Kotter, Hans (Johannes)

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Kotter, Hans (Johannes)

Kotter, Hans (Johannes), Alsatian organist and composer; b. Strasbourg, c. 1485; d. Bern, 1541. He studied organ with Paul Hofhaimer. He was organist at the electoral court in Torgau, and then of the collegiate church of St. Nikolaus in Fribourg from 1514 until being banished in 1530 for espousing the doctrines of Zwingli. In 1534 Kotter was able to return to Switzerland, where he became a Bern schoolmaster. He compiled a collection of keyboard pieces in tablature (1513), including preambles, fantasies, dances, transcriptions of vocal music, and settings of plainchant. His setting of a Nobis post hoc was interpolated in a Salve Regina by Hofhaimer. See H. Marx, ed., Tabulaturen des XVI. Jahrhunderts, I: Die Tabulaturen aus dem Besitz des Basler Humanisten Boni-facius Amerbach, Schweizerische Musikdenkmäler, VI (1967).

Bibliography

W. Merian, Die Tabulaturen des Organisten H. K. (Leipzig, 1916).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire