Some occasional aspects of Johann Hermann Schein

Abstract

• IN 1973 the Department of Printed Books of the British Library, Reference Division, acquired a collection of some ninety separate pieces of occasional verse in Latin and German, mainly epithalamia, published in Leipzig between 1608 and 1630. Amongst these are four relating to the composer Johann Hermann Schein (born 1586, Thomaskantor in Leipzig a century before Bach, from 1616 until his death in 1630) which do not seem to be recorded elsewhere. Two were published in celebration of Schein's second marriage in 1625, and two (from 1627 and 1629) contain poems by him, the second being in celebration of the wedding of Heinrich Schiitz's youngest brother.