Reichardt, Johann Friedrich (1752–1814)

German composer. His output consists chiefly of vocal works, including about 1,500 songs; he was a forerunner of Schubert in song composition. His work is notable for a wide range of literary influences, including Goethe, Shakespeare, Sophocles, Schiller, Milton, and even Metastasio. He also wrote several books on music.

He studied at Königsberg University and picked up a rather haphazard musical education. He travelled widely 1771–74 and published his experiences in Vertraute Breife. After working as a civil servant at Königsberg, he obtained the post of music director at the Prussian court in 1776, lived at Berlin and Potsdam, produced operas, and in 1783 founded a Concert Spirituel. He also published collections of music and wrote criticism. After the death of Frederick II he made himself disliked more and more and in 1793 he was dismissed, ostensibly for his sympathy with the French Revolution. He retired to Giebichenstein in 1794, only briefly holding a post at the court of Jérême Bonaparte at Kassel in Germany in 1808.

He married Juliane Benda (1752–1783), a singer, pianist, and composer, daughter of the composer Franz Benda, and had a daughter, Louise (1780–1826), who became a singer and also wrote songs.

Works Opera and stage Hänschen und Gretchen (1772), Amors Guekkasten (1773), Cephalus und Procris (1777), Le feste galanti, Claudine von Villa Bella (Goethe, 1789), Erwin und Elmire (Goethe, 1793), L'Olimpiade (Metastasio, 1791), Tamerlan (in French), Jery und Bätely (Goethe), Der Taucher (after Schiller's ballad, 1811), Brenno, Die Geisterinsel (after Shakespeare's Tempest, 1798), and about 12 others; incidental music to Shakespeare's Macbeth (1795), several plays by Goethe and Kotzebue's Die Kreuzfahrer.

Choral cantatas Ariadne auf Náxos, Ino (1779), Morning Hymn (Milton, translated by Herder) and others.

Other instrumental works, about 1,500 songs.