Staden, Sigmund Theophil [Gottlieb]

(b Kulmbach, bap. 6 Nov 1607, d Nuremberg, bur. 30 July 1655). German composer, instrumentalist, organist and theorist, son of Johann Staden. He was a leading musician in Nuremberg, and though a lesser composer than his father he is perhaps, as the composer of the first extant Singspiel, historically more important.

1. Life.

The German form, ‘Gottlieb’, of Staden’s middle name appears in part iv of the magazine Frauenzimmer Gesprächspiele (1644) edited by Georg Philipp Harsdörffer, who was a crusader for the purification of the German language; Staden himself used ‘Theophil’. His early musical studies with his father were so successful that in July 1620, some ten years after the family returned to Nuremberg from Kulmbach and Bayreuth, Johann Staden petitioned the city council for an expectant's salary for his 13-year-old son. This request was apparently denied, but in December 1620 the council granted the boy 150 gulden a year for board, room and lessons with Jakob Paumann in Augsburg. Johann Staden could teach his son composition, the organ and the violin, whereas Paumann, a well-known instrumental teacher, who from 1591 to 1596 had been in the Munich Hofkapelle under Lassus, could offer instruction on the cornett, trombone, bassoon and viola, as well as on keyboard instruments and in composition. Hans Leo Hassler was in Augsburg at the same period. The young Staden returned to Nuremberg in 1623 and was granted an expectant's salary, thus beginning his lifelong service to the city. He again studied away from home between February and August 1627, when the city council paid for him to study string instruments (probably viola da gamba and viola bastarda) in Berlin with Walter Rowe (i). Before leaving Nuremberg he was appointed a city instrumentalist. In 1634 he received the further appointment of organist of St Lorenz. With this double salary, which he enjoyed for the rest of his life, he was Nuremberg's highest-paid musician.

Staden was often called on to perform duties normally assigned to a Kapellmeister, a position which in Nuremberg was seldom held by the city’s outstanding musician. In 1649, for example, at a large banquet in honour of the peace treaty ending the Thirty Years War, music was performed under his direction by a group of 43 musicians (21 singers, 18 instrumentalists and four organists). Another elaborate concert conducted by him, which probably involved the entire musical forces of Nuremberg, was a programme of music of all types and from all times down to the year in which it took place, 1643. The printed programme is extant: Entwerfung dess Anfangs, Fortgangs, Aenderungen, Brauchs und Missbrauchs der edlen Music (‘An outline of the beginning, continuation, developments, use and misuse of the noble art of music’). Most of the music performed at this historical concert, which included music of the angels, music that sounded at the beginning of the world and music of the Hebrews, was from Staden's imagination, though actual works by Lassus, Hassler, Giovanni Gabrieli and Johann Staden were either performed or referred to (see Kahl). There is a posthumous portrait of Staden which was engraved in 1669 (see fig.1). Four letters written by him in 1637–44 are in the Staatsarchiv, Nuremberg.

2. Works.

The Singspiel Seelewig appeared in 1644 in part iv of Frauenzimmer Gesprächspiele. The complete series of eight parts (1642–9) contains 300 works, nine of which include either music or instructions for music, apparently all by Staden. Seelewig is the only one that is through-composed. It is designated as ‘in the Italian manner’ and is modelled on the school dramas of the 16th and 17th centuries (fig.2). The recitatives lack the freedom of their Italian counterparts, and the emphasis on strophic songs, a trait still common in J.P. Krieger's operas 50 years later, retards the dramatic movement. The music in the other eight Gesprächspiele consists of one or more strophic songs and instrumental interludes which appear between sections of spoken dialogue. The oratorio-like religious plays which Staden produced in collaboration with Johann Klaj, a teacher in the Nuremberg schools, are related to the Singspiels. All the roles – biblical characters, the people, good and bad angels and the Lord – were read by Klaj, and Staden's solo, choral and instrumental sections were interspersed with the declamation. Six such works were reportedly performed in 1644 and 1645 at St Sebaldus following Sunday vesper services.

Staden published only two collections of vocal music, a modest contribution compared with the 20 collections (both vocal and instrumental) published by his colleague Kindermann. The 35 songs of Seelen-Music can be performed by four voices and continuo, or the latter can assume the lower parts as an accompaniment for the soprano voice. The outmoded melodic style of these pieces enjoyed a popularity long after Staden's death: all of them were included in Geistliche Seelen-Music, collected by Christian Huber, which appeared in nine editions between 1682 and 1753. Staden's second collection, Musicalischer Friedens-Gesänger, contains some of the music performed at the peace festival of 1649. Of the 12 sacred and secular compositions in it, nine are strophic songs; the other three are through-composed, of considerable length, and with a greater use of melodic ornamentation than is to be found in Staden's other compositions. A number of his other strophic songs with continuo were published in anthologies, and he wrote 19 for funerals, 11 of which are four-part chorales, note-against-note and without a separate continuo part. No other 17th-century Nuremberg composer wrote so often in this form. In 1637, when other German composers were experimenting with the new Italian style, Staden brought out a new edition of H.L. Hassler's Kirchengesänge, adding six of his own and 12 of his father's four-part strophic songs to the 69 of Hassler's 1608 edition. Although he did not stubbornly evade the new style, as can be seen in Seelewig by his adding of recitative to the strophic-song tradition of school plays, Staden, like his father, preferred the German traditions of syllabic treatment of the text, unadventurous harmony and counterpoint and the dominating sacred songs with their restricted melodic flow and limited forms. Of the large amount of instrumental music that one would have expected from one of Nuremberg's leading instrumentalists, there is only a single suite movement.

The pointedness and clarity of Rudimentum musicum, an elementary manual for schools which went through four editions, can serve now as an introduction to the basic theoretical practice of the 17th century. But despite this theoretical work, his printed collections, the renowned concerts under his direction and his reputation as a performer, there is no evidence that Staden influenced German music in the middle of the 17th century or that his fame was more than local. There is no record of his having had any pupils: it is known that in Nuremberg young musicians studied with Kindermann, who in contrast to Staden's conservatism could offer his pupils thorough, devoted training in the new Italian style.

WORKS

printed works published in Nuremberg unless otherwise stated

dramatic

all published in Frauenzimmer Gesprächspiele, 1642–9

other vocal

instrumental

lost works

oratorio texts extant and published in Nuremberg

theoretical works

BIBLIOGRAPHY

J.G. Doppelmayr: Historische Nachricht von den nürnbergischen Mathematicis und Künstlern (Nuremberg, 1730)

G.A. Will: Nürnbergisches Gelehrten-Lexicon (Nuremberg and Altdorf, 1755–8)

W. Nagel: ‘Zur Biographie Johann Stadens und seiner Söhne’, MMg, xxix (1897), 53–61

G.A. Narciss: Studien zu den Frauenzimmergesprächspielen (Leipzig, 1928)

O. Clemen: ‘Das Programm zu einem Musikfest in Nürnberg in Mai 1643’, Otto Glauning zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. H. Schreiber (Leipzig, 1938), 18–24

H. Druener: Sigmund Theophil Staden 1607–1655 (diss., U. of Bonn, 1946)

W. Körner: ‘Zum Gedächtnis des Nürnberger Komponisten und Organisten Sigmund Theophil Staden’, Gottesdienst und Kirchenmusik (1955), 177–8

W. Kahl: ‘Das Nürnberger historische Konzert von 1643 und sein Geschichtsbild’, AMw, xiv (1957), 281–303

J. Haar: ‘Astral Music in Seventeenth-Century Nuremberg: the Tugendsterne of Harsdörffer and Staden’, MD, xvi (1962), 175–89

P. Keller: ‘New Light on the Tugendsterne of Harsdörffer and Staden’, MD, xxv (1971), 223–7

P. Keller: Die Oper Seelewig von Sigmund Theophil Staden und Georg Philipp Harsdörffer (Bern, 1977)

H.E. Samuel: The Cantata in Nuremberg during the Seventeenth Century (Ann Arbor, 1982)

J.P. Aikin: ‘Creating a Language for German Opera’, Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, lxii (1988), 266–89

HAROLD E. SAMUEL