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Samuel Scheidt (baptised 3 November 1587 – 24 March 1654) was a German
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 Defi ...
,
organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...
and teacher of the early
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 t ...
era.


Life and career

Scheidt was born in Halle, and after early studies there, he went to
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
to study with Sweelinck, the distinguished
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
composer, whose work had a clear influence on Scheidt's style. On his return to Halle, Scheidt became court organist, and later
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 ...
, to the
Margrave Margrave was originally the medieval title for the military commander assigned to maintain the defence of one of the border provinces of the Holy Roman Empire or of a kingdom. That position became hereditary in certain feudal families in the Em ...
of
Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a states of Germany, state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an ar ...
. Unlike many German musicians, for example
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 ...
, he remained in Germany during the
Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
, 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 Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein () (24 September 1583 – 25 February 1634), also von Waldstein ( cs, Albrecht Václav Eusebius z Valdštejna), was a Bohemian military leader and statesman who fought on the Catholic side during the Th ...
, 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 flowering of the new north German style, which occurred largely as a result of the
Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
. In south Germany and some other countries of Europe, the spiritual and artistic influence of
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remained strong, so most music continued to be derivative of Italian models. Cut off from Rome, musicians in the newly Protestant areas readily developed styles that were much different from those of their neighbours. Scheidt's music is in two principal categories: instrumental music, including a large amount of keyboard music, mostly for organ; and sacred vocal music, some of which is ''
a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...
'' and some of which uses a
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 ...
or other instrumental accompaniment. In his numerous
chorale prelude In music, a chorale prelude or chorale setting is a short liturgical composition for organ using a chorale tune as its basis. It was a predominant style of the German Baroque era and reached its culmination in the works of J.S. Bach, who wrote 46 ...
s, Scheidt often used a "patterned variation" technique, in which each phrase of the chorale uses a different rhythmic motive, and each variation is more elaborate than the previous one, until the climax of the composition is reached. In addition to his chorale preludes, he wrote numerous
fugue In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the c ...
s, suites of dances (which were often in a
cyclic form Cyclic form is a technique of musical construction, involving multiple sections or movements, in which a theme, melody, or thematic material occurs in more than one movement as a unifying device. Sometimes a theme may occur at the beginning and ...
, sharing a common
ground bass In music, an ostinato (; derived from Italian word for ''stubborn'', compare English ''obstinate'') is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces include ...
) and
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s.


Works

* Scheidt's complete works are published by
Breitkopf & Härtel Breitkopf & Härtel is the world's oldest music publishing house. The firm was founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf. The catalogue currently contains over 1,000 composers, 8,000 works and 15,000 music editions or books on ...
in a series of 16 volumes edited by Gottlieb Harms, Christhard Mahrenholz and Christoph Wolff. * A new scholarly edition of Scheidt's ''Tabulatura nova'' (1624) is edited by
Harald Vogel Harald Vogel (born 21 June 1941 in Ottersberg) is a German organist, organologist, and author. He is a leading expert on Renaissance and Baroque keyboard music. He has been professor of organ at the University of the Arts Bremen since 1994. Book ...
(
Breitkopf & Härtel Breitkopf & Härtel is the world's oldest music publishing house. The firm was founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf. The catalogue currently contains over 1,000 composers, 8,000 works and 15,000 music editions or books on ...
, 1994). * Scheidt's works are represented in many collections of chorale preludes by various authors, including: ** ''The Church Organist's Golden Treasury'' (three volumes), edited by Carl F. Pfatteicher and Archibald T. Davison. (Theodore Presser Co., Pennsylvania) ** ''80 Chorale Preludes from the 17th and 18th Centuries'', edited by
Hermann Keller Hermann Keller (20 November 1885 – 17 August 1967) was a German Protestant church musician and musicologist. Life Born in Stuttgart the son of an architect, he followed his father's profession by also studying architecture in Stuttgart and Mun ...
(Peters) ** ''Chorale Preludes by Old Masters'', edited by Karl Straube (Peters) (Also available in a reprint edition from Masters Music Publications) * Free scores are available for download from: ** **


References and further reading

*
Manfred Bukofzer Manfred Fritz Bukofzer (27 March 1910 – 7 December 1955) was a German-born American musicologist. Life and career He studied at Heidelberg University and the Stern conservatory in Berlin, but left Germany in 1933 for Switzerland, where he obt ...
, ''Music in the Baroque Era''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1947. * 'Samuel Scheidt', ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. *
Cleveland Johnson Cleveland Thomas Johnson (born November 3, 1955) is an American academic, administrator, music historian, and early-music performer. He retired as President/CEO of the Morris Museum (Morristown, New Jersey) in 2022. Previously, he was Director of t ...
, "In the Trenches with Johann and Caspar Plotz: a rediscovered Gebrauchstabulatur from the Scheidt Circle," 2001
Online


See also

*
German organ schools 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 ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scheidt, Samuel 1587 births 1654 deaths 17th-century classical composers 17th-century German people German Baroque composers German male classical composers German classical organists German male organists Organists and composers in the North German tradition People from Halle (Saale) Pupils of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck 17th-century male musicians Male classical organists