Joseph Schmitt

Who was Joseph Schmitt?

Georg Adam Joseph Schmitt was a German/Dutch composer, conductor, music director, publisher, music theorist and pedagogue. He is also known as "The Dutch Haydn".

Joseph Schmitt was a student of Carl Friedrich Abel, who was a student of J.S. Bach and a mentor of Mozart, and probably also had close contact with composers and performers at the court in Mannheim. In 1753, at age 19, Schmitt was admitted into the clergy. For a period of around 20 years worked as a musical priest at the Cistercian Eberbach Abbey in the Rheingau, where he composed a broad range of music, from sacred to secular, chamber to symphonic.

In the early 1770s, Schmitt moved to Amsterdam, where he had already compositions published by leading European music publishing firm, the Hummel brothers. Schmitt established himself quickly in the city, becoming music director at the Felix Meritis society, where he worked for the next two decades, and opening his own publishing firm which subsequently introduced major works by composers such as Mozart to northern Europe for the first time. In his various roles, Schmitt became the most important figure in Dutch musical life in the second half of the 18th century.