Helmut Walcha
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Helmut Walcha
Arthur Emil Helmut Walcha (27 October 1907 – 11 August 1991) was a German organist, harpsichordist, music teacher and composer who specialized in the works of the Dutch and German baroque masters. Blind since his teenage years, he is known for his recordings of the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, entirely played by memory. Biography Born in Leipzig, Walcha was blinded at age 19 after vaccination for smallpox. Despite his disability, he entered the Leipzig Conservatory and became an assistant at the Thomaskirche to Günther Ramin, who was professor of organ at the conservatory and cantor at St. Thomas (a position held by Bach himself). Some two decades later, Ramin would teach to another renowned Bach interpreter and organist at St Thomas, Karl Richter. In 1929, Walcha accepted a position in Frankfurt am Main at the Friedenskirche and remained in Frankfurt for the rest of his life. From 1933 to 1938 he taught at the Hoch Conservatory. In 1938 he was appointe ...
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Organ (music)
Carol Williams performing at the United States Military Academy West Point Cadet Chapel.">West_Point_Cadet_Chapel.html" ;"title="United States Military Academy West Point Cadet Chapel">United States Military Academy West Point Cadet Chapel. In music, the organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more Pipe organ, pipe divisions or other means for producing tones, each played from its own Manual (music), manual, with the hands, or pedalboard, with the feet. Overview Overview includes: * Pipe organs, which use air moving through pipes to produce sounds. Since the 16th century, pipe organs have used various materials for pipes, which can vary widely in timbre and volume. Increasingly hybrid organs are appearing in which pipes are augmented with electric additions. Great economies of space and cost are possible especially when the lowest (and largest) of the pipes can be replaced; * Non-piped organs, which include: ** pump organs, also known as reed organs or harmoniums, which ...
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Archiv Produktion
Archiv Produktion is a classical music record label of German origin. It originated in 1949 as a classical label for the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (DGG), and in 1958 Archiv was established as a subsidiary of DGG, specialising in recordings of Early and Baroque music. It has since developed a particular focus on "historically informed performance" and the work of artists of the Early music revival movement of the 20th and 21st centuries. The first head of Archiv Produktion, serving in the position from 1948 to 1957, was Fred Hamel, a musicologist who set out the early Archiv Produktion releases according to 12 research periods, from Gregorian Chant to Mannheim and Vienna. Hamel's successor 1958-1968 Hans Hickmann was a professor at the University of Hamburg who focused on Bach and Handel. The next director was Andreas Holschneider (1931–2019) from 1970-1991. In December 1991 Holschneider gave an interview to ''Gramophone'' where he defended the entry of Archiv Produktio ...
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Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck ( ; April or May, 1562 – 16 October 1621) was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. He was among the first major keyboard composers of Europe, and his work as a teacher helped establish the north German organ tradition. Life Sweelinck was born in Deventer, Netherlands, in April or May 1562. He was the eldest son of organist Peter (or Pieter) Swybbertszoon and Elske Jansdochter Sweeling, daughter of a surgeon. Soon after Sweelinck's birth, the family moved to Amsterdam, where from about 1564, Pieter Swybbertszoon served as organist of the Oude Kerk (Sweelinck's paternal grandfather and uncle also were organists).Sadie, Stanley. 1980.Sweelinck [Swelinck, Zwelinck, Sweeling, Sweelingh, Sweling, Swelingh], Jan Pieterszoon ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians''. Vol.8. Macmillan Publishers Limited, London. Pg. 406–407 Jan Pieterszoon must have ...
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Samuel Scheidt
Samuel Scheidt (baptised 3 November 1587 – 24 March 1654) was a German composer, organist and teacher of the early Baroque era. Life and career Scheidt was born in Halle, and after early studies there, he went to Amsterdam to study with Sweelinck, the distinguished Dutch composer, whose work had a clear influence on Scheidt's style. On his return to Halle, Scheidt became court organist, and later Kapellmeister, to the Margrave of Brandenburg. Unlike many German musicians, for example Heinrich Schütz, he remained in Germany during the Thirty Years' War, managing to survive by teaching and by taking a succession of smaller jobs until the restoration of stability allowed him to resume his post as Kapellmeister. When Samuel Scheidt lost his job because of Wallenstein, he was appointed in 1628 as musical director of three churches in Halle, including the Market Church. Scheidt was the first internationally significant German composer for the organ, and represents the flowe ...
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Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel (baptised – buried 9 March 1706; also Bachelbel) was a German composer, organist, and teacher who brought the south German organ schools to their peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secularity, secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most important composers of the middle Baroque music, Baroque era. List of compositions by Johann Pachelbel, Pachelbel's music enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime; he had many pupils and his music became a model for the composers of south and central Germany. Today, Pachelbel is best known for the Pachelbel's Canon, Canon in D; other well known works include the Chaconne in F minor (Pachelbel), Chaconne in F minor, the Toccata in E minor for organ, and the ''Hexachordum Apollinis'', a set of keyboard Variation (music), variations. He was influenced by southern German composers, such as Johann Jakob Froberger and Johann Caspar ...
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Vincent Lübeck
Vincent Lübeck (c. September 1654 – 9 February 1740) was a German composer and organist. He was born in Padingbüttel and worked as organist and composer at Stade's St. Cosmae et Damiani (1675–1702) and Hamburg's famous St. Nikolai (1702–1740), where he played one of the largest contemporary organs. He enjoyed a remarkably high reputation in his lifetime, and had numerous pupils, among which were two of his sons. Despite Lübeck's longevity and fame, very few compositions by him survive: a handful of organ ''praeludia'' and chorales in the North German style, a few cantatas and several pieces for harpsichord, some of which were published during the composer's lifetime. Of his works, the organ pieces are the most important: influenced by Dieterich Buxtehude and Johann Adam Reincken, Lübeck composed technically and artistically sophisticated works, with frequent virtuosic passages for pedal, five-voice polyphony, and other devices rarely used by most of the composers of the ...
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Dietrich Buxtehude
Dieterich Buxtehude (; ; born Diderik Hansen Buxtehude; c. 1637 – 9 May 1707)  was a Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period, whose works are typical of the North German organ school. As a composer who worked in various vocal and instrumental idioms, Buxtehude's style greatly influenced other composers, such as Johann Sebastian Bach. Buxtehude is considered one of the most important composers of the 17th century. Life Early years in Denmark He is thought to have been born with the name Diderich Buxtehude.Snyder, Kerala J. Dieterich Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck. New York: Schirmer Books, 1987. His parents were Johannes (Hans Jensen) Buxtehude and Helle Jespersdatter. His father originated from Oldesloe in the Duchy of Holstein, which at that time was a part of the Danish realms in Northern Germany. Scholars dispute both the year and country of Dieterich's birth, although most now accept that he was born in 1637 in Helsingborg, Skåne at the time part of Den ...
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Nicolaus Bruhns
Nicolaus Bruhns (also ''Nikolaus'', ''Nicholas''; late 1665 – in Husum) was a Danish-German organist, violinist, and composer. He was one of the most prominent organists and composers of his generation. Biography Bruhns was born in Schwabstedt (Danish: ''Svavsted''), a small settlement near Husum. He came from a family of musicians and composers. His grandfather, Paul Jakob Bruhns (died 1655), worked as lutenist in Lübeck. His three sons all chose musical careers; Bruhns' father, also named Paul (1640–c. 1689), became organist at Schwabstedt, possibly after studying with Franz Tunder. Nicolaus was apparently a child prodigy: according to Ernst Ludwig Gerber, he could play the organ and compose competent works for keyboard and voice already at an early age. He probably received his first music lessons from his father. At age sixteen, Bruhns, together with his younger brother Georg (1666-1742), was sent to Lübeck to live with their uncle Peter, who would teach Bruhns the ...
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Georg Böhm
Georg Böhm (2 September 1661 – 18 May 1733) was a German Baroque organist and composer. He is notable for his development of the chorale partita and for his influence on the young J. S. Bach. Life Böhm was born in 1661 in Hohenkirchen. He received his first music lessons from his father, a schoolmaster and organist who died in 1675. He may also have received lessons from Johann Heinrich Hildebrand, Kantor at Ohrdruf, who was a pupil of Heinrich Bach and Johann Christian Bach. After his father's death, Böhm studied at the Lateinschule at Goldbach, and later at the Gymnasium at Gotha, graduating in 1684. Both cities had Kantors taught by the same members of the Bach family who may have influenced Böhm. On 28 August 1684 Böhm entered the University of Jena. Little is known about Böhm's university years or his life after graduation. He resurfaces again only in 1693, in Hamburg. We know nothing of how Böhm lived there, but presumably he was influenced by the musical life ...
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Friederich Stellwagen
Friederich Stellwagen (baptized 7 February 1603 – buried 2 March 1660) was a pipe organ builder active in the region of northeast Germany between Hamburg and Stralsund in the mid 17th century. He learned with Gottfried Fritzsche and eventually married Fritzsche's daughter, Theodora. In 1634, Stellwagen was granted the ''privilege'' to build organs in Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ... and after 1645 he was given full charge for maintenance of Lübeck's major organs.'Stellwagen', Ibo Ortgies, in ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart''. Stellwagen is particularly noted for his work adding the Rückpositiv, Brustwerk and Pedal to the Gothic organ of ca. 1480 on the north wall of the Jacobikirche in Lübeck in 1636/37 and then building the new organ t ...
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Lübeck
Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, after its capital of Kiel, and is the 35th-largest city in Germany. The city lies in Holstein, northeast of Hamburg, on the mouth of the River Trave, which flows into the Bay of Lübeck in the borough of Travemünde, and on the Trave's tributary Wakenitz. The city is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, and is the southwesternmost city on the Baltic, as well as the closest point of access to the Baltic from Hamburg. The port of Lübeck is the second-largest German Baltic port after the port of Rostock. The city lies in the Northern Low Saxon dialect area of Low German. Lübeck is famous for having been the cradle and the ''de facto'' capital of the Hanseatic League. Its city centre is Germany's most extens ...
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1680
Events January–March * January 2 – King Amangkurat II of Mataram (located on the island of Java, part of modern-day Indonesia), invites Trunajaya, who had led a failed rebellion against him until his surrender on December 26, for a ceremonial visit to the royal palace. After Trunajaya arrives, King Amangkurat stabs his guest to death. * January 24 – William Harris, one of the four English Puritans who established the Plymouth Colony and then the Providence Plantations at Rhode Island in 1636, is captured by Algerian pirates, when his ship is boarded while he is making a voyage back to England. After being sold into slavery on February 23, he remains a slave until ransom is paid. He dies in 1681, three days after his return to England. * February 12 – The Marquis de Croissy, Charles Colbert, becomes France's Minister of Foreign Affairs and serves for 16 years until his death, when he is succeeded as Foreign Minister by his son Jean-Baptiste ...
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