Simon Lohet

Simon Lohet (Loxhay) (born before c. 1550 – buried 5 July 1611) was a Flemish composer and organist of the late Renaissance, active in Germany. He is best known as one of the earliest exponents of the keyboard fugue.

Lohet's father was a certain Jean de Liège, so the family originates from Liège and Simon was probably born in the area. Loxhay is the Walloon version of his surname. He was appointed organist of the Württemberg court at Stuttgart on 14 September 1571, assisting Utz Steigleder and H.F. Fries until both went into retirement. Lohet then assumed full responsibility for the chapel services. He was also somewhat active as a teacher, his pupils included his own son Ludwig (who became his father's assistant in 1594) and, most importantly, Adam Steigleder (father of Johann Ulrich Steigleder). Lohet made several trips to the Low Countries in the 1570s and to Venice in 1581 to buy instruments and music. In 1601 he retired from his post. He remained in Stuttgart until his death in summer 1611.

Johann Woltz's Nova musices organicae tabulatura (Basel, 1617) contains all of Lohet's known works (six also survive in another manuscript, D-Mbs Mus.ms.1581). The bulk of his small surviving output consists of twenty keyboard fugues, which are also his most historically important works. Most of them are short, averaging 20-25 bars, and eight are monothematic (exploring a single subject in a single section), which is very different from contemporary examples of imitative counterpoint (i.e. ricercars and canzonas that frequently ran to 100+ bars in several sections exploring either a variety of themes or different variations of one theme) and very close, also because of frequent use of stretto entries, diminution and other contrapuntal devices, to the classic fugue of the late Baroque. A full list follows, with the number of sections given in parentheses:

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