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Allies in the Cause of Italian Music: Schütz, Prince Johann Georg II and Musical Politics in Dresden

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Mary E. Frandsen
Mary E. Frandsen*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
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Abstract

In the seventeenth century the process of appointing court musicians was often complicated by struggles between conflicting agendas. Recently discovered letters of Saxon Prince Johann Georg II (1613–80) document the nature of the process in Dresden during the tenure of court Kapellmeister Heinrich Schütz, and the attempts of Schütz and the prince to steer Elector Johann Georg I's hiring decisions in a direction that would further their cause: the cultivation of an awareness of the modern Italian style of singing in the Dresden court musicians. The letters reveal the previously unknown collaborative effort of Schütz and the prince to fill the position of vice-Kapellmeister with the ‘right’ musician (i.e. an Italian or Italian-trained one), and to keep the ‘wrong’ man out of the job. In the course of this enterprise, the prince participated in the negotiations for several appointments, including that of Christoph Bernhard, whom he then sent to a northern court to study with an Italian singer. Although the collaborators' mission ended in failure, the story of their efforts casts light on the musical politicking at a seventeenth-century court and on the implications such campaigns had for the lives of individual musicians.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 125 , Issue 1 , 2000 , pp. 1 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 2000

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Footnotes

This article is based on a paper first delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 17–19 April 1998. I am grateful to Calvin Bower and Paula Higgins for their helpful and critical comments on earlier drafts of this text, to Wolfram Steude for his guidance through the orthographical problems presented by a number of the letters discussed here, and to Mary Frances Dini for her assistance in preparing the musical examples.

References

1 Town musicians, for example, could supplement their annual income through service at weddings and other occasional events.Google Scholar

2 The influence of contemporary Italian music on Schütz's musical style, the result of his study with Gabrieli (1609–12) and his extended visit to the Venice of Monteverdi and Grandi (1628–9), is familiar territory, as it has been explored by numerous scholars. See, for example, Denis Arnold, ‘The Second Venetian Visit of Heinrich Schütz’, Musical Quarterly, 71 (1985), 359–74, and ‘Schütz's “Venetian” Psalms’, Musical Times, 113 (1972), 1071–3; Werner Breig, ‘Zum Parodieverfahren von Heinrich Schütz’, Musica, 26 (1972), 17–20; Robert Kendrick, ‘Schütz's Symphoniae Sacrae I and its Non-Reception in Italy’, Relazioni musicali tra Italia e Germania nell'età barocca: Atti del VI Convegno Internazionale sulla Musica Italiana nei Secoli XVII–XVIII, Contributi musicologi del Centro Ricerche dell'A.M.I.S., 10 (Como, 1997), 45–60; Hans Joachim Moser, Heinrich Schütz: His Life and Works, trans. Carl F. Pfatteicher (St Louis, 1959), 51–74, 127–39; Massimo Ossi, ‘L'armonia raddoppiata: On Claudio Monteverdi's Zefiro torna and Heinrich Schütz's Es steh Gott auf, and other Early Seventeenth-Century Ciaccone ‘, Studi musicali, 17 (1988), 225–53; Joshua Rifkin, ‘Heinrich Schütz’, The New Grove North European Baroque Masters (New York and London, 1985), 82–95; Jerome Roche, ‘What Schütz Learnt from Grandi in 1629’, Musical Times, 113 (1972), 1074–5; Carl von Winterfeld, Johannes Gabrieli und sein Zeitalter, ii (Berlin, 1834; repr. Hildesheim, 1965), 168–212; and many other studies.Google Scholar

3 In the 1620s, before he became embroiled in war, Johann Georg I did provide subventions that enabled a few of his court musicians to study in Italy, including Johann Nauwach, Kaspar Kittel, Gabriel Mölich and Tobias Grünschneider. See Erich H. Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe und Schriften (Regensburg, 1931), 327, 329, and Werner Braun, ‘Schütz als Kompositionslehrer: Die “Geistlichen Madrigale” (1619) von Gabriel Mölich’, Schütz-Jahrbuch, 7/8 (1985–6), 69–92 (pp. 74, 76).Google Scholar

4 Symphoniae Sacrae I, op. 6, ed. Siegfried Schmalzriedt, Stuttgarter Schütz-Ausgabe, 7 (Stuttgart, 1996), xxix (Latin dedication and preamble trans. Nicholas Mitchell).Google Scholar

5 IbidGoogle Scholar

6 Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (hereafter Sächs HStA), Loc. 10554/3, Heÿraths Acten Churfürst Johann Georgen des Andern. Ander Theil. Anno 1638. 39. 40. 41., f. 7v: ‘Die Invention solches Ballets, ist von Herrn Augusto Buchnern, Professore Poeseos zu Wittenbergk uff itzige neue art in Teutzsche Verse gesetzt, von dem Churf. Capellmeister Herr Heinrich Schützen aber uf Italianische Manier componirt.’ Schütz's music for the ballet does not survive. This and all subsequent translations are those of the author unless otherwise indicated.Google Scholar

7 Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 146: ‘Hierüber soll er insonderheit verbunden sein ihro hochfürstl. Durchl. Singeknaben täglich zu gewissen Stunden, Lection zu geben, … und also möglichen besten Fleißes Diesselbigen zu einer guten italienischen Manier im Singen gewehnen.’ The contracts, for cornettist Friedrich Werner, theorbist Philipp Stolle and organist Matthias Weckmann, are dated 14 September 1641.Google Scholar

8 In 1662, 12 of the 38 adult members of his Kapelle were Italians: two of three Kapellmeisters, one of two vice-Kapellmeisters, three sopranos, an alto, a tenor, a bass and an organist; see Spagnoli, Gina, Letters and Documents of Heinrich Schütz, 1656–1672: An Annotated Translation (Ann Arbor, 1990), 62. Documentary and musical evidence suggests that Johann Georg II was an accomplished musician: on several occasions during his father's long illness during the spring of 1656 he assumed direction of the service music in the castle chapel, and his setting of Psalm 116, Laudate dominum, was performed on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday in 1673; a copy of the work survives in the Bokemeyer collection in Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Mus. MS 30210, no. 15 (see Mary E. Frandsen, ‘The Sacred Concerto in Dresden, ca. 1660–1680’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester/Eastman School of Music, 1996, 4, 35–6).Google Scholar

9 See, for example, Karlheinz Blaschke, ‘Johann Georg II’, Neue Deutsche Biographie, x (Berlin, 1974), 526–7, and Heinz Schilling, Höfe und Allianzen: Deutschland 1648–1763 (Berlin, 1989), 164.Google Scholar

10 See Mary E. Frandsen, ‘Albrici, Peranda und die Ursprünge der Concerto-Aria-Kantate in Dresden’, Schütz-Jahrbuch, 18 (1996), 123–39.Google Scholar

11 Many scholars have discussed the events of 1653 in the context of Schütz's biography. See, for example, Moser, Heinrich Schütz, 192, 208–9; Brodde, Otto, Heinrich Schütz: Weg und Werk (2nd edn, Kassel, 1979), 225–9; Martin Gregor-Dellin, Heinrich Schütz: Sein Leben, sein Werk, seine Zeit (Munich and Zurich, 1984), 319–22; Rifkin, ‘Heinrich Schütz’, 53–5; idem, ‘Towards a New Image of Heinrich Schütz’, pt I, Musical Times, 126 (1985), 651–8 (p. 656); Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 6.Google Scholar

12 Rifkin, ‘Heinrich Schütz’, 55. Ironically (in light of what was about to transpire), Schütz probably auditioned these musicians himself, for in June 1653 he was ‘summoned by the electoral prince’ to return to Dresden from Weißenfels ‘in order to audition several of his new musicians, recently arrived from Italy’ (Schütz to Heinrich II of Reuss-Gera, 16 June 1653; see Jung, Hans Rudolf, ‘Zwei unbekannte Briefe von Heinrich Schütz aus den Jahren 1653/54’, Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft, 14 (1972), 231–7 (p. 233): ‘Berichte dieselbige hirnebenst unterthenig, das [b –] gegen das S. Johansfest, ich Wieder nacher Dresden mich von hidannen wenden werde, dahin ich kurtz Verwichenen tag Von dem Churprinzen, zu anhörung seiner aus Italia etlicher neuer angekommener Newen Musicanten, … citiret worden binn'). The presence of the Italians undoubtedly irked the German musicians in the elector's ensemble, partly because of the high salaries the prince normally paid Italian musicians in order to lure them to Dresden. For example, in 1654 the Italian tenor Stefano Boni received a salary of 840 reichsthaler, while his German counterpart, Philipp Stolle (one of the founding members of the prince's musical ensemble in 1639), received only 300 reichsthaler (Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 91).Google Scholar

13 The prince's directive has never been located.Google Scholar

14 Schütz to [Senior Court Marshal] Heinrich Taube, [Senior Court Preacher] Jacob Weller and [Privy Secretary] Christian Reichbrodt, 21 August 1653 (Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 135). Schütz's emotional peroration to this letter reveals his extreme sense of frustration with the situation at hand: ‘In conclusion, I wish to protest in my own person, now that everything I have unto the very blood in my veins has in part been sacrificed and in part spread among a few suffering musicians, it will be altogether impossible for me to continue in Dresden any longer. I wish now to report nothing in particular about this place but only to certify that I prefer death to living any longer in such oppressive conditions’ (Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 136; also quoted in part in Rifkin, ‘Heinrich Schütz’, 55, and in Moritz Fürstenau, Zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden, i: Zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters am Hofe der Kurfürsten von Sachsen, Johann Georg II., Johann Georg III., und Johann Georg IV., Dresden, 1861; repr. Leipzig, 1971, 27–8, where the date is erroneously given as 1645).Google Scholar

15 In 1651, for example, Elector Johann Georg I employed an ensemble of four choirboys and 15 adult German musicians, which included six singers, seven instrumentalists and two organists. At the same time the prince employed five choirboys, all of whom doubled as instrumentalists, and 13 adult musicians, and had at his disposal singers of all voice-parts, an organist and a number of instrumentalists, including violinists, lutenists, cornettists and a theorbist (see Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 4).Google Scholar

16 Schütz to Johann Georg II, 23 August 1653 (Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 140).Google Scholar

17 Ibid.Google Scholar

18 Ibid.Google Scholar

19 Johann Georg II to Johann Georg I, 30 September 1653 (Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 143–6).Google Scholar

20 The letters, which are discussed below, are preserved in two collections: Sächs HStA, Loc. 8563/1, Correspondenz Churfürst Johann Georg II., and Loc. 8563/2, Des Kurprinzen z. S. Johann George II. Handschreiben an seinen Vater, den Kurfürsten, 1634–1656. Vol. I.Google Scholar

21 Schütz to Johann Georg I, 7 March 1641 (Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 141): ‘weil nichts minder, als ein Medicus einer gefehrlichen Krankheit, ehe sie gantz thödlich wirdt, unserm gleichsamb als in letzten Zügen liegenden Corpori Musico, aus mir obliegenden schuldigkeit, hirmit zu succuriren, Ich nicht unterlassen sollen'.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., 143: ‘mit annemung ein bahr gueter Italianischen oder andern Instrumenten, undt so viel gueter Sänger'. See also Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 70 and 378, n. 61.Google Scholar

23 Schütz's precise date of departure for Copenhagen is unknown; he spent the greater part of the years 1642–4 at the Danish court, and then spent some months in Braunschweig and Wolfenbüttel before returning to Dresden (Rifkin, ‘Heinrich Schütz’, 37–9).Google Scholar

24 Johann Georg I originally set his son's allowance at 19,419 gulden, 9 groschen; the prince subsequently requested that his father increase the amount to 20,000 gulden, so that his musicians, who had not been included in the original précis of his household retinue, ‘might live a little better’ (see Frandsen, ‘The Sacred Concerto in Dresden’, 14–17).Google Scholar

25 Sächs HStA, Loc. 8563/3, Des Kurprinzen z. S. Johann Georg II Handschreiben an seinen Vater, den Kurfürsten, 1634–1644. Vol. II, f. 103: ‘E. Gn. errinnern sich gnedigst, was nun zu vielen unterschiedenen mahlen, beÿ deroselben, wegen meines außenstehenden Deputats, so sich nunmehr, (nach abzug alles so ich bekommen) knufftig Neu iahr auff Sechzig Tausent gulden belaufen thut, Ich ganz beweg: vnd flehentlich gesuchet, worauff aber bis dato, außerhalb etwas weniges, nichts erfolget, sondern von einer Zeit zur andern, und bald vff diese bald vf iene occasion und gelegenheit verschoben werden, woruber ich mich den nebenst meiner herzlieben Gemahlin, biß anhero recht kümmerlich vnd elend behelfen, mich in schulden stecken, vnd die wahrheit zusagen, mit höchsten schimpf leben mußen, Welches E. Gn. ich nicht weitleuffiger remonstriren mag.’ A document dated 17 May 1650 indicates that the elector was unable to fulfil his financial obligations to his son throughout the previous decade. In January 1650, the prince received his allowance up to the New Year term of 1641. In June 1650 his father promised to pay him 40,900 fl. – half of what he was owed – over the course of the coming year; the prince did receive 20,000 fl. in September 1650, but virtually nothing more during the next three years (Sächs HStA, Loc. 8563/2, ff. 165–71).Google Scholar

26 Rifkin, , ‘Heinrich Schütz’, 38; see also Wolfram Steude, ‘Auskünfte Dresdner Quellen zu Heinrich Schütz’ Dänemarkreisen’, Heinrich Schütz und die Musik in Dänemark zur Zeit Christians IV., ed. Anne Ørbæk Jensen and Ole Kongsted (Copenhagen, 1989), 43–56 (pp. 55–6). The three musicians were appointed to Johann Georg's incipient Kapelle in 1637 and 1639 (see Frandsen, ‘The Sacred Concerto in Dresden’, 14, 18).Google Scholar

27 Hofkontz was born on 17 August 1615 in Trautenau, and died on 19 July 1655. He studied at the universities of Königsberg and Frankfurt an der Oder, and served as cantor in the towns of Sagan and Guben prior to his arrival in Dresden; see Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen-Lexikon der Musiker und Musikgelehrten der christlichen Zeitrechnung bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, ed. Robert Eitner (Leipzig, 1898–1904; 2nd edn,1959–60), v, 184. The previous vice-Kapellmeister, Zacharius Hestius, became Pastor in Königstein on 1 January 1641; see Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 350, n. 214.Google Scholar

28 In his 1985 article, ‘Towards a New Image of Heinrich Schütz’ (see above, n. 11), Rifkin explored Hofkontz's relationship with Schütz in some detail; the newly discovered documents discussed here offer a somewhat different perspective on that relationship and on the efforts to fill the position of vice-Kapellmeister. See also the discussions in Brodde, Heinrich Schütz, 185–7, Gregor-Dellin, Heinrich Schütz, 272–5, and Moser, Heinrich Schütz, 180–3.Google Scholar

29 Schäfer, Wilhelm, ‘Einige Beiträge zur Geschichte der kurfürstlichen musikalischen Capelle oder Cantorei unter den Kurfürsten August, Christian I. u. II. u. Johann Georg I.’, Sachsen-Chronik für Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, 1 (1854), 404–51.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., 423–4: ‘Insonderheit aber schuldig sein soll, mit Bestellung der täglichen Vespern, auch mit direction der Wochen- vndt Sontagesgesänge in Vnserer Schloß Kirchen (iedoch mit fürbewußt vnsers Capellmeisters, wann derselbe Zur stelle), mit aufschlagunge der Bücher für dem Pulte, vnd mit ahnfahunge der Deüzschen Liedere vorrichten, und also das Vice Capellmeister Ambt verwalten, aber keine frembde vnd neue Lieder einführen, Sondern sich vnserer Hoff-Kirchen-Ordnung bequemen, vnd in Denen Sachen, so die bestellunge des Gottes-Dienstes und die institution der Capell-Knaben betriefft, nach unserm Ober Hoffprediger, Deme wir die Inspection vber vnsere Hoff-Capelle anbefohlen, richten soll, Vnd nachdeme Wir ihn Zum Praeceptore vnserer Capellknaben verordnet haben, So soll er Die in der pietet vnd wahren Gottesfurcht vnd vnserer seligmachenden Religion, auch in der Musica und Lateinischen Sprache, mit sonderbahren fleiße instituiren, … Da es auch die Nothdurft, Das er eines Tenoristen Stelle vertrete, Soll er auch auf Anordnung vnsers Capellmeisters, (an denn wir ihn dann ordinarie vnd allerdings gewiesen haben wollen), in der Kirchen vnd für vnserer Tafell aufzuwarten, sich keinesweges verweigern, Sondern iederzeit willig vnd bereit erzeigen.’ These were also the duties of the vice-Kapellmeister as defined when Zacharius Hestius held the position; see Schmidt, Eberhard, Der Gottesdienst am kurfürstlichen Hofe zu Dresden (Göttingen, 1961), 172; see also Rifkin, ‘Towards a New Image’, 655. The original document has not been located.Google Scholar

31 Schäfer, ‘Einige Beiträge’, 424. Schäfer's transcription includes the bracketed abbreviation ‘L.S.’ ('Locus Sigilli') to indicate the presence of the wax seal.Google Scholar

32 Johann Georg Hofkontz to Johann Georg I, 20 March 1643 (Sächs HStA, Loc. 8687/1, Cantoreÿ-Ordnung, f. 214).Google Scholar

33 Sächs HStA, OHMA O IV Nr. 5, Hof-Journal 1641–1650, entry for 13 March 1642: ‘Gestern Sonnabents vermittage umb 9 ½ Uhr, ist der Hausmarschalch George Pflugk seel. plötzlichen gestorben’ ('Yesterday, Saturday morning at 9.30, the blessed Hausmarschall Georg Pflug died suddenly').Google Scholar

34 Sächs HStA, Loc. 8687/1, Cantoreÿ-Ordnung, f. 216: ‘Herr D. Hoe berichtet, daß der verstorbene Hauß Marschalch George Pflugk seeliger den Vice Capelmeister [i.e. Hofkontz] anhero gebracht. Vndt hette er seith deßen vleißige aufgewartet. Wehre auch in der Musica wohl fundiret.’Google Scholar

35 Ibid.: ‘Eß ist auch supplicant Persönlich vernommen. Der meldet: wie das ihm der Hauß Marschalch vf Ihr Churf. Durchl. gnedigsten befehl anhero erfordert. Vndt ihme angezeiget: wan er sich alhier wolte gebrauchen laßen: So solte er ahn des damaligen Vice Capellmeisters Hestÿ Stelle angenommen. Vndt ihme deselben gehabte Jhärliche Besoldung gegeben auch drauf in Pflicht genommen werden. Welches er zwart unterthenigst acceptiret und bißhero in der Churf. S. Capella gehorsambst aufgewartet. Auch deßwegen beÿ Secretario Reichbrodten vnterschiedene Supplicationes eingegeben: Aber biß vf Dato noch keine Resolution drauf bekommen hette.’Google Scholar

36 Ibid., f. 217: ‘Wie wohl Ew. Churf. Durchl. ich zu vnterschiedenen mahlen meine große noth vnd anliegen schrifftlichen geklaget; hat doch auch der Herr Ober Hoffmarschalch solches mündlichen in meinem nahmen Verrichtet, darauff E. Churf. Durchl. sich Gnädigst resolviret, ich solle mich nur 8. tage noch gedulden, solte mir von gelde etwas ausgezahlet vnd gegeben werden. Wann dann Gnädigster Churfürst vnd Herr, mich niemand an tisch nehmen, oder (: weil ich alhier frembde, arm vnd verlaßen, vnd zu Görlitz durch den brand vmb das meine vollend gantz kommen bin :) mir niemand einen bißen brod reichen wil, vnd (: wie Gott im himmel bewust :) ich in großer armutt vnd mangel leben muß; Alß flehe Ew. Churf. Durchl. ich nochmals in Vnterthenigstem gehorsam demüttigst an, … mir ein stück geldes auszahlen zulaßen.’Google Scholar

37 Given Hofkontz's associations with Görlitz, a town in eastern Saxony that suffered heavy damage during the Thirty Years War, it is perhaps not insignificant that Elector Johann Georg I spent much of 1641 on the battlefield in or near Görlitz – perhaps he himself learnt of Hofkontz from church services in the area; see Sächs HStA, OHMA OIVNr. 5, Hof-Journal 1641–1650, entries for 24 July–7 October 1641.Google Scholar

38 See Rifkin, , ‘Towards a New Image’, 655.Google Scholar

39 Schütz to Johann Georg I, 21 May 1645 (Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 157): ‘von aller ordinari auffwartung befreyhet leben'. The second petition, which is more extensive than the first, is dated ‘Vigilia Michaelis Archangeli’ (28 September) 1645 (ibid, 159–63).Google Scholar

40 Addendum to Schütz's letter to Johann Georg I, 28 September 1645, ‘Post Scriptum Betreffende nun die Restaurirung oder wieder anrichtung der Churfl Hoff-Capelle’ (Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 163): ‘Mit der dritten Companey aber, nemblich der vocalisten oder Sänger, würde es etwas kostbarer undt schwerer hehrgehen, weil mann dieselbigen ausser landes, vielleicht auch zum theil gar unter den Italianern würde suchen müssen, (: im fall anders die Churfl Hoheit wardiglich bedienet werden solte :) worzu aber mit der zeit auch wol würde Raht werden, vndt mit gueten, zum theil mir bekanten manier, wol zugelangen sein.’ The three ‘companies’ to which Schütz makes reference appear earlier in the same document: ‘1. The Choirboys or Discantists; 2. The Instrumentalists; 3. The Vocalists or Singers’ (ibid., 162; see also Fürstenau, Zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden, i, 28).Google Scholar

41 Rifkin has suggested that Hofkontz submitted another petition to the elector at this time ('Towards a New Image’, 654).Google Scholar

42 Sächs HStA, OHMA O IV Nr. 5, entry for 24 July 1646. Weller most likely requested the audience for both himself and Schütz, for personal audiences were seldom granted to court employees of Schütz's rank. Weller had assumed the post of senior court preacher in February 1646, replacing Hoë von Hoënegg, who had died in 1645; see Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 321, n. 15, and Sächs HStA, OHMA OIVNr. 5, entry for 3 February 1646 (the latter documents the arrival of Weller in Dresden).Google Scholar

43 Sächs HStA, Loc. 8650/8, Schreiben von und an den Oberhoffprediger H. D. Jacob Wellern. Von Ao 1646. bis 51. 54., f. 1r–v, Jacob Weller to Johann Georg I, 29 July 1646: ‘Inmaßen ich dann aus der mit ihm gehaltener unterredung so viel verstanden, daß er noch wol qualificirt sey, knaben bis sie tüchtig weren in die Furstenschuel zu verschicken, zu informiren; see also Rifkin, ‘Towards a New Image’, 654, n. 11.Google Scholar

44 Schütz to Johann Georg I, [30] July 1646 (Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 164–9). Although undated, Schütz's letter was submitted to the elector on 30 July by the court preacher Jacob Weller, who noted that he had received it from Schütz that same day (ibid., 306–7).Google Scholar

45 Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 164: ‘Das alle meine unterthenigsten erinderungen dahin gemeinet weren, damit nicht etwas hinderliches oder untüchtiges, in Ihrer Churfl Durchl Hoffcapell sich einschleichen, Sondern mit lauter qualificirten und nützlichen leuten versehen, … damit vnter andern Euangelischen Capellen, als ein liecht Sie herfürleuchten undt gepriesen werden könte.’ See also the discussion of this letter in Moser, Heinrich Schütz, 181–2.Google Scholar

46 Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 164: ‘Wann etwa einem unqualificirten ubermässige bestallung solte gemacht werden, was dann recht qualificirte kerl (: wann derogleichen in Künfften etwa auch angenomm werden solte :) wol für besoldung begeren würden?’Google Scholar

47 Ibid., 165. Schütz recommends that the responsibility for instructing the choirboys in singing be given to two other Kapelle members, Christoph Kittel and Hans Klemme, ‘with whom they can best and most quickly be perfected and taught to sing true, which would in no wise happen if they were placed elsewhere’ (ibid., 166, as translated in Moser, Heinrich Schütz, 182).Google Scholar

48 The currency in use in Saxony at this time included both silver thaler (reichsthaler) and gold florins (abbreviated fl., also referred to as gulden), both of which were divided into groschen (gr.) and further into denare (d.). Schütz's breakdown of the salary indicates just how little importance he placed on the position of cantor: Hofkontz was to receive 150 fl. as a tenor and singer in the chapel, but only 50 fl. as praeceptor of the choirboys and another 50 fl. as court cantor, plus 50 fl. to cover the expenses of housing choirboys (Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 165).Google Scholar

49 Schütz supported his proposal that Hofkontz serve as court cantor by pointing out that the previous praeceptor of choirboys, Andres Petersmann, had held both positions (Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 165). Petersmann had apparently served as praeceptor and cantor, but not as vice-Kapellmeister. He had probably assumed the position of praeceptor upon the departure of Hestius, as his departure left vacant the position of instructor to the choirboys. The position of cantor, which is not generally found in a court, does not seem to have been one of long standing in Dresden, and may have been created out of necessity in the 1640s. Johann Georg II, however, retained the position throughout his reign (see Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 86, 88, 94).Google Scholar

50 Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 165. Schütz inserted his second comment about leaving the position of vice-Kapellmeister vacant in the middle of his discussion of the organist Kittel's salary and contract, perhaps to ward off any suggestion that Kittel be elevated to the post. See also Rifkin's discussion of this situation in ‘Towards a New Image’, 654.Google Scholar

51 Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 168: ‘Hoffkontz kann aber bey diesem werke in meinem abwesen wenig thun, als das er an meiner stadt etwa den Tact geben, welches Ihm dennoch ein Vorzug sein wirdt.’Google Scholar

52 Rifkin has advanced the opinion that Schütz's actions regarding Hofkontz ‘appear difficult to fathom’, and attributes Schütz's indignance to the fact that the Hausmarschall attempted to have Hofkontz appointed without his approval ('Towards a New Image’, 655). While this may well account for Schütz's earlier reactions to the tenor's appointment, the fact remains that Hofkontz spent an extraordinarily long period of time – nine years – at the court without a contract, a period during which Schütz would have had ample opportunity to assess his musical abilities. Given the musical goals shared by Schütz and the prince, as revealed in the prince's letters, it now seems more likely that Hofkontz simply did not measure up to the position.Google Scholar

53 Sächs HStA, Loc. 8687/1, Cantoreÿ-Ordnung, f. 242: ‘Ewerer Churf. Durchl. Vnterthänigster Diener vnd Vice Capellm. Johann Georg Hofkontz.’Google Scholar

54 Sächs HStA, OHMA O IV Nr. 5, entries for 15 and 20 July 1647.Google Scholar

55 Little biographical information is available regarding Fontana. He seems to have been an alto falsettist rather than a castrato, and from at least 1638 was employed as a singer at the Copenhagen court of Christian IV, where he remained in service until his death in 1650; see Hammerich, Angul, Musiken ved Christian den Fjerdes Hof (Copenhagen, 1892), 127, 135–6.Google Scholar

56 Sächs HStA, OHMA O IV Nr. 5, Hof-Journal 1641–1650, entries for 28 May–30 August; see also Steude, ‘Auskünfte Dresdner Quellen zu Heinrich Schütz’ Dänemarkreisen’, 56. Prince Christian V left again on 1 June for the warm baths in Eger, some 90 miles south-west of Dresden, but the trip was curtailed by his sudden death on 2 June in Gorbitz, near Dresden. The princess remained in Dresden for the summer and departed after the prince's body was transported to Denmark by ship on 30 August. The court journal does not indicate whether the entire retinue of 225 people remained in Dresden for the summer or departed soon after the prince's death; Fontana, however, clearly remained in the city for several months.Google Scholar

57 Schütz's dedication is dated 1 May 1647 (Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 177). The Danish prince was the dedicatee of the collection.Google Scholar

58 Trans. George J. Buelow, A Schütz Reader: Documents of Performance Practice, published as a special issue of the American Choral Review, 27/4 (1985), 25; see also Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 178–9.Google Scholar

59 Fontana's motet is preserved in Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei, Mus. ant. pract. KN 206, a manuscript of sacred vocal music copied primarily by Matthias Weckmann, the prince's organist. The last page of the manuscript bears the inscription ‘Hamburgi, 15 Junii Ao 1647'; Weckmann probably brought the manuscript back to Dresden with him in 1648, where the court musicians could easily have performed the works. The composers represented in the manuscript and the number of compositions by each are as follows: Anonymous (2), Lorenzo Agnelli (1), Ferdinand III (1), Agostino Fontana (1), Giovanni Ghizzolo (1), Alessandro Grandi (7), Tarquinio Merula (3), Claudio Monteverdi (21), Georg Pichelmayr (1), Benedetto Re (1), Giovanni Rovetta (1), Christoph Sätzel (2), Heinrich Schütz (1), Johann Stadlmayr (10), Simplicio Todeschi (1 or 3), Giovanni Valentini (1), Georg Weber (1), Christoph Werner (17); see Silbiger, Alexander, ‘The Autographs of Matthias Weckmann: A Reevaluation’, Heinrich Schütz und die Musik in Dänemark, ed. Jensen and Kongsted, 117–44 (pp. 123, 130–5, 143).Google Scholar

60 See, for example, Giovanni Antonio Rigatti, Motetti a voce sola (Venice, 1643), facsimile reproduction in Venice, Solo Motets of the Seventeenth Century, 1, selected and with introductions by Anne Schnoebelen (New York and London, 1987).Google Scholar

61 Schütz to Christian Reichbrodt, 21 September 1647 (transcribed and translated in Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 115–18).Google Scholar

62 Ibid., 117: ‘Regarding his yearly salary, before his departure and after the conversation I had with him, he declared himself to be satisfied with 400 thaler, which then (indeed subject to correction) was granted to him most graciously by our most gracious lord.’ Schütz also indicated that Fontana had agreed to the terms in writing.Google Scholar

63 Moser saw Fontana's willingness to accept a lower salary and lower-ranking position than he had been offered elsewhere as evidence of his great admiration for ‘the master’ (Heinrich Schütz, 182).Google Scholar

64 In the final two points of the memorandum, Schütz presented Fontana's request for an extra sum for the purchase of a house in Dresden, and provided a plan to accommodate Fontana's request that his Dresden salary might commence upon the date of termination of his Danish contract (Spagnoli, Letter and Documents, 116).Google Scholar

65 Sächs HStA, Loc. 8563/2, f. 136, Johann Georg II to Johann Georg I, 29 September 1647. The German text of this letter appears as no. (1) in the Appendix to this article. As the transcription indicates, Johann Georg II organized his memorandum in four enumerated points; these correspond to those of Schütz's memorandum.Google Scholar

66 A list of the elector's nine musicians dated ‘Trinitatis Anno: 1646’ gives Schütz's annual salary as 400 fl. (Sächs HStA, Loc. 8687/1, Cantoreÿ-Ordnung, f. 224). One thaler was the equivalent of 24 groschen, while one florin contained only 21 groschen. Fontana's salary, when converted into gold currency, was equivalent to just over 457 florins, and thus exceeded Schütz's salary.Google Scholar

67 In Dresden, the ‘Latin Masses and Vespers’ mentioned by the prince featured concerted settings of liturgical texts by mid-century, as a worship service order from 1650 attests (see Schmidt, Der Gottesdienst, 119).Google Scholar

68 The weekly cycle of worship services celebrated in the Dresden court chapel included the main morning service ('Hauptgottesdienst') and Vespers on Sundays and feast days, as well as ‘Wochenpredigten’ (weekday services with a sermon) held in the morning on Wednesdays and Fridays; ‘Behtstunden’ (brief services of prayer, psalms and hymns), celebrated in the afternoons on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays; and weekday Vesper services held in the afternoon on Wednesdays and Saturdays (see Frandsen, ‘The Sacred Concerto in Dresden’, 74–81).Google Scholar

69 For example, when the elector and his eldest son travelled to Lichtenberg in April 1651, both included a number of singers and instrumentalists in their retinues, drawn from their respective ensembles (Frandsen, ‘The Sacred Concerto in Dresden’, 26–7). When Prince Johann Georg II attended the 1654 installation of Abraham Calov as Superintendent in Wittenberg, four ‘chamber musicians’ accompanied him, including the castrati Domenico Melani and Niccolo Milani, both recently arrived in Dresden from the court of Queen Christina of Sweden (ibid, 33, n. 99).Google Scholar

70 'Towards a New Image’, 655. It is also possible that the prince acted on his own initiative here, out of his enthusiasm for music in the Italian style, and that he, rather than Schütz, proposed turning the concerted music in the main church services over to Fontana. It is important to note that the prince's proposal includes the first movement towards the transformation of this position into one of considerable responsibility. The changes suggested here by the prince later received codification in Christoph Bernhard's 1655 contract as vice-Kapellmeister; there Bernhard is called upon to ‘direct and organize the music both in church as well as at the electoral and princely table’ upon the direction of Schütz or the prince's Kapellmeister (Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 166).Google Scholar

71 Schütz was responsible for Tafelmusik as well as music for the church services and theatrical presentations (see Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 65–72).Google Scholar

72 Paraphrased from Rifkin's translation of Schütz's 30 July 1646 letter ('Towards a New Image’, 656).Google Scholar

73 Clearly the issues of Fontana's salary and responsibilities were of the greatest concern to all of the parties involved, for the prince passed lightly over points 3 and 4 of Schütz's memorandum, and suggested that the elector delay consideration of these issues until a future date.Google Scholar

74 Hammerich, Musiken ved Christian den Fjerdes Hof, 135–6.Google Scholar

75 Early in 1648 Schütz addressed a second letter to Christian Schirmer in Danzig regarding the Scacchi–Siefert controversy (Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 188–90). (The letter bears the date ‘Anno 1648'; on the dating of this letter, as well as Schütz's travels at this time, see Rifkin, ‘Heinrich Schütz’, 45–7.) In this letter Schütz also stated that Fontana had recently stayed with him in Dresden and noted that the alto had returned to Copenhagen (Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 189–90).Google Scholar

76 In the years 1644–6 the prince had hired three musicians: Christian Kittel, a bass and instrumentalist, the discantist Heinrich Groh and the violinist Andreas Künzgen; see Frandsen, ‘The Sacred Concerto in Dresden’, 23–5. Ibo Ortgies has suggested that Weckmann also returned to Dresden sometime during the summer of 1648, after his marriage; see Ortgies, ‘Neue Erkenntnisse zur Biographie Matthias Weckmans’, Proceedings of the Weckmann Symposium, Göteborg, 30 August–3 September 1991, ed. Sverker Jullander (Göteborg, 1993), 1–24 (p. 5).Google Scholar

77 Sächs HStA, Loc. 8563/2, f. 137. The German text of the letter appears as no. (2) in the Appendix to this article. Although undated, the content of the letter indicates that it was written in the summer of 1649, probably in June or July.Google Scholar

78 The composer and theorist Christoph Bernhard (1627–92) served as an alto in the court musical ensemble of Johann Georg I from 1649 to 1655, as vice-Kapellmeister under Johann Georg I and II (1655–63), as cantor of the Johannisschule and civic music director in Hamburg (1664–74), again as vice-Kapellmeister to Johann Georg II in Dresden (1674–80), and finally as Kapellmeister to Johann Georg III and Johann Georg IV (1681–92) (see Snyder, Kerala Johnson, ‘Bernhard, Christoph’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London, 1980, ii, 624–7). The prince's letter represents the first documentary evidence of Bernhard's presence in Dresden; see the biographical sketch in Folkert Fiebig, Christoph Bernhard und der Stile moderno (Hamburg, 1980), 28–31.Google Scholar

79 I would like to thank Jeffery Kite-Powell for his assistance with the translation of this passage.Google Scholar

80 Bernhard's contract as an alto in the elector's musical ensemble appears in Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 159–62. In a double wedding in Dresden in December 1650, Prince Johann Georg's younger brothers Christian (1615–91) and Moritz (1619–81) married Christiane and Sophia Hedwig, the daughters of Duke Philipp of Holstein-Glücksburg. The engagement celebration for Moritz and Sophia Hedwig took place in Gottorf on 23 September 1649, while that for Christian and Christiane took place in Nyköping on 9 December of the same year; see Posse, Otto, Die Wettiner: Genealogie des Gesamthauses (Leipzig and Berlin, 1897; repr., corrected and expanded to 1993 by Manfred Kobuch, Leipzig, 1994), Tables 33 and 34. The princely retinue departed from Dresden on 14 August 1649 (Sächs HStA, OHMAOIVNr. 5, Hof-Journal 1641–1650).Google Scholar

81 Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 161.Google Scholar

82 See Fiebig, Christoph Bernhard, 32, and Moser, Heinrich Schütz, 183, n. 22.Google Scholar

83 Prince Johann Georg's admiration for Fontana remained constant after the latter's death; for example, in a letter of 18 April 1651 the prince reminded his father of ‘the late Kapellmeister in Denmark, Augustino Fontana, [who] so earnestly wanted to remain here’ (Sächs HStA, Loc. 8563/2, Des Kurprinzen z. S. Johann George II. Handschreiben … 1634–1656. Vol. I, f. 191: ‘der vorstorbene Cappelmeister in Dennemarck Augustino Fontani, so erstlich hirbleiben wolte').Google Scholar

84 German text in Joseph Müller-Blattau, Die Kompositionslehre Heinrich Schützens in der Fassung seines Schülers Christoph Bernhard (2nd edn, Kassel, 1963); trans. Walter Hilse, ‘The Treatises of Christoph Bernhard’, The Music Forum, 3, ed. William J. Mitchell and Felix Salzer (New York and London, 1973), 1–196 (pp. 31–196).Google Scholar

85 Bernhard's references to his journeys to Italy are documented in the ‘Chronicle of Organists’ of the Hamburg organist Johann Kortkamp (1643–1721), compiled 1702–18; see Liselotte Krüger, ‘Johann Kortkamps Organistenchronik, eine Quelle zur hamburgischen Musikgeschichte des 17.Google Scholar

Jahrhunderts’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für hamburgische Geschichte, 33 (1933), 188–213.Google Scholar

86 Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 226: ‘vnsern allbereit vorhandenen jungen Altisten, welchen vnser gndigster Herr hiebevor ein Jahr bey den Italianer erhalten'.Google Scholar

87 Fiebig, Christoph Bernhard, 32.Google Scholar

88 Bernhard's three letters to Johann Georg I are reproduced in several sources: (1) 17 November 1651: La Mara (Ida Maria Lipsius), Musikerbriefe aus 5 Jahrhunderten, i (Leipzig, 1886), 110–11; Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 19; (2) 19 November 1651 (excerpts): ibid., 20; (3) 24Google Scholar

January [1652]: Schäfer, ‘Einige Beiträge’, 425–6; Moritz Fürstenau, ‘Christoph Bernhard, kurfürstlich sächsischer Kapellmeister und Praeceptor der Prinzen Johann Georg IV. und Friedrich August I. von Sachsen’, Mitteilungen des königlichen sächsischen Altertumsverein, 16 (1866), 56–68 (p. 58); Fiebig, Christoph Bernhard, 357. The third letter actually bears the date January 1651. In the view of Joshua Rifkin, Bernhard himself misdated this letter, as he makes reference here, as he had in the two November letters, to the elector's request that he wait for Schütz's return to Dresden, and Schütz was not absent from Dresden between January and August of 1651 (see the discussion in Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 361, n. 83, and Rifkin, ‘Heinrich Schütz’, 48–51). In addition, in the January letter, Bernhard mentions that he would like to be free to travel to Hamburg in the retinue of the ‘departing duchess of Holstein’, and this accords with his 1652 application for a post at the Gottorf court, which lies just to the north of Holstein (Moser, Heinrich Schütz, 183).Google Scholar

89 Fiebig, Christoph Bernhard, 32.Google Scholar

90 Schütz to Christian Reichbrodt, 19 August 1651 (Sächs HStA, Loc. 8687/1, Cantoreÿ-Ordnung, f. 317v): ‘welchen Vnser gndigster Herr hiebevor ein jahr in Dennemarck bey dem Italianer erhalten'. Müller misread the passage in question as a dative plural construction, ‘bey den Italianer’, even though it lacks the inflection ('Italianern') that such a construction requires. Schütz normally does not omit this inflection, as in the phrase ‘unter den Italianern’ (see n. 40 above). Fürstenau also quotes this passage, with similarly misleading omissions and additions: ‘welcher Unser gn. Herr hiebevor 1 Jahr bey Italienern erhalten’ (Zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden, i, 40).Google Scholar

91 Krüger, ‘Johann Kortkamps Organistenchronik’, 210: ‘Mit Ehren und großen Respect bin ich in Hamburg kommen, mit großen Ehren und Respect fodert mich der Churfürst wieder ab, welchen ich vor die Gnade, daß er mir 2 Mahl nach Italien reisen laßen uff seine Unkostung, hoch obligiret bin, solches mit hohen Danck und treuschuldige Dienst erkenne.’Google Scholar

92 Bernhard's travels to Denmark and Italy are also documented in the Schwägerlicher EHREN=KRANZ / dem … VIRTUOSen / Poeten und COMPONISTen … Herrn Christophoro Bernhardi (Dresden, 1692; reproduced in Fiebig, Christoph Bernhard, 362–5), an epicedium composed by his brother-in-law and fellow court musician Constantin Christian Dedekind at the time of his death. In the second stanza Dedekind writes: ‘We watched you thrive in Prussia, Denmark, Italy and both [Upper and Lower] Saxony’ ('Man hat sie sähen wachsen / in Preussen / Dännemark / in Wälschland / beiden Sachsen'), and in the third stanza he specifies the destinations in Italy: ‘Rome and Venice know that you devoted yourself excellently to church music’ ('Room und Venedig wissen / Daß du der Kirch=Musik vorträfflich dich beflissen'; p. 363).Google Scholar

93 See Fürstenau, Zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden, i, 117.Google Scholar

94 German text in Müller-Blattau, Die Kompositionslehre Heinrich Schützens, 31–9; translated in Walter Hilse, ‘The Treatises of Christoph Bernhard’, 13–29. Hilse (p. 8) dates the Singe-Kunst to c.1649; Müller-Blattau (p. 10) suggested that Bernhard compiled it before 1648, basing his conclusion on his own 1648/9 dating of Bernhard's later Tractatus augmentatis, as that work seems to refer back to the singing treatise. More recent scholarship, however, dates the Tractatus to c.1657, after Bernhard's visit(s) to Rome and encounter with the music of Carissimi and others (see Snyder, ‘Bernhard'). In addition, Bernhard praises several of his Dresden colleagues in the Tractatus, among them Vincenzo Albrici, who did not arrive in Dresden until 1656 (see Frandsen, ‘The Sacred Concerto in Dresden’, 41).Google Scholar

95 For example, Bernhard speaks of three basic approaches to singing: cantar sodo or alla romana, cantar d'affetto or alla napolitana, and cantar passagiato or alla lombarda. He describes and illustrates the various ornaments that constitute cantar sodo (which include the trillo, accento and anticipatione della nota), discusses the basic principles behind cantar d'affetto (which involve attention to the meaning of the text) and illustrates the art of cantar passagiato – the use of diminutions and colorature.Google Scholar

96 Johann Georg Hofkontz to Johann Georg I, 16 May 1649 (Sächs HStA, Loc. 8687/1, Cantoreÿ-Ordnung, ff. 271–3). Other excerpts from this letter, with discussion, also appear in Moser, Heinrich Schütz, 181; Schmidt, Der Gottesdienst, 174; Rifkin, ‘Towards a New Image’, 653–5; and Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 62.Google Scholar

97 Adapted from the translation in Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 62.Google Scholar

98 Moser, Heinrich Schütz, 181.Google Scholar

99 Johann Georg Hofkontz to Johann Georg I, 16 May 1649 (Sächs HStA, Loc. 8687/1, Cantoreÿ-Ordnung, f. 272v): ‘davon ich aber keinen anderen danck erlanget, als beÿ E. Churf. Durchl. Vnd andern vornehmen personen angebrachte höchste verkleinerung und verachtung; welches alles ich Meinem Gott anheim gestellet vnd befohlen haben wil; In sonderer erwegung das es nichts newes, sondern in vnser profession vor diesem gar ofters geschehen sein soll, das man einen, der das seine mit euserstem vnd etwa beßerm fleiße als ein ander bestellet, nicht hat leiden können, sondern denselben angefeindet, verkleinert, und nur getrachtet, wie man ihn weg bringen mögen.’Google Scholar

100 For biographical information on Werner, see Jerrold C. Baab, ‘Werner, Christoph’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, xx, 347–8; Martin Geck, ‘Werner, Christoph’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Friedrich Blume (Kassel and Basle, 1968), xiv, cols. 486–7; Hermann Rauschning, Geschichte der Musik und Musikpflege in Danzig (Danzig, 1931), 178–88, 421; and ‘Werner, Christoph’, Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen-Lexikon, ed. Eitner, x, 31.Google Scholar

101 According to the biographical sketch included in his funeral sermon, Friedrich Werner (1621–67) arrived in Dresden in 1629, after his father's death, and, after three years of study there with the musician Valentin Arnold, joined the electoral musical ensemble as a choirboy, where he served for six years under the tutelage of court organist Christoph Kittel; see Beyer, ‘Leichensermone auf Musiker des 17. Jahrhunderts’, Monatshefte für Musik-Geschichte, 8/1 (1876), 1–6 (p. 5). Thus it is quite possible that Friedrich's younger brother Christoph also spent some time in Dresden, although no documentary evidence has yet surfaced to confirm this suggestion.Google Scholar

102 Moser, Heinrich Schütz, 178.Google Scholar

103 See Werbeck, Walter, ‘Heinrich Schütz und der Streit zwischen Marco Scacchi und Paul Siefert’, Schütz-Jahrbuch, 17 (1995), 63–79 (p. 67); Scacchi's letter is printed in Erich Katz, Die musikalischen Stilbegriffe des 17. Jahrhunderts (Charlottenburg, [1926]), 83–9.Google Scholar

104 On the dating of this manuscript, see n. 59 above. Weckmann did not copy most of the pieces by Werner, but the copyist of this gathering has yet to be identified. See the discussions of this manuscript in Silbiger, ‘The Autographs of Matthias Weckmann’, 130–5; Geck, ‘Werner, Christoph'; and Werbeck, ‘Heinrich Schütz und der Streit zwischen Marco Scacchi und Paul Siefert’, 67, n. 27.Google Scholar

105 Sächs HStA, Loc. 8563/2, f. 159. The German text of the letter appears as no. (3) in the Appendix to this article.Google Scholar

106 The Werner brothers were born in the Saxon town of [Bad] Gottleuba, which lies to the south-east of Dresden, in the eastern region of the Erzgebirge ('Ore Mountains') known as the Sächsische Schweiz ('Saxon Switzerland') or the Elbsandsteingebirge ('Elbe Sandstone Mountains').Google Scholar

107 Schütz also praised Scacchi in his 1646 and 1648 letters to Christian Schirmer in Danzig concerning the Scacchi–Siefert controversy (see Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 169–70, 188–90, as well as the discussion in Werbeck, ‘Heinrich Schütz und der Streit zwischen Marco Scacchi und Paul Siefert’, 63–79). According to the prince's letter, Schütz clearly believed that Werner had studied with Scacchi, but in this he may have been mistaken. Like Schütz, Werner contributed a letter in support of Scacchi to the Judicium cribri musici (Warsaw, 1649), but makes no mention there of having been a student of the embattled theorist. (A microfilm exemplar of the Judicium cribri musici, owned by Boston University, was consulted for this study; the original, a handwritten copy of the 1649 print, is in Bologna, Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, MS E 50.) It should also be noted that the prince makes no reference here to Bernhard's having studied with Werner, which has been asserted by Müller-Blattau (Die Kompositionslehre Heinrich Schützens, 155) and Moser (Heinrich Schütz, 183).Google Scholar

108 My thanks to Jeffery Kite-Powell for assistance in the translation of this passage.Google Scholar

109 Wedelbusch (1604–70), whose full title reads ‘Obrist Lieutenant und Commendant zu Danzig’, had ties to the Dresden court and appeared there frequently during the 1640s and 1650s. He led a regiment in the battles for Bautzen during the Thirty Years War, and was ennobled in 1661 by Johann Georg II; see Schulz, Hagen, ‘Bautzen im Krieg – Drangsale einer Oberlausitzer Stadt’, Sachsen im Dreißigjährigen Krieg, Dresdner Hefte, 15/lvi (April 1998), 28–36, and Neues allgemeines deutsches Adels-Lexicon, ed. Ernst Heinrich Kneschke, ix (Leipzig, 1870), 502–3.Google Scholar

110 Sächs HStA, Loc. 8563/1, no. 76, f. 1086: ‘Also gesinnen wir an euch gnädgst, ihr wollet ihm zu euch erfordern laßen vnd ihme Vnser schreiben zustellen, vnd Vnß von einem und andern seiner beschaffenheit ehestes berichten.’ Johann Georg placed great confidence in Wedelbusch, for in the remainder of his letter he asks the commander to assist him in his effort to borrow 10,000 thaler from the city of Danzig.Google Scholar

111 Ibid., no. 78, f. 1055. The German text of this letter appears as no. (4) in the Appendix to this article. Sources for Werner's biography mention the 1650 offer from Dresden, but make no reference to the prince or to the actual document that contains the offer; see n. 100 above.Google Scholar

112 Ibid., no. 76, f. 1087. ‘vnd ihn in unterthänigst willig befunden sich anhero zu begeben, Möchte aber zu vorhero gerne einzige nachricht haben, wie hoch seine besoldung sich belauffen'. Wedelbusch's letter of 8 March does not survive, but the prince quoted relevant passages from it in his response of 5 April 1650.Google Scholar

113 Ibid, ‘So viel nun die erwartende gage betrifft, hatt er in keinem wege zu zweifeln, daß selbige nicht richtig wiedergereichet werde, und halten Wir vfs rathsambste zu sein, daß er sich ehestes einen weg, ehe er sich mit denen seinigen von Danzig ganz weg wende, anhero mache, vnd sein accommodement hier selbst zu richten sich bearbeiten, wobÿ er den Vnserer gnädigen assistence versichert sein soll.’Google Scholar

114 Sächs HStA, Loc. 8563/1, no. 76, f. 1088: ‘[Ich] habe auch alsobaldt auf Gnediges begehren, mit Christoff Wernern geredet, vndt Ihr Durchl. Gn. gesinnen ihm entdekket; Der sich auch willig erbothen, Ihr Durchl. Vnterthenigst zu gehorsahmen, trauwte sich oder vohr dem bevohrstehenden Pfingst feÿrtagen, alhie nicht erlaubet zu werden.’Google Scholar

115 Sächs HStA, Loc. 8687/1, f. 285: ‘hat noch keine bestallung vorgeleget, was er haben soll'.Google Scholar

116 Heinrich Herrmann von Oeÿnhausen to Johann Georg II, 29 September 1649 (Sächs HStA, Loc. 8562/1, Correspondenz Churf. Johann Georg II. K–Q, ff. 44–5). Ludwig was the son of Landgrave Georg II of Hesse-Darmstadt and Prince Johann Georg's sister Sophia Eleonore; see Posse, Die Wettiner, Table 29.Google Scholar

117 The maestro di cappella at St Mark's from 1644 to 1668 was Giovanni Rovetta, to whom Emperor Ferdinand III indeed offered a position; see Saunders, Stephen, Cross, Sword and Lyre: Sacred Music at the Imperial Court of Ferdinand II of Habsburg (1619–1637) (Oxford, 1995), 7. Massimiliano Neri served as first organist from 1644 to 1664 (Companion to Baroque Music, comp. and ed. Julie Anne Sadie, New York, 1990, 34).Google Scholar

118 In 1649 Antonio Gualtieri served as maestro di coro at the Ospedale La Pietà; see Jane Baldauf-Berdes, Women Musicians of Venice: Musical Foundations 1525–1855 (Oxford, 1993), 188.Google Scholar

119 Heinrich Herrmann von Oeÿnhausen to Johann Georg II, 29 September 1649: ‘Sonsten florirt die Music alhir sehr wohl, des Herzogs Kapell besteht in 40 sehr guten Musicanten. Und excellirt der Capellmeister dergestalt, daß S: Kaÿserl: Maÿ: demselben dinste vndt 4000 Rthr bestallung anbieten laßen, wiewohl der beÿ der Capell befindtliche organist dem Capellmeister nach vor gezogen vndt vor gar singular gehalten wird; In summa der Parnassus ist in Italien zu suchen, vndt hat seines gleichen nicht; es seindt nicht allein die Discantisten besondern auch die Altisten beÿ hisiger capelalle castraten, vndt die behalten eine bestendige unwandelbahre stimme. Die können wihr nun in teütschland nicht leichtlich haben, besondern müßen vns mit denen verenderlichen stimmen behelffen. Es ist ein Kloster alhir la Pietà genant, in welches die findling von mägdlein gethan werden; diese bringen eine solche Music zusamen daß nichts druber ist, inmaßen sie sowohl in vocal alß instrumental musicen excelliren, vndt singt sonderlich eine den alten in solchen vollkommenheit, daß sie mit verwunderung angehört wird, hab offt gewünscht daß selbige Music bis in die Churfürstl: Hof Capell nach Dresden erschallen möchte.’ I am grateful to Frederick K. Gable for his helpful suggestions regarding the translation.Google Scholar

120 Oeÿnhausen may also have sought to purchase music for Johann Georg II, for he comments earlier in his letter that ‘preparations for the upcoming Carnival are already well under way here, but it is annoying that the best things are not [yet] published, but are held back. Nevertheless, I will strive to overcome one thing and the other, so that I might satisfy Your Highness most obediently, according to our agreement’ ('zu der bevorstehenden carneval werden bereits gute anstalten alhir gemacht, es ist aber beschwerdig daß die besten sachen nicht in truck gegeben besondern zurück behalten werden. Ich werde mich gleichwohl bestreben, daß ich ein vndt anders vberkommen, vndt Ev: Durchl: der abrede zufolge underthänigst vergnügen möge'; ibid., f. 44v).Google Scholar

121 See Schütz's comments below on Bontempi's tenure in Venice.Google Scholar

122 Given that in June 1650 the elector had finally promised his son that he would receive a significant portion of his outstanding household allowance over the course of the following 12 months, Johann Georg II had reason to believe that he possessed the financial means of attracting outstanding Italian musicians to this northern court; see n. 25 above.Google Scholar

123 Schütz to Johann Georg I, 14 January 1651 (Spagnoli, Letters and Documents, 130; Rifkin, ‘Heinrich Schütz’, 50).Google Scholar

124 Spagnoli, , Letters and Documents, 130.Google Scholar

125 Ibid.Google Scholar

126 Schütz to Christian Reichbrodt, 19 August 1651 (Müller, Heinrich Schütz: Gesammelte Briefe, 223–8). This letter was also discussed above in the context of Bernhard's travels to Italy.Google Scholar

127 Ibid., 227, as translated by Rifkin in ‘Towards a New Image’, 655; see also Fürstenau, Zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden, i, 38.Google Scholar

∗ Johann Georg Herzog zu SachßenGoogle Scholar

∗ …∗ added in left marginGoogle Scholar

∗ Followed by an abbreviation indicating that the prince's full title was to be inserted at this point.Google Scholar