Johann Ludwig Böhner

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Johann Ludwig Böhner (1787-1860), known by his contemporaries as "the Thüringian Mozart", was a German composer, pianist, and organist, especially renowned for his improvisational skills. Born in Töttelstädt, Gotha, on 8th January 1787, he was the son of the cantor and organist of his home town, he was involved with music from a very young age. While at high school in Erfurt he studied composition with Michael Gotthard Fischer. From 1805 he worked as a piano teacher in Gotha, where he met Ludwig Spohr, whose compositional style influenced him. For most of the years between 1811 and 1814 Böhner lived in Nürnberg, and it was during this period that he produced most of his major compositions, including three of the five highly acclaimed piano concertos, the Fantasy for Clarinet and Orchestra, op.21, and the Fantasy for Bassoon and Orchestra, op.1. After 1815, he travelled widely in South Germany and Switzerland, but suffered from major character defects, which included indulging in fraud, meant that he failed to gain a foothold, and while in Hamburg in 1819 he suffered a mental breakdown. He was also accused of plagiarism from other composers, such as Carl Maria von Weber, left him believing himdself cheated of his rightful success. Böhner spent the remaining years of his life in Gotha, living a lonely and impoverished existence. He write little more music, but produced the occasional composition, such as his only symphony, op. 130, in 1844. He died on 28th March 1860. U

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