Friedrich Filitz (16 March 1804 – 8 December 1876) was a German

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 Defi ...

and

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

who collected

church music Church music is Christian music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclesiastical liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn. History Early Christian music The onl ...

from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Biography

Filitz was born in

Arnstadt Arnstadt () is a town in Ilm-Kreis, Thuringia, Germany, on the river Gera about south of Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia. Arnstadt is one of the oldest towns in Thuringia, and has a well-preserved historic centre with a partially preserved town ...

, County of

Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt was a small historic state in present-day Thuringia, Germany, with its capital at Rudolstadt. History Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt was established in 1599 in the course of a resettlement of Schwarzburg dynasty lands. Since th ...

, in 1804. He received a PhD and lived in Berlin from 1833, working as a

music critic ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mus ...

among other employment. In 1841, Filitz was shortlisted to be a censor of the

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

n state, although there were concerns he would be too strict. He moved to Munich in 1847, where his legacy of valuable

is now in the

Bavarian State Library The Bavarian State Library (german: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, abbreviated BSB, called ''Bibliotheca Regia Monacensis'' before 1919) in Munich is the central " Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of Bavaria, the bigg ...

. Through his collections of church music from the 16th and 17th, he made many forgotten works available once again. One of his tunes, ''Mannheim'', is one to which the hymn ''Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us'', with words by English architect and hymn writer

James Edmeston James Edmeston (10 September 1791 – 7 January 1867) was an England, English architect and Surveyor (surveying), surveyor; he was also known as a prolific writer of Christian Church, church hymns. He was born in Wapping, Middlesex, England. Hi ...

, has been set.

Works

*''Vierstimmiges Choralbuch herausgegeben von Dr F Filitz''. Besser, Berlin 1847. . *''Ueber einige Interessen der älteren Kirchenmusik''. Kaiser, München 1853. .

References

Bibliography

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Filitz, Friedrich 19th-century German composers 1804 births 1876 deaths People from Arnstadt 19th-century German musicologists