(b Mahlberg, nr Lahr, Baden, probably shortly before 1640; d Strasbourg, 1688). German copyist and ?composer. He appears to have attended the Jesuit college at Baden-Baden and he sang at the collegiate church there. He started to learn the organ in 1653, and he may have learnt the violin as well. He may have been taught both instruments by the Kantor of the collegiate church, whom he later (at an uncertain date) succeeded in that office. He also entered holy orders. From about 1660, Rost seems to have been entrusted – possibly by the Margrave of Baden-Baden for use at court – with the copying of trio sonatas by prominent composers of the time. He was able to take his manuscript, the so-called Rost manuscript, with him when he moved to take up an ecclesiastical post at St Pierre-le-Vieux, Strasbourg, some time in the 1680s; it was thus saved from the destruction of the margrave’s residence in 1689. Brossard bought it from Rost’s heirs. From him it passed in 1726 to the Bibliothèque Royale, Paris (now the Bibliothèque Nationale, where it is manuscript Rés.Vm7653).
The Rost manuscript consists of 157 works, the vast majority sonatas or sonata-like pieces; 27 composers are named and 28 works are known to be Italian. There are 81 anonymous pieces, some of which may be by Rost himself. Since the margraves were buried in the collegiate church it is understandable that the collection contains many tombeaux and funeral pieces and others marked ‘grave’, as well as several church sonatas. But it also contains chamber sonatas mostly for two violins and continuo, and comic and entertainment music, such as ‘Polish bagpipe’ and pieces by J.H. Schmelzer, numerous capriccios by Rosenmüller and Zamponi among others, and an even larger number of battaglias, including one by Schmelzer and four each by J.M. Nicolai and the younger Stoss of the Düsseldorf Kapelle.
Carl Rosier is the best-represented composer in the manuscript, with 22 works, followed by Schmelzer (18 works), Cazzati (14) and one Toleta (12). Of other well-known composers, G.B. Vitali and Bertali are represented by four works and Rosenmüller by three. There are also single pieces by more than a dozen composers, among them such well-known names as Fux, Kerll, J.P. Krieger and Carissimi, who is represented by the only motet, the solo Christmas piece Salve, puellulae regalis animi. Other composers include Zamponi and Balthazar Richard, both from Brussels, and the Pole, Marcin Mielczewski. Such names as these highlight the wide area upon which Rost drew in his compilation. This is possibly accounted for by the number of courts that had friendly relations with the young margrave (who was known as ‘Türkenlouis’ for his part in repulsing the Turkish threat to eastern Europe) and thus lent him manuscripts for copying. The Habsburgs seem to have been particularly generous, since the manuscript contains works by 13 German and two Italian composers working at the Viennese court.
H.J. Moser: ‘Eine Pariser Quelle zur Wiener Triosonate des ausgehenden 17. Jahrhunderts: der Codex Rost’, Festschrift Wilhelm Fischer, ed. H. von Zingerle (Innsbruck, 1956), 75–81
F. Baser: Musikheimat Baden-Württemberg (Freiburg, 1963)
F. Baser: ‘Der “Codex Rost”: aus der Heimat des Grossvaters Leopold Mozarts’, Acta mozartiana, xviii/3 (1971), 14–26
F. Baser: Grosse Musiker in Baden-Baden (Tutzing, 1973)
M.A. Eddy: The Rost Codex and its Music (diss., U. of Stanford, 1984)
FRIEDRICH BASER