Wilhelm Adolph

Wilhelm Balthasar Adolph (1729 –1781) was a German composer of liturgical music in galant style, cantor and rector (schoolmaster) of catholic parish schools in Świebodzin and Góra. Biography Born a son of Andreas Joseph Adolph (Adolff), municipal treasury bookkeeper and salt merchant, later lay judge and associate judge in Góra (Guhrau), and Anna Catharina, daughter of Sebastian Gräbner, city surgeon and town councillor in Góra as well as treasurer of the town’s parish church. In 1748 he became cantor (and probably at the same time rector) of the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Świebodzin (Germ. Schwiebus). Soon afterwards he married Anna Rosina Lange (d. after 1781), daughter of Anton Frantz Lange, customs collector in Zielona Góra (Germ. Grünberg) and Cistercian nuns’ of Trzebnica (Germ. Trebnitz) estates’ administrator. They had five children. The earliest manuscript of his work (copy of Litaniae de BMV) dates back to this period of his life, from 1757. In 1766 the composer moved with his family to his own family town, Góra. Appointed conrector and cantor of the school by the Roman Catholic Church of St Catherine of Alexandria in Góra. Soon he became rect