Bernhard Romberg was a German cellist and composer, and he contributed many innovations to the performance and design of the cello. Along with his cousin Andreas Romberg, he was a member of the court orchestra in Bonn where he performed with Ludwig van Beethoven. He was born in Germany in 1767 to a very musical family. His father Bernhard Anton and uncle Gerhard Heinrich were both members of the court orchestra in Munster and were known as the "Elder Romberg Brothers." Bernhard began playing the cello at a very young age, initially learning from his father. By the age of seven, he was performing in public with his cousin, as "The Younger Romberg Brothers." Documentation is lost regarding his later schooling, but historians have speculated that he could have also learned the violin and applied this knowledge to the cello. There were several master musicians in and around Germany at the time he could have learned from, including Leopold Mozart, Andrea Lucchesi, and others. In 1782 Romberg joined his cousin, uncle, and father as a member of the court orchestra in Munster. Outside of the orchestra, the four Rombergs also toured together in Paris and Frankfurt until around 1785. When the cousins performed at the Concert Spirituel in Paris in 1784 and 1785, they were already well-known musicians. In 1790, Romberg joined the court orchestra in Bonn, which was led by Andrea Lucchesi, and he began a friendship with Beethoven, who was also a member of the orchestra. This appointment ended in 1793 due to the French Revolution, and he sought refuge in Hamburg where he began performing at F. L. Schröder's Ackermannsches Komödienhaus. Three years later in Vienna, he performed Beethoven's cello sonatas, Op. 5, with the composer accompanying him on the piano. It was also around this time when the Romberg cousins' career paths began to separate. Andreas settled in Hamburg and shifted his focus from performing to composing, and Bernhard continued composing and touring throughout Europe. He eventually settled in Paris in 1801 and taught at the Conservatory until 1803. Then he joined the court orchestra in Berlin for one season in 1805 and resumed touring until 1814, when he was appointed kapellmeister to the court orchestra in Berlin. He worked in this capacity until he returned to his career as a soloist in 1820, and he also became involved in a piano manufacturing business. He composed and toured until 1836, and finished writing his Méthode de Violoncelle, in 1839. This influential book addresses many of the technical aspects of playing the cello and contains detailed guides explaining how to modify older cellos with longer necks and fingerboards. Like Paganini, Romberg's virtuosity and ingenuity brought new playing techniques and innovations to the instrument. He also helped standardize a simplified method for notating fingerings, and he promoted the use of fewer clefs. Romberg passed away in 1841 in Hamburg. ~ RJ Lambert, Rovi