Johann Kirnberger


Johann Philipp Kirnberger was a musician, composer, and music theorist. He was a student of Johann Sebastian Bach.
According to Ingeborg Allihn, Kirnberger played a significant role in the intellectual and cultural exchange between Germany and Poland in the mid-18th century. Between 1741 and 1751 Kirnberger lived and worked in Poland for powerful magnates including Lubomirski, Poninski, and Rzewuski before ending up at the Benedictine Cloister in Lviv. He spent much time collecting Polish national dances and compiled them in his treatise Die Charaktere der Taenze.
Kirnberger became a violinist at the court of Frederick II of Prussia in 1751. He was the music director to the Prussian Princess Anna Amalia from 1758 until his death.
Kirnberger greatly admired Johann Sebastian Bach, deeming him "the greatest of all composers." Kirnberger published Bach's Clavierübungen mit der bachischen Applicatur in the 1760s, and seeking to secure the publication of all of Bach's chorale settings, which finally appeared after Kirnberger's death; see. Many of Bach's manuscripts have been preserved in Kirnberger's library.
Kirnberger is known today primarily for his theoretical work Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik. The well-tempered tuning systems known as "Kirnberger II" and "Kirnberger III" are associated with his name, as is a rational version of equal temperament. One of his most familiar compositions is Fuga in C-dur für Orgel, which was formerly attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach and then to his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.