Leipzig Magdeburg Mecklenburgsee also the Bach Family page.
Darmstadt Germany Hamburg Leipzig Magdeburg Mecklenburg
see also the Bach Family page.
There's some very interesting information about German town musicians and their instruments at http://www.idrs.org/Publications/Journal/JNL9/oboe.html
"Georg Abraham Schneider was born in a small village near Darmstadt 19th April 1770. Because of his poor parents, he did not receive a good school education but was soon sent to the town waits of Darmstadt. There he learnt playing a number of instruments."
Georg Abraham Schneider (1770-1839) was a German instrumentalist who played the horn, oboe, and other instruments. He studied with the violinist Magnold at Darmstadt. He also studied composition with Portmann. His concerti for two, three and four horns are rarities of the horn repertory. The autograph copies, kept among many other works of Schneider in the university library in Darmstadt until 1944, were destroyed during the Second World War.
Biography and portrait at http://www.corno.de/english/schneider_wirken.htm
Johann Schop (1590-1664) became a member of the Royal Danish Court musicians in Copenhagen and, in 1621, leader of the Ratsmusik (municipal
musicians) group in in Hamburg, Germany. There's an engraving of him at
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/s/c/schop_j.htm
William Brade (1560-1630) whom we know as a court musician in Denmark and Brandenburg and a composer of consort music, was a stadtpfeifer in Hamburg from 1608-1610 and again 1613-1615. Subsequently he worked as a stadtpfeifer in Gottorp, Copenhagen, Halle, Güstrow and Berlin. http://www.hoasm.org/IVM/Brade.html
In J S Bach's day a member of the Leipzig musicians' guild was called a "Stadtpeiffer" - town piper. Every one of these "union" members was expected to play violin, oboe, viola, cello, flute, horn, and trumpet.
Four Leipzig waits
As far back as 1479 the Leipzig town council had engaged performers (called town pipers, or Stadtpfeifer, though in fact they played a variety of instruments) to provide municipal music—for weddings, banquets, and official occasions. Starting in 1599 they (usually four in number) also played twice daily from the tower of the town hall, overlooking the Leipzig market square.
Copies of Othmayr's Tricinia and Forster's secular songbooks appear on the inventory of at least one Leipzig household, that of the Stadtpfeifer, Gottfried Krause (d. 1573).
The case of the organ in Magdeburg Cathedral was extremely richly decorated, with 42 figures, 12 of them moving. The cock which crowned the case could flap its wings and even apparently crow, although it is reported that this was actually done by hiding one of the town pipers behind the case, who then blew on an oboe reed.
Today there are nearly no musical traditions in the Northern/Platt German regions alive. Looking back, it is interesting to hear that in Mecklenburg there were educations for town pipers (Stadtpfeifer) still in the 1950s. These were musical educations in the sense of trade, of travelling around. "There were examinations that the last town piper (Stadtpfeifer) went in apprenticeship in 1954, in Grabo, a small town in Mecklenburg."
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