Cyriacus Schneegass

Cyriacus Schneegass (Bufleben, near Gotha, 1546 – Friedrichroda, 1597) was a German music theorist and composer whose work lies at the intersection of Lutheran theology and the musical practice of the late Renaissance. He is of interest both for the hymns he wrote for the congregation and for his proposals on tuning, which connect him with the theoretical debates of his time.

He was educated at the Landeschule in Gotha, where the rector Cyriacus Lindemann, whose daughter would later become his wife, was an influential figure. From 1565 he studied theology at the University of Jena under the influence of Nikolaus Selnecker, and he qualified as a master in 1568. According to Kümmerle, he worked as a schoolmaster and cantor between 1568 and 1573. He then became a pastor, first at Tambach and, from 1573 until his death, at Friedrichroda.

From 1583 he published some eighteen works, mostly on theology and music, which reflects the breadth of his interests. He edited documentary material relevant to the study of the Reformation, among them sixty-six letters from Melanchthon to Friedrich Myconius. He wrote both the words and the music of congregational hymns, many of which became widely known throughout Germany; J. S. Bach used his text Das neugeborene Kindlein in the chorale cantata of the same name, BWV 122. Much of his prayer and poetic writing arose from fear of a Turkish invasion.

In the third chapter of his Nova & exquisita monochordi dimensio (Erfurt, 1590) he proposed a ratio of 160:107 for the equal-tempered fifth, a good approximation to the quarter-comma fifth that Sethus Calvisius had already described. He also fixed the diatonic semitone at 3 1/4 commas and the chromatic semitone at 2 1/4. Through a geometrical calculation he applied this rule and obtained a monochord layout close to a semitone temperament of 2/9 comma, although Barbour suggested that he may have confused it with the quarter-comma temperament. His conception of the perfect chord as a symbol of the Trinity clearly anticipates Johannes Lippius's Synopsis musicae novae (1612).