Career
Born in Weimar, Lobe was either self-taught as a musician (Anon 1885-1892) or had music lessons from the age of seven (Brandt 2001). In 1810, he became violinist in the Weimar Court Orchestra (Anon 1885-1892), or else was a flautist and joined the Weimar orchestra in 1811 (Brandt 2001). He composed many musical works before 1819 (Brandt 2001), and debuted as a composer in 1821, with the opera Wittekind, which was followed by a number of others, including Die Flibustier (1830) and Die Fürstin von Granada (1833), as well as some orchestral works (Anon 1885-1892).
Die Fürstin von Grenada was especially successful (Brandt 2001).
Either in 1842 (Anon 1885-1892) or 1845 (Brandt 2001) he retired from his position in the Weimar orchestra, was appointed a professor and in 1846 moved to Leipzig, where he worked as a music-composition teacher and music critic (Anon 1885-1892. Brandt 2001). He is today best remembered for his writings on music, of which his most important work is Lehrbuch der musikalischen Komposition (Textbook on Music Composition, 4 vols, 1850-1867).
He died in Leipzig in 1881.