Posts from — October 2010

“Art tries, literally, to picture the things which philosophy tries to put into carefully thought-out words.”

-Hans Rookmaaker, quoted in Nancy Pearcey’s Saving Leonardo

(Photo: Let Ideas Compote)

Who is Heinrich Schütz, you ask? Schütz (born today in 1585) is not a household name, but his music has had a profound impact on the history of Western music. Generally considered one of the most important composers of the 17th century, Schütz was a major influence on Bach and Handel. His long career spanned what we now term the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods; and his output fuses the intricate counterpoint of the former and the declamatory nature of the latter. In fact, his music has been described as “standing at the parting of the ways between Palestrina and Bach.” Like Bach, he was a Kapellmeister and organist; most of his surviving work is sacred choral/vocal music.

One of the most distinctive features of Schütz’s music is his attention to text-setting:

Schütz’s main interest as a composer was in the word, its individual meaning and mimetic depiction through music…He used a variety of musical means – rhythmic, melodic, harmonic, textural and structural – to manipulate a text and create specific musical affects to enhance its message, and his greatness stems partly from the integration of many of these stylistic traits

A typical German, as opposed to Italian, feature is his frequent use of imitative technique to enrich the texture and thus intensify a text, without, however, obscuring it. (Grove Music Online)

Here’s a short informational video on Schütz, followed by a performance of his setting of Psalm 100: