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(b Stuttgart, Dec 9, 1796; d Stuttgart, Aug 1, 1857). German composer, pianist, singer and teacher . The youngest of seven children born to the composer Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg, she studied the piano with Schlick and theory with Wilhelm Sutor. Gifted with a fine alto voice, she was soon singing and performing on the piano (e.g. at the Stuttgart Museumskonzerte). As an adult Zumsteeg mixed with leading musicians and poets. The literary ties reflected her interest in the lied, which formed the basis of her creative reputation. She also wrote several piano works, such as the early Trois polonaises, published in 1821 and favourably reviewed in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, and sacred choral music. She occupied a central position in the musical life of Stuttgart as a teacher of voice and piano and as a leading member of the Verein für Klassische Kirchenmusik.

Zumsteeg’s lieder were still known in the late 19th century (Michaelis) but have not remained in the repertory. She composed about 60 songs. The six lieder of her op.6 received a brief but laudatory notice in the ...

(b Vienna, Jan 18, 1795; d Vienna, June 16, 1852). Austrian cellist and composer. He made a promising start on the violin, but an injury from a dog bite to his left arm forced him to switch to the cello. After one year’s study with Schindlöcker he entered the service of a Hungarian nobleman as a quartet cellist. Two years later he began a five-year solo tour throughout the Habsburg Empire. Upon returning to Vienna in 1818 he became solo cellist at the Hofoper, subsequently joining the Hofkappelle. The most important Viennese cellist of the post-Beethoven era, Merk performed with Mayseder and Bocklet in the second Viennese performance of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in 1830. In 1834 he and Mayseder were appointed Kammervirtuosen. He was on friendly terms with Schubert, the dedicatee of his op.11 Exercices, and with Chopin, who wrote the Polonaise Brillante op.3 for him. From 1822 to 1848...

(b Halberstadt, Aug 31, 1739; d Halle, Jan 6, 1809). German aesthetician and philosopher. From 1756 to 1759 he studied theology at Halle before returning to Halberstadt as a private tutor. He was then appointed assistant pastor at the Hospitalkirche and vice-principal at the Martineum (Gymnasium). In 1763 he moved to Berlin, where he became part of the group that included Moses Mendelssohn, C.F. Nicolai, J.A. Sulzer and J.P. Kirnberger. In 1768 he was appointed pastor at the Berlin workhouse and during this period wrote Die neue Apologie des Socrates (1772), an attack on orthodox theology couched in terms of rationalistic Wolffian philosophy. In 1774 he became pastor at Charlottenburg and continued his theological work. His liberal views attracted the attention of Frederick the Great and led to his appointment as professor of philosophy at Halle in 1778. There he founded two philosophical journals that became the vehicles for his opposition to Kant. He wrote many handbooks and textbooks on philosophy and its history. From the 1780s he turned his attention to linguistic studies and aesthetics, several times taking up the topic of music....

(from Lat. aura:‘breath’).

An instrument consisting of several heteroglot Jew’s harps, invented by J.H. Scheibler and described in his short treatise of 1816. It was largely a response to the contemporary – and short-lived – vogue of the jew’s harp on the European concert stage. Scheibler himself was one of its more accomplished practitioners, and published some of his own compositions and arrangments for the instrument in his treatise.

Scheibler’s aura consisted of two identical star-shaped frames made from sheet metal or horn, and joined in the centre by a handle with a screw. Mounted into the frames were two sets of five jew’s harps, each held in place by the screw of the handle so that their steel reeds pointed inward. The handle of each frame was grasped between the thumb and index finger and the reed was struck with a downward motion of the fourth finger. The harps in the right-hand frame were tuned ...

(Ger.: ‘song-play’)

A kind of dramatic entertainment developed in Germany in the early 19th century in which songs are introduced into a play. It differs from the older Singspiel principally in its inclusion of songs that as lyric poems already enjoyed some currency; the melodies (normally with simple instrumentation) were new, though some of the songs from such works later came to be regarded as folksongs. Ensembles and choruses were not at first admitted, and the music had an almost entirely lyrical rather than a dramatic character. Despite statements to the contrary, the Liederspiel differs generically from the French vaudeville and the British ballad opera, in both of which the melodies were normally familiar airs specially provided with new words, whereas normally in the Liederspiel the words were pre-existing and the melodies new.

The first Liederspiel was Lieb' und Treue, by J.F. Reichardt, staged at the Berlin Royal Opera House on 31 March 1800...

(b Berlin, Oct 3, 1828; d Berlin, Feb 23, 1897). German composer and conductor. He was the son of Adolph Bargiel, a Berlin music teacher, and his wife Mariane (née Tromlitz) Wieck, who had divorced Friedrich Wieck in 1824 and was the mother of Clara Wieck (Schumann). He learnt the piano, violin and harmony from his father, and was a chorister and solo alto of what was later the cathedral choir. From 1846 to 1850 he studied, on the advice of his brother-in-law Schumann, at the Leipzig Conservatory, where his teachers included Moscheles and Plaidy (piano), David and Joachim (violin), Hauptmann, Richter, Rietz and Gade (theory and composition). Returning to Berlin he developed a reputation as a teacher and composer, and in 1859 became teacher of theory at the Cologne Conservatory. He was Kapellmeister and director of the institute of the Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Toonkunst at Rotterdam from ...

(b Berlin, Nov 3, 1781; d Berlin, Sept 6, 1831). German composer . A lawyer by profession, he studied music in his youth with J.A. Gürrlich and at the Singakademie with K.F.C. Fasch. He was a founder-member of Zelter's Liedertafel (1808), and with Hinrich Lichtenstein was one of Weber's circle of Berlin friends. His music was on the whole modest in aim, consisting chiefly of songs, choruses and some chamber music for strings; but he also wrote a three-act opera Die Alpenhirten to a libretto by H.W. Loess, a work in Singspiel manner which Max Maria von Weber described as ‘Romantic through and through’. It had some success at its Berlin première on 19 February 1811; however, when Weber gave it in Prague in 1815 (with Caroline Brandt as Betty), it was considered too long and after the first performance (7 May) was cut by five numbers, still leaving the public cold. Weber also praised Wollank's Trio for piano, violin and viola, and dedicated six male-voice songs to him. In ...

(b Salzungen, Saxe-Meiningen, Feb 18, 1771; d Meiningen, Aug 14, 1834). German violinist, keyboard player and composer, brother of Christian Friedrich Ruppe. In 1786, when his father died and Salzungen was devastated by fire, he left to study theology at Eisenach and supported himself by giving keyboard lessons. Half a year later he came under the patronage of Duke Georg I of Saxe-Meiningen, who provided for his education in music theory and violin playing, as well as in public finance (in Jena). After further studies in Weimar, Dessau and Wörlitz he was appointed both an administrator and a musician at the court in 1798; he gave piano concerts and played the violin in the orchestra. His compositions, which were not well known outside Meiningen, include Leiden und Tod Jesu and Der verlorene Sohn (oratorios), Der Sieg der Tugend (unfinished opera), Friedenscantate (1814), a keyboard concerto with choir and various chamber works, of which a trio for piano, clarinet and bassoon (Offenbach, ...

(b Montjoie [now Monschau], Nov 11, 1777; d Krefeld, Nov 20, 1837). German acoustician. He was a silk manufacturer in Krefeld, and had a lifelong interest in acoustics. He is best known for his proposal to the Stuttgart Congress of Physicists in 1834 that the pitch a′ have a standard frequency of 440 Hz (this being the mean of contemporary Viennese pianos); a′ 440 has consequently been called ‘the Stuttgart pitch’. Scheibler also developed a ‘tonometer’ consisting of 52 tuning-forks, each tuned to beat about four times a second with its higher and lower neighbours (beat frequencies were first treated systematically by Sauveur in 1701); this apparatus, now lost, is described in his Der physikalische und musikalische Tonmesser (Essen, 1834). A 56-fork tonometer spanning the octave a=220 to a′=440 did survive and was described by Ellis (Helmholtz/Ellis, 1885).

Using the tonometer, Scheibler was able to manufacture tuning-forks for all 13 pitches in the equal tempered octave ...

Short upright piano invented about 1825 and produced by Johann Joseph Promberger (b Kuffulk, Tyrol, Austria, 5 June 1779; d Vienna, Austria, 25 June 1834). In 1811 Promberger, formerly a cabinetmaker and apprentice of Mathias Müller, obtained citizenship of Vienna and married Anna Wissgill Schweighofer, the widow of the piano maker Michael Schweighofer. The Promberger couple continued the Schweighofer workshop as Schweighofer und Promberger. In 1824, Promberger invented a small keyed glockenspiel for military use and was also granted a privilege for a novel stringing method for pianos. Announced in 1825, the six-octave (F′–f ″″) Sirenion, about 125 cm tall, had a ‘moveable’ soundboard, that is, not glued to the frame, and three pedals operating the dampers, una corda, and moderator. In a contemporary issue of The Harmonicon it is described as being double-strung, like an example in the collection of the Filharmonia Pomorska in Bydgoszcz, but a later example (...

(b Strasbourg, March 18, 1781; d Paris, May 20, 1870). French oboist, teacher and composer. In 1798 he entered the class of François Sallantin at the Paris Conservatoire, and was awarded a premier prix the following year. He may also have studied composition with A. Reicha. Concurrent with his studies he served as second oboist at the Théâtre Montansier, and later he joined the orchestras of the Théâtre Italien (1800–02) and Opéra-Comique (1802–12). In 1809, after travelling to Italy and Austria as a member of Napoléon's musique particulière, he was appointed first oboe at the Opéra-Comique, and adjunct professor at the Conservatoire. He subsequently succeeded Sallantin as both principal oboist at the Opéra (1812–34), and as professeur titulaire at the Conservatoire (1816–53, thence to 1868 on the Comité des Études). Among his students were the leading oboists, oboe makers and future Conservatoire professors of the next generation: H. Brod, A. Vény, A.-M.-R. Barret, C.-L. Triébert, S.-X. Verroust, A.-J. Lavigne, A. Bruyant (who inherited Vogt's compositional output) and C. Colin. Vogt was a member of the Chapelle Royale of Louis XVIII from its establishment in ...

(b Sulza, Thuringia, March 7, 1783; d Leipzig, Aug 27, 1846). German critic, editor, theologian and composer. The son of a Reformed pastor, Gottfried was a chorister at Naumburg. In Leipzig he studied music and theology (1804–9) and served as a Reformed pastor (1810–16), establishing and directing a theological seminary (1814–27). He also composed many songs and in 1808 began writing for the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, of which he succeeded Gottfried Christoph Härtel as editor (1827–41). He taught at the Leipzig Conservatory (1838–43) and was briefly its director in 1842.

Fink was initially neutral in the controversy between Classicism and Romanticism, and was friendly with Weber, who gave his Sechs Lieder (1812) a warm review in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung and printed one song, Die Liebenden, in full. However, Fink later took up a stubborn stand against the younger Romantics. He published only half of Schumann's enthusiastic review (...

(b Würzburg, May 28, 1780; d Würzburg, Jan 5, 1862). German teacher, musical organizer, critic, theorist, conductor and composer. He studied music at the student institute of the Juliusspital in Würzburg, and studied law and philosophy at the university there. In 1801 he began his career as a violinist in the prince-bishop’s court orchestra. He also founded the Akademische Bande, a student choral and orchestral group, which in 1804 became the Akademisches Musikinstitut and was made part of the university, thus becoming the basis of the first state music school in Germany. His teaching and organizational work was of the highest importance and encompassed several disciplines and activities. He became reader in aesthetics in 1812, reader in pedagogical studies in 1819 and professor in 1821. In 1820 a singing school was established as part of the institute. He also conducted important historical concerts for King Ludwig I in ...

(b Dubeč, Sept 27, 1819; d Königgrätz [now Hradec Králové], Jan 19, 1896). Bohemian maker and inventor of brass instruments. Having gained experience as apprentice and journeyman in various Austro-Hungarian workshops, he established himself as brass maker in the garrison town of Königgrätz in 1842. Starting with four employees, by 1859 his workforce totalled 80. By 1867 he had opened a branch factory in Kiev, managed later by his eldest son with Russia later becoming an important export market. From 1876, now as ‘V.F. Červený & Sons’, he was joined by four of his sons and in 1880 the factory, by now employing over 100 workers, was honoured with a state visit by Emperor Franz Joseph. In 1895 no fewer than 6000 brass instruments were supplied to the Russian army. In 1907 the firm became a limited liability company and in 1928 the maker Karl Schamal took over as manager. The firm was nationalized in ...

(b Kunersdorf, nr Wriezen, July 23, 1773; d Berlin, Nov 24, 1838). German organist and composer. He studied the piano and violin at Wriezen, and taught himself the piano, organ and numerous other instruments while at school in Berlin (1786–9). From 1789 to 1812 he was a partner in the Steiner paint factory at Berlin, but continued his musical studies with J.A. Gürrlich and G.A. Schneider. In 1793 he joined the Sing-Akademie, which he conducted with K.F. Rungenhagen from 1803 in Zelter’s absences; from 1815 to 1833 he was joint deputy conductor. He was one of the first members in 1809 of Zelter’s Liedertafel, for which he wrote 25 partsongs, and on 20 August 1813 he was appointed organist of Berlin Cathedral and singing master at the Joachimsthal School. He became director of music at the cathedral in 1815.

Hellwig wrote two operas, one of which, ...

(b Algund, nr Merano, March 7, 1769; d Brixen [Bressanone], Feb 20, 1851). Austrian composer, brother of Ignace Antoine Ladurner. He studied with his uncle at the monastery of Benediktbeuern, became organist at Algund in 1784, and attended the Lyceum Gregorianum at Munich where he studied theology and philosophy until 1798. He also had piano lessons and received instruction in composition and counterpoint from the Hofclaviermeister Josef Graetz. He became a priest in 1799, and held various positions at the prince-bishop’s consistory at Brixen, including those of court chaplain from 1802 and councillor from 1816. Although he was not a professional musician, he directed choirs, gave piano lessons and participated in the activities of music societies at Innsbruck and Salzburg. His compositions, which were highly regarded by his contemporaries, include variations and fantasias for the piano, considerable church music and some pedagogical works; many of his works remain in manuscript....

(Joseph Christoph)

(b Crivitz, 16 Sept ?1770; d Parchim, Dec 26, 1825). German composer. He studied theology in Ludwigslust, and in 1797 became an assistant to the superintendent in Sternberg. He moved to Leipzig in 1801 to work for Breitkopf & Härtel on the new Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, returning to Mecklenburg on his father’s death. In 1809 he became a music teacher in Parchim.

The principal surviving source of his music is the Oden und Lieder für das Clavier (Ludwigslust, 1797), a set of 28 solo songs to texts of Schiller, Kosegarten and others; perhaps his most significant work is the unpublished collection of 17 settings of ballads by Schiller (1799), the manuscript of which is unfortunately lost. His writings include a two-volume Handbuch der Tonkunst, announced in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung but never published, and a Verzeichnis und Vergleichung der Choralmelodien zu dem Mecklenburgischen Kirchengesangbuche (Parchim, ...

[Koschovitz, Joseph]

(b after 1750; d after 1819). Hungarian composer and cellist. He served as a musician at the court of Menyhért Szulyovszky at Rákócz, Upper Hungary, until 1794, when his employer was arrested for participating in the Jacobin uprising in Hungary; this event inspired Kossovits’s Slow Hungarian Dance in C minor, published as the last of his 12 danses hongroises pour le clavecin ou pianoforte (Vienna, c1800), which became one of the best-known dance pieces of the verbunkos period. Mihály Csokonai Vitéz, the most important Hungarian poet of the turn of the century, wrote his A’ reményhez (‘To Hope’, 1803) to the melody of this dance, thus contributing significantly to its popularity. It was arranged by Liszt in his Magyar dallok – Magyar rhapsodiák (i:6, v:12) and also in his Hungarian Rhapsody no.5. In 1804 Kossovits was in the service of Countess Andrássy in Kassa (now Košice, Slovakia), where he remained at least until ...

A plucked, guitar-like string instrument with a sound box shaped in the image of the ancient Greek lyre. It is classified in the Hornbostel-Sachs system as a chordophone. Its popularity grew in mid-18th-century France out of the fashionable infatuation among the upper classes with Greek antiquity. The instrument was also adopted by the emerging middle classes after the revolution, and with the general expansion of French influence during the Napoleonic era it spread to Italy, Germany, Russia, Sweden and, to a lesser degree, to Spain, England and the United States.

Attempts to reproduce the instruments of antiquity resulted in various hybrids whose value were rather more decorative than musical. The lyre-guitar enabled ladies of fashion to assume the gracious pose of Greek kithara players, an image inspired by the contemporary fascination with classicism in architecture, in drama, dance, literature and art. The bucolic symbolism of the peasant's musette, so fashionable in the arts in the earlier decades of the 18th century, no longer conformed to the aristocratic ideal. Many paintings from the time depict scenes in drawing rooms, gardens or river-boats in which elegant young ladies are playing lyre-guitars (...

(b London, April 22, 1759; d Farley Hill, Berks., Sept 15, 1833). English music collector. After studying at Oxford, he joined family members in a banking firm, and in 1794 was appointed sheriff of Berkshire. A friendship with the musician Charles Frederick Horn (Stephenson and J.P. Salomon were godfathers to Horn’s son Charles Edward) may have led to his activities in the cause of J.S. Bach, which ranged from his gathering Bach enthusiasts to celebrate Bach’s birthday at his home in 1810 to his preparation in about 1808 of an English translation of J.N. Forkel’s biography. This translation, which Horn and Samuel Wesley planned to publish, is not known to be extant; its relationship to the first published translation (London, 1820) is unknown. W.T. Parke called Stephenson’s collection of Cremona violins (which included Stradivari’s 1704 ‘Glennie’ violin and 1731 ‘Paganini’ viola) ‘perhaps the best and most valuable … of any private gentleman in England’. Stephenson’s manuscript collection included J.C. Smith’s copy of Handel’s ...