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Johann Hermann Schein | |
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| Born | (1586-01-20)January 20, 1586 |
| Died | 19 November 1630(1630-11-19) (aged 44) |
| Education | University of Leipzig |
| Occupation | Thomaskantor |
Johann Hermann Schein (20 January 1586 – 19 November 1630) was aGerman composer of the earlyBaroque era. He wasThomaskantor in Leipzig from 1615 to 1630. He was one of the first to import the early Italian stylistic innovations into German music, and was one of the most polished composers of the period.
Schein was born inGrünhain. On the death of his father, Schein moved toDresden where he joined the choir of theElector ofSaxony as a boy soprano. In addition to singing in the choir, he received a thorough musical training withRogier Michael, theKapellmeister, who recognized his extraordinary talent. From 1603 to 1607 he studied atPforta, and from 1608 to 1612 attended theUniversity of Leipzig, where he studied law in addition to liberal arts. Upon graduating, he was employed briefly by Gottfried von Wolffersdorff as the housemusic director and tutor to his children; later he becameKapellmeister atWeimar, and shortly thereafter becameThomaskantor, music director in Leipzig, especially cantor at theThomasschule zu Leipzig and conducting theThomanerchor, a post which he held for the rest of his life.[1]
Unlike his friendHeinrich Schütz, he was afflicted with poor health, and was not to live a happy or long life. His wife died in childbirth; four of his five children died in infancy; he died in Leipzig at age 44, having suffered fromtuberculosis,gout,scurvy, and a kidney disorder.
Schein was one of the first to absorb the innovations of the Italian Baroque—monody, thestile concertato,figured bass—and use them effectively in a GermanLutheran context. While Schütz made more than one trip to Italy, Schein apparently spent his entire life in Germany, making his grasp of the Italianate style all the more remarkable. His early concertato music seems to have been modeled onLodovico Grossi da Viadana'sCento concerti ecclesiastici, which were available in an edition prepared in Germany.
Unlike Schütz, who concentrated mainly on sacred music (although it must be borne in mind that at least two operas composed by him, among other secular works, have been lost), Schein wrote sacred and secular music in approximately equal quantities, and almost all of it was vocal. In his secular vocal music he wrote all of his own texts. Throughout his life he published alternating collections of sacred and secular music, in accordance with an intention he stated early on — in the preface to theBanchetto musicale — to publish alternately music for use in worship and social gatherings. The contrast between the two kinds of music can be quite extreme. While some of his sacred music uses the most sophisticated techniques of the Italianmadrigal for adevotional purpose, such as the motetWie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen setting verses fromPsalm 84, several of his secular collections include such things as drinking songs of a surprising simplicity and humor. Some of his works attain an expressive intensity matched in Germany only by those of Schütz, for example the spectacularFontana d'Israel orIsrael's Brünnlein (1623), in which Schein declared his intent to exhaust the possibilities of Germanword-painting "in the style of the Italian madrigal."
Possibly his most famous collection was his only collection of instrumental music, theBanchetto musicale (Musical banquet) (1617) which contains twenty separate variationsuites; they are among the earliest, and most perfect, representatives of the form. Most likely they were composed as dinner music for the courts ofWeissenfels and Weimar, and were intended to be performed onviols. They consist of dances: apavan-galliard (a normal early Baroque pair), acourante, and then anallemande-tripla. Each suite in theBanchetto is unified by mode as well as by theme.
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