Johann Andreas Herbst was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 composer and music theorist

Music theory

Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...

 of the early Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

 era. He was a contemporary of Michael Praetorius

Michael Praetorius

Michael Praetorius was a German composer, organist, and music theorist. He was one of the most versatile composers of his age, being particularly significant in the development of musical forms based on Protestant hymns, many of which reflect an effort to make better the relationship between...

 and Heinrich Schütz

Heinrich Schütz

Heinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi...

, and like them, assisted in importing the grand Venetian

Venetian polychoral style

The Venetian polychoral style was a type of music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras which involved spatially separate choirs singing in alternation...

 style and the other features of the early Baroque into Protestant

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

 Germany.

Life

He was born at Nuremberg

Nuremberg

Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...

, and most likely had his early education there. Possibly he studied with Hans Leo Hassler

Hans Leo Hassler

Hans Leo Hassler was a German composer and organist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, elder brother of the less-famous Jakob Hassler...

, one of the most prominent German composers at the turn of the century, since Hassler was teaching in Nuremberg while Herbst was a student, and there is a close stylistic relationship between the music of the two composers. Herbst became Kapellmeister at Butzbach

Butzbach

Butzbach is a town in the Wetteraukreis district in Hesse, Germany. It is located approx. 16 km south of Gießen and 35 km north of Frankfurt am Main....

 in 1614, at Darmstadt

Darmstadt

Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...

 in 1618, and at Frankfurt am Main in 1623.

In 1636 he accepted a position in Nuremberg, and returned to the city of his birth; it was evidently a frustrating appointment for him, for he wrote of his time there bitterly, and in 1644 he went back to Frankfurt, where he remained for the rest of his life. His most productive time was the period in Nuremberg and the second Frankfurt employment, during which he wrote his theoretical treatises and composed the bulk of his church music.

Writings

Herbst was one of the most important German music theorists of the first half of the 17th century, second only to Michael Praetorius. His two books, Musica practica and Musica poetica, were hugely influential: except for the titles, they were in German, and covered many topics of practical importance to musicians. Musica practica was a manual on the art of singing, with particular care given to explaining the art of tasteful ornamentation; Musica poetica was a manual on the art of composition, and included exercises in counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

 and in the careful setting of text to music. Parts of the first book, Musica practica, were drawn from the earlier treatise of Michael Praetorius, the Syntagma musicum.

Late in his career he published several translations of Latin musical writings in German, under the collected title of Arte prattica & poetica.

Musical style and influence

Herbst wrote cantata

Cantata

A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

s, chorale

Chorale

A chorale was originally a hymn sung by a Christian congregation. In certain modern usage, this term may also include classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....

s, chorale concerto

Chorale concerto

In music, a chorale concerto is a short sacred composition for one or more voices and instruments, principally from the very early German Baroque era...

s, motet

Motet

In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...

s, psalm settings, and numerous other works, most of which were on sacred topics, and none of which were exclusively instrumental.

Some of his music uses the massive Venetian polychoral style, especially that written before the Thirty Years' War

Thirty Years' War

The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....

. During the war it became more and more difficult to find and employ the large numbers of musicians necessary for pieces in this style, and this trend towards simplification of instrumental forces can be seen in his music as well as that of his contemporaries.

His books of motets and his Teatrum amoris (meant to be in imitation of the Italian madrigal

Madrigal (music)

A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition, usually a partsong, of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six....

) avoid the continuo

Figured bass

Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones, in relation to a bass note...

 style then dominant in Italy, but otherwise Herbst uses many of the new Baroque era techniques which composers such as Hassler and Schütz brought back across the Alps from Venice. The concertato

Concertato

Concertato is a term in early Baroque music referring to either a genre or a style of music in which groups of instruments or voices share a melody, usually in alternation, and almost always over a basso continuo...

 style, with mixed groups of instruments and voices, is well-developed in Herbst's earlier music. The monodic

Monody

In poetry, the term monody has become specialized to refer to a poem in which one person laments another's death....

 style which was popular in Italy, and evident in the music of Schütz, along with its descendant, the recitative

Recitative

Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...

, is nowhere to be found in Herbst.

One of his last, and simplest, books of music is a collection of 29 chorales for five voices, which he published in 1659.

Recording

• Lost Music of Early America. Telarc CD 80482. (Note: This CD has a lot of music from the 18th century Moravia
  Moravia
  Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
  
  n community in North America, but includes several pieces by Herbst, who was popular with the Moravians.)