Johann Wolfgang Franck

Johann Wolfgang Franck (baptised in Unterschwaningen, Franconia, on 17 June 1644; died c. 1710) was one of the first composers to shape German-language opera in the second half of the seventeenth century. The son of an official at the court of the Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, he probably received his schooling at a Latin school in Ansbach, a hypothesis supported by his enrolment at the University of Wittenberg in 1663.

Between 1665 and 1668 he worked at the Ansbach court as secretary and tutor to the prince's children, within the administration that also supported the court music establishment. In the spring of 1668 he obtained leave, possibly to travel and study in Italy. After Johann Friedrich came to power in 1672, Franck returned to Ansbach as director of court music and the theatre. In that post he reorganised and enlarged the orchestra, restoring the prestige of the Hofkapelle, and promoted opera at court festivities. He also composed incidental music, ballets and his first known opera, Die errettete Unschuld (1675), followed by Der verliebte Föbus (1678), as well as a substantial body of sacred music for the chapel, which earned him appointment as court chaplain in 1677. In January 1679 he left Ansbach after killing another court musician, and found refuge in Hamburg.

In Hamburg, a city that had opened its public opera house, the Theater am Gänsemarkt, in 1678, Franck dominated the stage for about six years. He was at the same time opera Kapellmeister and director of music at the Protestant cathedral, where he wrote numerous lieder to texts by the clergyman Heinrich Elmenhorst. He published collections of arias from four operas, among them Cara Mustapha. His only surviving opera with complete recitatives and arias is Die drey Töchter des Cecrops, whose date and its relationship to Ansbach and Hamburg remain unclarified; Braun (1983) proposes a visit by Franck to Ansbach in 1686 as the key.

Around 1690 he moved to London, where, according to reports, he gave similar operatic performances and collaborated in evening concerts with Robert King. He also composed English songs published in London periodicals. The date and place of his death are unknown; a notice in Moller's Cimbria litterata (Copenhagen, 1744) suggests, without confirming it, that he may have been murdered in Spain.

Franck's importance lies in his contribution to a distinctive identity for late seventeenth-century German opera. His works combine a popular style with Venetian and French elements: highly expressive recitatives, strophic arias of a danceable or chorale-like character, and slow arias of strong affective dissonance. He also introduced a more active use of the orchestra in accompaniment and the employment of obbligato trumpets, features that place him among the most innovative composers in Hamburg.