Schmidt, Johann Philipp Samuel
1779-1853
Amateur pianist and composer; born at Konigsberg. Son of a councillor, he entered upon official duties in 1801, and became councillor of the Prussian government in 1819. He had studied music from the age of seven, under Schultz, Halter, Richter and Schoenebeck. He published a piano concerto at Offenbach and brought put his first opera, Der Schlaftrank, in Konigsberg in 1792. After 1806 Schmidt had to support himself by giving piano lessons and concerts, and from that time he kept up his association with musical affairs. He contributed to Berlin and Leipsic papers, and was musical critic of the Spenersche Zeitung for thirty years. He published piano arrangements of symphonies and quartets by Haydn and Mozart and of Radziwill's Faust, and composed ten operas for Konigsberg and Berlin, the last, Alfred der Grosse, in 1830. He also wrote eighteen cantatas; nine masses; oratorios; symphonies; quartets; quintets; and other music for strings, much of which was published.