Johann Christian Lobe (May 30, 1797 – July 27, 1881) 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

music theorist Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...

. Born in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

, Lobe was either self-taught as a musician (Anon. 1885–92) or had music lessons from the age of seven (Brandt 2001). In 1810, he became violinist in the Weimar Court Orchestra (Anon. 1885–92), or else was a flautist and joined the Weimar orchestra in 1811 (Brandt 2001). He composed many musical works before 1819 (Brandt 2001), and debuted as a composer in 1821, with the

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

''Wittekind'', which was followed by a number of others, including ''Die Flibustier'' (1830) and ''Die Fürstin von Granada'' (1833), as well as some orchestral works (Anon. 1885–92). ''Die Fürstin von Grenada'' was especially successful (Brandt 2001). Either in 1842 (Anon. 1885–92) or 1845 (Brandt 2001) he retired from his position in the Weimar orchestra, was appointed a professor and in 1846 moved to

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

, where he worked as a music-composition teacher and music critic (Anon. 1885–92; Brandt 2001). He is today best remembered for his writings on music, of which his most important work is ''Lehrbuch der musikalischen Komposition'' (''Textbook on Music Composition'', 4 vols., 1850–67). He died in Leipzig in 1881.

Selected writings

*''Lehrbuch der musikalischen Komposition'' (1850–67) *''Katechismus der Musik'' (1851) *''Fliegende Blätter für Musik'' (editor, 1853–57) *''Aus dem Leben eines Musikers'' (1859) *''Musikalische Briefe eines Wohlbekannten'' (1860) *''Vereinfachte Harmonielehre'' (1861) *''Konsonanzen und Dissonanzen'' (1869) *''Katechismus der Kompositionslehre'' (1882)

References

* Anon.
Lobe, Johann Christian
. ''Meyers Konversationslexikon'', fourth edition, vol. 10: "Königshofen–Luzon", 857–58. Leipzig and Vienna: Verlag des Bibliographischen Instituts, 1885–1892. * Brandt, Torsten. 2001. "Lobe, Johann Christian". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by

Stanley Sadie Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...

and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lobe, Johann Christian German composers German music theorists 1797 births 1881 deaths 19th-century German musicians 19th-century German musicologists