Burmeister, Joachim (EN)

Burmeister Joachim, *1564 Lüneburg, †5 May 1629 Rostock, German music theorist and composer. He received his general education at St Johannis School (Johannisschule) in his hometown, where L. Lossius, Ch. Praetorius and E. Dedekind, among others, taught. In 1586, he enrolled at the University of Rostock, where he obtained a master’s degree and the title of Scholae Rostochiensis Collega Classicus in 1593. From Easter 1589, he was a cantor at St Nicholas’ Church for several months, and then at St Mary’s Church, where he worked until 1593. After completing his studies, he was employed at a school in Rostock, where he remained until his death. His publications date from 1599–1609. In his treatise Musica poetica…, a composition manual, Burmeister addressed the issue of musical rhetoric for the first time. Of his compositions, only the four-voice Geistliche Psalmem… (Rostock 1601) has survived. Two masses and hymns for the whole year, which were kept in St Mary’s Church in Rostock, are considered lost. In 1609, Burmeister published in Rostock the treatise Musica theorica Henrici Brucaei magister artium et medicinae doctoris…by the Flemish theorist H. Brucaeus (1531–1593).

Literature: H. Brandes Studien zur musikalischen Figurenlehre im 16. Jahrhundert, Berlin 1935; H.H. Unger Die Beziehungen zwischen Musik und Rhetorik im 16.–18. Jahrhunderts, Würzburg 1941; M. Ruhnke J. Burmeister, Kassel 1955; D. Bartel Handbuch der musikalischen Figurenlehre, Laaber 1985; J. Markowsky Zwei für die Schütz-Analyse relevante musik-theoretische Quellen des 17. Jahrhunderts. J. Burmeisters “Musica poetica” und Ch. Bernhards “Tractatus compositionis augmentatus”, in: Quellenkunde in Thüringen, ed. E. Lange, Bad Köstritz 1988; W. Lisecki Rozumienie dzieła muzycznego w XVII i XVIII wieku. J. Burmeister, J. Mattheson i inni, in: Analiza i interpretacja dzieła muzycznego. Wybór metod, «Introductio musicae» IV, Krakow 1990; K.W. Niemöller Die musikalische Rhetorik und ihre Genese in Musik und Musikanschauung der Renaissance, w: Renaissance Rhetoric, ed. H.F. Platt, Berlin 1993.