Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Nicolai [Nikolai], David Traugott

(b Görlitz, 24 Aug 1733; d Görlitz, 20 Dec 1799). German organist and composer. His father David Nicolai (b Görlitz, 1702) was a pupil of Bach in Leipzig and organist at the Hauptkirche in Görlitz from 1730. Nicolai studied music under his father, went to the Görlitz Gymnasium and from 1753 to 1755 read law, physics and mathematics at the University of Leipzig. From 1758 he assisted his father and in 1764 succeeded him as organist of the Hauptkirche; in 1775 he became electoral court organist. In his time he was considered ‘one of the greatest living organ players’ (GerberL), and was respected as an improviser as well as an expert in organ building. He constructed several models of a keyboard musical glasses that attracted attention when he demonstrated it in 1784. From 1796 he was assisted as organist by his eldest son, Carl Samuel Traugott Nicolai, who succeeded him. Among Nicolai’s few compositions are a Fantasie und Fuge for organ (Dresden and Leipzig, 1789), other organ fugues and piano sonatas, mostly published in collections, and cantatas.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG1 (R. Eller)

GerberL

SchillingE

M. Gondolatsch: Görlitzer Musikleben in vergangenen Zeiten (Görlitz, 1914)

GUNTER HEMPEL

Nicolai, (Christoph) Friedrich

(b Berlin, 18 March 1733; d Berlin, 8 Jan 1811). German editor, author and bookseller. In the 1750s he was one of the leaders of the movement opposing the dominance of French literary taste in Germany. He was an advocate of Klopstock's and Wieland's works and was an important figure in the group that included Lessing and Moses Mendelssohn. Though prominent in the German Enlightenment during the 1750s and 1760s, particularly through his Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, he was sharply critical of the work of Goethe, Herder, Hamann and other representatives of the growing Romantic movement in Germany in the following decades. His displeasure with the early Romantic interest in folksong (in which he saw amateurish and anti-intellectual tendencies) is reflected in the mock-archaic orthography of the title of his satirical collection Eyn feyner kleyner Almanach (1777–8). The two volumes of this work contain 61 unaccompanied songs (27 anonymous or folktunes, 22 by J.F. Reichardt and 12 composed or arranged by Nicolai); 50 of the songs were later included in Kretzschmer and Zuccamaglio's Original-Weisen (1840) and thereby became a favourite source of ‘folk’ material for Brahms in his choral folksongs and other works (e.g. the Piano Sonata op.1).

Despite his unsympathetic view of Romanticism, Nicolai's periodicals were enormously influential even after 1800. They included reviews of music and reflected his friendship with such musicians and theorists as Reichardt, F.W. Marpurg and J.F. Agricola. With the first two he sponsored amateur concerts in the 1770s, an activity that identifies him as an advocate of progressive musical styles.

WRITINGS

Briefe über den itzigen Zustand der schönen Wissenschaften in Deutschland (Berlin, 1755); ed. G. Ellinger (Berlin, 1894)

[Neue] Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften und freyen Künste (Leipzig, 1757–1806)

Briefe, die neueste Litteratur betreffend (Berlin and Stettin, 1759–70)

[Neue] Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek (Berlin, Stettin and Kiel, 1765–1806)

Eyn feyner kleyner Almanach vol schönerr echterr liblicherr Volckslieder, lustigerr Reyen unndt kleglicherr Mordgeschichte (Berlin and Stettin, 1777–8/R); ed. G. Ellinger (Berlin, 1888)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

J.G. Fichte: Friedrich Nicolai's Leben und sonderbare Meinungen: ein Beitrag zur Litterar-Geschichte des vergangenen und zur Pädagogik des angehenden Jahrhunderts (Tübingen, 1801)

M.S. Lowe, ed.: Bildnisse jetztlebender Berliner gelehrten, mit ihren selbstbiographieen (Berlin and Leipzig, 1806–7)

G. Parthey: Die Mitarbeiter an Friedrich Nicolai's Allgemeine deutscher Bibliothek (Berlin, 1842/R)

W. Morik: Johannes Brahms und sein Verhältnis zum deutschen Volkslied (Tutzing, 1965)

G. Sichelschmidt: Friedrich Nicolai: Geschichte seines Lebens (Herford, 1971)

H. Moller: Aufklarung in Preussen: der Verleger, Publizist und Geschichtsschreiber Friedrich Nicolai (Berlin, 1974)

B. Fabian, ed.: Friedrich Nicolai, 1733–1811: Essays zum 250. Geburtstag (Berlin, 1983)

D. Martin: ‘Vom “unsterblichen Leipziger” zum “vortrefflichen Berlinischen Bach”: ein unbekanntes Dokument – J.S. Bach und C.Ph.E. Bach als Exempla in einer Kritik F. Nicolais an J.J. Bodmer’, BJb 1991, 193–8

HOWARD SERWER

Nicolai, Johannes.

See Claux, Johannes.

Nicolai [Nicolaÿ], Johann Michael

(b probably at Ulrichshalben, nr Weimar, 1629; d Stuttgart, 26 Jan 1685). German composer. Although nothing is known of his musical studies they must have reflected the high level of the musical tradition of Thuringia. Before 1655 he was a member of the court orchestra of the Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg, whose musicians were often invited to play for the Margrave of Brandenburg; in 1675 he dedicated his first set of Instrumentalische Sachen to Margrave Christian Ernst in remembrance and gratitude. From 11 October 1655 until his death he was an instrumentalist in the Stuttgart court orchestra, and he also taught the choirboys. Among other instruments he played the violone. According to contemporary accounts, members of the court orchestra met regularly in his house for an ‘exercitium musicum’. He was friendly with the composer P.F. Böddecker, organist of the collegiate church, though on less good terms with the deputy Kapellmeister, the composer J.A. Kress.

Nicolai’s Geistliche Harmonien consists of three-part settings of ten German and two Latin psalm texts; the dedication shows that in spite of their uncommitted nature they were intended for the Protestant liturgy. The manuscript cantatas of the Evangelische Harmonien were destined for narrower liturgical use, in accordance with the church’s calendar, for the two months from the first Sunday in Advent to the Purification. In several of his numerous instrumental works the lower instruments, such as the bass viol and the bassoon, are contrasted with the violins or viols independently of the basso continuo. In the sonatas two lively central movements are enclosed and connected by short adagio sections, and the movements of a single work are often based on the same thematic material in varied rhythms.

WORKS

sacred vocal

Erster Theil [12] Geistliche Harmonien, 3vv, 2 vn, bc (Frankfurt, 1669)

Evangelische Harmonien Erster Theil (24 cants.), 4vv, 2 vn, 2 viols, bc, D-Sl

Allein zu dir, 10vv, bc; Herr wenn ich nur dich habe, 3vv, 2 vn, bc: Bsb

Der Tod seiner Heiligen, 3vv, insts, S-Uu

instrumental

Erster Theil instrumentalischer Sachen (12 sonatas), 2 vn, b viol/bn (Augsburg, 1675)

Anderer Theil instrumentalischer Sachen (24 capriccios), 4 viols, bc (Augsburg, 1675)

Dritter Theil instrumentalischer Sachen, vn, 2 viols, vle, bc (Stuttgart, 1682), lost

2 sonatas, vn, b viol/trbn, bc, S-Uu

XII Aria a 4, 2 vn, bn, bc, Uu

2 sonatas, vn, 2 viols, bc; 1 sonata, vn, b viol, bc; 1 sonata, 2 vn, bc: F-Pn

4 sonatas and suites, incl. 1 anon. probably by Nicolai, 2, 3 viols, bc, GB-DRc (2 attrib. J. Jenkins in Lbl)

Details of other works, now lost, in Seiffert and Bopp

BIBLIOGRAPHY

EitnerQ

MGG1 (E. Stiefel)

M. Seiffert: ‘Die Chorbibliothek der St. Michaelisschule in Lüneburg zu Seb. Bachs Zeit’, SIMG, ix (1907–8), 593–620, esp. 611

A. Bopp: ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der Stuttgarter Stiftsmusik’, Württembergisches Jb für Statistik und Landeskunde 1910 (1911), 211–50, esp. 239, 242

G. Bossert: ‘Die Hofkapelle unter Eberhard III (1628–1657)’, Württembergische Vierteljahrshefte für Landesgeschichte, new ser., xxi (1912), 69–137, esp. 124

E.H. Meyer: Die mehrstimmige Spielmusik des 17. Jahrhunderts in Nord- und Mitteleuropa (Kassel, 1934/R), 228–9

P. Evans: ‘Seventeenth-Century Chamber Music Manuscripts at Durham’, ML, xxxvi (1955), 205–23

EBERHARD STIEFEL