Friedrich Wilhelm Berner

Friedrich Wilhelm Berner (Breslau, 1780 – Breslau, 1827) was a prominent figure in the musical life of his native city at the beginning of the nineteenth century. An organist, teacher and composer, he combined organ playing with institutional activity.

He was trained by his father, organist at the church of St Elizabeth, whom he eventually succeeded in 1810. Around 1798 he heard the organist David Traugott Nicolai, whose father had been a pupil of Bach, and this encounter led him to abandon the galant style in favour of Bach's. After Weber arrived as Kapellmeister in 1804, Berner struck up a friendship with him; apparently his swift intervention prevented serious consequences when Weber accidentally swallowed etching acid.

In 1812 he travelled to Berlin to observe Zelter's methods at the Sing-Akademie. In 1815 the Akademische Institut für Kirchenmusik was founded in Breslau, directed by Berner and Joseph Schnabel. Following the dissolution of the Silesian monasteries in 1810, he catalogued their musical holdings.

Mendelssohn admired him as a teacher and improviser, and in his day he was highly regarded as a composer. His output includes cantatas, songs, pieces for organ and piano, and concertos for wind instruments, although much of his work has been lost. Among his pupils were Ernst Köhler and Adolf Hesse.