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Born: April 1705 (baptised: April 20, 1705) - Nürnberg (Nuremberg), Bavaria, Germany
Died: November 27, 1749 (buried: November 27, 1749) - Nürnberg (Nuremberg), Bavaria, Germany |
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Balthasar Schmid [Schmidt] was a German music printer, publisher, composer and organist. He was born the son of Johann Heinrich Schmid (comb maker in Nuremberg). He served his apprenticeship as a music engraver in Nuremberg, where he is mentioned as such in church records in 1726. He is almost certainly the same Balthasar Schmid who enrolled in Universität Leipzig on March 13, 1726, for he appears as engraver of the musical text of J.S. Bach's keyboard Partitas Nos.1 (1726) and 2 (1727). This is supported by Ernst Ludwig Gerber's attribution of the success of these works to Schmid's engraving. While in Leipzig Schmid honed his engraving skills as journeyman and may have studied with J.S. Bach. From the first documented publication of one of his works, on August 7, 1729, Schmid engraved, printed and published a work of his almost yearly for the next decade. In 1734 he engraved the title-page of J.S. Bach's Clavier-Übung II. After his studies in Leipzig, he lived and worked in Nuremberg: from 1727 as music engraver and music publisher; from 1733 to 1737 as organist at the Burgkapelle St. Margarethen; from 1737 to 1749 as organist at the Augustinerkirche; from 1743 to 1749 as organist also at St. Walburga.
Balthasar Schmid was well-known in the first half of the 18th century as an engraver and printer of highly accurate and aesthetically pleasing prints, as well as a composer of some note. His activities as engraver are first mentioned in 1726, but it was from 1735 until his death that he made his reputation; Johann Mattheson, among others, praised both his organ playing and his engraving (Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte, 1740). The firm was run by his son Johann Michael Schmidt (1741-1793) after his father's death.
Balthasar Schmid engraved works by almost all of the most important north German figures of the day: Georg Philipp Telemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, Johann Ludwig Krebs, Georg Andreas Sorge, and Christoph Nichelmann. His best-known works however, are his engravings of J.S. Bach: the first editions of Clavier-Übung IV and the Canonic Variations on Von Himmel Hoch are the work of B. Schmid. Notably, he was an innovator in numbering his catalogue, making chronology possible for several of these compositions, which otherwise might have been impossible.
Even as a student, Balthasar Schmid engraved parts of J.S. Bach's Clavierübung I. Gregory Butler suspected that he would receive lessons in return from J.S. Bach. Evidence of this as well as a possible later presence of Schmid in Leipzig and renewed encounters with J.S. Bach have so far not appeared. |
