Venues

Lecture "Music education at the time of Valentin Rathgeber - Years of study and Conventual life"
PD Dr. Erasmus Gass - Oberelsbach

Johann Valentin Rathgeber (1682–1750) ranks without a doubt among the most famous petite masters born by the late Baroque era. He is one answer on the often asked question how the  sudden stylistic change of the Viennese Classic was possible that soon after Johann Sebastian Bach. Most commonly, one overlooks that already at the beginning of the second decade of the 18th century there was a pursuit towards a new style. Valentin Rathgeber of the monastery of Banz was the mastermind of a new generation of composers.

Rathgeber received a solid music training as a member of the Juliusspital during his years of study in Wuerzburg.  Moreover, he was teacher at the orphanage school of the Juliusspital and responsible for the early music education there. Apart from the Juliusspital especially the monasteries have been centres of music education as well for children and juveniles as for the conventuals of different monastic orders. Some examples will be given for that. Most probably Rathgeber had assembled a circle of students although the evidence is minimal. The contemporaneous reception of Rathgeber works in Wuerzburg and Muennerstadt could explain an indirect influence on later composers.

Musical entertainment:
Theresia Hentschel, Soprano
Melanie Gross, Mezzo-Soprano