Johann Georg Lang
(Schweissing [now Svojšín], 1722 - Ehrenbreitstein, 17 July 1798)
German composer of Bohemian descent
- Concerto Pastorale in D
As a youth he studied the keyboard and violin in Prague. In 1746 he began service in the orchestra of the Prince-Bishop of Augsburg (Joseph, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt). After mid-1749 he embarked on a three-year trip to Italy and for a year studied counterpoint at Naples with Francesco Durante and Girolamo Abos. By 1758 he was Konzertmeister of the prince-bishop's orchestra. In 1768 Clemens Wenzeslaus, Elector of Trier, succeeded to the bishopric of Augsburg and took over the orchestra, moving some of its personnel to Ehrenbreitstein, his electoral residence; Lang was made Konzertmeister there in 1769 and remained even after the elector moved across the Rhine into the new palace at Koblenz in 1786. Lang's official duties included leading the strings and advising the elector's Musikintendant, Baron von Thünnefeld, on orchestral administration. In 1794 the elector abandoned both his residences because of the advancing French Republican forces, but Lang remained at Ehrenbreitstein. He was buried there in the Kreuzkirche. Lang's orchestral output consists mainly of keyboard concertos and symphonies. One of his early concertos has been erroneously attributed to Haydn and several symphonies to J.C. Bach and others. Among his instrumental pieces are many ensemble sonatas with obbligato keyboard and quartets with obbligato flute. Lang's larger vocal works are mostly sacred, including masses, litanies and Te Deum settings. The stylistic evolution of the keyboard concertos shows the changing musical taste at Koblenz between 1769 and 1784; particularly after 1775 greater textural flexibility, slower harmonic rhythm, and more broadly arched melodies become clearly characteristic. A parallel development occurred in the symphonies (mostly from the late 1750s and 1760s), which were praised by a correspondent to Baron von Eschstruth's Musikalische Bibliothek (5 June 1784) as ‘fluent and in accord with the rules’.