KEISER, REINHOLD (1673-1739), German composer, was born at Teuchern near Weissenfels, Leipzig, in 1673 (bap tized Jan. 12, 1674). He received his early musical training from his father, a composer of church music, and afterwards went to the Thomasschule in Leipzig. In 1694 he settled in Hamburg and became the most famous composer of German opera of his day. He wrote a hundred and sixteen pieces for the Hamburg theatre, ran a successful series of "winter concerts" (which were a com bination of concert and banquet), married the daughter of a Hamburg patrician, and in 1728 became cantor and canon of Hamburg cathedral. In between he held court appointments at Stuttgart and Copenhagen but Hamburg remained his home and he died there on Sept. 13, 1739. Keiser's facility in writing and gift for melody must have been extraordinary. His operas con tained on an average forty airs and for forty years he remained a favourite with the public. Those were critical days for German opera, which was then in its infancy with Hamburg for its cradle, and it was Keiser, with his colleagues Mattheson and Telemann, who in the beginning enabled it to hold its own against the French and Italian schools. Unfortunately Keiser's early promise was
never fulfilled. His work not only became trivial but was often—as in the opera Stortebecker and Godje Michael—of un paralleled coarseness, and the attempt to establish German opera ended in failure. In his later years he turned to church music, which he seems to have approached with due seriousness. His oratorios were dramatic, as was natural, but had earnestness and dignity. He also wrote motets, cantatas and psalms.
For the full catalogue of his works see Vierteljahrsschrift, vol. vi., pp. 196-203. Examples from his operas are included in "The Age of Bach and Handel" (Oxford History of Music, vol. iv.). Octavia was re printed as a supplement to the Handelgesellschaft edit., 1902, and Krosus and Inganns fidele are in the Denkmaler deuischer Tonkunst, xxxvii., xxxviii. See also Chrysander, Geschichte d. Hamburger Oper, Allgemeine Musikztg. (1878-79) ; Kljefeld, Das Oper, Internat. Musik gesellsch. (Leipzig).