1636–1707 · Baroque
Daniel Speer (1636–1707) was a German Baroque composer, organist, writer on music and prose author. He was born in Breslau and died in Göppingen. He wrote music for trombones, some of his keyboard miniatures survive, and in 1687 he published a treatise on music. The site has his sonata for two cornets, three sackbuts and basso continuo.
Daniel Speer was born in Breslau, now Wrocław, in 1636. His father was a furrier. While his parents were alive, the boy studied at the gymnasium of St Mary Magdalene.
After his parents died he ended up in an orphanage, but soon ran away from it. Where exactly he learned music is not known.
The first known mentions of his career are tied to the lands of present-day Slovakia, where he attended the lyceum in Kežmarok. In 1664 he was probably in Stuttgart and Tübingen.
From 1667 Speer worked in Göppingen as a church musician and music teacher. His Choral Gesang-Buch auff das Clavir oder Orgel, a book for clavier or organ, dates from 1692. He died in Göppingen on 5 October 1707.
As a prose writer Speer followed Grimmelshausen. He wrote chronicles, picaresque and adventure novels that were popular with burghers and literate ordinary readers. One of his best-known novels, Ungarischer oder Dacianischer Simplicissimus, appeared in 1683.
Simplicissimus is a fictional character, but his adventures draw on what Speer himself experienced in the area of the southern Tatras and eastern Slovakia. The book helped make the Tatras known and started the development of tourism there. Three or four of his autobiographical novels give a picture of the musical life of the time.
Speer wrote both musical and political treatises. His treatise on music, Grundrichtiger Unterricht der musikalischen Kunst, was published in 1687. It is still held to be relevant to an understanding of middle Baroque music, and its influence on Baroque music was felt for over a century.
His political tracts cost him his freedom: he spent a year and a half in prison.
As a composer Speer turned out, among other things, trombone music, and some of his keyboard miniatures have come down to us. His Choral Gesang-Buch auff das Clavir oder Orgel, for clavier or organ, dates from 1692.
His best-known piece is probably the brass quintet Sonata No. 29, taken from Die Bänkelsängerlieder. Players choose it for weddings and formal ceremonies.
The site has one edition: Sonata in a for 2 cornets and 3 sackbuts and basso continuo, at the level "Intermediate+". It is an ensemble work for two cornets, three sackbuts and basso continuo, so it suits those putting together a small ensemble.