Alongside Antonio Rosetti and Josef Reicha, several other gifted musicians, now sadly little known, were active at the Wallerstein court of Prince Kraft Ernst of Oettingen-Wallerstein around 1780/90. One of them was Paul Wineberger, who served at the court as a cellist.
Wineberger was born in Mergentheim on 7 October 1758. In Mannheim he studied music theory and composition with Joseph “Abbé” Vogler and Ignaz Holzbauer. He first learned the violin but later switched to the cello, and in the Mannheim orchestra he deputised as a substitute for Franz Danzi.
In 1780 he moved to Wallerstein. In 1783 he declined an offer from Duke Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Schwerin to join the court at Ludwigslust (Rosetti moved there in 1789). In 1785 he became Kapellmeister and “director of the princely hunting and table music”. In 1798 Wineberger left the Wallerstein court and settled in Hamburg, where he is documented as a cellist at the French Theatre and at the Theater am Gänsemarkt. He also worked as a teacher; his pupils included the pianist Johann Heinrich Clasing (1779–1829). Paul Wineberger died in Hamburg on 8 February 1821.
As a composer he produced the full range of music required at court in his day, including symphonies, sacred music, solo concertos and wind partitas (Parthien).
His wind partitas, especially those for three or four horns, are outdoor music in the truest sense. Wineberger makes rich use of hunting themes in them and thereby musically illustrated the court hunt around 1786. With up to four horns, these works are unusually large in scoring, even by the standards of their time.
Parthia in E-flat major (4°93) for oboe, 2 clarinets, 2 horns and bassoon
This Parthia, presented here for the first time, was written around 1785 in Wallerstein. The manuscript, shelfmark HR III 4 1/2 4°93, is now held in the Oettingen-Wallerstein Collection at Augsburg University Library. Further copies survive in the Donaueschingen Collection: a sextet version under shelfmark Mus.ms. 1675 and an octet version under Mus.ms. 1679/4.
These two Donaueschingen versions were transmitted without an attribution and were later wrongly ascribed to Antonio Rosetti. Sterling Murray adopted this error and listed the work in the Rosetti thematic catalogue (RWV) as B16, without mentioning the original Wallerstein source bearing Wineberger’s name. Another copy (shelfmark VIII 8538/I) is held by the library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. It is based on the Donaueschingen copy, likewise names only Rosetti, and replaces the two clarinets with two cors anglais.
