Johann Andreas Herbst

Johann Andreas Herbst (baptized June 9, 1588–January 24, 1666) was a German composer and music theorist of the early Baroque era. He was a contemporary of Michael Praetorius and Heinrich Schütz, and like them, assisted in importing the grand Venetian style and the other features of the early Baroque into Protestant Germany.

Musical style and influence

Herbst wrote cantatas, chorales, chorale concertos, motets, psalm settings, and numerous other works, most of which were on sacred topics, and none of which were exclusively instrumental.

Related Topics:
Cantata - Chorale - Chorale concerto - Motet - Psalm

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Some of his music uses the massive Venetian polychoral style, especially that written before the Thirty Years War. During the war it became more and more difficult to find and employ the large quantities 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.

Related Topics:
Venetian - Thirty Years War

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His books of motets and his Teatrum amoris (meant to be in imitation of the Italian madrigal) avoid the continuo 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 style, with mixed groups of instruments and voices, is well-developed in Herbst's earlier music. The monodic style which was popular in Italy, and evident in the music of Schütz, along with its descendant, the recitative, is nowhere to be found in Herbst.

Related Topics:
Madrigal - Continuo - Concertato - Monodic - Recitative

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

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