Friedrich Brauer was born in 1806 in Stößen, a town west of Naumburg in what is now the Burgenland district of Saxony-Anhalt. He studied at a teacher training college, presumably in Weißenfels, and then initially worked as a teacher and cantor in his hometown of Stößen. In 1846, he then succeeded Carl Theodor Seiffert as organist of the famous Hildebrandt organ of the St. Wenceslas Church in Naumburg. He also emerged as an organ expert and editor of part of the correspondence between Bach and his son-in-law Altnikol at that time.