Johann Gotthilf Ziegler


Johann Gotthilf Ziegler was a German baroque composer and organist. He is a descendant of a musical family, not unlike that of J.S. Bach, though on a somewhat smaller scale, and belongs, together with Gottfried Kirchhoff and Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow to the group of composers of the so-called Hallischen Spätbarock. His father was the schoolhead and organist Daniel Ziegler, son of the Saxon schoolteacher Johann Ziegler.

Life

Ziegler had already caused a stir as a child prodigy at the Dresdener court of August the Strong, as his contemporary Johann Gottfried Walther, a distant cousin of Bach, wrote in his Musicalischem Lexicon that he could sing at the age four, play the keyboard a couple of years later, and as a 10-year-old play the organ at religious services.
Gotthilf became a pupil of Christian Petzold, organist of the Sophienkirche. He also studied three years in the Collegium musicum des Paedagogium regium of August Francke, in Halle, where he also studied law and theology for 3 years. In 1710 he became a pupil of Friedrich Zachow was a poet and wrote texts for some of Bach's cantatas, A cousin was the composer and organist Christian Gottlieb Ziegler.

Works