Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Nederlands Kamerkoor.

Dutch ensemble, founded by Felix De Nobel.

Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest.

Orchestra formed in 1985, based in Amsterdam. See Amsterdam, §3.

Nederveen, Cornelis (Johannes)

(b Schiebroek, Netherlands, 31 July 1932). Dutch physicist and acoustician. At Delft University he obtained a degree in technical physics (1956) and took the PhD (1969). The major part of his professional career has been spent at TNO (Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research). He is an accomplished jazz clarinettist. His most important contribution has been to the fundamental acoustics of woodwind instruments. In aiming to find more rational design procedures, he has made a comprehensive theoretical analysis of the resonance of tubes, incorporating the effects of side holes, bends, mouthpieces and reeds. This allows detailed calculations to be made of the hole positions in a woodwind instrument and predictions to be made about aspects of tuning and tone quality. His findings are presented in Acoustical Aspects of Woodwind Instruments, which has become a standard text for designers of woodwind instruments.

WRITINGS

‘New Key Mechanism for Clarinet’, Acustica, xiv (1964), 55–8

‘Calculations on Location and Dimensions of Holes in a Clarinet’, Acustica, xiv (1964), 227–34

‘Hole Calculations for an Oboe’, Acustica, xviii (1967), 47–57

Acoustical Aspects of Woodwind Instruments (Amsterdam, 1969, 2/1998)

‘Blown, Passive and Calculated Resonance Frequencies of the Flute’, Acustica, xxviii (1973), 12–23

MURRAY CAMPBELL, CLIVE GREATED

Needler, Henry

(b ?1685; d London, 8 Aug 1760). English amateur violinist and music copyist. He was first a pupil of his father and later, it is said, of Purcell (presumably Daniel) and the younger John Banister. He is reputed to have been the first person in England to perform Corelli's concertos and was a prominent figure in London musical life, active both in aristocratic circles and in concerts such as those of Thomas Britton in Clerkenwell. He was a member (and later a director and leader of the orchestra) of the Academy of Ancient Music from 1728 until his death. His antiquarian interests are evident in his work as a copyist, most notably in a series of 27 volumes (GB-Lbl), the first transcribed from various sources at Oxford. 15 volumes consist almost entirely of 16th-century English and Italian vocal music, the others mainly of works by 18th-century composers, including Handel, who is said to have been a personal friend. A civil servant by profession, Needler entered the Excise Office as a young man, becoming an accountant general in 1724.

H. DIACK JOHNSTONE

Neefe, Christian Gottlob

(b Chemnitz, 5 Feb 1748; d Dessau, 26 Jan 1798). German composer. He received his initial musical education from Wilhelmi, city organist of Chemnitz, and C.G. Tag, Kantor of Hohenstein. He was composing at the age of 12, and partly educated himself from the textbooks of Marpurg and C.P.E. Bach. From 1769 to 1771 he studied law at Leipzig University, and then continued his musical training under J.A. Hiller, whom he replaced as music director of Seyler's theatre troupe in 1776. He joined the Grossmann-Hellmut troupe in 1779 and moved to Bonn, where, perhaps as early as 1780, he began teaching the young Beethoven the piano, organ, thoroughbass and composition, acquainting him also with Bach's Das wohltemperirte Clavier and C.P.E. Bach's Gellert-Lieder. From 1782 he served as court organist (Beethoven occasionally deputized for him in this post); he also substituted for Lucchesi as court Kapellmeister during the latter's Italian journey of 1783–4. With the death of the Elector Max Friedrich in 1784 Neefe's financial situation deteriorated considerably. The Grossmann theatre was closed and his salary as organist reduced, and he was forced to depend on an income from private teaching. Shortly before the French invasion in 1794 the court disbanded, leaving Neefe unemployed; the occupying French forces allowed him only a minor official post. He became music director of the Dessau theatre at the end of 1796, but fell seriously ill and died soon afterwards.

Neefe was important both as a composer of lieder and Singspielen and as a teacher. While a student he became acquainted with Hiller's efforts at a comprehensive music pedagogy, which later influenced his teaching at Bonn. Hiller also stimulated Neefe's interest in music theatre, and as early as 1771 commissioned him to compose ten songs for Der Dorfbalbier. In these, as in his later work, Neefe showed a particular gift for writing in smaller forms. His theatrical works (the most popular being Adelheit von Veltheim, based on Turkish exoticisms similar to those in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail of two years later) reveal attractive melodic writing and character realization. For dramatic climaxes he occasionally made use of melodrama, as previously developed by Benda, and he composed a full monodrama Sophonisbe on Benda's models. To help disseminate Mozart's operas he prepared vocal scores of five of these works for the publisher Simrock.

Neefe's lieder show an unmistakable inclination towards dramatic effects, especially in the Serenaten of 1777, whose texts are probably his own. These works show great variety of form, and turn away from the folk style of the Berlin school towards cantata-like ballades. The Klopstock odes similarly reflect Neefe's efforts to create novel forms, and his prefaces to the three editions of them (1776–c1785) touch on the then progressive issues of the relation of words to music and the singer's understanding of the text. The elaborately varied strophic songs of Neefe's later years foreshadow the lieder of the Romantic period, above all those of Schubert.

WORKS

printed works published in Leipzig unless otherwise stated

stage

Der Dorfbalbier (comische Operette, 1, C.F. Weisse, after M.-J. Sedaine: Blaise le savetier), Leipzig, Rannstädter Thore, 18 April 1771; rev. version (2), Leipzig, Rannstädter Thore, 1 Aug 1771, vs B-Bc, vs (1771) [10 nos. by Neefe, 13 by J.A. Hiller]

Die Apotheke (comische Oper, 2, J.J. Engel), Berlin, Behrenstrasse, 13 Dec 1771, Bc, D-Bsb, Dlb, SWl, vs (1772)

Amors Guckkasten (Operette, 1, J.B. Michaelis), Leipzig, 10 May 1772, B-Bc, D-Mbs, vs (1772), ed. G. von Westermann (Munich, 1922)

Die Einsprüche (comische Oper, 1, Michaelis), Leipzig, Rannstädter Thore, late 1772; rev. as Die Einsprüche (1), Berlin, Behrenstrasse, 16 Oct 1773, B-Bc, D-Bsb, Mbs, vs (1773)

Zemire und Azor (komische Oper, 4, M.A. von Thümmel, after J.F. Marmontel), Leipzig (Koberwein company), 5 March 1776; music re-used by G.F.W. Grossmann for Was vermag ein Mädchen nicht!, Frankfurt, 18 May 1787

Heinrich und Lyda (Drama, 1, B.C. d'Arien), Berlin, Döbbelins, 26 March 1776, A-Wn, B-Bc, D-Bsb, vs (Naumburg and Zeitz, 1777)

Sophonisbe (musikalisches Drama mit historischen Prolog und Chören, 1, A.G. Meissner), Leipzig, 12 Oct 1776, A-Wgm, vs (1782)

Die Zigeuner (Lustspiel mit Gesang, 5, H.F. Möller, after M. de Cervantes: Preciosa), Frankfurt, Nov 1777, Bsb

Adelheit von Veltheim (Schauspiel mit Gesang, 4, Grossmann), Frankfurt, Junghof, 23 Sept 1780, Wgm, D-Dlb

Der neue Gutsherr (3, J.G. Dyck [dialogue] and J.F. Jünger [arias], after P.C. de Chamblain de Marivaux: Le paysan parvenu), unperf., vs, Acts 1 and 2 (1783–4)

other works

Other vocal: Freimaurerlieder (1774); Lieder mit Klaviermelodien (Glogau, 1776); [13] Oden von Klopstock mit Melodien (Flensburg and Leipzig, 1776/R, enlarged 3/c1785/R), 1 chorus (Das grosse Hallelujah) ed. in Denkmäler rheinischer Musik, xii (Düsseldorf, 1965); Serenaten beym Klavier zu singen (?Neefe) (1777/R); Lieder für seine Freunde und Freundinnen nebst einer Ballade (1784); Bilder und Träume (Herder) (1798/R); 21 lieder in Vademecum für Liebhaber des Gesangs und Klaviers (1780); motet, 4vv, Bsb; Lateinisches Vaterunser, lost

Kbd: 12 Klaviersonaten (1773), ed. in Denkmäler rheinischer Musik, x–xi (Düsseldorf, 1961); 6 neue Klaviersonaten (1774) [incl. 2 sets of variations in suppl.]; Pf Sonata, 6 polonaises, 6 minuets in Vademecum (1780); 2 sets of variations (Bonn, 1793); 6 pièces d'une exécution facile tirées de … Die Zauberflöte, pf/hpd 4 hands (Bonn, 1793); Fantasia, hpd (Bonn, 1797); miscellaneous smaller works, incl. 2 early sonatinas, in J.A. Hiller: Wöchentliche Nachrichten (1768, 1770)

Other inst: Conc., hpd (Mannheim, 1782); Partita, 1774, SWl, ed. in Denkmäler rheinischer Musik, i (Düsseldorf, 1951); 6 sonatas, pf, vn acc. (Glogau, 1776); Vn Sonata in Vademecum (1780); 6 vn sonatas, 2 partitas listed in Breitkopf catalogues, 1772–81

Vocal scores of W.A. Mozart: La clemenza di Tito, Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Don Giovanni; also works by Paisiello, Salieri and others, see Leux, 116

WRITINGS

Beiträge zur Geschichte meines Lebens (MS, 1775–6); ed. in L. Schiedermair: ‘Eine unbekannte Leipziger Erlebnisschrift Neefes’, JbMP 1933, 38–53

‘Über die musikalische Wiederholung’, Deutsches Museum, ii (1776), 745–51

Lebenslauf von ihm selbst geschrieben (MS, D-Bsb, KIu, 1782) [ed. in Leux, 188; ed. W. Engelhardt, Beiträge zur Rheinischen Musikgeschichte, xxi (1957)]; rev. F. Rochlitz, AMZ, i (1798–9) [ed. A. Einstein: Lebensläufe deutsche Musiker (Leipzig, 1915), ii]; Eng. trans. in P. Nettl: Forgotten Musicians (New York, 1951/R)

Karoline Grossmann: eine biographische Skizze (Göttingen, 1784)

Dilettanterien (n.p., 1785)

Other essays in contemporary journals

BIBLIOGRAPHY

O. Müller: ‘Neefe und seine Beziehungen zu Beethoven’, Chemnitzer Mitteilungen, vii (1891), 95

M. Unger: ‘Einige Beiträge zu Neefes Notlage in den Jahren 1784/85’, Die Musik, xii/3 (1912–13), 149–53

O.E. Deutsch: ‘Zur Familiengeschichte der Neefe’, ZMw, vii (1924–5), 605–8

I. Leux: Christian Gottlob Neefe, 1748–98 (Leipzig, 1925)

K.H. Oehl: ‘Die Don Giovanni-Übersetzung von Christian Gottlob Neefe’, MJb 1962–3, 75–81

A. Becker: Christian Gottlob Neefe und die Bonner Illuminaten (Bonn, 1969)

J.B. Neely: Christian Gottlob Neefe's Early Vocal Style as Reflected in ‘Oden von Klopstock’ (1776) and ‘Serenaten beym Klavier zu singen’ (1777) (DMA diss., Indiana U., 1977)

H. Steinhaus: ‘Der junge Beethoven und die Orgel’, BeJB 1978–81, 87–100

L.E. Peake: ‘The Antecedents of Beethoven's Liederkreis’, ML, lxiii (1982), 242–60

T. Bauman: North German Opera in the Age of Goethe (Cambridge, 1985)

LOTHAR HOFFMANN-ERBRECHT