Pantaleon Hebenstreit
| Pantaleon Hebenstreit | |
|---|---|
| Born | 27 November 1668 or Eisleben sources differ (HRE) |
| Died | 15 May 1750 Dresden, Saxony (HRE) |
| Occupation |
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Pantaleon Hebenstreit (27 November 1668 – 15 November 1750) was a German dance teacher, musician and composer.
Today his notability rests primarily on the pantalon, a keyboard instrument which he invented and which subsequently came to be seen by some as a precursor of the modern Pianoforte.
Hebenstreit was born in Eisleben, a short distance west of Leipzig, in 1668. His father, described in one source as a "Thürmer" (look-out man), died in 1678. On 29 January 1691 Hebenstreit entered the University of Wittenberg. By 1697 he was employed in Leipzig as a violinist, keyboard musician and dancing master (i.e. teacher). It must have been at this time that, during one of his regular visits to Jean-Baptiste Volumier in Berlin, he is reported by Johann Kuhnau to have spent a lot of time practising his keyboard skills on an enlarged type of hammered dulcimer which he had constructed himself. In 1697 he was obliged to leave Leipzig in order to escape his creditors, and took a position as a private tutor in Merseburg, which gave him the opportunity to develop his instrument: shortly afterwards he was invited to demonstrate it to the court in Dresden. Hebenstreit was able to return to Leipzig, his debts apparently paid off.
Between 1698 and 1703 he was contracted by The Duke to work on the drama and music at the court of Weissenfels. In 1705 he traveled with his giant dulcimer to France. According to Johann Mattheson writing in his Critica musica, quoting a French source, it was during this visit that the French king Louis XIV was so impressed both with the instrument and with Hebenstreit's mastery of it that he rechristened it "Le Pantalon": the name stuck.
On returning from France, Hebenstreit set about finding a suitable in his home region. In 1707 he took a post as a musical director and dancing master in Eisenach at the court of Saxe-Eisenach. His virtuosity as a violinist was commended. In 1708 or 1709 Georg Philipp Telemann took a position at the same court, being appointed Kapellmeister in August 1709. Having been passed over for the top job, Pantaleon left the Eisenach Court soon afterwards, probably still in 1709. Surviving records leave little doubt about Telemann's own admiration for Pantaleon's exceptional dexterity as a keyboard and violin performer ("eine ungemeine Geschicklichkeit") which, writing in 1718, Telemann implied exceeded his own talent. Telemann himself would leave the Eisenach Court in 1712.
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