Background
He was born in Bindersleben, near Erfurt, to David Adlung, an organist and his first teacher, and the former Dorothea Elisabetha Meuerin, from Tondorf.
composer historian linguist musicologist organist theorist writer
He was born in Bindersleben, near Erfurt, to David Adlung, an organist and his first teacher, and the former Dorothea Elisabetha Meuerin, from Tondorf.
He attended the Saint Andreas lower school in Erfurt from 1711, moving on to the Erfurt Gymnasium in 1713, during which time he lived in the household of Christian Reichardt, who also taught him organization He studied philosophy, philology, and theology at the University of Jena from 1723 to 1726, where he studied the organ further with Johann Nikolaus Bach.
He returned to Erfurt in 1737 where he succeeded Johann Heinrich Buttstedt as organist of the Prediger church after the former"s death, a post he retained for the rest of his life. He was also professor of languages at the Erfurt Gymnasium and taught, by his own estimate, 218 organ students and 284 language students between 1728 and 1762. He was also a maker of keyboard instruments, and completed sixteen of the same.