Johann Friedrich Agricola
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- This article is about the 18th century German composer. For other people with the same name, see Agricola (disambiguation).
Johann Friedrich Agricola (January 4, 1720 – December 2, 1774) was a German composer, organist, singer, teacher and writer on music. He sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Flavio Anicio Olibrio.
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[edit] Biography
Johann Friedrich Agricola was born in Dobitschen (current Thuringia).
While a student of law at Leipzig he studied music under Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1741 he went to Berlin, where he studied musical composition under Johann Joachim Quantz.
He was soon generally recognized as one of the most skillful organists of his time. The success of his comic opera, Il Filosofo convinto in amore, performed at Potsdam in 1750, led to an appointment as court composer to Frederick the Great. In 1759, on the death of Karl Heinrich Graun, he was appointed conductor of the royal orchestra. He married the noted operatic soprano Benedetta Emilia Molteni, a marriage of which the king apparently disapproved.
He died in Berlin.
[edit] Works
Agricola wrote a number of Italian operas, as well as Lieder, chorale preludes, various other keyboard pieces and church music, especially oratorios and cantatas. His reputation chiefly rests, however, on his theoretical and critical writings on musical subjects. In 1754 he jointly wrote an obituary of J. S. Bach with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. His 1757 Anleitung zur Singekunst (translated as Introduction to the Art of Singing) is Pier Francesco Tosi's 1723 treatise Opinioni de' cantori antichi e moderni with Agricola's own extensive comments.
[edit] External links
- Free scores by Johann Friedrich Agricola in the Werner Icking Music Archive
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
