Background
Eccard was born at Mühlhausen, in present-day Thuringia, Germany in 1553.
Eccard was born at Mühlhausen, in present-day Thuringia, Germany in 1553.
At the age of eighteen Johannes Eccard went to Munich, where he became the pupil of Orlando Lasso. In his company Eccard is said to have visited Paris, but in 1574 we find him again at Miihlhausen, where he resided for four years, and edited, together with Johann von Burgk, his first master, a collection of sacred songs, called "Crepundia sacra Helmboldi" (1577).
Johannes Eccard was an early principal conductor at the Berlin court chapel. At the age of eighteen he went to Munich, where he became the pupil of Orlando Lasso. In his company, Eccard is said to have visited Paris, but in 1574, he was again at Mühlhausen, where he resided for four years.
There he, together with Joachim a Burck, edited his first master, a collection of sacred songs, called Crepundia sacra Helmboldi (1577).
Soon afterwards Johannes Eccard obtained an appointment as musician in the house of Jacob Fugger, the Augsburg banker. In 1583 he became assistant conductor, and in 1599 conductor at Königsberg to Georg Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach, the administrator of the Duchy of Prussia.
In 1608 Johannes Eccard was called by Joachim Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg as principal conductor in Berlin, but this post he held only for three years, owing to his death at Königsberg in 1611. Eccard"s works consist exclusively of vocal compositions, such as songs, sacred cantatas and chorales for four or five, and sometimes for seven, eight, or even nine voices. Before the First World War, his setting of Martin Luther"s words Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God) was regarded by the Germans as their representative national hymn. Of Eccard"s songs a great many collections are extant such as those published in Der Evangelische Kirchengesang (1843) by Baron Karl Georg August Vivigens von Winterfeld.