Freyer, Karl August 12/15/1801 - 05/28/1883

Karl August Freyer was a German-Polish organist and composer of 19th century church music.
He moved to Leipzig at the age of 10 and took lessons in music theory and composition from the famous organist Friedrich Schneider. The latter recommended further training with the Warsaw master Joseph Xaver Elsner, and Freyer went to Poland in 1827, where he was to remain for the rest of his life.
In 1834, Freyer undertook a tour of Germany, giving organ concerts in Breslau, Berlin, Hamburg and his native Saxony, among other places, and celebrated great triumphs with audiences and critics. He was also praised by masters such as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Louis Spohr. After his return to Warsaw, already a famous virtuoso, he opened a private music school, which was the only one in the Polish capital at the time, because after the defeat of the Polish November Uprising of 1831, all of Warsaw's universities were closed by the Russian authorities as supposed trouble spots. He ran the school until 1861, and educated impoverished students without paying any fees. In 1837, Freyer took up the post of church organist at Warsaw's Evangelical Church of the Holy Trinity, which at the time had the best organ in the whole of Congress Poland, and founded a choir there that performed works by great masters. The Protestant church in Warsaw thus became an important musical center in the city.