A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Eberlin, Johann

by Carl Ferdinand Pohl

EBERLIN, Johann Ernst, court-organist and 'Truchsess' (or carver) to the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, and an eminent German composer of sacred music. His name, place and date of birth and death are here for the first time correctly given from official records. His original name was Eberle, which was turned, according to a custom then common with women, into Eberlin, and as such he retained it. He was the son of the land-steward to Baron von Stain, and was born March 27, 1702 (not 1716) at Jettingen (not Jettenbach), a market-village near Günzburg, in the Upper-Danube district of Bavaria. He died at Salzburg, June 21, 1762 (not 1776). He was court-organist to Archbishop Franz Anton, Graf von Harrach, as early as the time of his marriage, which took place in 1727 at Seekirchen on the Wallersee, near Salzburg. Of his early life or musical education nothing is known, and the number even of his many valuable contrapuntal works can only be imperfectly ascertained. Among the best known are 'IX Toccate e fughe per l'organo' (Lotter, Augsburg 1747), dedicated to Archbishop Jacob Ernst. They passed through many editions, and are also printed in Commer's 'Musica sacra,' vol. i. Nägeli's edition contains only the nine fugues. The last fugue, in E minor, was published (in E♭ minor) as Bach's in Griepenkerl's edition of Bach's works (Book ix, No. 13), an error which has since been corrected. Haffner published sonatas in G and A, and Schott 2 motets, 'Qui coufidunt' and 'Sicut mater consolatur,' for 3 voices, with clavier accompaniment. To Leopold Mozart's collection for the Hornwerk at Hohen-Salzburg, 'Der Morgen und der Abend' (Letter 1759), Eberlin also contributed 5 pieces. Fétis, in his 'Biographie universelle,' gives a list of his church compositions in MS. in the libraries of Berlin and Vienna, and of the Latin dramas he composed for the pupils of the Benedictine monastery at Salzburg (1745–60), of which, however, the words only are extant. Proske's library contains the autographs of 13 oratorios, including the 'Componimento sacro,' performed with great success at Salzburg in 1747. The Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde at Vienna possesses a copy of a mass and a fugue for two choirs with double orchestra. Eberlin's strict writing was so much prized by Mozart, that about 1777 he copied 13 of his pieces (mostly church-music in 4 parts) together with some by M. Haydn, into a MS. book which he kept for his own instruction, and which still exists. He afterwards (1782) however wrote to his sister that Eberlin's fugues could not be ranked with those of Bach and Handel♭'All honour to his 4-part pieces; but his clavier fugues are merely extended Versetti.' Marpurg was the first to proclaim his merit ('Kritische Beiträge,' Berlin 1757, vol.iii. Stück 3, p. 183), and says that he wrote as much and as rapidly as Scarlatti and Telemann.

[ C. F. P. ]