Johann Georg Albrechtsberger

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Johann Georg Albrechtsberger

Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (born Klosterneuburg near Vienna, 3 February 1736; died Vienna 7 March 1809) was an Austrian composer, organist, music theorist and music teacher. He is particularly remembered today because for some time he was Beethoven’s teacher.

From the age of seven Albrechtsberger was a choirboy. He had lessons in organ and music theory. When he was grown up he had several jobs in churches in small towns. He became Kapellmeister at St Stephen’s Church, Vienna in 1793. This was the best job for a church musician in the whole empire.

Albrechtsberger wrote hundreds of compositions, most of them written before he got the job in Vienna. He wrote in a classical style, and enjoyed doing unusual things such as asking string players to tune their strings in different ways (called “scordatura”) or writing slow movements with muted strings. As well as classical sonatas he wrote lots of fugues. Several people, including Mozart, thought of him as the greatest organist in the world.

Albrechtsberger was a very influential music teacher. Joseph Haydn thought he was the best teacher in Vienna. He was very interested in contrapuntal music of the Baroque period and copied lots of fugues by Bach and other composers.

When Beethoven was a young man he had some composition lessons from Joseph Haydn. When Haydn was going to travel to England for several months he arranged for Beethoven to continue having lessons with Albrechtsberger. These lessons took place from 1793 to 1795. A few years later Albrechtsberger said about Beethoven that “he learned absolutely nothing and will never accomplish anything decent”. Beethoven said that Albrechtsberger was a “musical pedant”.^[1]. However, Beethoven continued to study Albrechtsberger’s books on music theory. The string quartets which Beethoven wrote near the end of his life show the influence of Albrechtsberger.

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