Education
Naue studied music in Berlin.
composer conductor music educator musicologist pianist theorist choir director
Naue studied music in Berlin.
He was a student of Ludwig van Beethoven and Daniel Gottlob Turk and Carl Friedrich Zelter. Along with Felix Mendelssohn, Naue took lessons from Carl Friedrich Zelter. Zelter exposed him to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederic Handel.
In 1808, he returned to Halle to study with Daniel Gottlob Türk.
Naue went to Vienna to study briefly with Ludwig van Beethoven. On November 23, 1823 Beethoven dedicated his three-part canon "Kurz ist der Schmerz", WoO 163, to Naue.
The text "Kurz is der Schmerz und ewig ist die Freude" ("Brief is the pain and forever is the joy"), is from The Maid of Orleans by Friedrich von Schiller, the same poet who wrote the text for Beethoven"s "Ode to Joy."
In 1829, Naue sold all of his books and spent all of his inheritance in order to finance a music festival in Halle. The festival was an economic failure that drove Naue to alcoholism.
In 1833 he was fired as head of the singing academy he created.
In 1835 he was fired as organist of the "Market Church of Our Lady." He eventually went blind and died in poverty in 1858. While Naue was a well-regarded composer and theorist in his own time, his music is now rarely played. Nevertheless, Naue was a prolific composer of piano, organ, choral, and orchestral music
He often composed commissioned occasional or festive music, such as military and triumphal marches for the Prussian army.
In 1815 Naue became a member of the Halle Masonic Lodge "of the three swords" along with Türk and Carl Loewe.