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Johann Nikolaus Tischer (Composer, Organ, Oboe, Violin, Bach's Pupil) |
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Born: February 1707 (baptised: February 19, 1707) - Böhlen, near Ilmenau, about 15 km south of Leipzig, Saxony, Germany
Died: May 31 2 or 204 5, 1774 - Schmalkalden, Thuringia, Germany |
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Johann Nikolaus [Nicolaus] Tischer was a German composer and instrumentalist (primarily oboe). This extraordinarily versatile musician studied the organ with Johann Balthasar Rauche in Böhlen (1719) and piano with Johann Graf in Halberstadt (1722), and the violin, viola d’amore and composition with Schweitzelberg in Arnstadt and again Graf in Rudolstadt. He was also proficient on the oboe: after travels to Erfurt, Blankenburg, Braunschweig (Brunswick), Hamburg, Berlin and Dresden. He also studied with J.S. Bach in Leipzig in 1726.
Johann Nikolaus Tischer finally obtained employment in 1728 as regimental oboist and violinist to Duke August Wilhelm of Brunswick. In 1731 he moved to Schmalkalden as town/court organist (substituted since 1753, probably Johann Georg Schübler (A-46)), shortly thereafter also becoming temporarily Konzertmeister at the court of Saxe-Coburg-Meiningen. Declining health curtailed his activities after 1765 and in 1768 his pupil Johann Gottfried Vierling was appointed to assist him, eventually becoming his successor.
In his youth Johann Nikolaus Tischer’s compositional activities centred on church music; after 1732 he divided his efforts between keyboard and orchestral music. Particularly well represented in his output are pedagogical collections for young pianists and concertos for the piano, violin and oboe, instruments on which he himself excelled. Although his keyboard works were much published and appreciated during his lifetime, modern scholars have generally dismissed his works as shallow and of little consequence.
A lesson from J.S. Bach in the second half of the 1730's was mentioned by Hilgenfeld in 1850 (who falsely called him "Fischer"). In view of the biographical data already communicated by Gerber in 1792 and not taken into account by Hilgenfeld, one could only think of a kind of further training based on his previous employment in Schmalkalden. Johann Nikolaus Tischer's stays in Leipzig (or even before 1723 in Köthen (Anhalt)) are not otherwise detectable, especially not during his trip through Germany in the 1720's. Hilgenfeld could of course have had a document on J.N. Tischer's biography that is unknown today, because he singularly reports an anecdote that Tischer, "von Wahnsinn befallen, sein Instrument zerschlagen" (infested with madness, smashed his instrument). This would go well with the recently established fact that J.N. Tischer had been substituted in the organist office since 1753, though perhaps not consistently until his death and at least temporarily against his will.
References: Koska: B-31; GND: 131358685; Bach Digital: 00005096 |
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Works |
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Published in Nuremberg unless otherwise stated
Edition: Johann Nikolaus Tischer: Opera omnia per clavicembalo, ed. L. Cerutti (Padua, 1995)
Keyboard:
Anmuthige Clavier-Früchte, i–ii, bestehend in 6 kleinen Suiten (?c1740)
Divertissement musical, 9 suites, opp.1–3 (c1743-1752)
Das vergnügte Ohr und der erquickte Geist in 6 Galanterie-Parthien (1748)
Wehklagendes Kyrie und frohlockendes Halleluja, oder Harmonische Herzens-Belustigung, 2 concertos (c1748)
Musikalische Zwillinge, i–vii, 13 concs. (1754), 4 ed. C. Lister (Saint Louis, MO, 1994)
Sonata in Haffner’s Oeuvres melées, vii (1761)
6 leichte und dabey angenehme Clavier-Partien, i–v (1763), vi (Munich, 1766)
6 fugues, Die vier Jahreszeiten (divertissement), keyboard, MS, mentioned FétisB
Other works (all MS, mentioned by Fétis):
50 church compositions, before 1732
6 concertos, oboe, viola
6 violin concertos
6 keyboard concertos
12 symphonies
6 overtures, strings
2 violin sonatas |
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Sources:
1. Grove Music Online (Author: Lilian P. Pruett, Accessed: June 22, 2014) Copyright © Oxford University Press 2007-2014;
2. Oxford Composer Companions J.S. Bach (Editor: Malcolm Boyd, OUP, 1999)
3. fine-print footnotes in the Bach-Dokumente
4. Bernd Koska: Bachs Privatschüler in Bach-Jahrbuch 2019, English translation by Aryeh Oron (May 2020)
5. Bach Digital Website (July 2019)
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (June 2014, May 2020); Thomas Braatz (January 2011, June 2014) |
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Links to other Sites |
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Tischer, Johann Nikolaus (Bach
Digital) |
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Bibliography |
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FétisB | GerberL | NewmanSCE | SchillingE
M. Seiffert: Geschichte der Klaviermusik (Leipzig, 1899/R), i, 368
K. Paulke: ‘Johann Gottfried Vierling, 1750–1813’, AMw, iv (1922), 439–55
Sources 4: Gerber ATL, Bd. II, Sp. 655–658; C. L. Hilgenfeldt, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Leben, Wirken und Werke. Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig 1850, S. 153f.; Löffler 1929/31, Anh. Nr. 1; Löffler 1953, Anh. Nr. 1; MGGo; Landeskirchliches Archiv Kassel, Gesamtkonsistorium Kassel, Spezialakten, Nr. 908 (Die Lehrer- (Cantoren-, Organisten-) Stellen zu Schmalkalden (ref. u. luth.) [1755–1842]) |
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