Schmiedeknecht, Johann Matthäus

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(b Ülleben, nr Gotha, 1660; d Gotha, April 1715). German composer and teacher. After working in Ichtershausen he became court Kantor in Gotha in 1685 and was a respected if not specially important music teacher. He had connections with the court Kapellmeisters Wolfgang Mylius and Christian Witt, and with the traditional musical institutions of Gotha, which were linked with the names of Pachelbel, Telemann and, in music education, Andreas Reyher. His Tyrocinium musices is related to Reyher’s Gothaer Schulmethodus and is dedicated to ‘enthusiastic and music-loving youth’, following the model of the textbooks by Schneegass, Dedekind and others. His compositions, many of them in the traditional form of the motet for two choirs, show a marked personal touch in their rhythmic and dynamic subtlety.