Kapellmeister

What it means

Kapellmeister designates the director of a musical ensemble — originally a court orchestra (Hofkapelle), later also an opera or theatre orchestra. The word is not a performance instruction but a professional title.

The tasks were comprehensive. The Kapellmeister directed the performances, rehearsed with singers and instrumentalists, was responsible for the repertoire, and in many cases himself composed the music he performed. At courts and churches of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries he was one of the central figures of musical life.

The Kapellmeister is to be distinguished from today's conductor in the narrower sense. The latter developed in the nineteenth century as a profession of its own, whose task is above all the direction and interpretation of other people's works. In theatre operations the title has survived as a rank designation, for instance as First Kapellmeister or General Music Director.

Musical use

The position of the Kapellmeister shaped the working conditions of composers over a long time. Many works arose as an obligatory task for particular occasions — services, celebrations, opera seasons — and are to be understood only from this context. Direction itself in the eighteenth century often happened from the harpsichord or from the first violin, not with the baton.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Kapellmeister at a court or a church was responsible for all the music: he composed, directed performances, and trained musicians. Bach was Kapellmeister in Köthen, Haydn in Esterháza. In the nineteenth century the title became usual at opera houses, where there were First and Second Kapellmeisters who conducted under the General Music Director. Today the title designates above all conductors at theatres; colloquially, Kapellmeistermusik is used pejoratively for music that is technically solid but little original.

Performance practice

Whoever performs music that arose for a court orchestra should know its scoring and performance conditions: the ensembles were often smaller than today, and direction was integrated into the music-making. For ensembles without a conductor it is worth looking at this practice, for direction by a fellow player demands other forms of communication than conducting from outside.