Merry Christmas as we continue through the Twelve Days! Today’s post offers another Hat Tip to Rev. Mark Preus for reminding me about Praetorius and this Lutheran Mass for Christmas Morning.
If you don’t know, Michael Praetorius was a significant and prolific composer during the 16th and 17th centuries. I don’t remember studying him too much during my undergrad music classes, but Wikipedia attributes more than 12 hundred chorale and song arrangements, more than 300 instrumental dances, plus his sacred vocal music and organ works.
Head into the weekend with song! All an hour and twenty minutes of it! (Seriously though, won’t your weekend be better off from it?)
In a more trivial tone, I can mention that Praetorius’s last name was Schultheiss, possibly shortened to Schultz. Schultz and its variants refer to being a mayor (much as smith refers to smithing). Praetorius, on a somewhat similar note, refers to serving as a Roman praetor. 🙂
