Newsletter
September–October 2010

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FEATURE

Baroque Dresden

No Fairy Tale

by Anne Hunter

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Once upon a time, there was a king whose kingdom was in a war it couldn’t afford. A young man came to the king one day. “I can make gold,” he said. The king was delighted—the answer to his problems!—and gave the young man shelter. But the young man had lied. He tried and tried, but he couldn’t make gold. The king became impatient. The young man—somewhat older now—was scared and admitted that he’d failed. He couldn’t make gold. But, he said, he knew how to make something else that the king might be interested in....

It could be a fairy tale, but it’s real. The king in the story is the man behind Tempesta di Mare’s upcoming concert, The Dresden Orchestra: August the Strong, Elector of Saxony, King of Poland and Dresden’s reigning potentate from 1694 to 1733, one of those fairy-tale kings of the Age of Absolutism. Almost. August was no fantasy and despite his belief in alchemy, he was no innocent. He was a powerful player on the European stage in the Age of Absolutism and a real person who wasn’t called “the Strong”” for nothing, although he probably fathered fewer illegitimate children than the reputed 350.

In the arts, though, August exuded fairy-tale magic. His orchestra was probably the best in Europe. His musicians were superstar players from all over the continent molded into a rock-hard ensemble. “[August’s orchestra] achieved a finesse of performance that I never heard surpassed in all my later travels,” wrote J.J. Quantz, famous flutist and favorite of rival royal Frederick the Great. “We love playing Dresden repertoire,” says Tempesta artistic co-director Richard Stone. “It’s so showy, written by virtuosi for virtuosi, with tons of textural contrast. The band really knows how to make a meal of it.”

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FEATURE (continued)

As well as the peerless orchestra, August gave—or bought—Dresden a deep and rich art collection, a magnificent cityscape with jaw-dropping palaces, gardens, fountains, outdoor theater, and enough shows, services, tournaments, fetes and eye-popping entertainments to make him the envy of everyone from his fellow monarchs to ambitious plebes like G.F. Handel (who eagerly grabbed August’s cast-off Italian opera stars for his London ventures).

He had the eyes and ears of a true connoisseur and the intellect to make the most of them. Not only did he buy the fabulous Giorgione Sleeping Venus for the royal galleries, he took stock of all the Dresden art collections—paintings, prints, drawings, treasures—brought them together and installed them for public perusal with an instinct for rationalism and coherence that makes old museum workers like myself get misty in the eyes and weak at the knees. And he did it himself. Sketches and notes to his architect in his handwriting survive. “Dresden will from now on be an Athens for artists,” wrote historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, whose vastly influential theories on art and the classics were inspired by visits to August’s galleries.

Fairy dust didn’t extend to August’s statesmanship, though. His armies fared poorly. And as King of Poland, a crown he purchased rather than earned, August seems to have initiated that country’s long downward slide. Perhaps failures in battle and diplomacy were the secret to his success. With nobody to answer to—absolutism personified!—he played to his strengths. For him as for other rulers of the era, Louis XIV first and foremost, culture was political. And when it came to culture, he was scary good—as was his heir, Augustus III, who sustained his father’s cultural legacy through the mid-eighteenth century.

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A Tempesta di Mare Season Pass is a bundle of good things rolled into one:

• Preferred seating at all 5 concerts
• No waiting in line — you go directly to your seats
• 2 fabulous locations to choose from : Philadelphia & Chestnut Hill
• Exclusive ticket exchange privileges
• Invitations and free admission to pre-concert talks, receptions and special events
• $50 tax-deductible contribution included

Get your Season Pass now for only $145! Use the order form below.

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	Center City Series	Chestnut Hill Series
The Dresden Orchestra	Sat, Oct 2	Sun, Oct 3 (m)
The Royal Concert	Sat, Dec 11	Fri, Dec 10
Roman Nights	Sat, Jan 29	Sun, Jan 30 (m)
Characters of the Dance	Sat, Mar 26	Sun, Mar 27 (m)
Telemann’s Ino	Fri, May 20	Sat, May 21
	(m) = matinee

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Tempesta di Mare 2010-2011 Season Pass

Choose series. Enter number of passes: $145.00 + 7.25 $152.25 Philadelphia Series, $145 processing fee online price (incl. $50 deductible) $145.00 + 7.25 $152.25 Chestnut Hill Series, $145 processing fee online price (incl. $50 deductible)

Additional Gift - optional $ .00  (100% deductible)

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FEATURE (continued)

About that fairy tale. The alchemist was Johann Friedrich Böttger. He came to August on the run from Prussia’s Frederick William I, father of Frederick the Great and another alchemy fan whom he’d tried to con. August kept Böttger jailed for 13 years in a sort of court-ordered research-and-development. You do have to wonder if there was magic involved, because Böttger (and his non-incarcerated associate Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, but that’s not on the quiz) actually discovered something really valuable: the formula for producing hard-paste porcelain, heretofore a closely-guarded East Asian secret. August founded the first porcelain manufactury in Europe which became the famous Meissen Porcelain Factory and made a boatload of money for Dresden for many many years. Happy ending!

And why, you may ask, have you never heard of this August the Strong guy before? He isn’t up there on the Absolute Monarch Short List with Louis XIV, Frederick the Great and the Hapsburgs. Well, it helps if your fairy-tale kingdom isn’t flattened repeatedly by enemies, as Dresden was by Prussia in the 18th century and the Allies in the 20th. Efforts are now being made to bring back “The Florence on the Elbe,” but restoring bricks and mortar is slow. Music-lovers don’t have to wait, though. You can experience the full glory of The Augustan Age this October when Tempesta di Mare brings back The Dresden Orchestra.

And that’s no fairy tale.

Anne Hunter, Contributing Editor,
is a writer and art historian living in Philadelphia.

Print of Augustus II on a horse courtesy of the Print and Picture Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia, with permission.

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STOP PRESS

Repertoire Change

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Tempesta’s principal horn—one of the few natural horn players anywhere capable of performing the demanding parts in the scheduled Fasch and Zelenka works—sustained a temporary injury that has necessitated a last-minute substitution of repertoire without horns while he recuperates. We are happy to report that he’ll soon be back in full swing and able to join us for May’s program, while the pieces with horn originally scheduled for this production will go up next season instead.

Here is the revised program that we’ll play in October.

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