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Michael Praetorius (probably February 15, 1571 – February 15, 1621) was a German composer, organist, and writer about music. He was one of the most versatile composers of his age, being particularly significant in the development of musical forms based on Protestant hymns, many of which reflect an effort to bridge the chasm that had been opened between Protestants and Catholics.
His first compositions appeared around 1602/3. Praetorius had started writing some of them when Regensburg was the parliamentary seat of the Holy Roman Empire. Their publication primarily reflects the care for music at the court of Gröningen. The motets of this collection were the first in Germany to make use of the new Italian performance practices; as a result, they established him as a proficient composer.
These "modern" pieces mark the end of his middle creative period. The nine parts of his ''Musae Sioniae'' (1605–10) as well as the 1611 published collections of liturgical music (masses, hymns, magnificats) follow the German Protestant chorale style. With these, at the behest of a circle of orthodox Lutherans, he followed around the Duchess Elizabeth, who ruled the duchy in the duke's absence. In place of popular music, one now expected religious music from Praetorius.
When the duke died in 1613 and was succeeded by Frederick Ulrich, Praetorius retained his employment. From 1613 he also worked at the court of John George I, Elector of Saxony at Dresden, where he was responsible for festive music on a grand scale. He was exposed to the latest Italian music, including the polychoral works of the Venetian School. His subsequent development of the form of the chorale concerto, particularly the polychoral variety, resulted directly from his familiarity with the music of such Venetians as Giovanni Gabrieli. The solo-voice, polychoral, and instrumental compositions Praetorius prepared for these events mark the high period of his artistic creativity. Until his death, Praetorius stayed at the court in Dresden, where he was declared ''Kapellmeister von Haus aus'' and worked alongside Heinrich Schütz.
Michael Praetorius died in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, and is entombed in a vault beneath the organ of St Mary's Church in Wolfenbüttel.
Praetorius was a prolific composer and his compositions bear the influence of Italian composers as well as his younger contemporary Heinrich Schütz. His works include the nine volume ''Musae sioniae'' (1605–10), a collection of over a thousand (~1244) chorale and song arrangements; many other works for the Lutheran church; and ''Terpsichore'' (1612), a compendium of over 300 instrumental dances, which is both his most widely-known work, as well as his sole surviving secular work.
His mammoth but incomplete treatise, ''Syntagma musicum'', appeared in three volumes (plus appendix) between 1614 and 1620. The first volume (1614), titled ''Musicae artis analecta'', was written mostly in Latin, and dealt with the music of the ancients and of the church. The second (''De organographia'', 1618) dealt with the musical instruments of the day, especially the organ; it was one of the first theoretical treatises written in the vernacular. The third (''Termini musicali'', 1618), also in German, dealt with the genres of composition and the technical essentials for professional musicians. An appendix to the second volume (''Theatrum instrumentorum seu Sciagraphia'', 1620) consisted of 42 beautifully drawn woodcuts, depicting instruments of the early 17th century, all grouped in families and shown to scale. A fourth volume on composition was planned, with the help of Baryphonus, but was left incomplete at his death.
Praetorius wrote in a florid style, replete with long asides, polemics, and word-puzzles—all typical of 17th-century scholarly prose. As a lifelong committed Christian, he often regretted not taking holy orders; he did write several theological tracts, all now lost. As a Lutheran from a militantly Protestant family, he contributed mightily to the development of the vernacular liturgy, but, perhaps surprisingly, he also favored Italian compositional methods, performance practice, and figured-bass notation.
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According to Cornelis Plemp, a pupil and friend of Sweelinck's, he started his 44-year career as organist of the Oude Kerk in 1577, when he was just 15. This date, however, is uncertain, because the church records from 1577–80 are missing and Sweelinck can only be traced in Oude Kerk from 1580 onwards; he occupied the post for the rest of his life. Sweelinck's widowed mother died in 1585, and Jan Pieterszoon took responsibility for his younger brother and sister. His salary of 100 florins was doubled the next year, presumably to help matters. In addition, he was offered an additional 100 guilders in the event that he married, which happened in 1590 when he married Claesgen Dircxdochter Puyner from Medemblik. He was also offered the choice between a further 100 guilders and free accommodations in a house belonging to the town, the latter of which he chose. Sweelinck's first published works date from around 1592–94: three volumes of chansons, the last of which is the only remaining volume published in 1594 (for reasons that are not certain, the composer adopted his mother's last name; "Sweelinck" first appears on the title-page of the 1594 publication). Sweelinck then set to publishing psalm settings, aiming to set the entire Psalter. These works appeared in four large volumes published in 1604, 1613, 1614 and 1621. The last volume was published posthumously and, presumably, in unfinished form. Sweelinck died of unknown causes on 16 October 1621 and was buried in the Oude Kerk. He was survived by his wife and five of their six children; the eldest of them, Dirck Janszoon, succeeded his father as organist of the Oude Kerk.
The composer most probably spent his entire life in Amsterdam, only occasionally visiting other cities in connection with his professional activities: he was asked to inspect organs, give opinions and advice on organ building and restoration, etc. These duties resulted in short visits to Delft, Dordrecht (1614), Enkhuizen, Haarlem (1594), Harderwijk (1608), Middelburg (1603), Nijmegen (1605), Rotterdam (1610), Rhenen (1616), as well as Deventer (1595, 1616) his birthplace. Sweelinck's longest voyage was to Antwerpen in 1604, when he was commissioned by the Amsterdam authorities to buy a harpsichord for the city. No documents were found to support a long-standing rumor first recounted by Mattheson that Sweelinck visited Venice -which in stead his brother, the painter Gerrit Pietersz Sweelink did - and similarly there is no evidence that he ever crossed the English Channel. His popularity as a composer, performer and teacher increased steadily during his lifetime. Contemporaries nicknamed him ''Orpheus of Amsterdam'' and even the city authorities frequently brought important visitors to hear Sweelinck's improvisations.
Sweelinck's influence spread as far as Sweden and England, carried to the former by Andreas Düben and to the latter by English composers such as Peter Philips, who probably met Sweelinck in 1593. Sweelinck, and Dutch composers in general, had evident links to the English school of composition. Sweelinck's music appears in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, which mostly contains the work of English composers. He wrote variations on John Dowland's famous Lachrimae Pavane. John Bull, who was probably a personal friend, wrote a set of variations on a theme by Sweelinck after the death of the Dutch composer.
Sweelinck was a master improviser, and acquired the informal title of the "Orpheus of Amsterdam". More than 70 of his keyboard works have survived, and many of them may be similar to the improvisations that residents of Amsterdam around 1600 were likely to have heard. In the course of his life, Sweelinck was involved with the musical liturgies of three distinctly different church types: the Roman Catholic, the Calvinist, and the Lutheran—all of which are reflected in his work. Even his vocal music, which is more conservative than his keyboard writing, shows a striking rhythmic complexity and an unusual richness of contrapuntal devices.
Category:1562 births Category:1621 deaths Category:Baroque composers Category:Composers for pipe organ Category:Renaissance composers Category:Dutch classical organists Category:Dutch music theorists Category:Organ improvisers Category:Organists and composers in the North German tradition Category:People from Deventer Category:People from Amsterdam
bg:Ян Питерсзоон Свеелинк ca:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck cs:Jan Pietrszoon Sweelinck da:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck de:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck es:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck eo:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck fr:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck fy:Jan Pyterssoan Sweelinck is:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck it:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck he:יאן פיטרסזון סוולינק la:Ioannes Pieterszoon Sweelinck nl:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck ja:ヤン・ピーテルスゾーン・スウェーリンク no:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck nn:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck nds:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck pl:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck pt:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck ru:Свелинк, Ян Питерсзон simple:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck fi:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck sv:Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck uk:Ян Свелінк zh:扬·皮泰尔索恩·斯韦林克This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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