Johann Nicolaus Mempel (10 December 1713 – 26 February 1747) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
musician.
He was born in Heyda (now part of
IlmenauIlmenau is a town located in the district of Ilm-Kreis, Thuringia, Germany.Ilmenau is situated in the valley of the Ilm river, at an altitude of 431 metres above sea level, and is the biggest town in Ilm-Kreis district, with 6,200 students studying at the Technische Universität Ilmenau. The...
,
ThuringiaThe Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
). From 1740 to his death, he was cantor in
ApoldaApolda is a town in central Thuringia, Germany, the capital of the Weimarer Land district. It is situated in the center of the triangle Weimar - Jena - Naumburg near the river Ilm, c. 15 km east by north from Weimar, on the main line of railway from Berlin via Halle, to...
. Along with
Johann Gottlieb PrellerJohann Gottlieb Preller, or Breller, , was a German cantor, composer, and land surveyor.He was born in Oberroßla, . Nothing is known of his musical training...
, he copied one of the most important
manuscriptA manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
collections of the
organThe pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
and
keyboardA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
music of
Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, known as the
Mempell-Preller-Handschrift. He may have come into contact with Bach's music as a pupil of
Johann Peter KellnerJohann Peter Kellner was a German organist and composer. He was the father of Johann Christoph Kellner.-Biography:...
or through
Johann Gottfried WaltherJohann Gottfried Walther was a German music theorist, organist, composer, and lexicographer of the Baroque era.Walther was born at Erfurt...
, though it is not known for certain.
- Hans Löffler: Bachs Schüler in Thüringen, in J.
