A”. Played by rubbing the rims of beer steins filled with ale at different levels, what could have been culturally earth shattering ended up as dangerous cacophony. Although it was too late for the young <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">Bumsen</span>, who was pilloried for the first time and forced to see his manuscripts burn, it transpired that the organist had decided to check the carefully tuned tone of each glass just before the performance. As an act of repentance, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">Bumsen</span> produced his finest work, “Die <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">Tippelbrudernationalehymn</span>” which has since reached a world wide audience.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Bumsen</span> started his peregrination through the courts and universities of Europe in 1717. His voyage from Venice to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">Pescara</span> was disastrous. He was blown off course and was eventually landed in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">Apulia</span>. He stopped at Bari in October 1717 and befriended Ricardo, the eldest scion of the wealthy <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">Broschi</span> family. Salvatore, the father, was a musician and administrator of some local repute. Despite the pleas of his children, especially the 12 year-old Carlo, he may also have been fatally addicted to card games, especially new ones. He was little prepared for the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">labyrinthal</span> complexities of “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">Schafkopf</span> “as played by, and possibly invented by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">Bumsen</span>. Carlo demanded that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">Bumsen</span> leave the house, but was over-ruled by his father. The last hand culminated in a devastating win for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">Bumsen</span> and Riccardo, Carlo’s brother, when <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">Bumsen</span>’s <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">mauering</span> foiled a seemingly impregnable <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_55">Schafkopf</span> held by Carlo and Salvatore. The strain of loosing the bulk of the family fortune in two minutes proved too much.Salvatore <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">Broschi</span> died unexpectedly on 4<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_57">th</span> November aged only 36, and it seems likely that the consequent loss of economic security for the whole family provoked the decision, presumably taken by Riccardo, for Carlo to be castrated. As was often the case, an excuse had to be found for this illegal operation, and in Carlo's case it was said to have been necessitated by a fall from a horse. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_58">Bumsen</span> arranged the medical care and may well have had some part in the “accident”. Certainly he and “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_59">Farinelli</span> “, as Carlo became known, detested each other. [<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_60">Bumsen</span> yet again showed the tenacity of his dislike when he arranged through <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_61">Hasse</span> for Philip V of Spain to listen to the same two arias from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_62">Hasse</span>’s “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_63">Artaserse</span>” every night for ten years. . <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_64">Elisabetha</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_65">Farnese</span>, the Queen, had come to believe that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_66">Farinelli's</span> voice might be able to cure the severe depression of her husband. On 25 August 1737, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_67">Farinelli</span> was named Chamber Musician to the king, and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_68">criado</span> familiar (this translates approximately as "honorary member of the Royal Family"). He never sang again in public.]<br />While in Venice, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_69">Bumsen</span> studied under Vivaldi, to whom he bore a surprising facial resemblance [ they both possessed pendulous noses that raised the hopes of superstitious spinsters.] but his more conservative tastes led to a break with the master and this was followed by a somewhat unsavoury smear campaign headed by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_70">Bumpsen</span> and the rather scurrilous Benedetto Marcello which culminated in the publication of “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_71">Il</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_72">teatro</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_73">alla</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_74">moda</span>,”[1720] a thinly veiled attack on Vivaldi. The fiery cleric challenged his former pupil to a duel. Having acquired a taste for the blade when younger, indeed, possibly being the anonymous opponent who later killed Sir George <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_75">Lockhart</span>, the Jacobite spy, in 1731, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_76">Bumpsen</span> was most eager to defend his honour, but the intervention of the Pope, Clement XII [” Gentlemen, we cannot afford the loss of one genius – to lose two would be <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_77">excommunicatable</span>!”] indicates the high regard held for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_78">Bumpsen</span> in his Italianate prime. Here <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_79">Bumsen</span> developed a hatred of Scarlatti, although they never met. Scarlatti was a master of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_80">Harsichord</span> There is a story that in a trial of skill with <a title="George Frideric Handel" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Frideric_Handel">George Frederic Handel</a> at the palace of <a title="Cardinal Ottoboni" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Ottoboni">Cardinal <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_81">Ottoboni</span></a> in <a title="Rome" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome">Rome</a>, he was judged possibly superior to Handel on that instrument, although inferior on the <a title="Organ (music)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_%28music%29">organ</a>. Later in life, he was known to cross himself in veneration when speaking of Handel's skill. He and Scarlatti were good friends, but <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_82">Bumsen</span> would never <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_83">acccept</span> “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_84">Das</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_85">verdammte</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_86">tinkler</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_87">einer</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_88">Feder</span>-plucker” and it was as well for Scarlatti that their paths never crossed. This <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_89">emnity</span> ran to those who employed or supported the unaware maestro. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_90">Farinelli</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_91">Hasse</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_92">Geminiani</span> amongst others.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_93">Bumsen</span> in London : Handel and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_94">Hasse</span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_95">Bumsen</span> was a frequent visitor to London to visit his special friend, the giant of the age, George Fredrick Handel. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_96">Bumsen</span> was won over upon their first meeting in As later portraits show, Handel possessed a well-known delight in the joys of the table resulted in a degree of corpulence. People who knew him early in his life, such as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_97">Mattheson</span>, and those who knew him late all commented on his wit: "His natural propensity to wit and humour.... Had he been as great a master of the English language as Swift, his <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_98">bon</span> mots would have been as frequent, and somewhat of the same kind." On the failure of the oratorio <em>Theodora,</em> he is said to have remarked, "the Jews will not come to it... because it is a Christian story; and the Ladies will not come because it [is] a virtuous one."<br />Despite the social ambiguity of his position in a hierarchical world, Handel apparently mixed easily in a variety of settings: the upper reaches of the Vatican, the royal court, the pleasure palaces of rich nobles, the strange, stage-set world of the opera house, and ordinary middle-class households. There are, I believe, clear indications in letters and diaries of an easy social conviviality that made him a welcome guest at country houses and parties. He seems to have been appreciated as a person and as a performer. Certainly his friendships and working relationships with other musicians were close and lasting. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_99">Bumsen</span> liked and admired him and although part responsible for his later demise, supported him utterly.Handel was no saint. There were people he did not like. A number of contemporary anecdotes comment on his temper: "[H]e was irascible, impatient of contradiction, but not vindictive; jealous of his musical <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_100">pre</span>-eminence, and tenacious in all points, which regarded his professional honour." He also had <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_101">non-musical</span> interests. He amassed an extensive and varied collection of prints and paintings, some by gift, but probably most at auctions. He bequeathed his two <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_102">Rembrandts</span> to Lord Granville and two of his portraits to his assistant, J.C. Smith. The later sale included a series of paintings of Jupiter with a number of his sexual partners - Leda, Danae, Io, and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_103">Ixion</span>. Perhaps <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_104">Semele</span>, which <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_105">Jennens</span> described as Handel's "bawdy opera," was partly stimulated by this purchase. Handel never married, and his sexual life was discreet. I refer, for example, to the dowager <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_106">Electress</span>' comment on the rumor of his liaison with Victoria <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_107">Tarquini</span>. The 1703 Treaty of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_108">Methuen</span> opened England to the importation of fortified wines from Portugal. These ports and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_109">madeiras</span>, in contrast to their modern equivalents, had a high lead content, presumably from piping reinforced with lead that was used in distilling the brandy with which they were fortified. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_110">Bumsen</span> introduced Handel to port and this contaminated spirit may have well contributed to his gout and fits of melancholia.<br /><br />The career of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_111">Bumsen</span>’s chief target in London, Johan Adolph <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_112">Hasse's</span> began in singing, when he joined the <a title="Hamburg" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg">Hamburg</a> Opera (his family, who were traditionally church musicians, came from near Hamburg) in 1718 as a tenor. In 1719 he obtained a singing post at the court of <a title="Braunschweig" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braunschweig">Brunswick</a>, where in 1721 his first opera, “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_113">Antioco</span>,” was performed; <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_114">Hasse</span> himself sang in the production.He is thought to have left Germany during 1722. During the 1720s he lived mostly in <a title="Naples" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naples">Naples</a>, dwelling there for six or seven years. In 1725 his <a title="Serenata" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenata"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_115">serenata</span></a> Antonio e Cleopatra, was performed at Naples; the principal roles were sung by Carlo <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_116">Broschi</span>, better known as <a title="Farinelli" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farinelli"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_117">Farinelli</span></a>, and <a title="Vittoria Tesi" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittoria_Tesi">Vittoria <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_118">Tesi</span></a>. The success of this work not only earned <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_119">Hasse</span> many commissions from Naples's opera houses, but also, according to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_120">Quantz</span>, brought him into contact with <a title="Alessandro Scarlatti" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Scarlatti">Alessandro Scarlatti</a>, who became his teacher and friend; <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_121">Hasse</span> also altered his style in several respects to reflect that of Scarlatti. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_122">Hasse's</span> popularity in Naples increased dramatically and for several years his workload kept him extremely busy. He visited the Venetian Carnival of 1730, where his opera “<a title="Artaserse" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artaserse"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_123">Artaserse</span></a>” was performed at the <a title="S Giovanni Grisostomo" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_Giovanni_Grisostomo">S Giovanni <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_124">Grisostomo</span></a>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_125">Metastasio's</span> libretto was heavily reworked for the occasion, and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_126">Farinelli</span> took a leading role. Two of his arias from this opera were performed by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_127">Farinelli</span> every night for a decade for <a title="Philip V of Spain" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_V_of_Spain">Philip V of Spain</a>.<br />That same year he married Faustina <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_128">Bordoni</span>, who was, along with her great rival Victoria <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_129">Cuzzoni</span>, one of the great Divas, with whom <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_130">Bumsen</span> had struck up a brief liaison in Venice in 1717.Her London <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_131">début</span>, as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_132">Rossane</span> in Handel’s <a title="Alessandro (opera)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_%28opera%29">Alessandro</a>, took place on 5 May 1726, alongside <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_133">Cuzzoni</span>. To an aria in her role, of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_134">Teofane</span> in Handel's “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_135">Ottone</span>”at the King's Theatre, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_136">Haymarket</span> there is attached a famous story, vividly illustrating both <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_137">Cuzzoni</span>’s character and that of the composer. The part not having been originally intended for her (but perhaps for Maddalena <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_138">Salvai</span>), at rehearsal she refused to sing "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_139">Falsa</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_140">immagine</span>", her first aria. According to the historian John <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_141">Mainwaring</span>, Handel replied: "Oh! Madame I know well that you are a real she-devil, but I hereby give you notice, me, that I am Beelzebub, the Chief of Devils." <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_142">Mainwaring</span> continued: "With this, he took her up by the waist, and, if she made any more words, swore that he would fling her out of the window." According to Charles <a title="Charles Burney" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Burney"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_143">Burney</span></a>, her singing of this aria "fixed her reputation as an expressive and pathetic singer", and her success was such that the price of half-guinea opera tickets reportedly shot up to four guineas. By the time of her benefit concert only two months later, some noblemen were believed to be giving her fifty guineas a ticket. Her salary was also large: £2000 a season. Her appearance was no recommendation: <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_144">Burney</span> described her as "short and squat, with a doughy cross face, but fine complexion; ... not a good actress; dressed ill ; and was silly and fantastical." During the next two seasons she created four more Handel roles: <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_145">Alceste</span> in <a title="Admeto" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admeto"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_146">Admeto</span></a> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_147">Pulcheria</span> in <a title="Riccardo Primo" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riccardo_Primo">Riccardo</a> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_148">Primero</span> (both 1727), and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_149">Emira</span> in <a title="Siroe" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siroe"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_150">Siroe</span></a> and Elisa in <a title="Tolomeo" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolomeo"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_151">Tolomeo</span></a> (1728). She also sang in a revival of <a title="Radamisto (Handel)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radamisto_%28Handel%29"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_152">Radamisto</span></a>, and in operas by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_153">Ariosti</span> and <a title="Giovanni Bononcini" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Bononcini">Giovanni <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_154">Bononcini</span></a>. In a performance of the latter’s <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_155">Astianatte</span> on 6 June 1727, her personal and professional rivalry with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_156">Cuzzoni</span> exploded into a fight on the stage of the King’s Theatre, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_157">Haymarket</span>, in front of Caroline, Princess of Wales. This furore seized the public imagination – the pamphleteer <a title="John Arbuthnot" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arbuthnot">John <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_158">Arbuthnot</span></a> published "The DEVIL to pay at St. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_159">JAMES's</span>: <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_160">or</span> A full and true ACCOUNT of a most horrid and bloody BATTLE between Madam FAUSTINA and Madam <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_161">CUZZONI</span>", in which he lambasted the two ladies: "TWO of a Trade seldom or ever agree … But who would have thought the Infection should reach the Hay-market and inspire Two Singing Ladies to pull each other's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_162">Coiffs</span>, to the no small Disquiet of the Directors, who (God help them) have enough to do to keep Peace and Quietness between them. … I shall not determine who is the Aggressor, but take the surer Side, and wisely pronounce them both in Fault; for it is certainly an apparent Shame that two such well bred Ladies should call Bitch and Whore, should scold and fight like any <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_163">Billingsgates</span>." The answer to why they fought was simple. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_164">Cuzzoni</span> had engaged in a secret marriage with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_165">Bumsen</span>.<br />Later in 1729 she sang at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_166">Modena</span> and Venice, and in the autumn of that year, Handel's impresario Heidegger wished to engage both her and Faustina for the new "Second Royal Academy". Handel had had enough of both of them, however, and so <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_167">Cuzzoni</span> went instead to Bologna, Naples, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_168">Piacenza</span> and Venice during 1730-31, and Bologna and Florence again during the following season, when, amongst others, she sang in operas by her husband (she never performed under his name). Their association continued during the carnival seasons of 1733 and 1734, when she appeared at Genoa.<a name="In_London_again"></a>In 1733, a group of English aristocrats wished to set up an opera company to rival Handel's, and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_169">Cuzzoni</span> was one of the first singers they approached. She returned in April 1734, joining the cast of <a title="Porpora" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porpora"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_170">Porpora</span></a>'s <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_171">Arianna</span> a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_172">Nasso</span>. For this company, known as the "Opera of the Nobility", she sang in four more operas by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_173">Porpora</span>, and others by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_174">Sandoni</span>, <a title="Johann Adolf Hasse" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Adolf_Hasse"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_175">Hasse</span></a>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_176">Orlandini</span>, <a title="Veracini" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracini"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_177">Veracini</span></a>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_178">Ciampi</span>, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_179">pasticcio</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_180">Orfeo</span> and even a version of Handel's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_181">Ottone</span>. It would seem that she made less of an impression during this visit, not least due to the presence of the incomparably famous <a title="Carlo Broschi" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Broschi"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_182">Farinelli</span></a> in the same company.<a name="Later_career"></a> Nonetheless, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_183">Cuzzoni</span> was still a force to be reckoned with. After the collapse of the Nobility Opera, she returned to the continent, singing in Florence in 1737-38, and at Turin the following year, when, for one carnival season, she received the huge fee of 8,000 lire. Later that year she sang at Vienna, and seems to have made her last operatic appearances in Hamburg in 1740. On 17 September 1741 the "London Daily Post" reported that Cuzzoni was to be beheaded for poisoning her husband, but, though they had separated by 1742, Bumsen survived unscathed, having embezzeled a considerable part of her fortune, certainly sufficient to bribe the neccessary church officials in his favour. Distraut, she fled to England.On 20 May 1751, the "General Advertiser" gave notice of a final benefit concert for Cuzzoni, accompanied by a letter from the singer in which she wrote: "I am so extremely sensible of the many Obligations I have already received from the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom ... that nothing but extreme necessity and a desire of doing justice, could induce me to trouble them again, but being unhappily involved in a few Debts, am extremely desirous of attempting every Thing in my Power to pay them, before I quit England ..." Of her last years, little is known, save that she returned once more to the continent, and lived a poverty-stricken existence, eking out a living, it is said, making buttons. One can be sure that Bumsen frustrated her every effort to seek gainful employment.<br />Another acquaintance and yet another hapless victim, was the inoffensive Francesco Geminiani . Born at Lucca, he was taught by Scarlatti.<br />In <a title="1714" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1714">1714</a>, with the reputation of a virtuoso violinist, he arrived in <a title="London" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London">London</a>, where he was taken under the special protection of <a title="Earl of Essex" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_Essex">William Capel, 3rd Earl of Essex</a>, who remained a consistent patron. In <a title="1715" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1715">1715</a> he played his violin concerti with <a title="George Frideric Handel" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Frideric_Handel">Handel</a> at the keyboard, for the court of <a title="George I of Great Britain" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_I_of_Great_Britain">George I</a>. Geminiani made a living by teaching and writing music, and tried to keep pace with his passion for collecting by dealing in art, not always successfully. Bumsen delighted in advising him to buy fraudulent pictures, copied by low-life friends of his. He would have had his fair cut of the profits, too! Eventually Capel put him wise and poor Geminiani fled to the Continent in embarrassment.<br />After visiting <a title="Paris" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris">Paris</a> and residing there for some time, he returned to England in <a title="1755" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1755">1755</a>. </div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Bumsen and the Mozarts</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">While studying under Eberlein in 1734, in Augsburg, Bumsen may have first met Leopold Mozart. They were staunch friends for 50 years, Wolfgang Amadeus was named after him and Bumsen took a profound interest in the young man’s welfare.Bumsen, Pergolesi and Hayden.<br /></div><div align="justify">Bumsen ,Pergolesi and Haydn</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">In 1735, Bumsen again went on the Grand Tour of Italy. It is thought that he struck up a friendship with the young Pergolesi while visiting Pozzuoli. Despite the ten year disparity in ages, the two were the best of friends. Tragically, their habit of midnight swimming in Lake Lucrino probably led to the tuberculosis which would kill the young genius the following year. Bumsen moved to Potsdam, where he befriended Johann Matthias Frank, the schoolmaster and choirmaster in <a title="Hainburg an der Donau" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainburg_an_der_Donau">Hainburg</a>. Here he first met the young Joseph Hayden who was was born in the <a title="Austria" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria">Austrian</a> village of <a title="Rohrau (Austria)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohrau_%28Austria%29">Rohrau</a>, near the Hungarian border. His father was <a title="Mathias Haydn" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Haydn">Mathias Haydn</a>, a <a title="Wheelwright" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheelwright">wheelwright</a> who also served as "Marktrichter", an office akin to village mayor. Neither parent could read music. However, Mathias was an enthusiastic <a title="Folk music" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_music">folk musician</a>, who during the journeyman period of his career had taught himself to play the <a title="Harp" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harp">harp</a>. According to Haydn's later reminiscences, his childhood family was extremely musical, and frequently sang together and with their neighbors. Haydn's parents noticed that their son was musically talented and knew that in Rohrau he would have no chance to obtain any serious musical training. It was for this reason that they accepted a proposal from their relative Johann Franck, with whom Bumsen was staying, that Haydn be apprenticed to Franck in his home to train as a musician. Haydn therefore went off with Franck to Hainburg (seven miles away) and never again lived with his parents. He was six years old. Bumsen remembered him as a scrawny, dirty creature and delighted in throwing cabbage leaves at him and shouting, “Come on, Snail!”Life in the Franck household was not easy for Haydn, who later remembered being frequently hungry as well as constantly humiliated by the filthy state of his clothing. </div><div align="justify"><br />Paris and Piccini.</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">In 1742,Bumsen was resident in Paris where he helped conservatives in the Academie des Sciences defeat Rousseau’s Numerical System of Notation. In 1745, , he sided with Rousseau against Rameau in their bitter quarrel over the lyrics of “Les Fetes de Ramire” but some sort of reconciliation was obliterated at that time by Bumsen’s support of Pergolesi and Piccini over Gluck in the “Querelle des Bouffons”. Piccini had great facility in composing; it is said that it took him only about eighteen days to compose his chef d'oeuvre.<a title="Charles Burney" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Burney">Charles Burney</a> reports Handel as saying that "he [Gluck] knows no more of contrapunto, as mein cook, Waltz". That was good enough for Bumsen, who savaged his opponents and was later made a member of the Acadmie, during the famous “Querelles des Bouffons” [1752-4] that effectively terminated Rameau’s period of genius.<br />Bumsen was pilloried again on his return to Tippenbruder, upon the discovery of the lyrics of “Alte Maxe Osten eine Baershause gehabt.”, although a charge of witchcraft may have been levelled at this time. His manuscripts were burnt in theDomPlatz and again he was forced to flee from Tippelbruder. Bumsen was back in Leipzig in January 1750 to visit his idol, J. S. Bach. Alas, the “Spenersche Zeitung”, reporting in August of the same year, stated that the cause of Bach’s death was "from the unhappy consequences of the very unsuccessful eye operation". Bach had become increasingly blind, and Bumsen had recommended the celebrated British ophthalmologist John Taylor (who had operated unsuccessfully on Handel) and he operated on Bach while visiting Bumsen in Leipzig. Bach died on 28 July, 1750 at the age of 65. Disconsolate, Bumsen returned to Paris via the Netherlands. Curiously, in August, 1750, on a journey back from Germany to London, Handel was seriously injured in a carriage accident involving Bumsen , between The Hague and Haarlem. Bumsen blamed his horse, a hired nag, for the collision, but it transpired that he had been consuming quantities of Jenever to avert the rain chill. Handel has never really recovered.<br /><br />Reconciliation between Bumsen and Rousseau vanished irrevocably when Rousseau discovered Bumsen in intimate circumstances with his inamorata, Loise D’Epinay, in the “Hermitage”, Rousseau’s retreat in Montmerency. Bumsen was a selfish and at times cruel friend and an implacable enemy. </div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">In conclusion, I must say most humbly, that Herr Bumsen, whom I have known since boyhood, and who has left me his personal heritage of a slight limp, has always behaved towards me with the vast indifference to which only one of his immense genius could aspire. On meeting him recently, for the first time in many years, he remarked upon introduction, " Ah, Simplissimus by name, Simplissimus by nature!" exactly as he had been wont to do when we were schoolfellows. I was most touched and am sure that his illustrious career will only heap fresh laurels on the cultural brow of Fair Tippelbruder.</div><br /><div align="justify"></div><br /><div align="justify"></div>Peter Simplissimushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09995330629313388099noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370222868786520564.post-33051734392039164902008-02-26T03:48:00.000-08:002008-02-26T03:56:29.400-08:00I , the author of these histories, am but your most humble servant, Peter Simplissimus, I studied at Heidelburg and Potsdam and have for some time been a schoolmaster in Tippelbruder. My uncle was the great scholar, Georg Simplissimus . I inherited his copious notes, written in the Dante's Dilemna Code, and am deciphering these to aid my biography of the great scientist and philosopher of Tipplebruder, Krankenhause and the production of a short monograph on Wihelm Dummer, the great folk hero of the Burg. I also undertake research commissions on the history of Tippelbruder and am honoured to number Maestro Hans Bumsen amongst my noble friends.Peter Simplissimushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09995330629313388099noreply@blogger.com1