Jiří Antonín Benda (1722–1795)
A Czech composer active in Germany and music director at Gotha, Benda is famous for his melodramas (spoken text over music), which Mozart admired, and for his keyboard sonatas.
Jiří Antonín Benda (in German Georg Anton Benda) was born in 1722 in Bohemia into a family of musicians. Like his elder brother Franz, a celebrated violinist, he moved to Prussia, where he played in Frederick II’s orchestra in Berlin, alongside Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.
In 1750 he became music director to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha. There he wrote sacred music, symphonies, concertos and keyboard pieces, and made a study trip to Italy that enriched his style.
He is best known for his melodramas, Ariadne auf Naxos and Medea (1775), in which an actor declaims the text while the orchestra comments on the action. Mozart heard them in 1778 and wrote to his father how much he admired them. Benda also wrote singspiele (German comic operas) such as Der Dorfjahrmarkt and Romeo und Julie.
After leaving Gotha in 1778 he lived in retirement in Thuringia and died in Köstritz in 1795. His keyboard sonatinas and sonatas, in an expressive galant style close to C. P. E. Bach’s, are an excellent bridge between Baroque and Classical for students.
Piano sheet music (1)
- Sonata in G major: III · level 4