Heinrich Grimm

Heinrich Grimm (Holzminden, 1592–1593; Brunswick, 10 July 1637) was a German composer and music theorist whose work lies at the heart of Lutheran sacred music of the early seventeenth century. His importance lies in having built a bridge between the Protestant tradition inherited from Luther and the new forms of the concertato style that were spreading through Germany at the same time.

His training began with Michael Praetorius, who, in the fifth volume of his Musae Sioniae, names him as his pupil when he was barely fourteen years old. He later studied at the university in Helmstedt. His first permanent post came in Magdeburg, where he succeeded Friedrich Weissensee. There he served as Kantor of the Gymnasium and also of the churches of St John and St James, teaching singing and composing music for the religious service. This work brought him renown in the region, and his works were well received across much of the German Lutheran world.

The destruction of Magdeburg by the Catholic army of Count Johann Tilly on 10 May 1631 forced him to flee to Brunswick. There Duke Friedrich Ulrich counted him among his distinguished contrapuntists. After a brief period as Kantor of St Catherine's, he held the post of Kantor of St Andrew's from 1632 until his death.

Among his pupils were Otto Gibelius and Conrad Matthaei. His output covers the principal genres of Lutheran church music of the period: motets, short masses, Passion music, bicinia and tricinia with basso continuo, chorale arrangements and pieces in the cantional style. The Latin texts and the psalms of Cornelius Becker, published in 1624, are written in the Palestrinian motet style. Like Scheidt and Schütz, he was one of the first to cultivate the concertato style in Germany, and his sacred concertos recall those of Schein in their attention to the expression of the text. His works for one and two choirs, with instruments such as strings, cornetts and trombones, show traditional chorale practices in new forms, although the large polychoral arrangements tend to overuse antiphonal play between high and low choirs.

Today he is remembered as a representative author of the transition between the Renaissance polyphonic style and the early Baroque in the Lutheran sphere, and his legacy survives above all in manuscripts and editions of the period.