Georg Abraham Schneider (19 April 1770 - 19 January 1839) was a German musician and composer.

Biography

Schneider was born in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

, where he originally learnt music as a member of the city's

alta cappella An alta cappella or alta musica (Italian), haute musique (French) or just alta was a kind of town wind band found throughout continental Europe from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries, which typically consisted of shawms and slide trumpets ...

. From 1787 he played horn in the court orchestra of the nobel house

Hessen-Darmstadt The Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt (german: Landgrafschaft Hessen-Darmstadt) was a Imperial State, State of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by a younger branch of the House of Hesse. It was formed in 1567 following the division of the Landgraviate ...

, then from 1795 for the

Prussian 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 e ...

royal court. Schneider's compositions and performances focussed on the horn, and owe a stylistic debt to

Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led ...

and

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...

. The invention of the valved horn by

Heinrich Stölzel Heinrich David Stölzel (7 September 1777 – 16 February 1844) was a German horn player who developed some of the first valves for brass instruments. He developed the first valve for a brass musical instrument, the Stölzel valve, in 1818, a ...

and

Friedrich Blühmel Friedrich Blühmel (born 1777, died before 1845) was a German horn player and musical instrument builder. He is credited as one of the earliest inventors of brass instrument valves. Biography Friedrich Blühmel initially worked as a coal miner, ...

was of great interest to Schneider, allowing the instrument to be played chromatically for the first time. In a report for the ''Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung'' in 1817, Schneider wrote; "Because of its full and strong, yet soft and attractive tone, the Waldhorn is an extremely beautiful instrument; but, as is well known, it has until now been far behind almost all other wind instruments in its development, being very restricted to its natural notes .... Herr Stölzel of Breslau has now completely removed these shortcomings .... He has simply provided his horn with two airtight valves, which are depressed with little effort by two fingers of the right hand, like the keys of the pianoforte, and restored to their previous position by the same two fingers with the help of attached springs; with these it is not only possible but also easy to produce a pure and completely chromatic scale from the lowest to the highest notes with a perfectly even tone. On this horn, therefore, there is no need to change from one key to another, and the same passage can be repeated immediately in a different key; even passages which previously were absolutely impossible to play on the normal horn can now be performed without difficulty." The development of these valves led to the development of the instrument now known as the

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...

. Schneider wrote the first work for valved horn, which was performed publicly in 1818. In 1820 he was promoted to royal director of music, then in 1825 appointed director of the Court Orchestra. In his later life he taught at the

Prussian Academy of the Arts The Prussian Academy of Arts (German: ''Preußische Akademie der Künste'') was a state arts academy first established in Berlin, Brandenburg, in 1694/1696 by prince-elector Frederick III, in personal union Duke Frederick I of Prussia, and late ...

. Schneider's daughter Maschinka married Dresden composer

François Schubert François Schubert (né Franz Anton Schubert (the Younger); 22 July 1808, Dresden – 12 April 1878, Dresden) was a violinist and composer. After training with concertmaster Antonio Rolla in Dresden, Schubert studied violin with Charles Philippe ...

, and they had a daughter, singer and composer

Georgina Schubert Georgina (or Georgine) Schubert (28 October 1840 - 26 December 1878) was a German coloratura soprano and lieder composer who toured throughout Europe. Life Schubert was born in Dresden to violinist and composer Francois Schubert and his wife, s ...

. He died in Berlin in 1839.

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schneider, Georg Abraham 1770 births 1839 deaths German male musicians German classical composers German male classical composers Horn players