2 - Kapellmeister at the Wolfenbüttel Court and Braunschweig Opera House

Summary

❧ Music at the Wolfenbüttel Court of Duke Anton Ulrich

SOME time during the latter months of 1689, Cousser joined the service of Duke Anton Ulrich of Braunschweig and Lüneburg (1633–1714), whose court was based in the small town of Wolfenbüttel (Lower Saxony). The earliest known confirmation of his presence there is found on the title page of the printed libretto of a German-language opera, Julia, which acknowledges the work's composer to be ‘M[onsieu]r Cousser, Princely Braunschweig-Lüneburg Kapellmeister’. Julia had premiered at the Braunschweig opera house in August or September 1690, while a further work of Cousser's composition, Cleopatra, is believed to have received its first performance at the theatre's inauguration earlier that same year, on 4 February. By the time he left the service of the court some four years later, in 1694 (or possibly late 1693), Cousser had supplied Anton Ulrich with seven original operas, all settings of German texts: Cleopatra and Julia (1690), Ariadne, Andromeda, Jason and Narcissus (1692) and Porus (1693). With exception of only one – Narcissus – these works all received their premiere performances at the new Braunschweig theatre. Indeed, until 1693, when at least four new operas were also commissioned from other composers (Johann Philipp Krieger, Philipp Heinrich Erlebach and Georg Bronner), Cousser's appear to have been the only settings of Germanlanguage librettos to be performed at the venue.

Regrettably, no documentation concerning Cousser's engagement as Anton Ulrich's Kapellmeister has survived, nor have any documents detailing the size or structure of the Wolfenbüttel Hofkapelle during these years. There was presumably a stable body of instrumentalists (capable of performing on stringed and wind instruments), and, as was commonplace at the time, the court appears to have employed (or at least had access to) a contingent of trumpeters, kettledrummers and Hautboisten, since a description of a progress from Wolfenbüttel to Salzdahlum in 1694 refers specifically to their presence. In addition to the composition, rehearsal and musical direction of operas, Cousser's role at the court surely entailed the standard responsibilities allotted to court Kapellmeister in the late seventeenth century.