Congratulations and many happy returns.  Many thanks as well to our
peerless moderator, Dave Lampson.

As a sort of birthday present, I append a short piece on a little known
composer which appeared recently in the Internet magazine RALPH.

   A Candleflame On the Tavern  Wall: Carl Heinrich Graun

   Christolf Wolff, in his gigantic tome on Bach, includes a diagram
   from 1800, the "sun of composers." In the center is Bach.  Around
   him, three rays: Franz Joseph Haydn, George Friederick Handel, and
   Carl Heinrich Graun.  Graun? Who Graun? Are we missing something?

   Carl Heinrich Graun was one of those artists, like Per Luigi
   Zucchini or my uncle Sid, whose fame flickered all too briefly,
   a candleflame on the tavern wall.  A boon companion of King Frederick
   the Great of Prussia, Graun celebrated the king's conquest of Upper
   and Lower Silesia with the first Ode to Joy --- Joy Maedelbachen
   Graun being his Graunmother.  In return, Frederick wrote the
   story-board for Graun's celebrated, autobiographical operas Lohengraun
   and Das Rheingraun.  They were produced in off-Berlin but flopped so
   badly that they were moved to off-off- Baden-Baden.

   Here the composer's fortune improved. The city of Baden-Baden
   had just been overrun by rats, who packed the streets, took over
   the gutters, ate up the sidewalks, and refused to get out of the
   bierstuben.  But the rodents were so enchanted by Graun's music
   that they flocked to the operahouse to hear his new song cycle Die
   Liederhosenlaudenflauffen, BMW 240. The rodents were rendered quiescent
   by the music, so that the city building department was able to squash
   them with a steam roller. The composer immediately memorialized the
   great day in his new opera, Die Flattermaus, which was a popular
   success with the townspeople as well. The critics compared Graun to
   the greatest masters, and the grateful city of Baden-Baden appointed
   him Kapellkapellmeister-meister. It was during this time that he
   produced his greatest secular Cantata, Ich bin ein Doppelganger, BVD
   36-long.

   After this triumph, Graun produced a symphony of some note (possibly
   E-flat, although it is hard to be sure), the moving Theme and Variations
   on 'Graun Grow the Grasses-Oh?' and a cycle of quartets.  Unfortunately,
   his balance was not what it had been, and he fell off the cycle going
   around a corner, and had to switch to a tricycle.  Next, he began
   his famous experiments in edible counterpoint, which he illustrated
   in his Tafelmusik, BFD 1212, for various ensembles of coldcuts.
   Works included the Openface Sonata for pastrami and headcheese, a
   set of trio sonatas with basso continuo and potato salad on the side,
   and the merry Sauerkraut Dances.  These too were a great success with
   his public, which ate them up.

   In his Golden Years, Graun dropped music entirely to work on
   developing new foods for senior citizens.  His crowning achievment
   was the cereal Graunola, the popularity of which keeps his name alive
   today.  If you ever visit Baden-Baden, you will find a statue of
   Graun in the Rathausplatz, with a band of rodents (after whom the
   square is named) dancing happily about, nipping at his toesies.
                                 --- J. Gallant & L.W. Milam

Jon Gallant  [[log in to unmask]]