Graupner, Christoph (1683-1760)

German composer. He wrote more than 1,400 cantatas and over a hundred symphonies, as well as operas, chamber music, and keyboard pieces. He was Kapellmeister at Hesse-Darmstadt from 1712, and was elected cantor of St Thomas's, Leipzig, in 1723, but was unable to obtain his release from Darmstadt, so that the post fell to Johann Sebastian Bach.

He was a pupil of Johann Schelle and Johann Kuhnau at St Thomas's, Leipzig, and was harpsichordist at the Hamburg opera under Reinhard Keiser 1707-09, where he produced his first operas. In 1709 he entered the service of the Landgrave Ernst Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt as vice-Kapellmeister, becoming Kapellmeister in 1712 on the death of Wolfgang Briegel.

Works Opera Dido (1707), Antiochus und Stratonica (1708), La costanza vince l'inganno (1715), and others.

Choral over 1,400 church cantatas.

Orchestral 113 symphonies; 87 overtures; about 50 concertos.

Other quantities of chamber music, keyboard music.