Johann Hermann Schein (1586 – 1630) was a German
composer of the early Baroque era. He was born in
Grünhain and died in Leipzig. He was one of the first
to import the early Italian stylistic innovations into
German music, and was one of the most polished
composers of the period.
Schein was one of the first to absorb the innovations
of the Italian Baroque—monody, the concertato style,
figured bass—and use them effectively in a German
Lutheran context. While Schütz made more tha...(+)
Johann Hermann Schein (1586 – 1630) was a German
composer of the early Baroque era. He was born in
Grünhain and died in Leipzig. He was one of the first
to import the early Italian stylistic innovations into
German music, and was one of the most polished
composers of the period.
Schein was one of the first to absorb the innovations
of the Italian Baroque—monody, the concertato style,
figured bass—and use them effectively in a German
Lutheran context. While Schütz made more than one trip
to Italy, Schein apparently spent his entire life in
Germany, making his grasp of the Italianate style all
the more remarkable. His early concertato music seems
to have been modeled on Lodovico Grossi da Viadana's
Cento concerti ecclesiastici, which was available in an
edition prepared in Germany.
Unlike Schütz, who concentrated mainly on sacred music
(although it must be borne in mind that at least two
operas composed by him, among other secular works, have
been lost), Schein wrote sacred and secular music in
approximately equal quantities, and almost all of it
was vocal. In his secular vocal music he wrote all of
his own texts. Throughout his life he published
alternating collections of sacred and secular music, in
accordance with an intention he stated early on — in
the preface to the Banchetto musicale — to publish
alternately music for use in worship and social
gatherings. The contrast between the two kinds of music
can be quite extreme. While some of his sacred music
uses the most sophisticated techniques of the Italian
madrigal for a devotional purpose, several of his
secular collections include such things as drinking
songs of a surprising simplicity and humor. Some of his
works attain an expressive intensity matched in Germany
only by those of Schütz, for example the spectacular
Fontana d'Israel or Israel's Brünnlein (1623), in
which Schein declared his intent to exhaust the
possibilities of German word-painting "in the style of
the Italian madrigal."
Possibly his most famous collection was his only
collection of instrumental music, the Banchetto
musicale (Musical banquet) (1617) which contains twenty
separate variation suites; they are among the earliest,
and most perfect, representatives of the form. Most
likely they were composed as dinner music for the
courts of Weissenfels and Weimar, and were intended to
be performed on viols. They consist of dances: a
pavan-galliard (a normal early Baroque pair), a
courante, and then an allemande-tripla. Each suite in
the Banchetto is unified by mode as well as by theme.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Schein ).
Although originally written for five (5) Recorders
(Canto, Quinta, Alto, Tenore & Basso), I created this
Interpretation of the Suite III from "Banchetto
Musicale" for Oboe & Strings (2 Violins, Viola &
Cello).
