Johann Ludwig Krebs

Johann Ludwig Krebs: (b Buttelstedt, Weimar, bap. 12 Oct 1713; d Altenburg, 1 Jan 1780). Composer and organist, eldest of the three sons of (1) Johann Tobias Krebs.

He received his first musical instruction from his father, including organ lessons as early as his 12th year. An improvement in the family fortunes enabled him to enter the Thomasschule in Leipzig in July 1726. He learnt the lute and violin, continued with his keyboard studies, and as late as 1730 was still singing treble in the choir. Anticipating that his eight years of study at the Thomasschule would end in 1734, he competed for the position of organist at St Wenzel, Naumburg, on 25 August 1733, along with his father (who later withdrew), C.P.E. Bach and five others; neither he nor C.P.E. Bach was successful. The Thomasschule therefore extended Krebs’s term, and a year later J.S. Bach summed up in a testimonial of 24 August 1735 that his pupil had ‘distinguished himself’ on the clavier, violin and lute, as well as in composition. This special recommendation undoubtedly refers to an otherwise unknown application for a post, perhaps at St Katharinen, Zwickau. During the next two years (1735–7) Krebs read law and philosophy at Leipzig University, occasionally assisting Bach at the Thomaskirche or playing the harpsichord in Bach’s collegium musicum.