Christian Friedrich Witt

Life

Born: 1660 in Altenburg

Died: 3 April 1716 in Altenburg

Biography

He was born in Altenburg, where his father, Johann Ernst Witt, was court organist; he had come from Denmark around 1650 when a Danish princess married into the house of Saxe-Altenburg. Frederick I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg probably gave Witt a scholarship in 1676 to study in Vienna and Salzburg, and then from 1685–1686 to study composition and counterpoint in Nuremberg with Georg Caspar Wecker, returning for a further period of study in 1688. He moved to Gotha to take up as post as chamber organist to the court in June 1686; he remained there for the rest of his life. He became a substitute for W.M. Mylius, the capellmeister, in 1694, and succeeded him after his death in 1713; Duke Frederick II was one of his pupils. He is mentioned as a good keyboard player and capellmeister in J.P. Treiber's Der accurate Organist im General-Bass (1704) and Telemann's Beschreibung der Augen-Orgel (1739). He was also valued by the courts of Ansbach-Bayreuth, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, and Saxe-Weissenfels.

View the Wikipedia article on Christian Friedrich Witt.

List of choral works

• Earth has many a noble city
• God, my King, thy might confessing
• Nāc, mans Jēzu (Come, thou long-expected Jesus)

 
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