The cornett, cornetto, or zink is a wind instrument that dates from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, popular from 1500 to 1650.
The shawm is a conical bore, double-reed woodwind instrument made in Europe from the 12th century to the present day. It achieved its peak of popularity during the medieval and Renaissance periods, after which it was gradually eclipsed by the oboe family of descendant instruments in classical music. It is likely to have come to Western Europe from the Eastern Mediterranean around the time of the Crusades. Double-reed instruments similar to the shawm were long present in Southern Europe and the East, for instance the ancient Greek, and later Byzantine aulos, the closely related sorna and zurna, and the Armenian duduk.
The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck that houses the second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box with a flat top, typically with one or three sound holes decorated with rosettes. As with the lute, the player plucks or strums the strings with the right hand while "fretting" the strings with the left hand.
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.
The rackett, raggett, cervelas, or sausage bassoon is a Renaissance-era double reed wind instrument, introduced late in the sixteenth century and already superseded by bassoons at the end of the seventeenth century.
Hieronymus Praetorius was a Northern German composer and organist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque whose polychoral motets in 8 to 20 voices are intricate and vividly expressive. Some of his organ music survives in the Visby Orgel-Tabulatur, which dates from 1611.
Musica ficta was a term used in European music theory from the late 12th century to about 1600 to describe pitches, whether notated or added at the time of performance, that lie outside the system of musica recta or musica vera as defined by the hexachord system of Guido of Arezzo.
Tafelmusik is a term used since the mid-16th century for music played at feasts and banquets. Table music could be either instrumental, vocal, or both. As might be expected, it was often of a somewhat lighter character than music for other occasions. In solemn banquets, starting with wedding dinners, the presence of singers and instrumentalists is customary and almost obligatory.
The kortholt is a musical instrument of the woodwind family, used in the Renaissance period.
The organ of the St. Jacobi Church in Hamburg, was built from 1689 to 1693 by the most renowned organ builder of his time, Arp Schnitger. The organ boasts four manuals and pedal with 60 stops, 15 of which are reeds – and has approximately 4000 sounding pipes. All in all, from the organ's original installation and its condition today not much of its conception has changed. The old pipework and the prospect pipes have been preserved in almost original format. It is the largest organ in existence from before 1700 and is one of the most eminent Baroque instruments that have been preserved.
Keyboard tablature is a form of musical notation for keyboard instruments. Widely used in some parts of Europe from the 15th century, it co-existed with, and was eventually replaced by modern staff notation in the 18th century. The defining characteristic of the best known type, German organ tablature, is the use of letters to indicate pitch as well as beams for rhythm. Spain and Portugal used a slightly different cipher tablature, called cifra.
The claviorgan is a combination of a stringed instrument and an organ. Its origin is uncertain but its history can be traced back to the fifteenth century.
The lira da braccio was a European bowed string instrument of the Renaissance. It was used by Italian poet-musicians in court in the 15th and 16th centuries to accompany their improvised recitations of lyric and narrative poetry. It is most closely related to the medieval fiddle, or vielle, and like the vielle had a leaf-shaped pegbox with frontal pegs. Fiddles with drone strings are seen beginning in the 9th century, and the instrument continued to develop through the 16th century. In many depictions of the instrument, it is being played by mythological characters, frequently members of angel consorts, and most often by Orpheus and Apollo. The lira da braccio was occasionally used in ensembles, particularly in the intermedi, and may have acted as a proto-continuo instrument.
The 17th century organ composers of Germany can be divided into two primary schools: the north German school and the south German school. The stylistic differences were dictated not only by teacher-pupil traditions and international influences, but also by separate organ building traditions: northern organs tend to have a tower layout with emphasis on the pedal division, while southern and Austrian instruments are typically divided around a window and emphasize manual divisions.
Harald Vogel is a German organist, organologist, and author. He is a leading expert on Renaissance and Baroque keyboard music. He has been professor of organ at the University of the Arts Bremen since 1994.
Wilibald Gurlitt was a German musicologist.
The mandore is a musical instrument, a small member of the lute family, teardrop shaped, with four to six courses of gut strings and pitched in the treble range. Considered a French instrument, with much of the surviving music coming from France, it was used across "Northern Europe" including Germany and Scotland. Although it went out of style, the French instrument has been revived for use in classical music. The instrument's most commonly played relatives today are members of the mandolin family and the bandurria.
Syntagma Musicum (1614-1620) is a musical treatise in three volumes by the German composer, organist, and music theorist Michael Praetorius. It was published in Wittenberg and Wolfenbüttel. It is one of the most commonly used research sources for seventeenth-century music theory and performance practice. The second volume, De Organographia, illustrates and describes musical instruments and their use; this volume in particular became a valuable guide for research and reconstruction of early instruments in the twentieth century, and thus an integral part of the early music revival. Though never published, Praetorius intended to write a fourth volume on musical composition.
Terpsichore, or Terpsichore, Musarum Aoniarum, is a compendium of more than 300 instrumental dances published in 1612 by the German composer Michael Praetorius. The collection takes its name from the muse of dance.
Arno Forchert was a German musicologist.
