Leopold Koželuh

Leopold Koželuh was a credit to the imperial music of Vienna.

“A famous composer – equally famous as a piano virtuoso. Most of his works are widely popular, particularly so his piano pieces.” Thus he is characterized in 1793 in the Lexicon of Writers and Artists. A transformation in the taste of the times, however, resulted in his works falling into virtual oblivion.

As a performer and teacher, Koželuh had a major role in the transition from performance on the harpsichord and clavichord to the distinctive style of performance on the hammer fortepiano.

Koželuh wrote the great majority of his works, which number over 250 compositions, in Vienna. He concentrated almost exclusively on secular music (his sacred compositions are most re-arrangements of secular works).

The main focus of his interest as a composer was music for the piano: sonatas, piano trios and concerti for piano and orchestra. As regards style, Koželuh′s works fall into three main categories. With the exception of his oratorio Mosè in Egitto, the majority of his vocal works from the 1780s, in particular his songs and ariettas, bear the typical traits of Viennese rococo.

Koželuh′s symphonies and piano concerti adhere to the Viennese classical style and usually do not venture beyond its framework. Works classed in the third style are his chamber compositions along with his works for solo piano. Here Koželuh is ahead of his time and prepared the way not only for the expressive style of Beethoven but also for Romantic manifestations, in particular of the Schubertian type; some of those works were written in the 1780s, but most of them come from the 1790s, and it is indeed in them that we find the really essential developments that make Koželuh an important composer. Koželuh’s social and artistic prestige was strengthened by the favorable reception of his Coronation Cantata, which he had written on a commission from Czech nobles for the Prague coronation of Leopold II as Czech king.

Titles for sale:
Symphony no. 5 in G minor (ed. Eva Čierna - Tornová)
Symphony no. 6 C major (ed. Eva Čierna - Tornová)
Symphony no. 7 A major (ed. Eva Čierna - Tornová)

Titles for hire:
Aria in B "Umbra noctis orbem tangit"
Aria in Es "Quaeso ad me veni"
Kantate zur Krönung Leopolds II. "Heil dem Monarchen"
Missa in C