Bernhard Joachim Hagen was a German composer, lutenist and violinist.
Background
Little is known about his youth, but he obviously grew up in a musical family: his brother Peter Albrecht Hagen (also called Peter Albert van Hagen, 1714 - September 12, 1777) studied the violin with Francesco Geminiani, learned to play the lute and organ, and was an organist in Rotterdam.
Career
He was the last important composer of lute music in 18th-century Germany. There are several transcriptions of Geminiani"s violin works for lute by J.B. Hagen extant. The younger Bernhard Joachim Hagen must have learned to play lute and violin early too, for in 1737 he was already employed as an assistant to Bayreuth violin virtuoso and Kapellmeister Johann Pfeiffer.
Later he was listed officially as a court violinist.
He kept this position at the Bayreuth and since 1769 the Ansbach court until his death. Adam Falckenhagen and Charles Durant (Carol Duranowski), also called to the Bayreuth court by Wilhelmine of Bayreuth, may have further trained him in playing the lute.
In 1745, Hagen married Anna Fikentscher (born in Bayreuth. Died May 22, 1789 in Ansbach).
The lute sonatas of Roman Turovsky-Savchuk (a contemporary lutenist-composer) were written in homage to Hagen.