Johann Philipp Kirnberger (also ''Kernberg''; 24 April 1721,

Saalfeld Saalfeld (german: Saalfeld/Saale) is a town in Germany, capital of the Saalfeld-Rudolstadt district of Thuringia. It is best known internationally as the ancestral seat of the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha branch of the Saxon House of Wettin. Geography ...

– 27 July 1783,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

) was a musician, composer (primarily of

fugue In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the c ...

s), 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 (k ...

. He was a student of

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 ...

. According to Ingeborg Allihn, Kirnberger played a significant role in the intellectual and cultural exchange between Germany and Poland in the mid-18th century (Allihn 1995, 209). Between 1741 and 1751 Kirnberger lived and worked in Poland for powerful magnates including Lubomirski, Poninski, and Rzewuski before ending up at the Benedictine Cloister in

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

(then part of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

). He spent much time collecting Polish national dances and compiled them in his treatise Die Charaktere der Taenze (Allihn 1995, 211). Kirnberger became a violinist at the court of

Frederick II of Prussia Frederick II (german: Friedrich II.; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the Sil ...

in 1751. He was the music director to the Prussian Princess Anna Amalia from 1758 until his death. Kirnberger greatly admired

, deeming him "the greatest of all composers." Kirnberger published Bach's '' Clavierübungen mit der bachischen Applicatur'' in the 1760s, and seeking to secure the publication of all of Bach's

chorale Chorale is the name of several related musical forms originating in the music genre of the Lutheran chorale: * Hymn tune of a Lutheran hymn (e.g. the melody of "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme"), or a tune in a similar format (e.g. one of the th ...

settings, which finally appeared after Kirnberger's death; see Kirnberger chorale preludes (BWV 690–713). Many of Bach's manuscripts have been preserved in Kirnberger's library (the "Kirnberger collection"). Kirnberger is known today primarily for his theoretical work ''Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik'' (''The Art of Strict Composition in Music'', 1774, 1779). The well-tempered tuning systems known as "Kirnberger II" and "Kirnberger III" are associated with his name (see

Kirnberger temperament Kirnberger temperament is an irregular temperament developed in the second half of the 18th century by Johann Kirnberger. Kirnberger was a student of Johann Sebastian Bach, held great admiration for his teacher and was one of his principal propone ...

), as is a rational version of

equal temperament An equal temperament is a musical temperament or tuning system, which approximates just intervals by dividing an octave (or other interval) into equal steps. This means the ratio of the frequencies of any adjacent pair of notes is the same, wh ...

(see

schisma In music, the schisma (also spelled ''skhisma'') is the interval between a Pythagorean comma (531441:524288) and a syntonic comma (81:80) and equals or 32805:32768 = 1.00113, which is 1.9537 cents (). It may also be defined as: * the differ ...

). One of his most familiar compositions is ''Fuga in C-dur für Orgel ("Fanfare" Fugue),'' which was formerly attributed to

and then to his son

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (8 March 1714 – 14 December 1788), also formerly spelled Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, and commonly abbreviated C. P. E. Bach, was a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and sec ...

References

External links

* More information, including full text, of Kirnberger'
Grundsätze des Generalbasses (178?)
in the University of North Texas Music Library Virtual Rare Book Room *

The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance * https://www.academia.edu/5210832/18th_Century_Quotes_on_J.S._Bach_s_Temperament 1721 births 1783 deaths People from Saalfeld German male classical composers German Classical-period composers German music theorists Pupils of Johann Sebastian Bach 18th-century classical composers 18th-century German male musicians {{Germany-composer-stub