Rochlitz, (Johann) Friedrich

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Rochlitz, (Johann) Friedrich

Rochlitz, (Johann) Friedrich , German writer on music; b. Leipzig, Feb. 12, 1769; d. there, Dec. 16, 1842. A pupil of Doles at the Leipzig Thomasschule, he entered the Univ. of Leipzig as a theological student; publ. some novels and sketches. His 2 pamphlets, Blicke in das Gebiet der Künste under der praktischen Philosophie (Gotha, 1796) and Einige Ideen über die Anwendung des guten Geschmacks auf die religiösen Versammlungshäuser der Christen (Leipzig, 1796), treat in part of music. In 1798 he founded the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, which he ed. until 1818 and contributed to until 1835. From 1805 he was a director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Concerts. His best-known work is Für Freunde der Tonkunst (4 vols., Leipzig, 1824–32; 3rd ed., 1868), which contains biographies, essays, analyses of compositions, etc.; vol. IV has an outline, Geschichte der Gesangmusik, which Rochlitz supplemented by a Sammlung vorzüglicher Gesang-Stücke in 3 vols., from Dufay to Vallotti. J. Müller-Blattau compiled Rochlitz’s essays on Bach under the title Wege zu Bach (1926). Rochlitz composed songs for men’s chorus and a setting of the 23rd Psalm. He also wrote texts for operas, oratorios, cantatas, etc.

Bibliography

H. Ehinger, F.R. als Musikschriftsteller (Leipzig, 1929).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire

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