View source for Andreas Hammerschmidt

{{Short description|German Bohemian composer and organist}}
{{Infobox person
| name        = Andreas Hammerschmidt
| image       = Andreas Hammerschmidt.jpg
| caption     = 
| birth_date  = 1611 or 1612
| birth_place = [[Most (city)|Brüx]], [[Kingdom of Bohemia|Bohemia]]
| death_date  = {{death date|1675|10|29|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Zittau]]
| occupation  = {{ubl| Composer | Organist }}
}}

'''Andreas Hammerschmidt''' (1611 or 1612 – 29 October 1675) was a [[German Bohemian]] composer and [[organist]] of the early to middle [[Baroque music|Baroque]] era. He was one of the most significant and popular composers of sacred music in Germany in the middle 17th century. He was nicknamed the "Orpheus of Zittau".

==Life==
He was born in [[Most (city)|Brüx]] to a [[Saxony|Saxon]] father and a Bohemian mother. In 1626 the family had to flee Bohemia, during the [[Thirty Years' War]], after it had become [[Catholic]]; they settled in [[Freiberg, Saxony]], where Andreas must have received his musical education. He probably did not study with composer [[Christoph Demantius]], who was ''Kantor'' at Freiberg and the most significant musician in the city while Hammerschmidt was there; however he may have known him. Many famous musicians of the early Baroque spent time in Freiberg but it is uncertain which of them taught Hammerschmidt; at any rate he received a superb musical training while there.

Hammerschmidt left Freiberg in 1633, through his mentor [[Stephan Otto]], taking a post as organist for Count Rudolf von Bünau in Weesenstein, but returned to Freiberg the next year as an organist. He was married shortly after his return there, and of his six children three died in infancy. In 1639 he left Freiberg again, moving to [[Zittau]], where he succeeded [[Christoph Schreiber]] as organist; he remained in Zittau at this post for the rest of his life. While musical life in Zittau was severely damaged by the [[Thirty Years' War]], including the decimation of the choirs and general reduction in musical standards, Hammerschmidt survived; after the end of the war in 1648 musical life slowly regained its former high standard.

[[File:ZI-InnWeb4.JPG|thumb|150px|No. 4, Innere Weberstrasse in Zittau, the house where Andreas Hammerschmidt lived from 1656 to 1675.]]
Exact records of his activities in Zittau are spotty, for the documents were burned in 1757 when the city was destroyed by the Austrians in the [[Seven Years' War]]; however Hammerschmidt during this portion of his career became one of the best-known composers in Germany, and the most famous representative of the [[concertato]] style of the generation after [[Heinrich Schütz]]. While well-respected and called on as an expert in many matters, he seems to have been prone to outbursts of rage, some of which involved him in brawls. He also seems to have profited well from his activities as a musician and civic leader, and evidently lived in some luxury, having a house in town as well as a country estate.

==Music and influence==
Hammerschmidt wrote [[motet]]s, [[concerto]]s and [[aria]]s, and almost all of his output is sacred vocal music in the [[concertato]] style. According to [[Manfred Bukofzer]] (1947), he "watered down the achievements of Schütz for the multitude." Many of his compositions are in the form of the [[chorale monody]], an adaptation of the [[monody|early Baroque Italian form]] to a sacred, and specifically Protestant, purpose. Indeed, Hammerschmidt represents the second generation of composers who distilled a native German Baroque tradition out of forms and styles imported from [[Italy]].

Over 400 works by Hammerschmidt survive, in a total of 14 separate collections. The motets represent a more conservative style, as noted by Hammerschmidt himself, and the concertos&mdash;concertato pieces with opposing groups of voices and instruments&mdash;are in a current idiom.

Some of his concertos are written for large ensembles, with diverse combinations of instruments and voices (for example, the sets from ''Gespräche über die Evangelia'' of 1655&ndash;1656; this was long enough after the war that large ensembles were available again). He wrote these pieces for Sundays and church feast days; their structure and intent foreshadowed the later German church [[cantata]], as exemplified most famously by [[Johann Sebastian Bach]]. Even Hammerschmidt's masses conform to the concertato style, and are best seen as concertos.

While Hammerschmidt was an organist all of his life, no organ music of his has survived; indeed there is no evidence he published any. Some instrumental music of his has survived in three publications; most of these are suites of dances influenced by the English style which was prevalent in the northern part of Germany at that time.

==Works==
<!-- copied from German Wiki -- needs to be correlated with Grove, or just use Grove instead -->
*''Musicalische Andachten'' (Freiberg, 1639, 1641, 1642)
*''Musicalische Gespräche über die Evangelia'' (Dresden, 1655)
*''Erster Fleiß'' (Freiberg, 1636)
*''Kunst des Küssens''
*''Schaffe in mir Gott ein reines Herz''
*''[[Machet die Tore weit (Hammerschmidt)|Machet die Tore weit]]''
*''Verleih uns Frieden Herr (Da pacem Domine)''
*''Wie bin ich doch so herzlich froh''
*''Osterdialog''
*''Freue dich, du Tochter Zion''
*''Fest- und Zeit-Andachten'' (Dresden, 1671)
*''Ach mein herzliebes Jesulein''
*''Jauchzet, ihr Himmel''
*''Lob, Ehr sei Gott''
*''Schmücket das Fest mit Maien''

==Footnotes==
{{no footnotes|date=January 2017}}
{{Reflist|30em}}

==References==
*Johannes Günther Kraner, "Andreas Hammerschmidt," in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. {{ISBN|1-56159-174-2}}
*Johannes Günther Kraner, Steffan Voss: "Andreas Hammerschmidt", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed June 5, 2005), [http://www.grovemusic.com (subscription access)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516041031/http://www.grovemusic.com/ |date=2008-05-16 }}
*Manfred Bukofzer, ''Music in the Baroque Era''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1947. {{ISBN|0-393-09745-5}}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
* {{IMSLP|id=Hammerschmidt, Andreas}}
* {{ChoralWiki}}
{{See also|Hammerschmidt}}

{{Lutheran hymnody}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hammerschmidt, Andreas}}
[[Category:1610s births]]
[[Category:1675 deaths]]
[[Category:Year of birth uncertain]]
[[Category:Musicians from Bohemia]]
[[Category:Musicians from Most (city)]]
[[Category:German Bohemian people]]
[[Category:17th-century German classical composers]]
[[Category:German Baroque composers]]
[[Category:German classical organists]]
[[Category:German male organists]]
[[Category:German male classical composers]]
[[Category:17th-century German male musicians]]
[[Category:Male classical organists]]