Wolfgang Carl Briegel

Wolfgang Carl Briegel (21 May 1626, Königsberg, Bavaria – 19 November 1712, Darmstadt, Germany) was a German organist, teacher, and composer.

As a boy he was a student in Nuremberg and sang in the Frauenkirche choir. He later studied at the University of Altdorf and became the organist at St. Johannis church and a grammar school teacher in Schweinfurt. In 1650 Duke Ernst the Pious appointed him to his court at Gotha as cantor and music tutor to his family, and he eventually rose to the post of Kapellmeister. He became well-known through his work in Gotha, and it was there that he became acquainted with Johann Rudolph Ahle and members of the Bach family.

Duke Ernst's eldest daughter, the wife of Landgrave Louis VI of Hesse-Darmstadt, called Briegel to Darmstadt as Kapellmeister in 1671. He stayed in this post until his death, but in his later years he was assisted by Christoph Graupner and Ernst Christian Hesse.

Briegel was prolific in his sacred music output, completing 24 published collections between 1654 and 1709. He also wrote several "occasional" pieces and some secular works.

He attracted attention with the publication of his Evangelische Gespräch, a set of dialogue cantatas for the liturgical year in varied forms made up of solos, choruses and chorales. Another set of his works, the Evangelischer Blumengarten, is a group of motets and meditative choral songs. Among his solo songs are settings of odes by Andreas Gryphius, perhaps the only set of German Baroque songs that might be regarded as a cycle. At Darmstadt he produced several stage works, but none of that music has survived. His writing for voices is clear and eloquent, and his contrapuntal choruses are direct forerunners of those by Bach. His music enjoys an extraordinarily wide circulation throughout Germany and in Scandinavia, but is rarely heard outside of Europe.

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