Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel: Difference between revisions

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[[Image:Sondershausen Blauer Saal.JPG|300px|thumb|Blue Room in the castle]]

'''Gottfried Henrich Stölzel''' ([[January 31]], [[1690]] in [[GrünstädtlGrünstädtel]] – [[November 27]], [[1749]] in [[Gotha (town)|Gotha]]) was a prolific German [[composer]]. He grew up in [[Schwarzenberg, Saxony]]. From 1707 he was a student in [[Leipzig]] of Melchior Hofmann among others. He studied, worked and composed in [[Breslau]] and [[Halle]], then a year and a half sojourn in Italy from 1713 — where he met [[Antonio Vivaldi]] in Venice — rendered him au courant with the latest musical taste. After working for three years in [[Prague]], he became briefly court ''Kapellmeister'' in [[Gera]]. Then he married in 1719 and the next year took up an appointment in [[Gotha (town)|Gotha]], where he worked until his death for duke [[Friedrich III]].

In 1731 the ''Kapellmeister'' of the court at [[Sondershausen]] left for [[Danzig]] and Stölzel supplied numerous festive occasional pieces and [[aria|arias]] for court performance; the archive at Schloss Sondershausen retains many of his manuscripts, but half of Stölzel's output, never engraved, is lost. He enjoyed an outstanding reputation in his lifetime: [[Lorenz Mizler]] ranked him as great as [[Johann Sebastian Bach]]. Stolzel was accomplished German stylist who himself wrote a good many of the poetic texts for his vocal work. Beginning piano students may remember some pieces by him, those that Johann Sebastian Bach included in his Klavierbüchlein.