Everything about Heinrich Schuetz totally explained
Heinrich Schütz (
October 8 (
JC),
1585 Köstritz -
November 6,
1672 Dresden) was a
German composer and
organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before
Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the
17th century along with
Claudio Monteverdi. He wrote what is thought to be the first German
opera,
Dafne, performed at
Torgau in
1627; however, the music has since been lost. He is commemorated as a musician in the
Calendar of Saints of the
Lutheran Church on
July 28 with
Johann Sebastian Bach and
George Frideric Handel. He was buried in the
Dresden Frauenkirche but his tomb has since been destroyed.
Life
Schütz's musical talents were discovered by
Moritz von Hessen-Kassel in
1599. After being a
choir-boy he went on to study
law and
etymology at
Marburg before going to
Venice from
1609-
1613 to study
music with
Giovanni Gabrieli. He subsequently had a short stint as
organist at
Kassel before moving to
Dresden in
1615 to work as court
composer to the
Elector of
Saxony.
He held his Dresden post until the end of his life (sowing the seeds of what is now the
Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden while there), but left Dresden itself on several occasions; in
1628 he went to Venice again, most likely meeting
Claudio Monteverdi there—he may have studied with him—and in
1633, after the
Thirty Years' War had disrupted life at the court, he took a post at
Copenhagen. He returned full time to Dresden in
1641, and remained there for the rest of his life. He died from a
stroke in
1672 at the age of 87.
Style
Schütz's compositions show the influence of his teacher Gabrieli (displayed most notably with Schütz's use of resplendent
polychoral and
concertato styles) and of Monteverdi. Additionally, the influence of the
Netherlandish composers of the
16th century is also prominent in his work. His best known works are in the field of sacred music, ranging from solo voice with instrumental accompaniment to
a cappella choral music. Representative works include his three books of
Symphoniae sacrae, the
Psalms of David (Psalmen Davids), the
Sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz (the Seven Last Words on the Cross) and his three
Passion settings. Schütz's music, while starting off in the most progressive styles early in his career, eventually grows into a style that's simple and almost austere, culminating with his late Passion settings. Practical considerations were certainly responsible for part of this change: the Thirty Years' War had devastated the musical infrastructure of Germany, and it was no longer practical or even possible to put on the gigantic works in the
Venetian style which marked his earlier period.
Schütz was one of the last composers to write in a
modal style. His
harmonies often result from the
contrapuntal alignment of voices rather than from any sense of "harmonic motion"; contrastingly, much of his music shows a strong
tonal pull when approaching
cadences. His music includes a great deal of
imitation, but structured in such a way that the successive voices don't necessarily enter after the same number of
beats or at predictable intervallic distances. Schütz's writing often includes intense
dissonances caused by the contrapuntal motion of voices moving in correct individual linear motion, but resulting in startling harmonic tension. Above all, his music displays extreme sensitivity to the accents and meaning of the text, which is often conveyed using special technical figures drawn from
musica poetica, themselves drawn from or created in analogy to the verbal figures of
Classical Rhetoric.
Almost no
secular music by Schütz has survived, save for a few domestic songs (
arien) and no purely instrumental music at all (unless one counts the short instrumental movement entitled "
sinfonia" that encloses the dialogue of
Die sieben Worte), even though he'd a reputation as one of the finest organists in Germany.
Schütz was of great importance in bringing new musical ideas to Germany from Italy, and as such had a large influence on the German music which was to follow. The style of the
north German organ school derives largely from Schütz (as well as from Netherlander
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck); a century later this music was to culminate in the work of
J.S. Bach.
Works
Il primo libro de madrigali (first book of madrigals) (Venice, 1611)
Psalmen Davids (Book 1) (Dresden, 1619)
Historia der frölichen und siegreichen Aufferstehung ... (History of the joyful and victorious Resurrection of Jesus) (Dresden, 1623)
Cantiones sacrae (Freiberg im Breisgau, 1625)
Psalmen Davids (Book 2) (Freiberg im Breisgau, 1628)
Symphoniae sacrae (Book 1) (Venice, 1629)
Musikalische Exequien (Dresden, 1636)
Kleine geistliche Konzerte (Book 1) (Leipzig, 1636)
Symphoniae sacrae (Book 2) (Dresden, 1647)
Geistliche Chor-Music (Dresden, 1648)
Symphoniae sacrae (Book 3) (Dresden, 1650)
Zwölf geistliche Gesänge (Dresden, 1657)
Psalmen Davids (revision of Book 2) (Dresden, 1661)
Sources
Manfred Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1947. ISBN 0393097455
Basil Smallman: Heinrich Schütz, The Master Musicians, 2000.
Tamsin (nee Tristan) Jones, "Passions in Perspective: An Analytical Discussion of the Three Passions of Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) against their Historical and Stylistic Backgrounds" (Ph. D. thesis, University of Birmingham, 2000)
Heinrich Schütz: "Geistliche Chor-Music, Op. 11." Edited by Andrew Thomas Kuster. Ann Arbor, MI, 2005. ISBN 1411642430.
Heinrich Schutz. O Jesu nomen dulce http://www.realmusic.ru/songs/418947/Further Information
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