| Franz Seraph von Kohlbrenner | |
| Birth Name: | Johann Franz Seraph Kohlbrenner |
| Birth Date: | 17 October 1728 |
| Birth Place: | Traunstein, Bavaria |
| Death Place: | Munich |
| Occupation: |
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| Awards: | Reichsritter |
Johann Franz Seraph von Kohlbrenner (17 October 1728 – 6 June 1783) was a German polymath, promoting the Enlightenment in Bavaria. While working as a civil servant for the Bavarian court, he published a hymnal which contained a complete German High Mass and songs such as "Das Grab ist leer, der Held erwacht" (The grave is empty, the hero awoken) for which he is known. These hymns and especially his German mass, used in settings by Michael Haydn, remain popular to this day.
Beginning life as Johann Franz Seraph Kohlbrenner in Traunstein on 17 October 1728, he was the son of Rupert Kohlbrenner, a worker in a salt works. After attending the local Volksschule, he worked as a clerk at the salt works, responsible for the company's archives.
At age 25, Kohlbrenner was called to Munich to revise and supervise the Registry of the Exchequer (Registratur der Hofkammer). In 1762, he installed a tree garden in the elector's Aerarium in Lechhausen. From 1766, he published a journal of the type, the Intelligenzblatt der Churbaierischen Lande.
In 1777, together with the priest and composer, Kohlbrenner published in Landshut the first part of a Roman Catholic hymnal, Der heilige Gesang zum Gottesdienste in der römisch-katholischen Kirche, which promoted liturgical singing in German, in the spirit of the Enlightenment. After this hymnal was also published in Salzburg in 1781, he added a second part, published there in 1783. Part of the hymnal was his Singmesse, for singing the complete mass ordinary in German instead of the traditional Latin. His German mass in ten songs was set to music by Michael Haydn several times, called Deutsches Hochamt (German High Mass).
On 26 June 1778 Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, made Kohlbrenner a Reichsritter (Imperial Knight). Unmarried, he died at age 54 on 6 June 1783, in Munich and was buried at the cemetery of Unserer Lieben Frau Gottesaker zu St. Salvator. The inscription read:
Franz Seraph von Kohlbrenner is still known for his German High Mass and for his hymn which appears in the regional section of the Catholic hymnal Gotteslob for Austria (2013 edition) as GL 710. "Das Grab ist leer, der Held erwacht" is frequently sung in Easter services. His hometown, Traunstein, has named a Mittelschule after him.