German composer. Born in Nuremberg, from 1771 he lived in St Petersburg, and worked there for forty years at the Zarenhof. He was renowned as a violin and viola d'amore player both as a member of the court orchestra and leader of a chamber ensemble. Under the Tsarina Katerina II he received the highest salary ever paid to a court musician in the neva metropolis.
His compositions range from lieder and romances to sonatas for violin and piano, for violin and cello, and for two violins, string quartets and quintets, and symphonies. Many of these works, while being within the Viennese classical period, show early intimations of the Romantic.