Joachim Burmeister (1564 in
Lüneburg
Lüneburg (officially the ''Hanseatic City of Lüneburg'', German: ''Hansestadt Lüneburg'', , Low German ''Lümborg'', Latin ''Luneburgum'' or ''Lunaburgum'', Old High German ''Luneburc'', Old Saxon ''Hliuni'', Polabian ''Glain''), also called ...
– 5 May 1629 in
Rostock
Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, ...
) was a north German composer and music theorist.
He was the oldest of five children born to a beadworker and townsman of Lüneburg. His brother Anton (d. 1634) became the cantor of
St. Michaelis, Lüneburg, following Christian Praetorius.
Burmeister attended the University of Rostock, where he received the master's degree and became cantor at the Nicolaikirche and
St. Mary's Church, Rostock. He then taught grammar, Latin, rhetoric and poetry at the Rostock Gymnasium (Scholae Rostochiensis Collega Classicus).
In Rostock Burmeister was acquainted with some famous humanists such as , , , and
Johannes Posselius. His aim while publishing his books was to prove that music was an art full of dignity, like eloquence.
[See Agathe Sueur, ''Le Frein et l'Aiguillon. Eloquence musicale et nombre oratoire (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle)'', Paris, Classiques, Garnier, 2014.]
In ''Musica autoschédiastikè'' and ''Musica Poetica'' Burmeister provided a list of musical soloecisms, musical ornaments or figures, parts of the musical poem and musical styles. He inquired about rhetorical convenience and pronunciation of music.
Burmeister was a very literate writer, his books show his mastery of Greek and Latin and contain references for example to
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...
,
Melanchthon
Philip Melanchthon. (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the ...
, .
Works
* 1601 published a collection of four-voiced psalms.
* 1605 published in Rostock a German-language comedy titled "Christ Revealed" (Χριστὸς πεφασμένος, ''der geoffenbarte Christus, Comödia''), availabl
online
* 1606 published "Musica poetica," in which he explains his musical-rhetorical figure theory, availabl
online
* 1609 issued "Musica mathematica" by
Heinrich Brucaeus (1531–1593) under the title "Musica theorica".
References
* Agathe Sueur, ''Vie de Joachim Burmeister'', Paris, Rhuthmos, 2019.
* Joachim Burmeister, ''Poétique musicale. Suivi de David Chytraeus – De la Musique'', French translation, notes and lexicon by Agathe Sueur et Pascal Dubreuil, Paris, Rhuthmos, 2017.
* Joachim Burmeister, ''Musica poetica (1606) augmentée des plus excellentes remarques tirées de Hypomnematum musicae poeticae (1599) et de Musica autoschédiastikè (1601)'', introduction, Latin text and French translation, notes and lexicon by Agathe Sueur and
Pascal Dubreuil, Wavre, Mardaga, 2007
Preview of this book online* Agathe Sueur, "La grande éloquence musicale: lamprophonie et chalcophonie chez Joachim Burmeister (1564–1629)", ''Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric'', Vol. 36 No. 2, Spring 2018, pp. 132-159.
*
Martin Ruhnk: Joachim Burmeister: ein Beitrag zur Musiklehre um 1600. Bärenreiter-Verl., Kassel 1955. Schriften des Landesinstituts für Musikforschung, Kiel, Bd.5.
*
Arrey von Dommer, Wilhelm Scherer: Burmeister, Joachim. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Band 3, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, S. 628 f.
* Hans-Heinrich Unger: Burmeister, Joachim. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, S. 54.
* Ralf Böckmann: Burmeister, Joachim. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Band 32, Nordhausen 2011, (Gekürzte Onlinefassung).
External links
*
1566 births
1629 deaths
People from Lüneburg
German poets
Writers from Lower Saxony
German classical composers
German music theorists
Renaissance composers
German male poets
German male classical composers
{{Germany-poet-stub