Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672); DEU

Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) was a German composer born in Köstritz and the leading German musician of the seventeenth century before Johann Sebastian Bach. His talent was recognized by Landgrave Moritz of Hesse-Kassel, who enabled him to study in Venice with Giovanni Gabrieli. Schütz later became Kapellmeister at the Dresden court and returned to Italy in the 1620s, where he encountered newer developments associated with Monteverdi and the emerging Baroque style. The Thirty Years’ War repeatedly disrupted the musical institutions in which he worked.

Schütz brought Italian dramatic expression, polychoral writing, and concertato techniques into German sacred music while maintaining extraordinary sensitivity to the German language. His major collections include Psalmen Davids, Symphoniae sacrae, Kleine geistliche Konzerte, and Geistliche Chormusik. His late works include settings of the Passion and the Christmas Story. His synthesis of Italian innovation and German Protestant tradition laid essential foundations for later German Baroque music.

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Read biography at allmusic.com.