Georg Andreas Sorge (21 March 1703 in Mellenbach,

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

– 4 April 1778) was an

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

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, most notably,

theorist A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be s ...

. His references to

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...

show that they were friends, and he composed three fugues for organ on the name

BACH Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...

( BWV Anh. 107, 108 and 110). He joined

Lorenz Christoph Mizler Lorenz Christoph Mizler von Kolof (also known as Wawrzyniec Mitzler de Kolof and Mitzler de Koloff; 26 July 1711 – 8 May 1778) was a German medicine, physician, historian, printer, mathematician, Baroque music composer, and precursor of the Enl ...

's Corresponding Society of Musical Sciences in 1747, just a month after Bach himself. Sorge's writings on thorough-bass and

harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However ...

are very competent, and his theoretical grasp of unequal temperaments excelled even that of J. G. Neidhardt (though still taking

comma The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark () in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline ...

as an indivisible unit of measure. He cited Bach as 'witness' that regular -comma

meantone temperament Meantone temperament is a musical temperament, that is a tuning system, obtained by narrowing the fifths so that their ratio is slightly less than 3:2 (making them ''narrower'' than a perfect fifth), in order to push the thirds closer to pure. Me ...

was inadequate to 'modern' harmony, and he dismissed

Johann Philipp Kirnberger Johann Philipp Kirnberger (also ''Kernberg''; 24 April 1721, Saalfeld – 27 July 1783, Berlin) was a musician, composer (primarily of fugues), and music theorist. He was a student of Johann Sebastian Bach. According to Ingeborg Allihn, Kirnberg ...

's schemes of temperament as 'no good'.Boyd, Malcolm. ''Oxford Composer Companions: J.S. Bach'', Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 456

References

German Baroque composers German music theorists 1703 births 1778 deaths 18th-century classical composers German male classical composers 18th-century German composers 18th-century German male musicians {{Germany-musicologist-stub

See also

References