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Heinrich Scheidemann

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Heinrich Scheidemann was a German organist and composer, born around 1595 in Wöhrden in Holstein. His father was an organist in Wöhrden and Hamburg. From 1611 to 1614 he studied in Amsterdam with Sweelinck, and he was apparently one of his favourite pupils, for Sweelinck dedicated a canon to him. By 1629 at the latest he was organist of the Catharinenkirche in Hamburg, a post he held for more than thirty years, until his death in 1663 during an outbreak of plague.

Music and breakthrough

Scheidemann was the best-known organ composer in northern Germany in his day. Unlike many German contemporaries, such as Praetorius, Schütz, Scheidt and Schein, he wrote almost exclusively for the organ. Of no composer of his time has so much organ music survived. His lasting contribution is his settings of Lutheran chorales, in three types: chorale settings with a cantus firmus, an early form of the chorale prelude; settings in the style of monody; and extended chorale fantasias, a new form that made use of the growing German Baroque organ. He also wrote Magnificat settings for alternating performance with the choir during vespers.

Influence

His pupils included Johann Adam Reincken, who succeeded him in Hamburg, and possibly Dieterich Buxtehude. Scheidemann is thus regarded as an important forerunner of Buxtehude and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Christ lag in Todesbanden on the organ. Notice how the familiar chorale melody keeps returning, surrounded by the other voices of the organ.

Discography

Studio albums

Categories: Artists