Werner was born into a musical family in
Kirchohmfeld in the
Eichsfeld district of
Thuringia, then part of the
Holy Roman Empire. Initially trained at home, he played the organ for the local church at the age of 11 and became a choral singer at
Sankt Andreasberg at 15. His older brother in
Braunschweig had him study music and attend the
Gymnasium there. Starting in 1821, he studied in
Erfurt and took the teaching examination the next year; he then led the chorus at the city's opera house and taught music students. From 1825, he was choral director at the court theatre at
Braunschweig. He is said to have written 84 compositions, mostly songs, including a setting of
Goethe's poem
Heidenröslein. It was first publicly performed in 1829, under his direction, and bore as title the first line, "Sah ein Knab' ein Röslein stehn" ("A boy saw a little rose standing"). It was seen as superior to all the roughly 100 versions that had preceded his, and became the outstanding
popular-song version (although the
Schubert art-song setting, published in 1821, has outlasted it). He died at the age of 32 in Braunschweig in 1833, having become ill with
tuberculosis the previous year. ==References==