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A new light on the biography of Johannes Nucius.pdf

Abstract

Johannes Nucius (1556-1620), a native of Görlitz in Lusatia, was one of the most prominent Silesian composers of the Counter-Reformation. He became abbot of the Cisterican monastery Himmelwitz / Jemielnica in 1591, and published two volumes of motets in 1591 and 1613 respectively. His theoretical treatise "Musica Poetica" enjoyed a wide contemporary reception and is today consulted as one of the first sources for a formalised musical rhetoric. Information about his biography is sparse, and thus the discovery of an extended obituary poem on the death of his mother Anna (+ 1600) sheds new light on Nucius' upbringing, his religious background and his circle of learned friends Johannes Cyaneus Sylvanus, Martinus Mylius and Georg Wolff von Huldschönau.