A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Klengel, August

KLENGEL, August Alexander, born Jan. 29, 1784 [App. p.692 "Correct date of birth to Jan. 27, 1783."] at Dresden, son of a well-known portrait and landscape painter, first studied music with Milchmeyer, inventor of a piano which could produce 50 different qualities of tone (see Cramer's 'Magazin der Musik,' i. 10). In 1803 Clementi visited Dresden, and on his departure Klengel went with him as his pupil. The two separated on Clementi's marriage in Berlin, but the young wife dying shortly after, they went together to Russia, where Klengel remained till 1811. He then spent two years studying in Paris, returned to Dresden in 1814, went to London in 1815, and in the following year was appointed Court-organist at Dresden, which remained his home till his death on Nov. 22, 1852. During a visit to Paris in 1828 he formed a close friendship with Fétis, who with other musicians was much interested in his pianoforte canons. Of these he published only 'Les Avant-coureurs' (Paul, Dresden, 1841). After his death Hauptmann edited the 'Canons und Fugen' (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1854), with a preface, in which he says, 'Klengel was brought up on Sebastian Bach, and knew his works thoroughly. It must not be supposed however that he was a mere imitator of Bach's manner; it is truer to say that he expressed his own thoughts in the way in which Bach would have done it had he lived at the present day.' He left several concertos, and many other works. His visit to London was commemorated by the composition of a Quintet for Piano and Strings for the Philharmonic Society, which was performed Feb. 26, 1816, he himself taking the pianoforte. There is a pleasant little sketch of him in a letter of Mendelssohn's to Eckert, Jan. 26, 1842.

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