Heinrich Schutz

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Biography

Life

He was born in Bad Köstritz|Köstritz , the eldest son of Christoph Schütz and Euphrosyne Bieger. In 1590 the family moved to Weißenfels , where his father Christoph managed the inn "Zum Ring". When Schütz lived with his parents, his musical talents were discovered by Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel|Moritz von Hessen-Kassel in 1599. After being a choir -boy he went on to study law at Marburg before going to Venice from 1609–1612 to study music with Giovanni Gabrieli . Gabrieli is the only person Schütz ever referred to as being his teacher. He also inherited a ring from Gabrieli shortly before the latter's death. He subsequently had a short stint as organist at Kassel before moving to Dresden in 1615 to work as court composer to the Prince-elector|Elector of Saxony . In 1619 Schütz married Magdalena Wildeck who had been born in 1601. She bore two daughters before her death in 1625: Anna Justina born in 1621 and Euphrosyne born in 1623.

In Dresden Schutz sowed the seeds of what is now the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden , but left there on several occasions; in 1628 he went to Venice again, where he met and studied with Claudio Monteverdi . In 1633 he was invited to Copenhagen to compose the music for wedding festivities there, eventually returning to Dresden in 1635. He again conducted an extended visit to Denmark in 1641. In 1655, the year that his daughter Euphrosyne died, he accepted an ex officio post as Kapellmeister at Wolfenbüttel .

Schutz died in Dresden from a stroke in 1672 at the age of 87.

List of students of Heinrich Schütz|His pupils included Anton Colander , Christoph Bernhard , Matthias Weckmann , Heinrich Albert , Johann Theile , Friedrich Werner , Philipp Stolle Johann Nauwach , Caspar Kittel , Christoph Kittel , Clemens Thieme , Johann Klemm , Johann Vierdanck , David Pohle , Constantin Christian Dedekind , Johann Jakob Loewe (or Löwe), Johann Kaspar Horn , Friedrich von Westhoff , Adam Krieger , Johann Wilhelm Furchheim , Carlo Farina .David Mason Greene Greene's biographical encyclopedia of composers p115 "When the elector finally let him go, Schütz managed to wrest from him money to permit his pupil and protégé Matthias Weckmann to study in Hamburg for three years with Jakob Praetorius. He remained in the Danish court for two years, " The encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church Julius Bodensieck, Lutheran World Federation - 1965 "The most eminent among his pupils were H. Albert, M. Weckmann, D. Pohle, Chr. Bernhard, JJ Loewe, A. Krieger, J. Theile."

Style

Schütz's compositions show the influence of his teacher Gabrieli (displayed most notably with Schütz's use of resplendent Venetian polychoral style|polychoral and concertato styles) and of Monteverdi. Additionally, the influence of the Franco-Flemish School|Netherlandish composers of the 16th century is 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 (Christianity)|Passion settings. Schütz's music, while starting off in the most progressive styles early in his career, eventually grows into a style that is 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 School (music)|Venetian style which marked his earlier period.

Schütz was one of the last composers to write in a musical mode|modal style. His harmonie s often result from the contrapuntal alignment of voices rather than from any sense of "harmonic motion"; contrastingly, much of his music shows a strong tonality|tonal pull when approaching cadence (music)|cadences . His music includes a great deal of imitation , but structured in such a way that the successive voices do not necessarily enter after the same number of Beat (music)|beat s or at predictable intervallic distances. Schütz's writing often includes intense Consonance and dissonance|dissonance s 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 had 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 the Dutchman Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck ); a century later this music was to culminate in the work of Johann Sebastian Bach|J.S. Bach . After Bach, the most important composer to be influenced by Schütz was Johannes Brahms|Brahms , who is known to have studied his works.

Works

In Schütz-research regarded as inauthentic and not portraying Heinrich Schütz.cf. Steude 1986, p. 58-61
The following are major published works; most of these contain multiple pieces of music; single published works are listed in the complete List of compositions by Heinrich Schütz|complete work list , as are major unpublished works such as the Seven Last Words , and the Passions (according to Matthew, Luke, and John). There are over 500 total surviving individual pieces by Schütz.

Il primo libro de madrigali (first book of Madrigal (music)|madrigals ) (opus 1, Venice , 1611)

Psalmen Davids (Book 1) (opus 2, Dresden , 1619)

Historia der ... Aufferstehung ... (The Resurrection) (opus 3, Dresden, 1623)

Cantiones sacrae (opus 4, Freiburg im Breisgau , 1625)

Becker Psalter (opus 5, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1628, revised 1661)

Symphoniae sacrae (Book 1) (opus 6, Venice, 1629)

Musikalische Exequien (opus 7, Dresden, 1636)

Kleine geistliche Konzerte (Book 1) (opus 8, Leipzig , 1636)

Kleine geistliche Konzerte (Book 2) (opus 9, Leipzig , 1639)

Symphoniae sacrae (Book 2) (opus 10, Dresden, 1647)

Geistliche Chor-Music (opus 11, Dresden, 1648)

Symphoniae sacrae (Book 3) (opus 12, Dresden, 1650)

Zwölf geistliche Gesänge (opus 13, Dresden, 1657)

Historia, der ... Geburt ... Jesu Christi (The Nativity), (Dresden, 1664)

Königs und Propheten 119er Psalm ... (Psalm 119, Psalm 100, and German Magnificat: "Swan Song" (opus ultimum, Dresden, 1671)

Sources

Manfred Bukofzer , Music in the Baroque Era . New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1947. ISBN 0-393-09745-5

Wolfram Steude, Zum gegenwärtigen Stand der Schütz-Ikonographie. , in: Schütz-Jahrbuch 1985/86 . Kassel, Bärenreiter, 1986, p.& nbsp;50-61. ISBN 3-7618-0778-3

Basil Smallman: Heinrich Schütz , The Master Musicians, 2000.

Tamsin (née T.D.) 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 1-4116-4243-0.

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