Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-1792): A Systematic-Thematic Catalogue of His Musical Works and Source Study (review)

Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-1792): A Systematic-Thematic Catalogue of His Musical Works and Source Study. By Bertil H. van Boer Jr. (Thematic Catalogues, 26.) Stuyvesant, N.Y.: Pendragon Press, 1998. [xxx, 342 p. ISBN 0-945193-69-6. $76.]

Joseph Martin Kraus, who came to be known posthumously as the Swedish Mozart, was a prodigiously talented composer; some of his works can easily rank among the very best from the last quarter of the eighteenth century: the Symphony in C Minor (VB 142), Funeral Cantata for Gustav III (VB 42), and the grand opera Aeneas i Cartago (Dido och Aeneas; VB 23). Kraus's music often has a deep expression and a dark romantic coloring. Within the last decade, Kraus has been rediscovered by the recording industry; whereas a few LPs of performances led by Newell Jenkins were released in the sixties, the nineties have seen a series of important recordings by Swedish ensembles, as well as two discs of eight symphonies performed by the Concerto Köln (Capriccio 10 396 [1991], 10 430 [1992]). A significant player in the recent Kraus revival has been the compiler of this thematic catalog, Bertil H. van Boer, who has also produced studies and editions of the music. The volume reviewed here is in its second edition--what Otto Erich Deutsch would call its ideal form. The first edition appeared in 1988 (Die Werke von Joseph Martin Kraus: Systematisch-Thematisches Werkverzeichnis [Stockholm: Kungl. Musikaliska akademien, 1988]); the second is in English and contains essays not included in the first on sources, chronology, authenticity, and Kraus's literary works.

Despite Deutsch's preference, most second editions suffer from new work numbers. Unfortunately, the 1998 Kraus catalog is no exception; almost the entire output is renumbered. This requires libraries to revise their catalogs and readers of pre-1998 articles on Kraus to be aware of the changes. It would have been better to delete numbers and add either decimals or letters in order to retain as many 1988 numbers as possible. Especially unfortunate is that many of the new numbers are off by only one digit from the old. Even more confusing is that VB 16 and 17 have been inadvertently dropped from the summary list of works on page xiv, though they appear in the catalog itself. Some of these problems are alleviated by a concordance of the numbers from both editions and from an earlier worklist by Karl Friedrich Schreiber (Biographie über den Odenwälder Komponisten Joseph Martin Kraus [Buchen: Verlag Bezirksmuseum, 1928]).

In addition to the catalog of authentic compositions, there are sections devoted to doubtful or spurious works. To the outright spurious pieces are added two singspiels composed by Olaf Ahlström (1756-1835). Among other "spuriosities" are some by a J. Kraus, a musician at the court in Bernburg, Germany, and a Johann Georg Kraus (fl. 1795-1810), a Viennese amateur composer. To many of these entries, van Boer has added further commentary in the second edition.

In the six essays that come at the end of the catalog, the author is able to place the information provided in the individual work entries into a larger context. The sources themselves contain much external information reflecting Kraus's many travels. Yet the composer spent a central portion of his life in Stockholm, something of a musical backwater, and here van Boer provides a foundation for anyone desiring to work on the sources of late-eighteenth-century Swedish music.

Van Boer's discussion of the autographs centers on the problem of Kraus's handwriting and music script, which for many years failed to settle into a consistent pattern. Today these sources reside only in Swedish libraries, but Kraus autographs are known to have been in the possession of Pater Roman Hoffstetter in Amorbach and Kraus's sister Marianne Lämmerhirt. The music dealer Johann Traeg in...