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Born: January 14, 1722 - Köthen (Anhalt), Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
Died: April 4, 1806 - Braunschweig.(Brunswick), Lower Saxony, Germany, |
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Friedrich Gottlob Fleischer was a German composer. He was born the son of Balthasar Simon Fleischer (excise taker in Köthen). He studied music in Leipzig, probably with Johann Friedrich Doles and/or J.S. Bach (documents are not yet available). After 1747 he was ducal court musician and organist at the Lutheran churches of St Martin and St Aegidien in Brunswick (cannot be dated exactly). As ducal music master he taught the later Duchess Anna Amalia of Weimar among others. An important keyboard player, Fleischer moved in Lessing's circle, and also had contact with the professors Eschenburg, Zachariä and Jerusalem of the Brunswick Collegium Carolineum.
In the music literature of the 18th century, Friedrich Gottlob Fleischer is often referred to as an outstanding pianist and composer, mostly in the context of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach u.a. Gerber/Mendel call him "one of the greatest pianists of Bach's school", an interesting hint. Unfortunately, only a few pianoforte works are handed down from him:
- Collection of some Minuets and Polonoises, together with a few other pieces (Brunswick 1762)
- Ditto, 2nd edition, extended by Ssonatas (Brunswick 1769)
- Clavier-Übung, first part consisting of a sonata elaborated according to today's galanten Gusto (printed by Weigel / Nürnberg)
- Sonata in B flat major for piano four hands. (Dubious, RISM says the movements are identical to the Sonata B major in the Clavier Exercise, but the B-BC library considers this work to be four hands)
Friedrich Gottlob Fleischer 's first secure contact with a member of the Bach family, here Wilhelm Friedemann Bach from 1770. Fleischer is specified by W.F. Bach as a co-distributor of 12 Tempi di Polaco. This is understandable: W.F. Bach lived from 1770 to 1774 in Brunswick, and certainly had contact there with Friedrich Gottlob Fleischer, if not in previous years. This prenumeration call was probably a total failure, the issue was published posthumously in 1819 at CF Peters. After that he is still subscribed with C.P.E. Bach's piano trios, connoisseurs and lovers as well as Sturm's geistlichen Gesänge. Regarding his pianoforte works, it t is, of course, almost impossible to make a general judgment given the few surviving works.
According to his autobiography (1783/1784), Johann Wilhelm Hertel met Fleischer in 1756, "einen braven Schüler Sebast[i]an Bachs" (a good student of Sebast [i] an Bach). Gerber praised him in 1790 as "einen unserer itzt lebenden größten Klavierspieler in der Bachischen Manier" (one of our greatest piano players in the Bachian manner now living. Fleischer's lessons with J.S. Bach probably took place in Leipzig in the first half of the 1740's. A Clavier-Übung (piano exercise) composed by him and printed in Nuremberg in 1745 seems to represent a result of this learning.
References: Koska: A-47; GND: 124603386; Bach Digital: 00002151 |
