Franck, Melchior

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Franck, Melchior

Franck, Melchior, significant German composer; b. Zittau, c. 1579; d. Coburg, June 1, 1639. He served as a church chorister in Augsburg about 1600 before going to Nuremberg in 1601, where he was active at St. Egidien’s Church. About 1602 he settled in Coburg as court Kapellmeister, where he pursued a distinguished career until the Thirty Years War wreaked havoc on the court musical establishment in the last years of his life. Franck was primarily influenced by H.L. Hassler in his formative years. He became one of the principal German Protestant composers, publishing over 40 vols. of motets (more than 600 such works, 1601–36), and com-posing 30 Magnificats, mong his many secular works were quodlibets, songs, and dances. A number of his works have appeared in modern eds.

Bibliography

A. Obrist, M. F.: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der weltlichen Composition in Deutschland (Berlin, 1892).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire