Christian Benjamin Klein

Christian Benjamin Klein (born May 14, 1754 in Kunzendorf in the Duchy of Schweidnitz , † September 17, 1825 in Schmiedeberg ) was a German organist and cantor .

Life

Klein's father, Carl Klein, was a linen dealer. From 1765 Klein attended the community school in Landeshut , where he received music lessons from Cantor Gebauer, “through whom, as he often said, he got to know the dignity of the church style and then the works of the two Bache [probably Joh. Seb. Bach's father and his son Philipp Emanuel ] carefully studied ”. The first smaller own compositions were created. In 1774 Klein came to the lyceum in Jauer and became prefect of the choir. In 1775 he became "Signator" ( singing master of choral singing ) in the Protestant Church in Schweidnitz under Cantor Gottlieb Rohleder. In 1778 he was employed as a teacher in Schmiedeberg, where he worked as a cantor and organist from 1780. He was released from his school duties around 1819. He traveled to David Traugott Nicolai (1733–1799) in Görlitz , Johann Adam Hiller in Leipzig and Carl Friedrich Zelter in Berlin .

In 1815, with the consent of the Prussian government, Klein was allowed to found an educational institute for organists . He used part of the fortune inherited from his first wife to expand the organ of the Protestant church in Schmiedeberg, which was completed in 1764; it was created by the organ builder Michael Engler the Younger and his son Gottlieb Benjamin Engler.

As an improviser on the organ, Klein was valued and known beyond his sphere of activity. Especially the chorale accompaniment and the improvisation of organ trios should have belonged to his strengths.

Services

“Not only did he gradually acquire all the good theoretical works of that time by Marpurg, Kirnberger, Albrechtsberger, Türck, etc., but he also looked for a lot of copies, especially Italian ones, through the notes = transcription institute that was then connected to the Breitkopfische Handlung in Leipzig To procure church music, for which he was helped in a very friendly manner by some merchants who traveled to Leipzig every year for mass and who also loved art. Little by little, Klein came to an exceptionally beautiful, valuable musical library, which one looked for far and wide in vain ”.

Klein's extensive musical library that primarily spiritual in scores and secular vocal works (including by CH Graun , Hasse , Handel , Homilius and role ) and a lot of organ and piano music and a number of theoretical volumes was, came through the mediation of the Bonn music director Heinrich Carl Breidenstein in 1829 (probably in full) to the Bonn University Library .

A smaller inventory of music that was handed down by Klein's last student, Carl Theodor Hahn , is now in the Leipzig Bach Archive .

literature

• Eutonia, a mainly educational music = magazine for everyone who has to teach music in schools and to lead in churches, or who are preparing for such an office. 1. Breslau 1829, pp. 87-98.
• Wilhelm Virneisel: Christian Benjamin Klein and his collection of musical manuscripts. Diss. Bonn 1924.
• Johannes Bittermann: Chronicle of the evangelical parish Schmiedeberg in the Giant Mountains. Erlangen 1970.
• Magda Marx-Weber: Catalog of the music manuscripts in the possession of the musicological seminar of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn. Cologne 1971 (= contribution to Rhenish music history, vol. 89).
• Ludwig Burgemeister: Organ building in Silesia. Frankfurt am Main 1974.
• Hubert Unverricht : Art. CB Klein. In: Lothar Hoffmann-inheritance law (ed.): Schlesisches Musiklexikon. Augsburg 2001, p. 372f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Eutonia, a mainly educational music = magazine for all who have to teach music in schools and lead in churches, or who are preparing for such an office. 1 (1829), p. 87.