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Abstract

This study argues that the compositions published in Johann Hermann Schein’s Israelsbrünnlein (1623) are best understood as “Krafftsprüchlein”, as settings of texts which, in many cases, had a function and integrity independently of their musical setting. For the funeral of Leipzig Bürgermeister Theodor Möstel in 1626, it is shown that the text which Schein set to music for the occasion was Möstel’s ‘Symbolum’, his personal ‘Spruch’; the same text was preached upon in Polycarp Leiser’s funeral sermon. The author argues that this model – the connection between personal piety in the ‘Symbolum’, the selection of such a text in anticipation of the funeral, and its setting to music for the occasion – can be applied to a number of the compositions in Israelsbrünnlein. Printed funeral sermons and Schein’s own individually published occasional compositions are examined to show how their texts were used, understood and set to music in Lutheran confessional culture.