Maichelbeck, Franz Anton 1702 - 1750

Franz Anton Maichelbeck grew up on the island of Reichenau in Lake Constance with twelve siblings and attended the Jesuit grammar school in Konstanz. He studied theology in Freiburg from 1721 and was ordained as a priest. On September 27, 1725, he was sent to Rome to study church music and presumably studied under Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni as an alumnus of the German-speaking Collegium Germanicum. In 1727/28, he was appointed organist and cathedral music director at Freiburg Cathedral. Later, he was appointed court kapellmeister in Augsburg by Prince-Bishop Johann Franz Schenk von Stauffenberg.

From 1730, he also worked as a professor of Italian at the University of Freiburg.

In his obituary, he is described as an “organista maxime virtuosus.”

Maichelbeck was possibly the true inventor of the accompaniment style known as Alberti bass.

Source: Wikipedia (August 20, 2025)

Note: Translated from a German version of Wikipedia into English