Joseph Johann Baptist Woelfl (surname sometimes written in the German form Wölfl) (24 December 1773 – 21 May 1812) was an Austrian pianist and composer.
Woelfl was born in Salzburg, where he studied music under Leopold Mozart and Michael Haydn.
He first appeared in public as a soloist on the violin at the age of seven. Moving to Vienna in 1790 he visited Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and may have taken lessons from him. His first opera, Der Höllenberg, appeared there in 1795.
Woelfl was very tall (over 6 feet), and with an enormous finger span (his hand could strike a thirteenth, according to his contemporary Václav Tomášek); to his wide grasp of the keyboard he owed a facility of execution which he turned to good account, especially in his improvised performances.
Although he dedicated his 1798 sonatas Op. 6 to Beethoven, the two were rivals. Beethoven however bested Woelfl in a piano 'duel' at the house of Baron Raimund Wetzlar in 1799, after which Woelfl's local popularity waned.[1] After spending the years 1801 to 1805 in Paris, Woelfl moved to London, where his first concert performance was on 27 May 1805. On 12 March 1806 he published Six English Songs which he dedicated to the English soprano Jane Bianchi.[2]
In England, he enjoyed commercial if not critical success. In 1808 he published his Sonata, Op. 41, which, on account of its technical difficulty, he entitled "Non Plus Ultra"; and, in reply to the challenge, a sonata by Dussek, originally called "Le Retour à Paris", was reprinted with the title Plus Ultra, and an ironic dedication to Non Plus Ultra. He also completed for publication an unfinished sonata of George Pinto.
Woelfl died in Great Marylebone Street, London, on 21 May 1812. He is buried in St. Marylebone Churchyard.
His music was championed and performed by Romantic composers like Schubert, Chopin and Liszt.
Woelfl's works have long disappeared from the concert repertory. However, in 2003 four selected piano sonatas of his (Op. 25 and Op. 33) were recorded by the pianist Jon Nakamatsu (Harmonia Mundi CD # 907324). (An Adda CD in 1988 contained his three Opus 28 sonatas, played by Laure Colladant, who also recorded the sonatas Opus 6 for Adès in 1993 and the three Opus 33 sonatas for the label Mandala in 1995.)
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In 2006, German pianist Yorck Kronenberg recorded Woelfl's piano concertos 1, 5 and 6 in addition to a movement from the piano concerto 4.[3] The piano concertos closely resemble the later piano concertos of Mozart, who had pioneered the genre; they can be distinguished from Mozart's works by the larger range of the piano, which had been extended shortly after Mozart's death. Nataša Veljković has since recorded the 2nd and 3rd Piano Concertos and the Concerto da Camera in E-flat major (1810) on CPO.[4]
There are also now recordings of the two symphonies (Pratum Integrum Orchestra, 2008), three string quartets (Quatuor Mosaïques, 2012), and the Grand Duo for cello and piano.[5] Toccata Classics has issued two CDs of the piano music (2017 and 2021).[6] In 2021, Dutch pianist Mattias Spee recorded an album with works by Joseph Woelfl with record label TRPTK.[7]
