Johann Joachim Eschenburg

Johann Joachim Eschenburg (Hamburg, 7 December 1743 - Brunswick, 29 February 1820) was a German classical philologist, poet and translator who, alongside his academic work, devoted considerable energy to music and to writing about it. His name is today linked above all to the intellectual life of the German Enlightenment, a milieu in which musical theory and poetry were discussed within the same circles.

From 1767 until his death he taught literature, philosophy, archaeology and mythology at the Carolineum in Brunswick. His best-known work was the Handbuch der klassischen Literatur, which ran to six editions in his lifetime and several more afterwards, and was translated into English, French and Russian. A music lover, he organised concerts in Brunswick and corresponded with C.P.E. and W.F. Bach, although his most significant contribution lay in translating stage works and scholarly texts.

Among the seven operas he rendered into German are Le déserteur by Monsigny (1772), Silvain by Grétry (as Erast und Lucinde, 1773) and Gluck's Orfeo. He also supplied German texts for two oratorios and, together with Karsch, for C.P.E. Bach's Passion cantata Die letzten Leiden des Erlösers. He further composed nineteen lieder and a motet of his own. He translated from English works on music and poetry by Avison, Brown, Burney and Webb, and wrote music articles for German periodicals. He was also literary executor of Lessing.

His musical legacy resides less in original composition than in mediation: by bringing English and Italian writings on musical expression, the history of ancient music and the figure of Handel to German-speaking readers, he helped disseminate ideas then circulating among the critics of his day.