Carl Friedrich Zelter
Encyclopedia
Carl Friedrich Zelter was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 composer, conductor and teacher of music.

Zelter became friendly with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

, and his works include settings of Goethe's poems. During his career, he composed about two hundred lieder, as well as cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

s, a viola concerto
Viola concerto
The viola concerto is a concerto contrasting a viola with another body of musical instruments, usually an orchestra or chamber music ensemble. Early examples of the viola concerto include, among others, Georg Philipp Telemann's concerto in G major, and several concertos by the Stamitz clan...

 (performed as early as 1779) and piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 music.

Amongst Zelter's pupils (at different times) were Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

, Fanny Mendelssohn
Fanny Mendelssohn
Fanny Cäcilie Mendelssohn , later Fanny Hensel, was a German pianist and composer, the sister of the composer Felix Mendelssohn and granddaughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn...

 Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...

, and Heinrich Dorn
Heinrich Dorn
Heinrich Ludwig Egmont Dorn was a German conductor, composer, and journalist. He was born in Königsberg , where he studied piano, singing, and composition. Later, he studied in Berlin with Ludwig Berger, Bernhard Klein, and Carl Friedrich Zelter. His first opera, Rolands Knappen, was produced in...

. Felix Mendelssohn was perhaps Zelter's favorite pupil and Zelter wrote to Goethe boasting of the 12-year old's abilities. Zelter communicated his strong love of the music of J. S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

 to Mendelssohn, one consequence of which was Mendelssohn's 1829 revival of Bach's St. Matthew Passion
Matthäuspassion
The St Matthew Passion, BWV 244, , is a musical composition from the Passions written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander . It sets chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew to music, with interspersed chorales and arias...

 at the Singakademie
Berlin Singakademie
The Sing-Akademie zu Berlin is a musical society founded in Berlin in 1791 by Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch, harpsichordist to the court of Prussia, on the model of the 18th century London Academy of Ancient Music.-Early history:...

 under Zelter's auspices. This epochal event sparked a general re-evaluation and revival of Bach's works which were then largely forgotten and regarded as old-fashioned and beyond resuscitation. Mendelssohn had hoped to succeed Zelter on the latter's death as leader of the Singakademie, but the post went instead to Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen.

Zelter was married to Julie Pappritz in 1796, one year after his first wife, Sophie Eleonora Flöricke, née Kappel, had died. Pappritz was a well-known singer at the Berlin Opera. Zelter is buried at the Sophienkirche
Sophienkirche (Berlin)
The Sophienkirche is a Protestant church in the Spandauer Vorstadt part of the Berlin-Mitte region of Berlin, eastern Germany. One of its associated cemeteries is the Friedhof II der Sophiengemeinde Berlin.-History:...

 in Berlin. The violinist Daniel Hope (born 1974) is a direct descendant of Zelter.http://www.danielhope.com/cd/pop_cd_14.html

Zelter was the author of a biography of Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch, first published in 1801 by J.F. Unger in Berlin.
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