Johann Heinrich Buttstett (also ''Buttstedt'', ''Buttstädt'') (25 April 1666 – December 1, 1727) was a German

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists. In addition, an organist may accompany congregational ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...

. Although he was

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 h ...

's most important pupil and one of the last major exponents of the south German organ tradition, Buttstett is best remembered for a dispute with

Johann Mattheson Johann Mattheson (28 September 1681 – 17 April 1764) was a German composer, singer, writer, lexicographer, diplomat and music theorist. Early life and career The son of a prosperous tax collector, Mattheson received a broad liberal education ...

Life

Buttstett was born in Bindersleben (now part of

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits in ...

) into the family of Johann Henricus Buttstett, a well-educated local pastor who had studied at the

University of Erfurt The University of Erfurt (german: Universität Erfurt) is a public university located in Erfurt, the capital city of the German state of Thuringia. It was founded in 1379, and closed in 1816. It was re-established in 1994, three years after Germ ...

. He began studying music at an early age, becoming a pupil of

, then organist of Erfurt's Predigerkirche, in 1678. His professional career began in 1684 at the

Reglerkirche The Reglerkirche (, also called ''Augustinuskirche'', "Augustine's Church") is a church building in the historical centre of Erfurt in Thuringia, Germany. It serves a Lutheran parish as a place of worship and is one of the larger churches in the ...

and continued at the Kaufmannskirche, where he was working in 1687. In both cases, he was not only the church organist but also teaching in church schools. In 1691, Buttstett succeeded

Nicolaus Vetter Andreas Nicolaus Vetter (; October 1666 – 13 June 1734) was a German organist and composer. Biography He was born in Herschdorf, in present-day Thuringia. In his ''Zur Geschichte des Orgelspiels'' (1884), August Gottfried Ritter gives 30, Oct ...

at the Predigerkirche (Pachelbel quit in 1690 and Vetter, who succeeded him, moved to

Rudolstadt Rudolstadt is a town in the German federal state Thuringia, with the Thuringian Forest to the southwest, and to Jena and Weimar to the north. The former capital of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, the town is built along the River Saale inside a wide v ...

in 1691); he remained there until his death 36 years later. Buttstett married Martha Lämmerhirt (a distant cousin of

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...

's mother) in 1687 and had ten children with her. In 1716, Buttstett published ''Ut, mi, sol, re, fa, la, tota musica et harmonia aeterna'', a work directed against

's first major treatise. Mattheson was a progressive thinker who embraced the coming of the Classical style and miscellaneous modern principles aimed at widespread music education (limited to teaching 18th century styles of French and Italian secular music), whereas Buttstett sought to defend the musical tradition of the past: from basic practical things like the use of solmization and composing with the Greek modes to the global concepts of music and harmony that were used during the past several centuries. Buttstett was somewhat acclaimed as a teacher during his years at the Predigerkirche, surrounding himself with a circle of pupils. The most important composer to receive musical training from him was Johann Gottfried Walther. He died in Erfurt aged 61.

Works

Aside from a lost sacred

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

, a fragment of a cantata and two concerted masses, all minor works, Buttstett's surviving output consists exclusively of keyboard music, which he apparently composed in great numbers. In the only surviving collection, ''Musicalische Clavier-Kunst und Vorraths-Kammer'' of 1713, he stated that he had more than a thousand pieces available in manuscript, such as fughettas, fantasias, large fugues and ricercars, capriccios, preludes and so on; but so far the said collection, two

marches In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland, as opposed to a national "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which diff ...

included in ''Ut, mi, sol..'' and several dozen chorale preludes are the only extant keyboard works by him. Predictably, most pieces show the influence of Pachelbel; however, numerous signs indicate that Buttstett was more than familiar with the

north German organ school The 17th century organ composers of Germany can be divided into two primary schools: the north German school and the south German school (sometimes a third school, central German, is added). The stylistic differences were dictated not only by teach ...

- both his free (preludes, fantasias) and strict (fugues, ricercars) compositions may feature long virtuosic passages quite unlike Pachelbel's more relaxed writing, but very akin to

Dieterich 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 a ...

and Nicholas Bruhns. Particularly interesting are the ''Prelude & Capriccio in D minor'' of the ''Musicalische Clavier-Kunst'': the prelude begins with a long single-voice monophonic passage filled with pauses, single note exclamations and virtuosic figures, and the Capriccio is fugal, building on a similarly complex subject written out in 32nd- and 16th-notes (and related to the prelude): Buttstett-capriccio-subject

''Musicalische Clavier-Kunst'' also contains a few dance suites, with obvious French influences and somewhat different from the typical German suite of the time. A particularly interesting fugue by Buttstett is found in the so-called ''Andreas Bach manuscript.'' It features an extreme example of a repercussion subject, which includes a leap of a diminished 7th: Buttstett-fuga-subject

Repercussion is also used throughout the fugue, sometimes applied to full chords in both hands.

Recordings (selection)

* Johann Heinrich Buttstett -

Helga Schauerte-Maubouet Helga Schauerte-Maubouet (born 8 Mars, 1957, Lennestadt) is a German-French organist, writer and editor of music. Schauerte has recorded the complete organ works of Jehan Alain, Dietrich Buxtehude, and J. S. Bach (in process), portraits of Buttst ...

at the Silbermann Organ in Rötha (Syrius, 141334), 1998

References

* Hans Tischler, Willi Apel: ''The History of Keyboard Music to 1700'' (Indiana University Press, 1972), * George J. Buelow: "Buttstett, Johann Heinrich", in ''

Grove Music Online ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and th ...

'', ed. Laura Macy
grovemusic.com
(subscription access).

External links

* * Scott M. Elsholz
''Opening a forgotten cabinet: Johann Heinrich Buttstett’s Musicalische Clavier=Kunst und Vorraths=Kammer'' (1713)
Indiana University, May 2013. {{DEFAULTSORT:Buttstett, Johann Heinrich 1666 births 1727 deaths 18th-century classical composers 18th-century German composers 18th-century German male musicians 18th-century keyboardists German Baroque composers German classical composers German male classical composers German classical organists German male organists German music theorists Organists and composers in the South German tradition Musicians from Erfurt People from the Electorate of Mainz Male classical organists