Johann Friedrich Reichardt (Königsberg, 25 November 1752 – Giebichenstein, 27 June 1814)
Composer, writer, and German music critic. From childhood he received instruction in violin, various keyboard instruments (clavichord, spinet, fortepiano), and lute. He later studied piano and composition with Richter and violin with Veichtner, though he soon abandoned his teachers, whom he considered inadequate, and continued his training as an autodidact. Encouraged by Immanuel Kant, Reichardt enrolled in courses in philosophy and jurisprudence, first in his native city and then in Leipzig (1769–1771). Between 1771 and 1774 he travelled extensively throughout Germany, and in 1774 he was appointed Kapellmeister to Frederick the Great (today’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden), a position he held from 1775 to 1794. In 1776 he married the singer and composer Juliane Benda. After an Italian sojourn in 1783, he stayed in Vienna, where he met Emperor Joseph II and Christoph Willibald Gluck, and founded the Concerts Spirituels to promote and perform his new works. From 1786 he cultivated close relationships with Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Schiller, and Johann Georg Hamann. In 1791 he was dismissed from his post in Potsdam for his presumed sympathies toward the French Revolution. He subsequently spent two years in London and Paris, where he achieved considerable success both as conductor and composer, notably with La Passione. After a long period of retirement in Giebichenstein devoted to composition, he accepted the invitation of Jérôme Bonaparte and became Kapellmeister in Kassel (1808). His principal works include numerous French, German, and Italian operas, and above all an impressive corpus of approximately 1,500 Lieder, setting texts by 125 poets. Reichardt also distinguished himself as a critic and historian of music and founded several musical periodicals. He married twice. His first wife, Juliane Benda (1754–1827), daughter of the composer and Kapellmeister Franz Benda, bore him two sons and two daughters; both sons died young, while his daughter Louise (1779–1826) became appreciated as a composer of songs. In 1783 he married Johanna Alberti (1754–1827), daughter of the deacon and poet Julius Gustav Alberti of Hanover; the couple had five children.
Johann Friedrich Christmann (Ludwigsburg, 10 September 1752 – Heutingsheim, 21 May 1817)
Protestant pastor of Württemberg, composer of hymns and chamber music. After attending the Stuttgart Gymnasium, he entered the Protestant monastery of Tübingen in 1770 and studied Protestant theology at the Eberhard Karls University until 1775. In 1772 he graduated. In 1774 he became vicar of the Evangelical Church in Württemberg at Ludwigsburg. From 1777 to 1779 he worked as Hofmeister in Winterthur, and later in Karlsruhe. In 1781 he served as vicar in Daisbach, and in 1784 he assumed the pastorate of Heutingsheim, where he remained until his death. He had begun composing during his student years in Tübingen and continued throughout his life, writing sacred, patriotic, and choral songs, choral movements, and piano pieces. He also published several works on music theory. Christmann is frequently encountered in the Blumenlese and Neue Blumenlese für Klavierliebhaber collections.
Johann Carl Friedrich Rellstab (Berlin, 1759 – Berlin, 1813)
Not to be confused with the poet Ludwig Rellstab, who coined the title “Moonlight” for Beethoven’s Op. 27 Sonata. Johann Carl Friedrich Rellstab was a composer, editor, and harpsichordist, pupil of J. F. Agricola and F. C. Fasch. He founded a concert institution in 1787, later devoted himself to music criticism and teaching, and composed the Singspiel Die Apotheke, as well as symphonic, vocal, and chamber music. He published collections of songs and numerous writings, including Versuch über die Vereinigung der musikalischen und oratorischen Deklamation (1785) and Anleitung für Klavierspieler (1790).
Freiherr Johann Friedrich Hugo von Dalberg (Worms-Herrnsheim, 17 May 1760 – Aschaffenburg, 26 July 1812)
Composer, pianist, and man of letters, belonging to the noble Dalberg family of Mainz. One of eleven children (only five survived to adulthood) of Count Franz Heinrich von Dalberg and Maria Sophie Anna Freiin von Eltz-Kempenich. His siblings included Karl Theodor, Prince‑Archbishop of Mainz; Marianne, co‑regent of the County of Hohengeroldseck; and Wolfgang Heribert, minister of the Palatinate and Baden and renowned director of the Mannheim Court Theatre. Dalberg, born with a spinal deformity and destined for an ecclesiastical career, was educated first by private tutors and later at the universities of Erfurt and Göttingen. He was appointed deacon in Trier in 1784 and subsequently canon in Trier, Worms, and Speyer. Cultivated and intellectually gifted, he devoted himself to the study of science and music. A pupil of Ignaz Holzbauer, he travelled in Italy and England and became an excellent virtuoso and respected composer. He lived mainly in Erfurt, where his brother Karl Theodor served as governor, and later in Aschaffenburg, where he died at the age of 52.
Seidel
Little is known about Seidel, though he appears among the composers represented in the collection In questa tomba oscura, for which Beethoven composed his WoO 133. Seidel’s contribution is No. LIV in the anthology.
Carl Friedrich Zelter (Berlin, 11 December 1758 – Berlin, 15 May 1832)
Composer, conductor, and German writer. From 1800 he served as director of the Singakademie, which he brought to great renown, particularly through performances of Bach’s works. Together with his pupils Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, he prepared the 1827 revival of the St Matthew Passion. A close friend of Goethe, with whom he maintained an extensive correspondence, Zelter was one of the most significant figures of early Romantic musical life and among the most cultivated minds of his time. Though modest in larger forms (including a viola concerto and sacred works), he is regarded as one of the finest representatives of the Berlin school of Lieder, many of which set texts by Goethe.
