Georg Reutter II

Johann Adam Joseph Karl Georg Reutter (the Younger) (6 April 1708 Vienna-11 March 1772 Vienna) was an Austrian composer. His father Georg Reutter (the Elder) was also a notable composer. He was the 11th of 14 children and received his early musical training from his father, assisting him as court organist. A period of more formal instruction from Antonio Caldara ensued, leading to the composition of an oratorio in 1726 and, in 1727, his first opera for the imperial court, "Archidamia". On three separate occasions during this period Reutter applied for a position as court organist and was each time rejected by Johann Joseph Fux. At his own expense he travelled to Italy in 1730 (possibly in 1729); in February 1730 he was in Venice and in April 1730 in Rome. He returned to Vienna in autumn 1730, and early in the following year he successfully applied for a post as court composer, the formal beginning of a lifetime of service at the Habsburg court. After his father's death he became kapellmeister of St. Stephen's Cathedral in 1738.

While touring the provinces in a search for new choristers, Reutter auditioned Joseph Haydn as a child in 1740. Both Joseph and his brother Michael sang in Reutter's ensemble during their childhood and teenage years. The memoirs dictated by Joseph to biographers in his old age indicate that Reutter's choristers often were underfed, thanks to Reutter's reluctance to spend money on them.

Reutter later advanced to the position of court Kapellmeister, and Empress Maria Theresia gave him the sole management of the court orchestra in 1751. Reutter died in Vienna on 11 March 1772.

Reutter worked as a composer of church music, and is thought to have written "De profundis", KV 93, formerly ascribed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.