Andreas Hammerschmidt

Composer and organist Andreas Hammerschmidt (1611/1612–1675) was one of the most significant and popular composers of sacred music in Germany in the middle 17th century. He was born in Bohemia, but in 1626, during the Thirty Years' War the family settled in Freiberg, Saxony, where Andreas must have received his musical education. In 1639, he moved to Zittau, where he succeeded Christoph Schreiber as organist in St. John's Church. Hammerschmidt remained in Zittau at this post for the rest of his life. Hammerschmidt became one of the best-known composers in Germany, and the most famous representative of the concertato style of the generation after Heinrich Schütz. Over 400 works by Hammerschmidt survive, in a total of 14 separate collections. Some of his works are written for large ensembles, with diverse combinations of instruments and voices, for example, the sets from Musicalische Gespräche über die Evangelia of 1655–1656. He wrote these pieces for Sundays and church feast days and their structure and intent foreshadowed the later German church cantata, as exemplified most famously by Johann Sebastian Bach. Some instrumental music of his has survived, most of these are suites of dances influenced by the English style which was prevalent in the northern part of Germany at that time.