'Wie die Sonne unter den Planeten in der Mitte leuchtet, so die Musik unter den freien Künsten': Zu Heinrich Schütz' Eintragung in das Stammbuch des Andreas Möring

Abstract

Only four album entries in the hand of Heinrich Schütz are extant. The entry in the album of one Andreas Möring is dated 29 January 1640, at Hildesheim. This entry was first published in Moser's monograph in 1936 as a facsimile; a complete transcription apparently has not yet been made. The cultural and sociohistorical aspects of this custom of the mid-17th-c. traveller carrying an album are discussed along with the character of the album's owner. The above-quoted entry praising music should be interpreted as a part of the tradition of the colloquial-rhetorical comparison, but it is also a testimonial for the heliocentric concept of early modern science. Immediately following is a neo-Latin epigram from the Welsh poet John Owen. This album entry thus combines biographical evidence, a praise of music, and a document attesting to the international character of Schütz's literary tastes.