Philipp Stolle (1614 – 4 October 1675) was a German composer,

tenor A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...

and

theorbo The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck and a second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box (a hollow box) with a wooden top, typically with a sound hole, and a neck extending ou ...

player of the

Baroque era 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 th ...

. Stolle was born in 1614 at

Radeburg Radeburg is a town in the district of Meißen, in Saxony, Germany. It is situated 19 km east of Meißen, and 18 km north of Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital c ...

. He was a pupil of Caspar Kittel.Baron. He worked for many years at the

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

court of

Johann Georg I, Elector of Saxony John George I (5 March 1585 – 8 October 1656) was Elector of Saxony from 1611 to 1656. He led Saxony through the Thirty Years' War, which dominated his 45 year reign. Biography Born in Dresden, John George was the second son of the Elector Chr ...

, while

Heinrich Schütz Heinrich Schütz (; 6 November 1672) was a German early Baroque composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as one of the most important composers of the 17th century. He ...

was ''

Kapellmeister (, also , ) from German ''Kapelle'' (chapel) and ''Meister'' (master)'','' literally "master of the chapel choir" designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term ha ...

'' there. On 16 January 1649 Stolle married Anna Maria Krätzschmar.Harper (2003). p. 175 At the request of the Dresden court poet

David Schirmer David Schirmer (29 May 1623 – 1686) was a German lyric poet and librarian, who also used the pseudonyms ''Der Bestimmende'', ''Der Beschirmende'' and ''DiSander''. He is considered one of the most gifted lyric poets of the Baroque era. Bi ...

, Stolle produced musical settings for 68 of Schirmer's poems, published in 1654 as the songbook ''Singende Rosen Oder Liebes-und Tugend-Lieder''. The settings were for

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

, theorbo or

viola da gamba The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...

, and

basso continuo Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing th ...

. Schirmer also included 51 of the songs from ''Singende Rosen'' in his famous 1657 collection ''Poetische Rosen-Gepüsche''. Eventually Stolle was transferred into a new ensemble at court,Frandsen (2006). p. 20 under the musical direction of Giovanni Andrea Bontempi. This was set up by the Elector's son, the future Johann Georg II, in response to the chronic decline of his father's ''Kapelle''.Spagnoli (1993). pp. 166–167 However, in 1653, Stolle wrote to Johann Georg II asking to be released, pointing out that after 21 years of service at Dresden, his annual salary of 300 ''

thaler A thaler (; also taler, from german: Taler) is one of the large silver coins minted in the states and territories of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy during the Early Modern period. A ''thaler'' size silver coin has a diameter of ...

'' was still not enough for him to provide for his family. By then he and his wife had three children. In 1654, Stolle finally left Dresden, for the court of

Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels Augustus of Saxe-Weissenfels (Dresden, 13 August 1614 – 4 June 1680, Halle), was a Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels-Querfurt of the House of Wettin and administrator of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg. He was the fourth (but second surviving) son of J ...

at Halle, where he succeeded

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 ...

as ''Kapellmeister''. There he seems to have composed a number of ''

Singspiel A Singspiel (; plural: ; ) is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera. It is characterized by spoken dialogue, which is alternated with ensembles, songs, ballads, and arias which were often strophic, or folk-like ...

'' operas, although only one survives, ''Charimunda'' (1658, Halle). In 1660 he yielded the position of ''Kapellmeister'' at Halle to David Pohle, but apparently continued composing operas there, and subsequently went on to work at the

secundogeniture A secundogeniture (from la, secundus "following, second," and "born") was a dependent territory given to a younger son of a princely house and his descendants, creating a cadet branch. This was a special form of inheritance in which the second a ...

court at

Saxe-Weissenfels Saxe-Weissenfels (german: Sachsen-Weißenfels) was a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire from 1656/7 until 1746 with its residence at Weißenfels. Ruled by a cadet branch of the Albertine House of Wettin, the duchy passed to the Electorate of Saxony u ...

. He died at Halle on 4 October 1675.

References

Sources

* * * * 1614 births 1675 deaths 17th-century classical composers German Baroque composers German male classical composers German opera composers Male opera composers German tenors German lutenists 17th-century male musicians {{Germany-composer-stub