Hieronymus Florentinus Quehl

Quehl was born in 1694 in Zella. He worked in Gräfenhain, Zella-Mehlis, and was last active in Zella. Early on, his musical abilities made him a sensation. In contemporary documents it was noted that "...at just 10 years of age he perfected his music in locales like Hamburg, Amsterdam, Leyden, The Hague, etc." (from "Lebensläufen", St. Michael Fürth). However, he learned most of his organ training from Kapellmeister Christian Friedrich Witt in Gotha. In the autumn of 1714 Quehl worked as an organist at the St. Marien Cathedral in Suhl. In 1718 he married the second daughter of the head parishioner, Johann Caspar Werner. They had eight children although six of them did not live past infancy. Johann Sebastian Bach, the Kapellmeister at the Court in Köthen at the time, was godfather to his third son. From 1732 to 1733 Quehl taught organ and composition to Johann Peter Kellner.[1] Quehl died in Fürth on 27 March 1739.

In the summer of 1730, Quehl was the organist and cantor at the church of St. Nicolai in Marktbreit am Main, appointed when the cantor Johann Friedrich Schüttwürfel died. According to the main extant compositional evidence, Quehl was an organist in Nurnberg in 1734.[2] In 1735 Quehl joined the church school service as a cantor and organist at St. Michael in Fürth, where he was at the time of his death in March 1739. Elsewhere, he is also described as "Music Director".[3] Quehl's successor was Caspar Christian Keller from Suhl. It is not known if this is the son or other relative of Quehl's student Johann Peter Kellner, who, according to the MGG also went by "Keller." [4][5]

Quehl's compositions are incomplete, unknown, and many have yet to be discovered, let alone analyzed. From 1732 to 1733, Johann Peter Kellner took composition lessons from Quehl, which suggests that Quehl already was known at the time as a composer and organist. Kellner wrote, "In the neighborhood... there was still one man who could boast that he was an excellent musician and an especially good composer. How I looked for this man. It was the organist Quehl in Suhl. His skill and other musical abilities impressed me, that I would also be able to try. The man promised to teach me and it was here my foundations of composition were made." (Collections of Church and School Writings, Gotha).

There are only a few manuscripts of Quehl's work available to modern audiences. A tablature with 205 chorale fugues is attributed to Quehl from the mid-18th century. It was stored in the Royal Library in Berlin until it was moved to avoid destruction in World War II. The original manuscript can now be found in the Jagiellonian University library in Kraków. This tablature was transcribed as part of a PhD dissertation in 1995.[6] They are seen as the exemplary work of the chorale fugue genre, representing not only Quehl but likely his immediate predecessors and contemporaries. These kinds of chorales would also have been improvised during a church service.[7]

On 17 December 1730 there was a performance of a cantata based on Psalm 84, 2-4 in Marktbreit am Main. In 1734, Quehl put out his first work under the title, "Der zur Beförderung Göttlicher Ehre und Aufmunterung des Geistlichen Zions abzielende Erstere Musicalische Versuch. Bestehend aus Zweyen Chorälen. Mit unterschiedenen, teils Figurirten, teils auf zwei Clavieren und obligaten Pedal, auf drei Linien eingerichteten Variationen." ("The First Musicalistic Attempt to Promote Divine Honor and Encouragement of Spiritual Zion. For two choirs. With variations arranged on three lines, figured bass, two harpsichords and obligatory pedal"). The work is connected with a note on a second work that so far has not been found.

• Werke von und über Hieronymus Florentinus Quehl in the German National Library catalogue
• Free scores by Hieronymus Florentinus Quehl at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)