Johann Ludwig Böhner

Johann Ludwig Böhner (7 January 1787 - 28 March 1860) was a German composer, pianist, and organist. He was known as the “Thuringian Mozart” by his contemporaries. Life Böhner was born in Töttelstädt, Thuringia, near Erfurt. After his musical exposure and training by his father, Johann Matthias Böhner (a cantor and organist), Johann Christian Kittel, and , he worked as a piano teacher in Gotha, where he met Ludwig Spohr, until attaining the position of music director in Nuremberg in 1811. During his years at Nuremberg (1811-1814), many of his more well-known works were composed, including his Fantasies for Bassoon and Orchestra and Clarinet and Orchestra, and his romantic opera Die Mädchen in einsamen Mühlenthale. As a pianist, Böhner scored his first success in Leipzig’s Gewandhaus on 16 May 1814. From 1815 onwards, he toured through Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Switzerland. However, Böhner’s successful piano career was soon to be compromised by increasing eccentricity, fraud, and ill health. Because of his character flaws, he had a mental breakdown in Hamburg in 1819 and stayed mostly in Gotha for the rest of his life. At a performance in Leipzig in September 1834, composer Robe