Friedrich Zachow

Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow was a German composer, organist and vocal-and-keyboard musician of the Baroque era. Born in Leipzig on 14 November 1663, he first studied with his father, the piper Heinrich Zachow, one of the city’s town musicians, and later received additional training possibly under Johann Schelle after the family moved to Eilenburg. He subsequently became organist at the Marienkirche in Halle, succeeding Samuel Ebart in 1684. He is remembered as the teacher of Georg Frederic Handel, whom he instructed in composition, thorough-bass, organ, harpsichord, violin and oboe, and whose early success as an organist in Halle testified to Zachow’s effective teaching. His cantatas and keyboard works combine south-German and north-German traditions and represent an important link between late-17th-century organ culture and early-18th-century vocal music.

During his tenure in Halle, Zachow gained particular renown as a composer of dramatic cantatas, although in 1695 pietists criticized his music as overly long and elaborate. He was influenced by Johann Theile in Merseburg and by the poetry of Erdmann Neumeister, whose anti-pietist stance resonated with his own artistic outlook. Zachow also taught several other notable musicians, including Gottfried Kirchhoff, Johann Philipp Krieger and Johann Gotthilf Ziegler, and his music continued to influence Handel, who not only reused some of Zachow’s compositions in London but may have drawn inspiration from Zachow’s cantata Herr, wenn ich nur dich habe, notable for its unique harp solo in the German cantata repertoire.

After Zachow’s death in Halle on 7 August 1712, following a brief illness, Handel is said to have supported his widow and children in gratitude. In 1713 Johann Sebastian Bach was invited to succeed him, and Zachow’s surviving works, which include a Mass, numerous cantatas, keyboard pieces and chamber trios, circulated widely enough that Bach reportedly received many of them through Johann Ernst. His legacy endures in both his surviving compositions and the profound influence he exerted on the next generation of German composers.

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