Johan Rudolf Zumsteeg

Who was Johan Rudolf Zumsteeg?

Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg was a German composer and conductor.

Zumsteeg championed the operas of Mozart in Stuttgart, staging the first performances there of Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte. He also was a prolific composer of lieder and ballads. His ballads had a great influence on the young Franz Schubert, who imitated a number of Zumsteeg's as studies while he was a teenager.

Zumsteeg was bornborn in Sachsenflur, Lauda-Königshofen, and received his early education at the Carlschule in Stuttgart. There Zumsteeg became intimate friends with Friedrich Schiller. A setting for Schiller's drama, Die Räuber, 1782, is an example of the type of close collaboration that Zumsteeg undertook with prominent poets.

Perhaps the most well-known of Zumsteeg's compositions are the seven volumes of Kleine Lieder und Balladen published by Breitkopf & Härtel between 1800 and 1805. These were highly popular in Germany, remaining well-known until the 1830s. According to Schubert's friend Josef von Spaun, Schubert discovered them while at seminary. "He had several of Zumsteeg's songs in front of him and told me that these songs moved him profoundly...