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In the course of recounting his 1772 visit to Berlin,
Charles Burney dedicated no fewer than ten pages to the alleged merits and shortcomings of Carl Heinrich Graun (1703/4–1759) and Johann Gottlieb Graun (1702/3–1771), respectively the former Kapellmeister and the former Konzertmeister to the court of Frederick the Great. It is curious, therefore, that Dr Burney failed to touch upon what was even then a fundamental problem regarding the music of the Graun brothers — that of authorship. For during the Grauns’ own lifetime, there was already considerable uncertainty as to which of the brothers had composed particular works. Johann Georg Pisendel, in an oft-quoted letter to Telemann, observed that “with the Messrs. Graun, general confusion reigns.”
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