Musical Party (Voorhout)

Musical Party (de: Musizierende Gesellschaft) is a painting by Johannes Voorhout created in 1674.

The painting became known to musicologists around 1975. It is now located in Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte.

Reincken

Reincken in another painting.

The identity of Johann Adam Reincken is confirmed due to another painting by Gottfried Kneller. He is playing the harpsichord in this painting.

Reincken was known as a wealthy but also pretentious individual, and his wealth is indicated in the painting. Christoph Wolff surmised that Reincken had commissioned the painting itself. He is placed in the center, almost all of the other figures in the painting are looking back at him, and his clothing is more ornate and expensive than those worn by everyone else in the painting.

Reincken's status as a constant lover of women has been represented by allusions to physical love in the painting as well. Wolff suggests that the middle couple may have originally been Reincken and the lutenist (with implications of physical love with Reincken himself), but that the painting was reworked to have the characters they have now. Indeed, in offering grapes to Reincken at the harpsichord, the black page–another symbol of wealth–is inviting him to taste of sensual pleasure.

Although "Musical Party" cannot provide us with a definitive portrait of Buxtehude, Wolff's detailed analysis of it offers important insights into the lifestyle of Reincken and his circle in Hamburg, of which Buxtehude formed a part.

Heinrich Schwab noted that the canon on the piece of paper is in Reincken's hand.

Actually, the unknown birth-date of Reincken has played a part in the identification of Buxtehude in this painting (see below).

Buxtehude

Unlike Reincken, Buxtehude's likeness is not known from any other paintings from his lifetime. However, based on his inclusion in the musical canon written on the piece of paper, musicologists long assumed that he was present in the painting.

The changing opinions over the birth-date of Reincken have played a part in the identification of Buxtehude, mainly because of his age in relation to Reincken. Originally, with Reincken having been thought to have been born in 1722, making Buxtehude around 15 years younger, Christoph Wolff identified the musician holding the piece of paper as Buxtehude. Not only does this individual look younger than Reincken in the painting, but also this placement of Reincken and Buxtehude in the middle of the painting would make sense considering that they are named on the piece of paper.

However, Reincken's birth-date was placed at 1643 by Ulf Grapenthin, this made Buxtehude a bit older than Reincken. With this in mind, the identification of Buxtehude as the slightly younger gentleman had to be re-examined.

Actually, Buxtehude is now theorized to be the viola da gamba player. This person and Reincken are painted at the same size, and their heads are at the same horizontal level, and they are also looking at each other (this is appropriate considering the brotherly love between these two). The placement of him and Reincken left-to-right is the same as the order of their names on the piece of paper. The viola da gamba player is playing the notes "d" and (german) "b" (=b-flat) on the fretboard. With this identification in mind, Heinrich Schwab split the painting into three pairs of groups: Buxtehude(?) and Reincken, the listener (man with the paper, in fact, this person seems to be looking in the direction of the lutenist) and lutenist, and the couple in the back.

In addition to his highly-virtuosic viola da gamba music^{[Citation needed]}, The possibility of Buxtehude playing the viola da gamba in this painting changes our impression of the composer (based on his organ music).

To find Buxtehude portrayed in such a setting must dispel any one-sided image we might have had of him as merely a pious church organist. His elegant clothing places him comfortably in this decidedly secular atmosphere, and his presence here reveals a pleasure-loving facet of his personality that was almost unknown before this painting came to light in 1975.

This painting also recontextualized the relationship between Dietrich Buxtehude and Reincken.

The relationship between Buxtehude and Reincken signified by the canon in this painting is one of brotherly love and of intellectual and professional kinship. In the inscription they are named as brothers, and the words of the canon underscore this connection.

Other people

• It was theorized by Christoph Wolff that the person with the piece of paper was Johann Theile (and that he was the composer of the canon on the piece of paper). However, Kerala Snyder said that this person had a higher social status than Reincken and Buxtehude, so it would be odd for him to appear without being named. On the other hand, the younger tenor Johann Philipp Förtsch was suggested by Snyder. He would not have needed to be named due to his younger age and therefore lack of seniority.
• Wolff had noted that the woman playing the lute appears in another painting, "The Artist and his Family", also from 1674, in which she offers a vase of flowers to a baby sitting on its mother's lap; she cannot therefore have been a historical musician.
• It seems that the black page in the center of the painting has not been identified, and she has not attracted much attention, except for how her presence is an indication of Reincken's wealth and sensual nature (see #Reincken above).

References

Snyder, Kerala J.. Dietrich Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck. Revised Edition. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2007. 109-112.