
Carl Friedrich Zelter (11 December 1758 15 May 1832)
[Grove/Fuller-Datei:Carl-Friedrich-Zelter.jpegMaitland, 1910. The Zelter entry takes up parts of pages 593-595 of Volume V.] was a German composer, conductor and teacher of music. Working in his father's
bricklaying business, Zelter attained
mastership in that profession, and was a musical
autodidact
Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning, self-study and self-teaching) is the practice of education without the guidance of schoolmasters (i.e., teachers, professors, institutions).
Overview
Autodi ...
.
Zelter was born and died in
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
. He became friendly with
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
, and his works include settings of Goethe's poems. During his career, he composed about two hundred
lieder
In the Western classical music tradition, ( , ; , ; ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German and Dutch, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangea ...
, as well as
cantata
A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian language, Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal music, vocal Musical composition, composition with an musical instrument, instrumental accompaniment, ty ...
s, a
viola concerto (performed as early as 1779) and
piano
A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...
music.
Amongst Zelter's pupils (at different times) were
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions inc ...
,
Fanny Mendelssohn,
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jakob Liebmann Meyer Beer; 5 September 1791 – 2 May 1864) was a German opera composer, "the most frequently performed opera composer during the nineteenth century, linking Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mozart and Richard Wa ...
,
Eduard Grell
Eduard Grell or August Eduard Grell (6 November 1800 – 10 August 1886) was a German composer, organist, and music teacher.
Grell was born in Berlin. Among his early teachers were Carl Friedrich Zelter and Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen. On Zelt ...
,
Otto Nicolai,
Johann Friedrich Naue, and
Heinrich Dorn. 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 to Mendelssohn, one consequence of which was Mendelssohn's 1829 revival of Bach's
St Matthew Passion
The ''St Matthew Passion'' (), BWV 244, is a '' Passion'', a sacred oratorio written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander. It sets the 26th and 27th chapters of th ...
at the
Sing-Akademie 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 in Berlin. The violinist
Daniel Hope (born 1973) is a direct descendant of Zelte
Zelter was the author of a biography of
Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch, first published in 1801 by J.F. Unger in Berlin. The novelist
Elizabeth Sara Sheppard portrayed Zelter as the character Aronach in her 1853 novel ''Charles Auchester''.
[M.C. Rintoul: ]
Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction
' (2014)
Notes
References
*Garratt, James (2002). . Cambridge University Press. .
*Greene, David Mason (1985). . Reproducing Piano Roll Foundation. .
*Grove, George; Fuller-Maitland, John Alexander, ed. . MacMillan Company. Edition of 1910. Volume V.
*Tillard, Françoise; Naish, Camille (translator) (1996). . Hal Leonard. .
*
External links
*
1758 births
1832 deaths
German male composers
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Composers from Berlin
People from the Margraviate of Brandenburg
Pupils of Johann Kirnberger
{{Germany-composer-stub