Two jubilees being celebrated in the vicinity of Heinrich Schütz’s birthplace prompted the choice of this year’s theme, the relationship between music and education: 400 years ago, the local lord Heinrich Posthumus Reuß founded the Rutheneum, a school for children from his region, which as the Goethe Gymnasium still exists today and offers special classes for music. In 1617, Schütz was in charge of organising the town, school and church music for Posthumus Reuß.

It is probable that a performance of his lost opera Dafne took place at Gera’s “Osterstein” castle in 1627, and Schütz composed the Musikalische Exequien for the funeral of his former lord. And already 50 years before the Rutheneum grammar school came into being, the first students had matriculated at Jena University. In 1616, Burkhard Großmann, who was working in Jena as a collector of taxes, commissioned a collection of 16 settings of the 116th Psalm, one of which is by Heinrich Schütz.

Schütz had personal experience of educational establishments not unlike those involved in the present celebrations. He was in one of the first cohorts of pupils at the Collegium Mauritianum founded by Count Moritz, he later enrolled at the universities of Leipzig and Marburg, and he studied composition and the organ with Giovanni Gabrieli in Venice. In the “Mitteldeutsche Heinrich-Schütz-Tage” concerts, works to be heard include pieces that were written or handed down in connection with the Electoral Schools, functioned as teaching works, or may be regarded as a “swan song” summing up the quintessence of the composer’s life.

The performance of Alessandro Melani’s festa teatrale L’Europe, a one-act opera first revived as recently as 2007, promises to be a highlight. Veronika Winter, Julia Schmidt, Kai Wessel, Benoît Haller, Wolfgang Newerla and Das Kleine Konzert will be performing under the direction of Hermann Max. Also among the many artists of international repute who will be appearing are Léon Berben, Lautten Compagney Berlin, the Orlando di Lasso Ensemble, Ensemble Amarcord, La Capella ducale under Roland Wilson, CordArte, the Dresdner Barockorchester, Cappella Sagittariana Dresden, Norbert Schuster, the Sächsisches Vocalensemble and Matthias Jung.

Complementing the permanent display dealing with Heinrich Schütz, a special exhibition on music and education in the 17th century, “Von den Sieben freien Künsten zur Fürstenschule”, will enlighten visitors about the relationship between local lord and composer, as well as tracing the path of music in its evolution from a scientific discipline to the “fine art” of our times. The musical events will also be given a “theoretical counterpoint” in the form of colloquia.

More information is available at: www.schuetztage.de