Johann Friedrich Reichardt

Johann Friedrich Reichardt (25 November 1752 – 27 June 1814) was a German composer, writer and music critic.

Reichardt was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, to lutenist and Stadtmusiker Johann Reichardt (1720–1780). Johann Friedrich began his musical training, in violin, keyboard, and lute, as a child. He was a student of Timofey Belogradsky, who in turn was a student of Sylvius Leopold Weiss. When Reichardt was ten years old, his father took the choir in which he sang, the "Wunderknaben", on a concert tour in East Prussia.

After being encouraged by Immanuel Kant, Reichardt later studied Jurisprudence and Philosophy in his hometown and in Leipzig from 1769 to 1771. In 1771, he escaped civil service by embarking on a Sturm-und-Drang tour as a virtuoso. He returned to Königsberg in 1774 and became the Kammersekretär (Chamber Secretary) in Ragnit. After Reichardt sent his opera Le feste galanti as a sample piece to Friedrich II, he was appointed to the position of the Royal Prussian Court Kapellmeister, a position previously held by Carl Heinrich Graun. Two years later he already withdrew from the job and married the singer, pianist and Lieder composer Juliane Benda, a daughter of Frantisek Benda. Of their progeny was one daughter, Louise Reichardt (11 April 1779, Berlin – 17 November 1826, Hamburg), who became a noted songwriter, and a son, Wilhelm (1777–1782).

On the return from his first trip to Italy in 1783, Reichardt stopped in Vienna, where he met Kaiser Joseph II and Christoph Willibald Gluck. Further musical trips to France and England did not produce anticipated success, he therefore returned unwillingly to Berlin. In 1786, he developed close friendships with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Schiller and Johann Georg Hamann.

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