A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Mosewius, Johann Theodor
MOSEWIUS, Johann Theodor, born Sept. 25, 1788, at Königsberg in Prussia; like so many others, forsook the law for music and the theatre. After a regular musical education he became in 1814 director of the opera in his native town. He married, and in 1816 went to Breslau, and for 8 years he and his wife were the pillars of the opera. His wife dying in 1825 he forsook the stage, and founded the Breslau Singakademie. He had before this started the Liedertafel of the town. In 1827 he followed Berner as Professor at the University, and in 1829 became Director of the music there. In 1831 he succeeded Schnabel as head of the Royal Institution for Church Music, which he appears to have conducted most efficiently, bringing forward a large number of pieces by the greatest of the old Italian masters, as well as the vocal works of Mendelssohn, Lowe, Spohr, Marx, etc. His activity was further shown in the foundation of an elementary class as a preparative for the Singakademie, and a society called the Musikalische Cirkel (1834) for the practice of secular music. He also initiated the musical section of the Vaterländische Gesellschaft of Silesia, and became its secretary. In England this active and useful man is probably only known through two pamphlets—reprints from the Allg. Musikalische Zeitung—'J. S. Bach in seinen Kirchen cantaten und Choralgesängen' (Berlin, 1845), and 'J. S. Bach's Matthäus Passion' (Berlin, 1852). These valuable treatises are now superseded by the publication of the works of which they treat, but in the copious examples which they contain, some Englishmen made their first acquaintance with Bach's finest compositions.
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