Johann Hermann Schein

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Johann Hermann Schein
University of Leipzig
OccupationThomaskantor

Johann Hermann Schein (20 January 1586 – 19 November 1630) was a

German composer of the early Baroque era. He was Thomaskantor
in Leipzig from 1615 to 1630. He was one of the first to import the early Italian stylistic innovations into German music, and was one of the most polished composers of the period.

Biography

Schein was born in

Thomasschule zu Leipzig and conducting the Thomanerchor, a post which he held for the rest of his life.[1]

Unlike his friend Heinrich Schütz, he was afflicted with poor health, and was not to live a happy or long life. His wife died in childbirth; four of his five children died in infancy; he died in Leipzig at age 44, having suffered from tuberculosis, gout, scurvy, and a kidney disorder.

Style

Schein was one of the first to absorb the innovations of the Italian Baroque—

Lutheran context. While Schütz made more than one trip to Italy, Schein apparently spent his entire life in Germany, making his grasp of the Italianate style all the more remarkable. His early concertato music seems to have been modeled on Lodovico Grossi da Viadana
's Cento concerti ecclesiastici, which were available in an edition prepared in Germany.

Unlike Schütz, who concentrated mainly on sacred music (although it must be borne in mind that at least two operas composed by him, among other secular works, have been lost), Schein wrote sacred and secular music in approximately equal quantities, and almost all of it was vocal. In his secular vocal music he wrote all of his own texts. Throughout his life he published alternating collections of sacred and secular music, in accordance with an intention he stated early on — in the preface to the Banchetto musicale — to publish alternately music for use in worship and social gatherings. The contrast between the two kinds of music can be quite extreme. While some of his sacred music uses the most sophisticated techniques of the Italian

word-painting
"in the style of the Italian madrigal."

Possibly his most famous collection was his only collection of instrumental music, the Banchetto musicale (Musical banquet) (1617) which contains twenty separate variation

Weissenfels and Weimar, and were intended to be performed on viols. They consist of dances: a pavan-galliard (a normal early Baroque pair), a courante, and then an allemande
-tripla. Each suite in the Banchetto is unified by mode as well as by theme.

Published works

Sacred vocal

Secular vocal

  • Venus Kräntzlein (1609)
  • Musica boscareccia (1621, and several portions published later)
  • Diletti pastorali, Hirten Lust (1624)
  • Studenten-Schmauss (1626)
  • So da, mein liebes Brüderlein (1626)

Instrumental

References

  1. ^ (85216) Schein.
  2. ^ Johann Schein. Cantional, Oder Gesangbuch Augspurgischer Confession. Leipzig: Schein, 1627 (VD17 39:148641Y)
  3. ^ Johann Schein. Cantional, Oder Gesang-Buch Augspurgischer Confession. Leipzig: Schuster, 1645 (VD17 23:287061Q; Google Books)

Sources

  • "(85216) Schein". Minor Planet Center. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  • ISBN 0-393-09745-5
  • Article "Johann Hermann Schein," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980.
    ISBN 1-56159-174-2

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Johann_Hermann_Schein&oldid=1217998211"