Johann Jacob Heinrich Westphal

Johann Jacob Heinrich Westphal (born July 31, 1756 in Schwerin ; † August 17, 1825 there ) was a German organist , teacher and music collector.

Life

Johann Jacob Heinrich Westphal was born in Schwerin and baptized there on August 1, 1756 in the Schwerin Palace Chapel , where his father worked as a castellan . Even in his early youth, Westphal showed a great affinity for music. He received his first music lessons from the organist Mecker and was soon promoted by Prince Ludwig of Mecklenburg . From 1778 to 1782 he held the office of palace organist and then moved to the Schelfkirche . In 1814 he became the organist of the Schwerin Cathedral .

In addition, he worked as a typing and arithmetic teacher at the Fridericianum Schwerin from October 1789 .

Westphal was the father of four children; his youngest son, Johann Heinrich Westphal , gained some fame as an astronomer and private scholar.

collection

Westphal began early on to assemble an extensive musical library and collection of autographs , which soon became famous far beyond Mecklenburg's borders. According to Ignaz von Sonnleithner this music collection was in excess of 3,000 plants in Germany, perhaps even in Europe, unique and alone with the library of Emperor Leopold I. comparable. Westphal's correspondence with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach , from whom he had a number of pieces of music sent to him from Hamburg , is particularly relevant .

After Westphal's death, the collection came to the Belgian music bibliographer François-Joseph Fétis through the agency of Mutzenbecher's bookstore in Altona and finally to the library of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels in Brussels.

Works

• Treatise on the Mecklenburg coins, measures and weights and their comparison with foreign coins, measures and weights; in the same way as the new French system of measures and weights. In the Bödnerschen Buchhandlung, Schwerin and Wismar 1803, online .

literature

• Johann Christ. Friedr. Wundemann: Mecklenburg, in terms of culture, art and taste. Part 2. In the publishing house of the Bödner bookstore, Schwerin et al. 1803.
• Clemens Meyer : History of the Mecklenburg-Schwerin court orchestra. Historical representation of the Mecklenburg-Schwerin court chapel from the beginning of the 16th century to the present day. Davids, Schwerin 1913, p. 248.
• Ulrich Leisinger , Peter Wollny : The Bach sources of the libraries in Brussels. Catalog. With a presentation of the tradition and significance of the Westphal, Fétis and Wagener collections (= Leipzig contributions to Bach research. Vol. 2). Olms, Hildesheim et al. 1997, ISBN 3-487-10303-6 .

Web links

• Works by and about Johann Jacob Heinrich Westphal  in the German Digital Library