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References

^[*] Keith Polk (Keith.Polk@unh.edu) has produced several books and numerous articles primarily focused on Renaissance instrumental music. He is also a performer, having played both modern and Baroque French horn with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony, Boston Baroque, and the Vermont and Portland, Maine, Symphonies. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of New Hampshire and also taught at Brandeis University, the New England Conservatory in Boston, and Regents College, London.

^[1] The English court supported choral forces of forty-two (thirty adult singers and twelve choirboys), twenty-two trumpets (plus four percussionists), and thirty-three instrumentalists, with separate bands of violins (seven in 1603, but increased to twelve by 1618), recorders (seven), flutes (seven), shawms and trombones (six), and lutes (six). See Andrew Ashbee, Records of English Court Music, vol. 4: 1603–1625 (Snodland, Kent: Ashbee, 1991; reprint, London: Routledge, 2016), 1–2, 100.

^[2] On the numbers of adult singers in such smaller courts as Wolfenbüttel, Königsberg, and Weimar, see the listings in Martin Ruhnke, Beiträge zu einer Geschichte der deutschen Hofmusikkollegien im 16. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Merseburger, 1963), 299.

^[5] Gerhard Pietzsch, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Musik am kurpfälzischen Hof zu Heidelberg bis 1622 (Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaft und der Literatur, 1963), 65 (for the salaries from 1616). For another perspective on the Danish Hofkapelle, see Arne Spohr’s article in this collection, par. 2.4–5.

^[6] Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, Die kaiserliche Hof-Musikkapelle in Wien von 1543–1867 (Vienna: Beck’sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung, 1868; reprint, Olms: Hildesheim, 1976), 49.

^[7] Ernst Zulauf, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der landgräflich-hessischen Hofkapelle zu Cassel bis zur die Zeit Moritz des Gelehrten,” Zeitschrift des Vereins für hessische Geschichte und Landeskunde, neue Folge, 26 (1903): 72.

^[8] Zulauf, “Beiträge,” 69. Zulauf suggests that the discantist, Georg Semmeler, listed with the singers, was “probably a falsettist.” He doesn’t explain further, but more often in accounts from this region, discantists were choirboys; more on this below. Still, the discantists at the imperial court in the late sixteenth century were clearly adult males (see Köchel, Die kaiserliche Hof-Musikkapelle, 122–25), so this suggestion by Zulauf is not out of the question.

^[9] Schütz, in an appraisal of the musical forces of Gera prepared for Heinrich Posthumus von Reuss in 1617, specified that “two organists are necessary at the very least” as with performances “with multiple choirs … each choir … deserves to have its own organist.” See A Heinrich Schütz Reader: Letters and Documents in Translation, ed. Gregory S. Johnston (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 16.

^[10] For a facsimile of the manuscript with a detailed introduction, see Lautenbuch der Elisabeth von Hessen / Elisabeth’s Lute Book: Facsimile 4º Ms. Mus. 108.1 Universitätsbibliothek Kassel, ed. Axel Halle (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2005). For a complete study of the manuscript, see the dissertation by Claudia Knispel, published as Das Lautenbuch der Elisabeth von Hessen (Frankfurt am Main: Haag + Herchen, 1994).

^[11] Gina Spagnoli, “Dresden at the Time of Heinrich Schütz,” in The Early Baroque Era: From the Late 16th Century to the 1660s, ed. Curtis Price (London: Prentice-Hall, 1993), 163.

^[12] Moritz Fürstenau, Beiträge zur Geschichte der königlich-sächsischen musikalischen Kapelle: Großentheils aus archivalischen Quellen (Dresden: C.F. Meser, 1849), 47–48; digitized by D-Mbs, https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0001/bsb00019704/images/. Wolfram Steude, “Der Dresdner Hofkapelle zwischen Antonio Scandello und Heinrich Schütz (1580–1615),” in Der Klang der Sächsischen Staatskapelle Dresden: Kontinuität und Wandelbarkeit eines Phänomens; Bericht über das Symposium vom 26. bis 27. Oktober 1998 im Rahmen des 450jährigen Jubiläums der Sächsischen Staatskapelle Dresden, Veranstaltet von der Technischen Universität Dresden, der Sächsischen Staatsoper Dresden und der Sächsichen Akademie der Künste, ed. Hans-Günter Ottenberg and Eberhard Steindorf (Hildesheim: Olms, 2001), 23–45, here at 33–38.

^[13] For the period considered here, we have a scant handful of rosters of varying clarity indicating the outlines of the complete musical chapel: the roster of 1612, those of 1634, and others from 1637, 1646, and 1647, as well as the descriptive sketch of the Dresden performers present at the celebration of the Lutheran centenary in 1617 by Matthias Hoë von Hoënegg (these sources will be discussed further below). A few accounts of reduced staffing provided for such occasions as the stopover in Pirna during the visit of the Emperor Matthias in 1617 provide a bit of supplementary information, but all in all, the amount of hard information available is sparse in the extreme.

^[14] A trumpet band was not included at all by Fürstenau (and thus also not by Spagnoli), as his listing included only members of the musical chapel and the trumpeters were a separate unit, under a different administrative category within the organization of the court. Concerning the trumpets, the classic study is Otto Mörtzsch, “Die Dresdener Hoftrompeter,” in Musik im alten Dresden: Drei Abhandlungen (Dresden: Verlag des Vereins für Geschichte Dresdens, 1921), 35–98; see also Manfred Hermann Schmid, “Trompeterchor und Sprachvertonung bei Heinrich Schütz,” Schütz-Jahrbuch 13 (1991): 28–55.

^[15] For the 1590 roster see Fürstenau, Beiträge, 35–36; for that of 1606, 38–39.

^[16] On the staffing for the assembly in Mühlhausen and the meeting in Leipzig, see Heinrich Schütz Reader, ed. Johnston, 48–50 and 78–81.The inclusion of instrumental apprentices on such journeys was apparently a matter of preference, but the presence of the discantists was essential, as they were of course the only option for the soprano parts in choral performances.

^[17] On the Pirna/Dresden visit see Eberhard Möller, “Heinrich Schütz und das Jahr 1617,” in Heinrich Schütz im Spannungsfeld seines und unseres Jahrhunderts: Bericht über die internationale wissenschaftliche Konferenz am 8. und 9. Oktober 1985 in Dresden, vol. 1, ed. Wolfram Steude (Leipzig: Peters, 1985), 69–80.

^[18] The text for the memorandum, translated into English, is conveniently available in Heinrich Schütz Reader, ed. Johnston, 13–15.

^[19] For the Dresden 1593 inventory of instruments, see Fürstenau, Beiträge, 40–41.

^[20] Matthias Hoë von Hoënegg, Chur Sächsische Evangelische Jubelfrewde: In der Churfürstlichen Sächsischen SchloßKirchen zu Dreßden/ theils vor/ theils bey wehrendem/ angestalten Jubelfest/ neben andern Solenniteten, auch mit Christlichen Predigten … gehalten (Leipzig: Lamberg, 1618), signature b3v. Digitized by D-W, http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/280-51-theol-1s/start.htm, p. [18].

^[21] Joshua Rifkin and Eva Linfield, in Grove Music Online, s.v. “Schütz, Heinrich,” published 2001, section 2.

^[23] For a useful general survey of the instrumental aspects of the Psalmen Davids, see Albrecht Roeseler, Studien zum Instrumentarium in den Vokalwerken von Heinrich Schütz: Die obligaten Instrumente in den Psalmen Davids und in den Symphoniae Sacrae I (Berlin: n.p., 1958), 27–61. For a particularly perceptive discussion of the use of instruments in the print, see Barbara Wiermann, Die Entwicklung vokal-instrumentalen Kompenierens im protestantischen Deutschland bis zur Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2005), 247–73.

^[24] Spagnoli, “Dresden,” 165, echoed as well by Basil Smallman, Schütz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 89. I would point out, however, that Spagnoli, and likely Smallman as well, did not have access to the important corrections by Rifkin to Fürstenau’s figures (see the next note).

^[25] Joshua Rifkin, “Schütz—Weckmann—Kopenhagen: Zur Frage der zweiten Dänemarkreise,” in Von Isaac bis Bach: Studien zur älteren deutschen Musikgeschichte; Festschrift Martin Just zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Frank Heidlberger, Wolfgang Osthoff, and Reinhard Wiesend (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1991), 180–88. For Fürstenau’s discussion see his Beiträge, 58.

^[26] Fürstenau did not list the seven choirboys by name, and, in fact, that list almost certainly included two separate groups, one of instrumental apprentices and the other the discantists (that is, the small group of select older boy singers). This would mean of course that the three or four apprentices should be subtracted from Fürstenau’s total of thirteen singers. In any case, any closer consideration of the staffing of 1634 takes into account Rifkin, “Schütz—Weckmann—Kopenhagen.”

^[27] The lack of payment had begun by at least early in 1624, for by June of 1625, the musicians had received no salaries for seven quarters; see Heinrich Schütz Reader, ed. Johnston, 41–44. Note that the lack of support began not in the late 1630s, as is sometimes suggested. On this topic in general, see Joshua Rifkin’s contribution to this collection.

^[28] An English translation of the Preface is available in Heinrich Schütz Reader, ed. Johnston, 69–70. Wierman, Die Entwicklung, 273–91, provides an insightful overview of the pieces in the print; see also Roeseler, Studien, 62–96.

^[29] Joshua Rifkin reminded me in a personal communication of May 13, 2019, that Schütz by no means abandoned entirely the older Venetian approach, as he occasionally did write with expanded forces, as in Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes, Psalm 19, SWV 455 (from 1635). Still, by 1630 Schütz more usually called for just “two violins, with possibly violone as well” in sacred concerted music, though other combinations might be called for in other contexts, such as music at table. As Rifkin stated, “what we read from instrumental numbers is inseparable from what the instrumentalists do.”