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Born: February 2, 1700 - Juditten, near Königsberg, Prussia
Died: December 12, 1766 - Leipzig, Germany |
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The writer and literary reformer, Johann Christoph Gottsched, was the leading literary figure in Leipzig during Bach's Kantorate, and seminal in the foundation of German as a literary language.
J.S. Bach's music survives for only one Gottsched text, the Trauer Ode BWV 198 of 1727. Although it is unlikely that Gottsched would have approved of the textual alterations, which probably stem from Bach, the two seem not to have clashed; indeed, in 1732 Gottsched sent keyboard pieces by J.S. Bach to his future bride. However, the famous attack on J.S. Bach by J.A. Schiebe (1737) shows every influence of Gottsched's aesthetic theories. |
