Musicalischer Andacht Erster Theil (1638), HaWV 43–63; Sirachs Lob- vnd Danckspruch, Concert à otto & nove Voce (1634), HaWV 1; Hertzliche Auffmerckung und heiliger WeihnachtGruß (1639), HaWV 64. Herausgegeben von Michael Heinemann und Sven Rössel, unter Mitarbeit von Konstanze Kremtz, and: Chor-Music auff Madrigal-Manier: Fünffter Theil Musicalischer Andachten (1652/53), HaWV 439–469. Herausgegeben von Michael Heinemann, unter Mitarbeit von Konstanze Kremtz und Sven Rössel (review)

The new complete edition of works by Andreas Hammerschmidt (ca. 1611–1675) offers a welcome addition for anyone interested in seventeenth-century German music. The composer, a native of Bohemia, fled to Saxony with his father in 1626 on account of their Lutheran faith. Hammerschmidt then must have received a good enough musical training to land organist posts at prominent churches in Freiberg, and later in Zittau. He wrote mostly sacred music for the Lutheran liturgy, devotion, and special occasions, adopting the most common genres of his age: motets, sacred concertos, dialogues, and strophic arias. We know from seventeenth-century inventories that his music found its way into countless Lutheran church and school libraries. By the eighteenth century, his name had become a byword for old-fashioned church music, which many were eager to forget. He was nevertheless defended by Johann Beer as having "preserve[d] music in nearly all village churches even to this day," a fact that "ought to be like an unwitherable laurel leaf woven into his ever blooming crown of posthumous fame" (Musicalische Discurse durch die Principia der Philosophie deducirt [Nuremberg: P. C. Monath, 1719], 72–73; my translation). Though Hammerschmidt's music and reputation did fade, the new Gesamtausgabe will offer a new chance to reassess, if not restore, the composer's reputation. Although the two Gesamtausgabe volumes reviewed here have minor problems, none is damning, and I cannot help but endorse the project's goal of finally making the composer's music available in decent editions.

The Gesamtausgabe is planned as a fifteen-volume set, and will even include works that do not survive complete. The publisher offers a preview of the full edition at its Web site: http://vkjk.de/tl_files/inhalte/hammerschmidt-gesamtausgabe/Band gliederung_Hammerschmidt.pdf (accessed 18 May 2017). An accompanying AndreasHammerschmidt-Werkverzeichnis by Sven Rössel is also in preparation. Volumes are organized by genre: thirteen volumes of vocal music, which the editors classify somewhat too broadly as "choral music," then one volume of instrumental music, and another of works that the editors label as for "practical use" at Hammerschmidt's school in Zittau. Apart from the two volumes reviewed here, another has also recently appeared, vol. 3 (Musicalischer Andachten Dritter Theil, 1643), with vols. 5 (Dialoge [sic], 1645) and 13 (Fest- und Zeitandachten, 1671) in preparation. Inevitably the Gesamtausgabe will overlap with earlier editions, including not just selections from his output for practical use, but also editions of complete publications, such as Janette Tilley's of the Geistlicher Dialogen Ander Theil (Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 150 [Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2008]), or A. W. Schmidt's old edition of the Dialogi (1645) (Denkmäler der Tonkunst in...