Biography
Composer Melchior Vulpius stood out as a significant creative presence amid the opening hundred years of Protestantism across German lands, and congregations of both Protestant and Catholic traditions continue to draw on his hymns and sacred songs in worship services. Details surrounding his youth remain sparse. Born near 1570 in the Thuringian town of Wasungen, he entered the world as Melchior Fuchs before adopting the Latinized surname Vulpius—reflecting the word for fox—while still a student. His father worked as a craftsman, and the boy began his education locally until his musical gifts drew wider attention. By 1588 he had traveled far from Thuringia to study music and Latin in the historic cathedral city of Speyer. The following year he married and secured a post teaching Latin and writing music at a school in Schleusingen. That role became permanent in 1592, at which point he also assumed duties as Kantor for Lutheran worship. In 1596 he moved to a comparable position at the Latin School in Weimar, where his responsibilities again encompassed instruction, vocal direction, and composition; he stayed in that city until his death on August 7, 1615.
While based in Weimar, Vulpius produced an extraordinary quantity of music. Among his works are a full set of four-voice German settings (Sprüche) drawn from Scripture and arranged for every Sunday and feast of the Lutheran church year, close to two hundred Lutheran motets, a St. Matthew Passion heard in both Germany and Scandinavia, and roughly four hundred hymns and sacred pieces. A number of these compositions remain in circulation and continue to appear in hymnals used by Lutheran and Catholic churches alike. Five collections of his music were issued during his lifetime; a sixth, the Cantional, was published more than three decades after his death. Despite the esteem he enjoyed in his own era, his pieces appear on recordings less frequently than might be anticipated, although more than sixty have been documented in commercial releases.
While based in Weimar, Vulpius produced an extraordinary quantity of music. Among his works are a full set of four-voice German settings (Sprüche) drawn from Scripture and arranged for every Sunday and feast of the Lutheran church year, close to two hundred Lutheran motets, a St. Matthew Passion heard in both Germany and Scandinavia, and roughly four hundred hymns and sacred pieces. A number of these compositions remain in circulation and continue to appear in hymnals used by Lutheran and Catholic churches alike. Five collections of his music were issued during his lifetime; a sixth, the Cantional, was published more than three decades after his death. Despite the esteem he enjoyed in his own era, his pieces appear on recordings less frequently than might be anticipated, although more than sixty have been documented in commercial releases.