Portrait of Michael Praetorius from the first volume of Musae Sioniae, 1605

We use the term “Renaissance man” to describe very versatile people with multiple specialties. By that definition, early Baroque composer Michael Praetorius certainly qualifies. He served as organist, choirmaster, and court functionary. As such, he composed a lot of music. And somehow found time to write an encyclopedic treatise on music scholars have found very useful for the past 400 years.

Praetorius was born in Creuzburg probably in 1571. Early biographers wrote that he died on his 50th birthday, but there is room for doubt.

His father Michael Schulteiss (or Schultze) was a Lutheran pastor who moved frequently because of dissention within the Lutheran church. Latinization of German names became common in the 16th century, resulting in Praetorius. As a published composer and author, Michael the younger preferred the latinized form of the family name and often used the initials MPC (Michael Praetorius Creutzbergensis).

As a young child, he received his only formal musical education at the Lateinschule in Torgau, where the family had moved in 1573. He eventually studied philosophy at the University of Frankfurt, where his older brother Andreas taught theology.

Regardless of his lack of formal musical training, he is generally regarded second only to Heinrich Schütz as the leading composer of his generation.

Praetorius’ musical positions

The organ at Marienkirche, Wolfenbüttel. Wikimedia Commons

Although he didn’t study music there, he became acquainted with Bartholomäus Gensius and bonded over mutual interest in Protestant hymns and their performance practice. He had sufficient musical talent to become organist at St. Marien church in Frankfurt in 1587.

He remained in that post for three years. It is not certain where he went after that, but he became organist at the court of  Duke Heinrich Julius of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel in 1595. He became friends with the strictest of Lutherans, men similar in theology to Praetorius’ father.

When the duke’s Kapellemeister resigned in 1604, Praetorius succeeded him, while still retaining the post of organist. His duties  eventually included training choirboys and giving daily musical instruction to the duke’s children.

He frequently traveled with the duke on various trips. It gave him the opportunity to perform at other princely courts. The duke also encouraged him to have his compositions published.

The duke died suddenly in 1613. Protocol demanded a year-long mourning period. Elector Johann Georg of Saxony asked the new duke for permission to hire Praetorius as his deputy Kapellmeister during that time.

The young duke was not the music lover his father was, and Praetorius stayed in Dresden until 1616. There, he met Heinrich Schütz and became acquainted with the latest Italian music. Even after returning to Wolfenbüttel, he was frequently absent. He worked at other courts including Magdeburg, Halle, and Kassel. He also visited numerous other musical centers.

Praetorius’ music

Allegory of Hearing (detail) / Jan van Kessel (Antwerp, Belgium), ca. 1640.

Praetorius composed an astonishing amount of music. He devoted 28 pages of his Syntagma musicum to list it all. He also announced various projects he intended to complete in the future.

The vast bulk of it was sacred music. And most of that was based on Lutheran hymns and the Latin portion of the Lutheran liturgy. He also published a couple of volumes of psalm texts.

Musae Sioniae alone, published in nine volumes between 1605 and 1611, contains 1,244 chorale settings. They range from simple harmonizations to settings for multiple choirs. In style, some resemble madrigals, motets, or cantus firmus settings. It amounts to an encyclopedia of Lutheran choral music.

And that was before Praetorius learned about the Venetian style from Schütz. His later works incorporate basso continuo, instrumental ritornellos, contrasting tutti and concertato sections, and echo effects.

All this stylistic development still concentrated mainly on hymn tunes. Perhaps best known and loved today is “Lo how a rose e’er blooming.” It is is not the typical note against note texture of most hymns. The melody of the next to last measure of each phrase is syncopated.

Although he remained active as organist throughout his life, he published only eight organ pieces.

Praetorius concentrated his efforts as composer and arranger on sacred music, but his extant works include one major volume of dance music: Terpsichore, 1612. He arranged more than 300 dance tunes mostly from the French repertoire.

In common with most other instrumental music of the time, Praetorius did not specify which instruments should play the music. Up through the 16th century, wind instruments provided most dance music. By Praetorius’ time, string ensembles had started to supplant wind bands. The preface and Syntagma musicum include guidance for instrumentation.

Syntagma musicum

Trombone page from Praetorius’ Theatrum instrumentorum

Four seventeenth century authors provided encyclopedic treatments of music theory and practice. Of these, Praetorius’ Syntagma musicum is outstanding.

It would take at least four lines of text to reproduce the entire title as printed in the first volume. It promised four volumes, of which Praetorius lived to write three. Later scholars have taken little interest in the first, a learned dissertation in Latin on ancient music. Ironically, he wrote it for a scholarly audience. The other two, written in German for practical musicians, is a gold mine of information.

The second volume De organographia, begins with a general classification of musical instruments and then describes each instrument in great detail. Since Praetorius was an organist, it seems natural that the last two sections of this volume describe the organ from its medieval beginnings to such important contemporary organs as the one in Leipzig’s Thomaskirche, the one later associated with J.S. Bach.

A supplement to volume 2, Theatrum instrumentorum comprises 42 woodcuts of all the instruments described in the main volume. They are all executed to scale and vastly superior to any other illustrations of musical instruments before widespread adoption of photography.

The third volume includes description of all the current musical forms, music theory, Italian musical terms, and practical instructions on organizing a chapel choir and training boys. For historians of instrumental music, it adds practical context to the material in De organographia.

If he had lived to finish his projected fourth volume, it would have provided equally valuable observations about counterpoint.

Syntagma musicum is especially valuable as a description of German and Italian performance practice of the time. But it also demonstrates Praetorius’ knowledge and appreciation of non-German styles.

Sources:

Michael Praetorius and his Syntagma Musicum / Ruth Watanabe, University of  Rochester Library Bulletin 10, no. 3 (Spring 1955)
Praetorius, Michael / Walter Blankenburg, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Grove Dictionaries of Music, 1980)