Sixt Dietrich

(1492-94 - 1548)

German composer. In 1517 he taught at the cathedral school of Konstanz, and became chaplain to the Holy Cross there in 1522. He keenly supported the Reformation cause and mixed in the Reformers' circles at Basle, Strasbourg, Ulm and Wittenberg, where he lectured; before Konstanz was overrun by Charles V and reclaimed for Catholicism he fled to St Gallen. Dietrich wrote both Latin music (Magnificats, hymns, motets) for Catholic use and sacred Lieder for the Lutherans, and contributed to Ott's second secular songbook. Like many of his generation (including Senfl) he could write in an earnest and distinguished Franco-Flemish manner, but his chorale settings in Rhaw's 1544 collection are chordal, with regular cadences and little counterpoint, looking forward to a later epoch.





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