Christian Gottlob Neefe

Christian Gottlob Neefe (5 February 1748 – 28 January 1798) was a German opera composer and conductor. Neefe was born in Chemnitz, Saxony. He received a musical education and started to compose at the age of 12. He studied law at the University of Leipzig, but subsequently returned to music to become a pupil of the composer Johann Adam Hiller, under whose guidance he wrote his first comic operas. He later became court organist in Bonn and was a teacher of Ludwig van Beethoven. He helped Beethoven produce some of his first works. His best known work was a Singspiel called Adelheit von Veltheim (1780). He died in Dessau.