Johan Carel Zentgraaff — Three Duets for Two German Flutes, Opus I (1784)
Doblinger DM 1247
Duetto I - C major:
•
Allegro [midi]
• Menuetto Grazioso
[midi]
• Allegro [midi]
Doblinger
DM 1248
Duetto II - D major:
•
Allegro con Spirito [midi]
• Andantino con Variatione
[midi]
Doblinger
DM 1249
Duetto III - C major:
•
Allegro moderato [midi]
• Allemande [midi]
Johan Carel Zentgraaff
Johan Carel (Johann Carol) Zentgraaff (1732 -1800) was a flautist born in Stadtlengsfeld, Saxony, who spent most of his life in The Netherlands. On 15 April 1756 he was enrolled as a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Leiden, a year later he registered as a musician at the university in that city. In 1766 he moved to Rotterdam, remaining there for the rest of his life.
| In
1773 Zentgraaff took over from Petrus Albertus van Hagen the management
of the concert hall in the Bierstraat in the middle of Rotterdam's
dockland. Many internationally known musicians visited the city on
their way to or back from London and performed there. When the owners
of the house sold the concert hall in 1783, Zentgraaff could not afford
to bid for it, and the house was bought by another musician. Zentgraaff
settled on the other side of the street, and there he and the violinist
Johann Heinrich Schröter opened another concert hall. Due to marital problems, this venture did not last long. In 1788 the maidservant testified to a notary at Zentgraaff's wife's request, that she had been present when Zentgraaff mistreated, hit, berated and threatened his wife. Furthermore, Zentgraaff had a lot of money in his office, about which his wife knew nothing. Four days later, the terms of divorce were drawn up. Zentgraaff had to leave the house. From this point on, hardly anything is known about him. He appears to have been in straitened circumstances, for in 1797 the newspaper "Rotterdamsche Courant" printed a notice warning that no goods should be delivered to him without a receipt, because they would otherwise not be paid for. Zentgraaff died three years later, on 19 April 1800. |
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The only known works by Zentgraaff are the three flute duets. They were published in 1784 by John Bland of London as "Three / DUETTS / for two / German Flutes, / Composed by / J: C: Zentgraaff. / Op. 1. " In September 1784 the composer announced the edition in the "Rotterdamsche Courant". The duets are in a lively, virtuoso classical style. It is notable that the compass extends downwards to c#' instead of the usual d'. In the second half of the 18th century attempts were made to extend the lower range of the flute by a whole tone using c# and c keys. Zentgraaff had probably become acquainted with such an instrument two years before his duets were published, when Christian Karl Hartmann played in his concert hall on "a flute of new invention, with c keys, in the key of the oboe", as the announcement put it. The only extant copy of the duets is located in the Library of Congress in Washington.