A Model Adagio by Johann Joachim Quantz

Abstract three of the k eys to success at an eighteenth-century court were held by Johann Joachim Quants (1697–1773). He was a highly talented performer (on the flute primarily), he composed music that delighted his aristocratic audiences (in Dresden first, and later in Berlin), and he learned how to please powerful princes (the Elector of Saxony and, most importantly, Frederick the Great, King of Prussia). As simultaneously “composer for the royal court,” “composer for the royal chamber,” and “professor of flute for the king of Prussia,” Quants received ten times the salary of the king’s harpsichord player, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788), even though Bach was a musician of staggering abilities. Successful music at court was not about “art for art’s sake,” to use the Romantic phrase. Christian Gottfried Krause (1719–1770), a prominent Berlin lawyer and musical devotee at the Berlin court, described C. P. E. Bach as a musical Milton whose melodies required “thorough prior acquaintance” before they could please.1 Not every courtier had the time or inclination for “thorough prior acquaintance.” A winning strategy for a court composer was thus to create music that could be understood and enjoyed on first hearing, and Quantz played that game to perfection.