Peter (von) Winter (1754–1825)
Peter Winter was born in Mannheim in August 1754. At the age of ten he was already playing violin in the Mannheim court orchestra, and from 1773 he is also documented there as a double bass player. For his training as a composer he seems to have relied on self-study for a long time.
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Only after 1775 did G. J. Vogler take him on as a pupil; later, however, Winter refused to be regarded as Vogler's student. In 1778 he followed the court music to Munich, where he became vice-Kapellmeister (and thus head of the court music) in 1787. In 1796 his opera Das unterbrochene Opferfest (The Interrupted Sacrifice) brought him his breakthrough in Vienna and lasting general recognition. In 1798 he wrote Das Labyrinth, a sequel to Mozart's Magic Flute, to a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder; in the same year he was appointed Hofkapellmeister in Munich.
In 1811 Winter founded a Musikalische Akademie in Munich. That same year he met Carl Maria von Weber, whom he treated in part kindly, in part roughly – Weber called him "envious" in a letter. In 1814, on his 50th service anniversary, Winter was awarded the Civil Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown, which carried personal nobility. He died in Munich on 17 October 1825.
Sextet in F major for 2 horns, 2 violins, viola & bass
These two sextets, published here for the first time, come from a manuscript copy in the collection of Franz Zwierzina in the library of Oettingen-Wallerstein. Zwierzina must have held these works in high regard: when they were acquired, they were described as "2 Sextours by Kapellmeister Winter, of excellent composition". The works were written around 1795.
On 28 March 1803 the Böck brothers performed a double concerto by Winter in Leipzig. Since the structure of the two sextets resembles that of a solo concerto, it is quite conceivable that this double concerto was in fact one of the sextets.
Audio sample: 3rd movement, Rondo