Christoph Bernhard (1 January 1628 – 14 November 1692) was born in Kolberg,

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, and died in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

. He was a German Baroque composer and musician. He studied with former Sweelinck-pupil Paul Siefert in Danzig (now

Gdańsk Gdańsk is a city on the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of northern Poland, and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. With a population of 486,492, Data for territorial unit 2261000. it is Poland's sixth-largest city and principal seaport. Gdań ...

) and in

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. By the age of 20, he was singing at the electoral court in Dresden under

Heinrich Schütz Heinrich Schütz (; 6 November 1672) was a German early Baroque music, Baroque composer and organ (music), organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and one of the most important composers of ...

and composed some of the music for the Master's funeral. He then spent a year in

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to study singing with Agostino Fontana. After his appointment as assistant '' kapellmeister'' in Dresden in 1655, Bernhard made two sojourns to

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

to further his musical education. When he was 35, he moved to

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to work as the director of music for the Johanneum and for civic musical events. The next ten years were a golden age in the musical tradition of Hamburg: Bernhard and his good friend Matthias Weckmann performed together and directed the latest compositions from Italy and

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, as well as composing an important collection of music in finely-wrought counterpoint. The

Elector of Saxony The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony ( or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356 to 1806 initially centred on Wittenberg that came to include areas around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz. It was a ...

recalled Bernhard to Dresden in 1674, where he returned as assistant ''kapellmeister.'' Six years later, the large - and primarily Italian - musical establishment in the city was greatly reduced, until Bernhard remained the only ''kapellmeister'' at court. He continued composing, directing and caring for the music library in Dresden until his death in 1692, at the age of 64. Bernhard left behind many sacred vocal works, a few secular compositions, and three important treatises on music, the most famous of which is the ''Tractatus compositionis augmentatus'' (ca. 1657), which was the source of the term '' passus duriusculus''. In the 21st century Bernhard was suggested as one of three possible composers of the Kyrie–Gloria Mass for double choir, BWV Anh. 167. Bach Digital Work at Bach Digital website

Sources

*''Wohl dem, der den Herren fürchtet'' , by Christoph Bernhard (Garri Editions, Frankfurt am Main, 2005) Dr. Alejandro Garri, Ed. *

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bernhard, Christoph 1628 births 1692 deaths 17th-century German classical composers German Baroque composers German male classical composers German music theorists Pupils of Heinrich Schütz 17th-century German male musicians