Theodor Christlieb Reinhold(t) (Composer)

Born: September 13, 1682 - Eppendorf, Saxony, Germany
Died: March 24, 1755 - Dresden, Germany

Theodor Christlieb Reinhold(t), was a German organist and composer. He came from an old family of clergy, and was registered in the third class of the Dresden Kreuzschule on May 20, 1694. In 1706 he became organist of the Dresden Annenkirche and ‘schoolmaster of the girls at Wilssdorf gate’. He was Kantor of the Dreikönigskirche from 1707 until 1720 when he was appointed Kantor of the Kreuzkirche, a post he held until his death. In the same year Reinhold also took over direction of music at the Sophienkirche, Dresden’s civic church, and was appointed fifth teacher at the Kreuzschule. As a result of his promotion to fourth teacher at the Kreuzschule on April 28, 1725 Reinhold took charge of sacred music at the new Frauenkirche, writing cantatas to mark the laying of the foundation stone of the church (1726) and its consecration (1734); like most of his works, they are now lost. In 1741 he took over the direction of a newly founded collegium musicum, mainly for the performance of cantatas and serenades; he had earlier been concerned with a collegium musicum connected with the Kreuzkirche. He was promoted to third teacher at the Kreuzschule on May 5, 1752. His successor was J.S. Bach’s pupil Gottfried August Homilius.

Theodor Christlieb Reinhold was Kantor of the Dresden Kreuzkirche at the time that J.S. Bach was Kantor of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Reinhold’s choir comprised 34 pupils and at least 22 ‘Kurrendaner’ (members who were engaged for special occasions). He also recruited volunteer singers to reinforce the choir for performances of his large-scale festive cantatas. At the service consecrating the new Silbermann organ in the Frauenkirche in [on November 25] 1736 Reinhold was the first to employ the effect, subsequently used repeatedly, of positioning choral groups in different places so as to cause a ‘well-composed echo to [resound] from the uppermost dome of the church’. He was the leader of the German forces that resisted the increasing foreign influence in Dresden musical life, especially during the Hasse period; he was also an outstanding bass singer. Of his many pupils, Johann Adam Hiller, C.G. Tag and Christian Wolf later became well known. J.A. Hiller is particularly important; he dedicated his Abhandlung über die Nachahmung der Natur in der Musik (reprinted in Marpurg’s Historisch-kritische Beyträge, i, 1754) to Reinhold, and printed two four-part motets by him, Reinhold’s only surviving works.

Writings

Einige zur Musik gehörige poetische Gedanken bei Gelegenheit der schönen neuen in der Frauenkirche in Dresden verfertigten Orgel (Dresden, 1736) [reviewed in Lorenz Christoph Mizler von Kolof, Neu eröffnete musicalische Bibliothek, i (Leipzig, 1736-38), 67]

Source: Grove Music Online, © Oxford University Press 2009, (Article Authors: Dieter Härtwig/Hans John), accessed January 13, 2009
Contributed by Thomas Braatz (January 2009)

Links to other Sites

Bibliography

K. Held: Das Kreuzkantorat zu Dresden (Leipzig, 1894/R), 83ff
E.H. Hofmann: Capella sanctae crucis (Berlin, 1956, 3/1958; Eng. trans., 1962)
H. Böhm: ‘Die evangelischen Kreuzkantoren’, Kirchenmusik heute, ed. H. Böhm (Berlin, 1959), 172–3
H. John: ‘Kirchenmusik in der Dresdner Frauenkirche im 18. Jahrhundert’, Die Dresdner Frauenkirche: Jb zu ihrer Geschichte und zu ihrem archäologischen Wiederaufbau, ii (1996), 137-46