Friedrich Hartmann Graf by Heinrich Eduard von Wintter

Friedrich Hartmann Graf (23 August 1727 – 19 August 1795) was a German

flautist The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

Biography

Graf was born on 23 August 1727 in

Rudolstadt Rudolstadt is a town in the German federal state Thuringia, within the Thuringian Forest, to the southwest, and to Jena and Weimar to the north. The former capital of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, the town is built along the River Saale inside a wide ...

. He was trained by his father Johann Graf and then served as a drummer in a Dutch army regiment where he was taken as a prisoner of war by the French. After he returned in 1759 he became a flautist and conductor in Hamburg for five years. During that time he toured England, the Dutch Republic, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. He was then made first flautist by his brother

Christian Ernst Graf Christian Ernst Friedrich Graf (Rudolstadt, 30 June 1723 – The Hague, 17 July 1804) was a Dutch Kapellmeister and composer of German descent. He was Kapellmeister to William V, Prince of Orange William V (Willem Batavus; 8 March 1748 – 9 A ...

who led the chapel of the

stadtholder In the Low Countries, a stadtholder ( ) was a steward, first appointed as a medieval official and ultimately functioning as a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and ...

's court in

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

. Later he became the music director of all Protestant churches, and cantor of the school of St. Anna in

Augsburg Augsburg ( , ; ; ) is a city in the Bavaria, Bavarian part of Swabia, Germany, around west of the Bavarian capital Munich. It is a College town, university town and the regional seat of the Swabia (administrative region), Swabia with a well ...

where he founded a civil society concert in 1779. Here he also met Mozart. Graf died on 19 August 1795 in Augsburg. {{DEFAULTSORT:Graf, Friedrich Hartmann 1727 births 1795 deaths German Classical-period composers German classical flautists 18th-century German classical composers German male classical composers 18th-century German composers 18th-century German male musicians