Speer, Daniel

Speer, Daniel, noted German composer, music theorist, and writer; b. Breslau, July 2, 1636; d. Göppingen, Oct. 5, 1707. He studied at the Maria-Magdalenen-Gymnasium in Breslau, then traveled throughout southeastern Europe, obtaining practical experience in music. After serving as a church musician in Stuttgart (1664–66), he was a schoolteacher and church musician in Göppingen (1667–68); then was active in Gross Bot-twar and Leonberg, near Stuttgart. In 1673 he settled in Göppingen as a teacher at the Lateinschule. In 1689 he publ. a pamphlet criticizing the Wurttemberg authorities for their lack of adequate response to the French invasion; for this he was arrested and imprisoned at the Hohenneuffen fortress. Upon his release, he was sent to Waiblingen, near Stuttgart. In 1694 he returned to Göppingen as Kollaborator at the Lateinschule, where he later became Kantor. His most significant work was the treatise Grund-richtiger…Unterricht der musicalischen Kunst (Ulm, 1687; second ed., rev. and enl, 1697, as Grund-richtiger…Unterricht der musicalischen Kunst, oder Vierfaches musicalisches Kleeblatt; see H. Howery, A Comprehensive Performance Project in Trombone Literature with an Essay Consisting of a Translation of Daniel Speer’s “Vierfaches Musikalisches Kleeblatt,” diss., Univ. of Iowa, 1971). He composed sacred vocal works and 3 valuable quodlibet collections (1685, 1687, 1688). Among his other works are novels and various political writings.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire