In Germany, the director of music in a Lutheran church and usually also the musical head of a Gymnasium, Lateinschule or other educational establishment connected with the church. From the Reformation until the mid-18th century the post of Kantor at a large city such as Hamburg or Leipzig (where Bach was Kantor of the Thomasschule from 1723 until his death) was one of the most highly esteemed in Germany; in addition to composing and directing sacred music the duties often included training the choir, teaching practical and theoretical music and other subjects, and taking part in civic secular music.
See also Germany, §I, 2–4, and Kantorat.
MGG1 (W. Blankenburg)
RiemannL12
H. Nuechterlein: ‘Sixteenth-Century Kantorei and its Predecessors’, Church Musician, i/1 (1971), 3–8