Michael Praetorius

Michael Praetorius (1571–1621) was born on 15 February 1571 at Creuzberg an der Werra near Eisenach, the son of a Lutheran pastor. His family moved to Torgau when he was a small child, though throughout his life he referred to himself as ‘M.P.C.’—Michael Praetorius Creuzbergensis. He was educated in Frankfurt an der Oder and Zerbst, and in 1587 became organist of St Marien in Frankfurt. In 1595 he entered the service of Duke Heinrich Julius of Brunswick in Wolfenbüttel and was made Kapellmeister in 1604. Shortly afterwards he also began to work for Landgrave Moritz of Hesse at Kassel, and after Duke Heinrich Julius’s death in 1613 spent several years working for the Elector of Saxony in Dresden. By this time he was one of the most famous musicians in Germany, and worked at various times over the next few years at Magdeburg, Halle, Sonderhausen, Kassel, Leipzig, Nuremberg and Bayreuth. However, he continued as Kapellmeister at the Wolfenbüttel court, and died there on his fiftieth birthday, 15 February 1621. Praetorius devoted most of his life to church music. He published more than twenty collections, mostly of settings of Lutheran chorales, and a number of others are known to have existed in manuscript. He also planned a series of collections of secular music named after the various Greek muses, including Euterpe (Italian and English dances), Thalia (toccatas and canzonas) and Erato (German secular songs). Unfortunately, in the event he managed to publish only one, Terpsichore, musarum aoniarum quinta (Wolfenbüttel, 1612), consisting of 312 dances in four, five and six parts. Praetorius was the greatest musical academic of his day and the Germanic writer on music best known to other 17th-century musicians. His expansive but unfinished treatise, Syntagma Musicum, appeared in three volumes (with appendix) between 1614 and 1620. The first volume (1614), titled Musicae Artis Analecta, was written mostly in Latin, and regarded the music of the ancients and of the church. The second (De Organographia, 1618) regarded the musical instruments of the day, especially the organ; it was one of the first theoretical treatises written in the vernacular. The third (Termini Musicali, 1618), also in German, regarded the genres of composition and the technical essentials for professional musicians. An appendix to the second volume (Theatrum Instrumentorum seu Sciagraphia, 1620) consisted of 42 woodcuts depicting instruments of the early 17th century, all grouped in families and shown to scale. A fourth volume on composition was planned, but was left incomplete at his death. The Syntagma Musicum was one of the most important sources of seventeenth century musical history.