Johann Pfeiffer

Johann Pfeiffer
(b Nuremberg, 1 Jan 1697; d Bayreuth, 7 Oct 1761). German composer and violinist. He learnt the violin with various teachers and later studied jurisprudence at the universities of Leipzig (from 1717) and Halle-Wittenberg (from 1719).

He spent six months as director of music for Count Heinrich XI von Reuss at Schleiz before entering the Weimar court orchestra as a violinist in 1720. In 1726 he was made Konzertmeister, a post apparently left vacant since J.S. Bach's departure in 1717. Pfeiffer's Trauermusik for Duke Ernst August's late wife, Eleonore Wilhelmine, was performed later that year, and between August 1728 (or 1729) and January 1730 he accompanied the duke on a tour of the Low Countries and France.