Carlmann Kolb

Carlmann Kolb was a priest, organist and composer from Lower Bavaria, born in Kösslarn, near Griesbach, and who died in Munich in January 1765. His musical importance rests above all on his organ works, few in number but notable for the music of southern Germany in his time.

He trained in Asbach and Landshut. He later returned to the Benedictine abbey of Asbach, where he had been a choirboy, was ordained a priest in 1729 and held the post of resident organist of the community. Later he came under the patronage of Count Tattenbach-Reinstein in Munich, whose sons he taught.

His known catalogue is very small: a Sinfonia in F for harpsichord and strings, cited in a Breitkopf catalogue, and the Certamen aonium, published in Augsburg in 1733. This collection projected a second part that was never published. Each of the eight ecclesiastical modes is represented by a prelude, three versets and a cadenza. Although they do not strictly adhere to the modes, they display the diatonic and chromatic harmony of the period. The preludes make use of brilliant passages on the manual keyboards, with rests that heighten the tension, and at times recall the florid music of the harpsichord. The versets are brief little fugues, and the cadenzas favour the sequential treatment in the Italian style.

Kolb drew inspiration from predecessors such as Murschhauser and Gottlieb Muffat, but the fluency of his organ writing makes his examples seem models for his own time.