Johann Gottlieb Janitsch

In 1736, the then Crown Prince, Frederick offered him a position as a "Contraviolinist" in his ensemble in Ruppin and a year later, in Rheinsberg, where Janitsch's home was destroyed in the great fire in 1740.

During his time in Rheinsberg, with the permission of the Crown Prince, he founded the circle "Freitagsakademien" (Friday academies), in which music was performed by professional and amateur musicians alike.

From 1740, when Frederick ascended to the Prussian throne, Janitsch's position as Contraviolinist was transferred to the newly founded Berlin Court Orchestra, where he was awarded a salary of 350 thalers.

Some years after Janitsch's death, the composer Johann Wilhelm Hertel remarked He was a good contrapuntist and his Quartets are even now the best models of their kind.

The largest repository of Janitsch's surviving works is the archive of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, which was thought to have been destroyed during World War II until it was rediscovered in the Kyiv Conservatory in 2000.