Most known as the last Thomaskantor in Leipzig before Bach, Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722) was a man of many talents - composer, harpsichordist, theorist, writer and lawyer. As was later said of him, he "displayed an element of medieval universality and mastered music, law,
theology, rhetoric, poetry, mathematics and foreign languages’ (Schering,
1926). "Scheibe put him alongside Handel, Keiser and Telemann as one of the
major German composers before Hasse and the Grauns, and Mattheson, paying equal
tribute to his musicianship and his erudition, claimed never to have known his
like as composer, organist, chorus director and scholar. Among his pupils were such great figures as Fasch, Heinichen and Graupner.
Kuhnau's
surviving music belongs to two categories: keyboard music, nearly all published
by 1700, and sacred music, mostly cantatas and all of it unpublished. His
secular vocal works are all lost. The
Neue Clavier-Übung the first part of which (the one in major keys) is presented on this CD strongly influenced keyboard music of the time. As the title suggests, these compositions were meant primarily for his pupils, as exercises for very advanced practitioners.
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