Basel, 1511.' It is written in German dialogue, carried on between the 'Autor' and 'Silvanus'; and is illustrated by woodcuts of Instruments, not unlike those in the Syntagma. The next, also in small oblong 4to, is the 'Musica instrumentalisch deudsch' of Martin Agricola, printed at Wittemberg in 1529, but preceded by a Preface dated Magdeburg 1528. This also contains a number of woodcuts, like those given by Virdung. The third and last treatise—another oblong 4to—is the 'Musurgia seu praxis musicæ' of Ottomarus Luscinius (Othmar Nachtigal, or Nachtgall), dated Argentorati (Strasburg) 1536, and reprinted, at the same place, in 1542. The first portion of this is a mere Latin translation of the dialogue of Virdung. The book contains 102 pages, exclusive of the Preface, and is illustrated by woodcuts, like those of Virdung and Agricola.
All these three volumes are exceedingly scarce, and much prized by collectors, as specimens of early typography, as well as by students, for the light they throw upon the Instrumental Music of the 16th century, concerning which we possess so little detailed information of incontestable authority. The Breslau Library possesses none of them. A copy of Nachtigal's 'Musurgia' is in the British Museum; and also a very imperfect copy—wanting pages 1–49, including the title-page—of Agricola's 'Musica Instrumentalis.' Mr. Littleton possesses perfect copies of the entire series.
An earlier work by Nachtgall—'Musicæ Institutiones'—printed at Strasburg in 1515, does not touch upon Orchestral or Instrumental Music; and does not, therefore, fall within our present category.
[ W. S. R. ]
SYREN. [See Siren, vol. iii. p. 517.]
SYSTEM. The collection of staves necessary for the complete score of a piece—in a string quartet, or an ordinary vocal score, four; a PF. trio, four; a PF. quartet, five; and so on. Two or more of these will go on a page, and then we speak of the upper or lower system, etc.
[ G. ]
SZYMANOWSKA, Marie, a distinguished pianist of her day, who would, however, hardly have been remembered but for Goethe's infatuation for her. She was born about 1790, of Polish parents named Wolowski, and was a pupil of John Field's at Moscow. She travelled much in Germany, France, and England, and died at St. Petersburg of cholera in Aug. 1831. One of her daughters married the famous Polish poet Mickiewicz, whom she had introduced to Goethe in July 1829. Goethe knew her as early as 1821, and even then overpraised her, setting her above Hummel; 'but those who do so,' says Felix Mendelssohn, who was then at Weimar,[1] 'think more of her pretty face than her not pretty playing.' Goethe renewed the acquaintance in Aug. 1823, at Eger, where she and Anna Milder were both staying, calls her 'an incredible player,' and expresses his excitement at hearing music after an interval of over two years in a remarkable letter to Zelter of Aug. 24, 1823, again comparing her with Hummel, to the latter's disadvantage. Mme. Szymanowska appears to have helped to inspire the 'Trilogie der Leidenschaft,' and the third of its three poems, called 'Aussöhnung,' is a direct allusion to her. In 1824 she was in Berlin. 'She is furiously in love (rasend verliebt) with you,' says Zelter to the poet, 'and has given me a hundred kisses on my mouth for you.'
Her compositions were chiefly for the PF., with a few songs.
[ G. ]
SCHÜTZ, Heinrich (name sometimes Latinized Sagittarius), 'the father of German music,' as he has been styled, was born at Köstritz, Saxony, Oct. 8, 1585. [App. p.787: "His father and grandfather occupied a good social position at Weissenfels, whither his father removed with his family on the death of the grandfather in 1591. In his thirteenth year (1598) Heinrich was taken into the service of Landgraf Moritz of Hesse-Cassel, as narrated in the former article."] Admitted as a chorister into the chapel of the Landgraf Maurice of Hesse-Cassel, besides a thorough musical training, Schütz had the advantage of a good general education in the arts and sciences of the time, which enabled him in 1607 to proceed to the University of Marburg, where he pursued with some distinction the study of law. The Landgraf, when on a visit to Marburg, observing in his protégé a special inclination and talent for music, generously offered to defray the expense of his further musical cultivation at Venice under the tuition of Giovanni Gabrieli, the most distinguished musician of the age. [App. p.787: "The Landgraf, as a man of culture, interested in all new movements in literature and art, wished himself to gain a closer acquaintance with the new Italian style of music, and hoped through Heinrich Schütz to be able to transplant it to Germany and into his own Court chapel, and thus vivify German art by a new alliance with Italian. In Schütz he found the man for his purpose. Schütz accepted the Landgraf's offer and proceeded to Venice, where he remained under Gabrieli's tuition from 1609 until his master's death in 1612. Gabrieli showed his esteem for his pupil by sending to him from his death-bed a ring to wear to his memory, and Schütz on his part ever professed the highest veneration for his master. In 1612 he returned to Cassel, and was appointed organist to the Landgraf, but either uncertain himself as to his real vocation for music or induced by his friends, he had still some thoughts of taking up again the profession of law. Perhaps the Landgraf's chapel was too narrow a sphere for him to work in; it was fortunate therefore that in 1614 he received the invitation to undertake the entire direction of the capelle of the Elector Johann Georg of Saxony at Dresden, at a salary of 400 gulden. The Landgraf was unwilling to part with him, and would at first only allow him to accept this position temporarily. He recalled Schütz in 1616, but on the earnest petition of the Elector finally consented to his remaining permanently at Dresden. Schütz's first endeavour at Dresden was to reorganize the electoral music, and indeed, as he had been engaged to do, on the Italian model, for the purpose of introducing the new concerted style of music vocal and instrumental. He procured good Italian instruments and players, and sent qualified members of the capelle to Italy for a time, to perfect themselves in the new style of singing and playing."] Schütz accordingly proceeded to Venice in 1609, and already in 1611 published the firstfruits of his studies under Gabrieli, a book of five-part madrigals dedicated to his patron. On the death of Gabrieli in 1612, Schütz returned to Germany with the intention of resuming his legal studies, but the Landgraf's intervention secured him once more for the service of art. A visit to Dresden led to his being appointed Capellmeister to the Elector of Saxony in 1615, an office which he continued to hold, with some interruptions, till his death in 1672. His first work of importance appeared in 1619, 'Psalmen David's sammt etlichen Motetten und Concerten mit 8 und mehr Stimmen,' a work which shows the influence of the new Monodic or Declamatory style which Schütz had learned in Italy. His next work in 1623, an oratorio on the subject of the Resurrection, testifies the same earnest striving after dramatic expression. [App. pp.787–8: "For his purpose Schütz uses the means of expression afforded by contrast of different choirs, or contrast of solo voices with full choir, or contrast of voices with instruments, either the simple Basso Continue, i.e. for organ, lute, or theorbo, or strings with occasional trumpets, etc. The work on the subject of the Resurrection is entitled 'Historia der fröhlichen und Siegreichen Auferstehung unsers einigen Erlösers und Seligmachers Jesu Christi.' The occasion for the composition of this work would seem to have been the practice, still kept up at Dresden, Leipzig and other churches in Saxony, of singing the story of the Resurrection at Easter as that of the Passion in Holy Week. A 'Geistliches Gesangbuch' of 1612 informs us that 'Every year on Easter-day at Vespers, before the sermon, there is sung in our Christian congregations the Resurrection, so splendidly set by Antonius Scandellus.' This Antonius Scandellus, or Scandelli, had been one of Schütz's own predecessors at Dresden from 1568–80, and had written both a Passion and a Resurrection. His 'Resurrection' must have continued in use even beyond Schütz's time, since it even appears in Vopelius' 'Leipziger Gesangbuch* of 1682. It may be seen in Schöberlein and Riegel's 'Schatz des liturgischen Chorgesangs' vol. ii. 619–647. (With regard to the authorship, compare O. Kade's remarks in the Vorwort to the Notenbeilagen to Ambros's Geschichte xlvi.). Schütz's Resurrection follows the line of Scandelli's, only whereas Scandelli's composition is purely vocal, that of Schütz is adapted to instrumental accompaniment. Both works begin with a setting (in Scandelli 5-part, in Schütz 6-part) of the words 'Die Auferstehung unsers Herrn Jesu Christi, wie uns die von den Evangelisten beschrieben wird,' and conclude with a setting (Scandelli 5-part, Schütz 8-part) of the words 'Gott sei Dank, der uns den Sieg gegeben hat,' etc. In Scandelli, the part of the Evangelist is altogether liturgical, but in Schütz, while it is mostly based on the liturgical melody, the more important passages have given to them a more characteristic and expressive form of declamation, which sometimes rises up to actual melody in the more modern sense of the term, and the Evangelist's part is accompanied throughout either by the organ or preferably by four Viole da Gamba, which are called upon at certain pauses in the narrative to execute appropriate runs or passages ('Zierliche und approprüte Läufe oder passaggi machen'). The words of other personages are set for two or more voices, according to their number, as for instance, the words of the three Maries as a trio, of the two angels as a duet, of the eleven disciples as a 6-part chorus, only that usually for single personages two parts are employed (as in Scandelli), though Schütz permits one of these parts to be taken, as he expresses it, instrumentaliter. This work of Schütz's is altogether remarkable, as being a highly successful endeavour to unite dramatic expressiveness with reverence for ecclesiastical tradition. The same spirit is shown in another form in his next work of importance, Cantiones Sacrae, for four voices with bass accompaniment for organ. The endeavour here is to unite the older form of the Motet with the newer form of the Concerto, and the Diatonic Church Modes with the use of Chromatic harmonies. In 1627 Johann Georg I. of Saxony wished to signalize the occasion of the marriage of his daughter to the Landgraf of Hesse- Darmstadt by giving the first performance of opera in Germany. The opera had just sprung into life in connexion with the new musical movement in Italy, as a supposed revival of the antique music-drama. Schutz was commissioned to procure from Italy Peri's opera 'Dafne.' The poet Opitz was set to the task of translating the Italian text by Rinuccini into German, and as it was found that Peri's music would not quite fit the new German words, Schütz had to adapt them to new music of his own. The opera 'Dafne,' as thus set by Schütz, was performed at Torgau on the 13th of April, 1627. Unfortunately the music of this first German opera has not been preserved, and, no further account of it has been given. It is probable however that Schütz did little else on this occasion than re-arrange Peri's music and add something in exactly the same style. In any case the result was not such as to induce Schütz to make any further attempts in music for the theatre, if we except another occasional piece, a Ballet written in 1638, the music of which appears also to be lost. In 1628, Schütz having lost his wife, found some comfort in his sorrow, as he tells us, by occupying himself with the task of composing melodies with simple 4-part harmony to a rhymed version of the Psalms by Dr. Cornelius Becker. This version by Becker was meant to be a Lutheran rival to an earlier Calvinistic version by Lobwasser based on the French Psalter of Marot and Beza, and adapted to the same melodies. Later on, Johann Georg II., with a view to the introduction of the Becker Psalter in place of Lobwasser's in the schools and churches of Saxony, urged Schütz to complete his composition of melodies for the work. The task was hardly congenial to our composer, as he himself confesses in the preface to the complete work when it appeared in 1661. Two further editions however of this Psalter, with Schütz's melodies, appeared in 1676 and 1712. Some of these melodies passed into later Cantionals, though none have ever taken the same place in general use or esteem that similar work by less eminent composers has done.] In 1627 he was commissioned by the Elector to compose the music for the German version by Opitz of Rinuccini's 'Daphne,' but this work has unfortunately been lost. It deserves mention as being the first German opera, though it would appear to have been remodelled entirely on the primitive Italian opera of Peri and Caccini. Schütz made no further efforts towards the development of opera, but with the exception of a ballet with dialogue and recitative, composed in 1638, confined himself henceforward to the domain of sacred music, introducing into it, however, the new Italian
- ↑ Goethe and Mendelssohn, p. 25.
