Schütz, Heinrich

born Oct. 8, 1585, Köstritz, Saxony

died Nov. 6, 1672, Dresden

German composer.

An innkeeper's son, he was heard singing by a nobleman staying at the inn, who underwrote his education; in 1608 he entered the University of Marburg to study law, but in 1609 he began to study music with Giovanni Gabrieli in Venice. The elector of Saxony in Dresden "borrowed" Schütz for a "few months" in 1614, then refused to let him return. As kapellmeister in Dresden from 1619, he published his first collection of sacred music, Psalms of David (1619). In 1628 he traveled to Italy, where Claudio Monteverdi acquainted him with new musical developments, and he adopted aspects of the Italian style in his great Symphoniae sacrae (1629) for chorus and instruments; he later published a second and third collection of Symphoniae sacrae (1647, 1650). He spent much time in Denmark and elsewhere over the next 15 years. Economic conditions deteriorated, and in the early 1650s he was no longer even being paid; he was released by the elector's death in 1656.

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▪ German composer

Latin  Henricus Sagittarius  

born Oct. 8, 1585, Köstritz, Saxony [now in Germany]

died Nov. 6, 1672, Dresden

 composer, widely regarded as the greatest German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach.

      In 1599 he became a chorister at Kassel, where the landgrave of Hesse-Kassel provided him with a wide general education. In 1608 Schütz entered the University of Marburg to study law, but in 1609 he went to Venice, where for three years he studied music at the landgrave's expense; his chief teacher there was Giovanni Gabrieli (Gabrieli, Giovanni). In Venice Schütz wrote his first known works, a set of Italian madrigals for five voices (published 1611). In 1613 he returned to Germany and went to Leipzig to resume his legal studies. Shortly afterward the landgrave offered him the post of second organist at the court in Kassel. In 1614 he went to Dresden to supervise the music for the christening of the son of the elector of Saxony, and in 1617 the landgrave gave him a permanent post in the electoral chapel. In 1628 Schütz again visited Venice, where Claudio Monteverdi (Monteverdi, Claudio) was now the chief musical figure; it is possible that Schütz studied with him. Three years after his return to Dresden, Schütz left the elector's court, which was being seriously affected by plague and by the turmoils of the Thirty Years' War. From 1633 to 1635 he was chapelmaster to the royal court of Copenhagen. From 1635, apart from one further visit to the Danish court, he remained, in spite of his frequent pleas for dismissal, in the elector's service at Dresden.

      After the early set of madrigals, almost all of Schütz's known works are vocal settings of sacred texts, with or without instruments. Of his known secular works, Dafne (performed 1627), the first German opera, and compositions for the marriage of Johann Georg II of Saxony in 1638 were lost. Schütz's special achievement was to introduce into German music the new style of the Italian monodists (as typified in Monteverdi's work) without creating an unsatisfactory hybrid. His music remains extremely individual and German in feeling. After the Latin of Symphoniae sacrae I (published 1629), he used the vernacular. The first German requiem was his Musikalische Exequien (published 1636) for soloists and choir, in which the writing for solo voice or duet is often florid in the Italian manner, while the choral sections are firmly based on German chorale tradition. The final section is for double choir, recalling Schütz's studies with the earlier Venetian composers. Other principal works from the middle of his life are two sets of Kleine geistliche Konzerte (published 1636, 1639) for solo voice and continuo, Geistliche Chormusik (published 1648), and Symphoniae sacrae II and III (published 1647, 1650) for various combinations of voices and instruments. In all of these works, Schütz's strong dramatic sense has been noted.

      The Christmas Oratorio (from a publication of 1664) for soloists, choir, and instruments foreshadows his austere last works. These are a cappella Passions, settings of the text of the Gospels according to Matthew, Luke, and John. In these works even the sparing vocal figuration of the Christmas Oratorio is absent. The plain scriptural text is delivered by the soloist in a kind of recitative, generally syllabic, while the words of the Jews, high priests, etc., are set as brief polyphonic choruses.

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