| Rosenmueller Research 1 There is precious little accurate biographical information about Johann Rosenmueller. The town where he was born and presumably received his early musical education was destroyed during The Thirty Years War; his meteoric rise in status in Leipzig, which promised to take him to one of Germany's most prestigious positions, ended abruptly when he was arrested on charges of pederasty and thrown into prison; somehow he escaped and is next found in Venice a decade later; he returned to Germany a couple of years before his death, his past misdemeanours apparently forgotten. Fortunately there are several printed sources which give an idea of the development of his style, ranging from motets for one voice with a couple of instruments and continuo to concerti for five voices, five-part strings and continuo. The manuscript sources are rather more difficult - many may well have been composed in Venice, but many of the large pieces have German texts: was he, in fact, supplying German courts with new music from Venice? And how much music is there still unidentified in libraries around the world? Part of the reason for this website is to give as much information to help researchers answer these questions - feel free to drop me an e-mail and contribute to the quest! < Back More > [link not yet active] |