Johann Georg Spangler

Johann Georg (Joseph) Spangler was a Viennese tenor and composer, born and died in Vienna (1752-1802). The son of Johann Michael Spangler, he belongs to the group of church musicians who sustained the religious musical life of the Austrian capital at the end of the eighteenth century, and his figure is of interest above all for his sacred works.

His career began as a tenor and choir member at the Michaelerkirche. By around 1783 he was already singing as a tenor in three Viennese churches: the chapels of the Kölner Hof, the Ritterakademie of Savoy and the Minoritenkirche. That same year, on the orders of Joseph II, the musical programmes of the first two were abolished and their staff dismissed. The following year he was appointed adviser to the Tonkünstler-Sozietät, to which he had belonged since 1777, and between 1784 and 1785 he joined the Masonic lodge 'Zur wahren Eintracht', of which Haydn was also a member. From 1793 he was tenor of the Hofkapelle and, a year later, succeeded his father as regens chori of the Michaelerkirche. In 1796 he became archivist of the Hofkapelle, and in 1798 he received the appointment of titular deputy Kapellmeister, while retaining the post of regens chori.

As a composer he was prolific in religious music. At least one Mass, one Requiem and a dozen short works preserved in Vienna, Graz and Berlin are attributed to him, some in autograph copies. His works circulated among monasteries and parish churches in Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Hungary, and were performed until the mid-nineteenth century. Some of the pieces attributed to him may be by his father, and the catalogue has yet to be studied. His style belongs to mature Classicism, although it does not reach the inventiveness of Haydn, his apparent model. No secular music by him is known.

He is regarded as one of the most important Viennese church musicians of his time, above all for the dissemination of his sacred music in Central Europe. A Barbara Spangler, possibly his wife, was a soprano at the Minoritenkirche and in the Kölner Hof chapel in 1783.