Ernst Naumann

Karl Ernst Naumann (Freiberg, 1832 – Jena, 1910) was a German scholar whose work as an editor played a notable role in disseminating the music of Johann Sebastian Bach in the nineteenth century. He came from a family of musicians: he was the grandson of Johann Gottlieb Naumann and a cousin of Emil Naumann, and he was trained in Leipzig under Moritz Hauptmann and E. F. Richter, earning his doctorate at the university there in 1858.

In 1860 he settled in Jena, where he remained until 1906 as university music director, responsible for the academic concerts, and as city organist. He was appointed professor in 1877. His editorial output was extensive: he prepared six volumes of cantatas and keyboard works for the Bach-Gesellschaft, and a nine-volume edition of Bach's organ works intended for practical use, published between 1899 and 1904, and he contributed to some of the first publications of the Neue Bach-Gesellschaft. He also left unfinished his edition of Haydn's string quartets, planned for the collection directed by Mandyczewski.

Naumann also published arrangements of works by Beethoven, Handel, Mendelssohn, Mozart and Schumann, and composed chamber music, lieder and sacred pieces.