Christian Petzold was a
GermanGermany , 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...
composerA composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and
organistAn organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...
. He was active primarily in
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, and achieved a high reputation during his lifetime, but his surviving works are few. It was established in the 1970s that the famous
Minuet in G major, previously attributed to
Johann Sebastian BachJohann 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...
, was in fact the work of Petzold.
Life
He was born in Königstein, Saxony in 1677; the exact date of birth is unknown. From 1703 Petzold worked as organist at St. Sophia (
Sophienkirche) in
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, and in 1709 he became court chamber composer and organist. He led an active musical life, giving concert tours that took him as far as
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(1714) and
VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
(1716). In 1720 he wrote a piece for the consecration of the new
SilbermannGottfried Silbermann was an influential German constructor of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two.-Life:...
organ at St. Sophia, and he performed a similar task at Rötha, near Leipzig, where another Silbermann organ was built. Petzold was also active as a teacher. His pupils included
Carl Heinrich GraunCarl Heinrich Graun was a German composer and tenor singer. Along with Johann Adolf Hasse, he is considered to be the most important German composer of Italian opera of his time.-Biography:...
. Nothing is known about the circumstances of Petzold's death. The date is usually given as 2 July 1733, yet his vacancy at the court was filled on 22 June, and a surviving letter of application for this vacancy (by
Christoph SchaffrathChristoph Schaffrath is best known as a musician and composer of classical western music of the late Baroque to Classical transition era.-Career:...
) is dated 2 June.
Contemporaries held Petzold in high regard.
Johann MatthesonJohann Mattheson was a German composer, writer, lexicographer, diplomat and music theorist.Mattheson was born and died in Hamburg. He was a close friend of George Frideric Handel, although he nearly killed him in a sudden quarrel, during a performance of Mattheson's opera Cleopatra in 1704...
and
Ernst Ludwig GerberErnst Ludwig Gerber was a German composer and author of a famous dictionary of musicians....
both praised his skills, referring to him as "one of the most famous organists" and "one of the most pleasant church composers of the time", respectively. However, only a few of Petzold's pieces are extant today. He is best remembered for a pair of minuets that were copied into the 1725
Notebook for Anna Magdalena BachThe title Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach refers to either of two manuscript notebooks that the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach presented to his second wife Anna Magdalena...
, compiled by
Anna Magdalena BachAnna Magdalena Bach was the second wife of Johann Sebastian Bach.-Biography:...
and her husband
Johann Sebastian BachJohann 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...
. One of these minuets, the
Minuet in G major, achieved wide recognition, but for decades was attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach. Petzold's authorship was only established in 1970s.
Solo instrumental
- Recueil de 25 concerts pour le clavecin (1729), 25 harpsichord pieces
- Orgeltabulatur (1704), chorale settings for organ
- 11 fugue
In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....
s for organ or harpsichord
- A suite
In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...
and single pieces for harpsichord
External links