(b Kaliningrad, 9 June 1810; d Berlin, 11 May 1849). German composer and conductor. He studied in Berlin (with Zelter) and in Rome (with Baini), where he was organist at the Prussian Embassy chapel (1833-6). Contact with the theatre led him to drop contrapuntal studies and turn to composing opera. He made a reputation in Trieste and Turin before becoming principal conductor at the Vienna Hofoper (1841-7), where his uncompromising standards, and energy in founding the Vienna Philharmonic Concerts, made a great impact. In 1848 he returned to Berlin as opera Kapellmeister and cathedral choir director. His new German opera Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (1849), which brought to a peak the bourgeois Romantic comic opera and his own creativity, was his masterpiece, reconciling his conflicting imaginative and intellectual impulses. His church and orchestral music is conventional, while his partsongs and choruses show his penchant for felicitous melodies.

The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.