Composer · 1806 - 1856

Johann Kaspar Mertz

6 recordings · 0 sheet music editions

Biography

Johann Kaspar Mertz, baptised Casparus Josephus Mertz, was born in Pressburg, now Bratislava in Slovakia, then the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary within the Austrian Empire. He was active in Vienna from around 1840 until 1856, in a city associated with prominent guitar musicians including Anton Diabelli, Mauro Giuliani, Wenceslaus Matiegka and Simon Molitor. A virtuoso, he established a strong reputation as a performer, touring Moravia, Poland and Russia and appearing in Berlin and Dresden.

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In 1846, Mertz nearly died from an overdose of strychnine prescribed for neuralgia. During the following year, his wife, the concert pianist Josephine Plantin, whom he had married in 1842, nursed him back to health. It has been suggested that hearing her play the Romantic piano repertoire during his recovery may have influenced the sound and distinctive right-hand technique of his Bardenklänge, Op. 13 (1847); this remains a possible interpretation rather than an established explanation.

Unlike much of the guitar music of his contemporaries, Mertz’s writing followed the piano models of Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Schumann. This distinguished it from the Classical models of Mozart and Haydn followed by Sor and Aguado, and from Giuliani’s affinity with Rossini’s bel canto style. The generational difference is significant: Mertz was born in 1806, about twenty-five years after Sor (1778), Aguado (1784) and Giuliani (1781).

The Bardenklänge, a series of character pieces in the spirit of Schumann, are widely regarded as one of Mertz’s most important contributions to the guitar repertoire.