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Matthias Weckmann (Weckman) (c.1616 – 24 February 1674) was a German musician and composer of theBaroque period. He was born inNiederdorla (Thuringia) and died inHamburg.
His musical training took place inDresden (as a chorister at the Saxon Court, under the direction ofHeinrich Schütz), then in Hamburg where he worked with the famous organistJacob Praetorius at theSaint Peter's church (Petrikirche).
He was introduced to the Italianconcertato,polychoral andmonodic styles — because Schütz had journeyed in Italy when a young man and he had metGiovanni Gabrieli andMonteverdi — as well as the style ofSweelinck's pupils, some of whom had settled in Hamburg. Weckmann travelled toDenmark in 1637 with Schütz, became organist in Dresden at the Electoral Court of Saxony from 1638 to 1642, and returned to Denmark until 1647 (during theThirty Years' War).
During a new (and his last) stay in Dresden from 1649 to 1655, he metJohann Jakob Froberger during a musical competition which had been organized by the Elector. They remained friends and in correspondence with each other. In 1655, after a competition, he was named titular organist atSaint James church (Jakobkirche) in Hamburg, and spent his remaining life there. He founded a renowned orchestralensemble, the so-calledCollegium Musicum in Hamburg. This was the most productive period of his life: his compositions of this time include a collection of 1663, which set sacred texts mentioning the terrible plague which killed his first wife and many of his colleagues in Hamburg that year, includingHeinrich Scheidemann.
He died in Hamburg and was buried in a family grave inSt. James's Church beneath the organ.
Weckmann composedchorale preludes and music for theorgan andharpsichord that mixes Italian and French influences, varioussonatas for three or four instruments, and orchestral and vocal sacred music. Stylistically, he mostly followed the progressive tendencies of Schütz, including thestile concertato and the trend to increasingchromaticism andcontrapuntal and motivic complexity. In this regard, he went against the prevailing trends of the time towards simplification, much of which can be seen in Schütz's later music. Weckmann is a good example of a composer whose works would have been completely lost to history, had it not been for the 19th century interest in researching the predecessors ofJ.S. Bach.[citation needed]
