Christian Friedrich Witt, or Witte (1660 -- 1717) was a
German composer, music editor and teacher. He was born
in Altenburg, where his father, Johann Ernst Witt, was
court organist; he had come from Denmark around 1650
when a Danish princess married into the house of
Saxe-Altenburg. Frederick I, Duke of
Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg probably gave Witt a scholarship
in 1676 to study in Vienna and Salzburg, and then from
1685--1686 to study composition and counterpoint in
Nuremberg with Georg Caspar Wecker...(+)
Christian Friedrich Witt, or Witte (1660 -- 1717) was a
German composer, music editor and teacher. He was born
in Altenburg, where his father, Johann Ernst Witt, was
court organist; he had come from Denmark around 1650
when a Danish princess married into the house of
Saxe-Altenburg. Frederick I, Duke of
Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg probably gave Witt a scholarship
in 1676 to study in Vienna and Salzburg, and then from
1685--1686 to study composition and counterpoint in
Nuremberg with Georg Caspar Wecker, returning for a
further period of study in 1688. He moved to Gotha to
take up a post as chamber organist to the court in June
1686; he remained there for the rest of his life. He
became a substitute for W.M. Mylius, the kapellmeister,
in 1694, and succeeded him after his death in 1713;
Duke Frederick II was one of his pupils. He is
mentioned as a good keyboard player and kapellmeister
in J.P. Treiber's Der accurate Organist im General-Bass
(1704) and Telemann's Beschreibung der Augen-Orgel
(1739). He was also valued by the courts of
Ansbach-Bayreuth, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, and
Saxe-Weissenfels. While on his deathbed, Johann
Sebastian Bach was commissioned to substitute for him
and perform a Passiontide work for the court
chapel.
Witt's keyboard works were well known throughout
Germany, and in fact appear in many anthologies of the
time. One famous example is the inclusion of two of his
suites (in C minor and in F-sharp minor) in the
so-called Möllersche Handschrift (Möller Manuscript),
one of two anthologies compiled by Johann Christoph
Bach (1671--1721), Johann Sebastian Bach's older
brother (to whom he committed various manuscripts that
found their way into the anthologies, as well as
manuscripts of some of his own early works).
Although this piece was originally written for Strings
& Continuo, I created this arrangement for Viola and
Acoustic Piano.