Johann Joachim Quantz

Johann Joachim Quantz (; 30 January 1697 – 12 July 1773) was a German composer, flautist and flute maker of the late Baroque period. Much of his professional career was spent in the court of Frederick the Great, where he served as the king’s flute teacher. Quantz composed hundreds of flute sonatas and concertos, and wrote On Playing the Flute, an influential treatise on flute performance. His works were known and appreciated by Bach, Haydn and Mozart. Biography 1697–1723: Early life Quantz was born as Hanß Jochim Quantz in Oberscheden, near Göttingen, Lower Saxony, in the Electorate of Hanover. His father, Andreas Quantz, was a blacksmith who died when Hans was not yet 11; on his deathbed, he declared that his son should follow in his footsteps. Quantz states in his autobiography that he had been trained as a blacksmith from the age of nine. As a result of his father’s death he was given the opportunity to choose his own career path and from 1708 to 1713 he began his musical studies with his uncle Justus Quantz, a town musician in Merseburg; he also studied for a time with a cousin’s husband, the organist Johann Friedrich Kiesewetter. From 1714, Quantz studied composition extensive