Background
Carl Ritschl was born to Georg Ritschl von Hartenbach and Regina Christina Emminghaus in Erfurt. His father was a priest and professor at the Erfurt Ratsgymnasium.
Carl Ritschl was born to Georg Ritschl von Hartenbach and Regina Christina Emminghaus in Erfurt. His father was a priest and professor at the Erfurt Ratsgymnasium.
He graduated from the gymnasium at the age of fifteen. After he earned his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Erfurt in 1805, he was appointed a collaborator (1807) and a subrector (1809) at the Cöllnischen Gymnasium.
He acquired instruction in voice, keyboard and organ with the organist Johann Christian Kittel, the last student of Johann Sebastian Bach. Ritschl continued studies in theology in Jena and, at the age of nineteen, earned his degree in autumn 1802. In 1804, still too young for a spiritual appointment, he began tutoring at their home the children of Johann Joachim Bellermann, the director of the Gymnasium of the Grey Friary.
At Berlin"s Cöllnisches Gymnasium, associated with the Grey Friary, Ritschl instructed students in voice and religion.
Finally, in 1810 he was appointed third preacher at Berlin"s Saint Mary"s Church, but he also retained a number of his students from the Grey Friary and the Cöllnisches Gymnasium. After becoming a second preacher at Saint Mary"s, he acquired in 1816 additional responsibilities as an assessor, later as a councilor, from the newly established Consistory of the Province of Brandenburg.
They had five children before Meudtner died in 1820. In 1822 the Theology faculty at the University of Berlin granted him an honorary doctorate.
In 1827 Ritschl was appointed General Superintendent in Stettin for the old-Prussian Ecclesiastical Province of Pomerania, earning the title of bishop.
This office was bound with the activities of the President of the Pomeranian Consistory and the preachers at the Palace Church. During this debate, Ritschl stood on the side of the crown and sought a middle ground, but he still could not prevent a schism between the Lutherans and the Prussian Union. The "schismatics" established their own "old Lutheran" church in Prussia.
While living in Stettin (after 1945 renamed Szczecin), Ritschl worked with the composer Carl Loewe to nurture the city"s musical life.
Weekly musical evenings (Gesangsabende) were held in Ritschl"s rectory. Ritschl retired on 1 October 1854.
He lived his final years in Berlin, where he died on 18 June 1858 at the age of seventy-five.
Ritschl was also a member of the music community in Berlin. In 1804 he became a member of Carl Friedrich Zelter"s choral society, for which he wrote several lieder. Ritschl became a member of the Singakademie that same year.