Background

Heinrich Schütz was born on October 8, 1585 in Köstritz (now Bad Köstritz), to prosperous, middle-class parents. He was the eldest son of Christoph Schütz and Euphrosyne Bieger.

Education

Schütz learned the rudiments of music in the chapel choir of Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. In 1608 he entered the University of Marburg to study law, but when the landgrave, who recognized his extraordinary musical gift, offered to support him, Schütz was able to leave for Venice in 1609 to study with Giovanni Gabrieli. He returned in 1613 after his teacher's death.

Career

While in Italy, Schütz published his first collection, Il primo libro de madrigali (1611), dedicated to Landgrave Moritz. These 19 chromatic madrigals revealed the close attention Schütz was always to give both the syntax and content of his texts. Even more Italianate were the Psalmen Davids (1619), published after the composer became kapellmeister to Johann Georg, Elector of Saxony, in Dresden. In these 26 works, composed for multiple groups of vocal and instrumental soloists, reinforced by two or more choruses, Schütz brought to northern Europe the colorful, polychoral methods of his beloved master, Gabrieli. The music, of overwhelming grandeur, was written for the enhancement of the Protestant liturgy and the edification of the court.

Schütz's Historia der Auferstehung Jesu Christi (1623), the Easter Story, was his first oratorio in the Italian style. While the Evangelist performed solos to the accompaniment of four viols, the roles of Jesus and Mary Magdalene were sung as duets over the basso continuo. In his next important work, the Cantiones sacrae (1625), Schütz seemed to return to the older polyphonic style. But their chromaticism, "madrigalisms" illustrating the text, and intensely subjective qualities related these sacred songs more closely to the madrigals of 1611.

To fulfill his task of transforming church music through the southern concerted style, Schütz made a second pilgrimage to Italy in 1628. Now he studied the techniques of Claudio Monteverdi as he observed them in the vocal and instrumental writing of the great Italian. The first fruits of the visit appeared the following year as part 1 of Schütz's Symphoniae sacrae. Solo singing with obbligato instruments over the continuo-such was the new style exemplified by the masterpiece of this first collection, Fili mi, Absalon.

A short while after Schütz returned to Germany, he found musical activity severely curtailed because of the religious wars raging throughout Saxony. During the 1630s and early 1640s he stayed only intermittently at Dresden, obtaining permission from the elector to work in Copenhagen, Wolfenbüttel, Hanover, and Weimar. Because of limited resources, the master now wrote shorter compositions for one to five parts with continuo. Two such collections were issued in 1636 and 1639 with the title Kleine Geistliche Konzerte.

By 1647 conditions at the Saxon court had improved somewhat, and Schütz released part 2 of his Symphoniae sacrae. Unlike part 1, which had Latin settings for voices and various obbligato instruments, part 2 was set to German words and used only the strings and continuo. In part 3 of the Symphoniae sacrae (1650) Schütz joined the polychoral writing of his early Psalmen Davids with the soloistic style he learned from Monteverdi. The masterpiece Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich? was scored for a six-voice ensemble, two four-voice choruses, and two obbligato instrumental parts. In few of his later pieces did he go beyond the resources of these compositions, which were truly cantatas.

Although Schütz was the foremost German protagonist of the new baroque style, he did not foresee that his apparent deemphasis of counterpoint would persuade younger compatriots to abandon it. By 1648 this danger had become so manifest that Schütz was persuaded to publish his Geistliche Chormusik, a collection of 29 motets in the older style, to show young composers "before they proceed to concertizing music to crack this hard nut (wherein the true kernel and the right foundation of good counterpoint is to be sought) and to pass their first tests in this category. "

Schütz obviously viewed his artistic mission as a union of counterpoint and stile recitativo, a cappellaand concertato, rather than as a rejection of the older Flemish style. In 1665 Schütz completed three Passions according to Luke, John, and Matthew. Even though these works seem archaic, it would be incorrect to believe that Schütz rejected his entire mission of a concerted, soloistic church music. Only a year or two before, he had composed the Historia der Freuden-und Gnaden-reichen Geburt Gottes und Marien Sohnes Jesu Christi, the Christmas Story, in the richly concerted style he had espoused for over 50 years.

Schütz passed the last of his 55 years of service to the elector of Saxony in Weissenfels and in Dresden, where he died from a stroke at the age of 87.

Achievements

• Schütz contributed to the early development of Baroque style in Germany, and his two visits to Italy had a most significant effect on the direction taken by German music. He is often considered one of the most important composers of the seventeenth century with Claudio Monteverdi who also brought the past into the present and subjected it to a new esthetic. His Dafne is thought to be the first German opera performed in 1627. Unfortunately, the music was lost. Schütz was commemorated as a musician in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church on July 28 with Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Heinrich Schütz: Symphoniae Sacrae I

    (Heinrich Schütz spent his whole life searching for that w...)

  • Heinrich Schütz: Cantiones Sacrae
  • Schütz: St. Matthew Passion / Fili mi Absalon
  • Jauchzet Dem Herren Alle Welt
  • Heinrich Schütz: Musikalische Exequien; Die siebe Worte Jesu Christe am Kreuz
  • Heinrich Schütz: Secular Works

Connections

Father:

Christoph Schütz

Mother:

Euphrosyne Bieger

References

• Schütz (Master Musicians)
• Heinrich Schutz: His Life and Work